XIII

I am uncertain as to the official highbrow attitude towards the

“Movies.” I am indeed doubtful whether there is one. Highbrowism is

supposed to turn on all objects of popular enthusiasm a cold judicial

eye, to weigh and compare the manifold futilities of each fresh

expression of humanity’s imperfect reason, and to deliver a final, an

irrevocable judgment. That, at any rate, is what the jaundiced writer

would have us think. “A coterie of the intellectuals,” he will say. And

I suppose it is all right. I suppose that somewhere, in some form,

highbrowism does exist. I can only say that I have not met it. The men

and women who have been described to me as “impossibly highbrow” reveal

themselves for the most part on acquaintance as very simple, ordinary

folk who are more interested in cricket than Russian politics, and more

interested in law reports than either. This may only be additional

evidence of cunning. But, as I say, I have a very real suspicion that

highbrowism is nothing more than a popular conception, and that to talk

about a “highbrow” attitude is about as sensible as to call seventy

million people France and treat them as one person.

But whether highbrowism exists or not, a popular conception is always a

useful peg to hang a chapter on. In the days when I sat at the foot of

the history sixth and was driven to deploy, as a screen for my ignorance

and idleness, many ingenious devices, I had resort frequently to a ruse

which has no doubt in its time assisted many another harassed historian,

but which I should like to think was of my own invention. I would

manufacture some startlingly dogmatic exaggeration, attribute it to a

writer whose name I was careful to conceal, and proceed to illuminate

the quotation with historical illustrations. The answer to a question on

Prussian diplomacy would, for example, open thus: “A certain

eighteenth-century essayist, a writer more remarkable perhaps for the

vigour than the accuracy of his assertions, once stated that to be

successful it was necessary to be unscrupulous, and though there are

fortunately many careers against which no such charge could be

rightfully directed, there are others, among which must be

unquestionably included that of Bismarck ...” etc. etc. Such an opening

set a note of erudition that would, I hoped, for at least a page and a

half, prevent its reader from discovering that the meal I set before him

contained “a deal of sack and very little bread.”

And so I return to my opening sentence: that though I do not know what

is the official highbrow attitude towards the cinema, I should, if I had

to define it in a hundred words for a symposium, write something like

this. “The highbrow professes to despise the American sobstuff drama: he

objects to the conversion into films of plays and novels. He searches in

classical presentations for anachronisms and historical blunders. He

enjoys, however, the gymnastics of Douglas Fairbanks, the knockabout

comedies, Charlie Chaplin and the Pathé Gazette.” And were my opinion to

be invited further, I should pronounce myself to be in complete

disagreement with this attitude. I enjoy American sobstuff; I feel the

right emotions at the right moment. I pray that the misunderstanding

between the hero and the heroine may be speedily and effectively

removed. It is with extreme difficulty that I restrain myself from

rising in my seat to explain to the young ass that the affluent and

middle-aged person with whom he saw her at the opera was in fact her

uncle. In these days of infinite compression it is not unpleasant to

have told one in eighty minutes a story that it would take a day and a

half to read, and told on the whole, I find, more entertainingly than in

a full-length novel. There are no psychological or sociological

interludes; one gets on with the business. Indeed, for ninety-nine per

cent. of the long films that are put upon the market, I am, I take it,

the sort of person the producer has in mind when he produces them. As

the dramatic critic says, “For those that like this sort of thing, this

is the sort of thing they like.”

But by the short, one-reel affairs I am, I confess, unmoved. It does not

amuse me to see the Duke of York inspect Boy Scouts at Northampton, nor

am I anxious to learn by what process sardines are transferred from the

Atlantic to the breakfast table. Films that are described as “interest”

weary me. Nor can I believe that Larry Semon is a comedy king. Rarely

can a civilised people have allowed itself to be entertained

by more primitive, less subtle humour. It is entirely of the

“top-hat-on-the-chair” variety, and it ends like the Harlequinade, in a

chase.

There is, however, one trick in the comedy film which always gets me;

the trick of making you, by a reversion of the film and turning of the

handle backwards, see an aged and effete man do a standing, backward,

fifteen-foot jump on to the top of a narrow wall. You see a plate that

has been smashed to atoms recollect itself and become whole. You see

milk that has been spilt return to the pitcher. A couple of ruffians

have reduced a room in three minutes to utter ruin; the handle is turned

and the room restores itself. A miracle, you say. For, although you know

perfectly well that it is a trick, you cannot help for the moment being

swept into credulence. After all, there, before your eyes, the thing is

happening.

It is a pity, I always feel, that the producers make such little play

with this device. It could be infinitely diverting. There would be no

need for the broken things always to be made whole. It is amusing to see

a house that has been blown to atoms rise proudly out of the _débris_

into stately indestructibility. But it would be as amusing to see a team

of builders slowly, brick by brick, unbuild a mansion. The end would

always precede the start. This trick might even be made the vehicle for

subtle satire. A maid, for instance, would walk backwards into a tidy

drawing-room, and would litter the floor with cigarette ash, cover the

shelves with dust, and disturb the papers on your desk. Nor would it be

necessary for the producer to confine himself to material accidents. He

could describe thus the backward development of the emotions and the

sensations. Imagine, let us say, a day lived backwards, as the film

would show it you.

You would rise from your bed at midnight, and wearily put on your

evening clothes. You might discover that you were drunk, but though you

would spend the next two hours at a table with walnuts and wine in front

of you, the shells of the walnuts would become whole and the glass that

you raised to your lips would be empty; while the glass that you

replaced before you would be full. You would in fact rise from the table

sober. You would pass through curious states of mind. You would sit down

to read a book knowing the plot, the theme, the treatment; but, as you

read, this knowledge would pass page by page from you. And you would

rise from your armchair saying: “I’ve just got this new book by Michael

Sadleir from the library. I think I shall enjoy it.” It might be the

afternoon of an assignation. Languid and quiescent would you come to the

arms of love; vibrant and eager-eyed would you leap from them. As the

sun moved eastward, carrying you to three o’clock, you would find

yourself sitting warm and comfortable in the Café Royal, the stump of a

cigar between your fingers, an empty liqueur glass on the table. But in

two hours’ time you would be refolding a napkin and telling your guest

that you hoped he was as uncommonly hungry as you were.

And then you would be washing your hands. As you dried them they would

become less dry until they were quite wet, and you would place them,

white and glistening, into a basin of dirty water, and all the dirt from

the water would settle upon your hands, till the water was clean and

your hands were grubby: and when the water was quite clean you would

take your hands from it and they would become instantly dry and dirty

and uncomfortable. You would put on your coat and you would walk

backwards out of the restaurant towards your office.

And so the day would pass. At your office you would forget matters that

an hour earlier you had settled, and you would seek information of them

from your secretary. As the sun sank eastwards you would grow less

hungry. You would indeed feel increasingly comfortable till you found

yourself at the breakfast table and were forced to watch your empty

plate become filled with kidneys and bacon and tomatoes. Finally, after

you had bathed and had shaved, and in the process had restored to your

chin its rough, bristly appearance, you would be lying in bed,

clear-eyed, fresh, ready for the day’s work; you would be watching the

sun sink slowly behind a bank of cloud: “A glorious day,” you would say

to yourself. You would watch the maid move quietly about the room; she

would lower the blinds; the room would become dark. You would feel a

little dazed, a little drowsy. For a moment you would wonder where you

were. There would be a loud knock upon the door; you would find yourself

in the bitter throes of a nightmare; its agony would pass. You would

drift into a deep, untroubled sleep.

But that, you will say, is an ordinary, and on the whole rather

unromantic day. It is the hour of stress, of delirium, of turmoil, that

if the past is to be relived you would ask to see again. Let the

operator have done, you say, with this traffic of routine. Let us be

transported to something of greater matter. We must make a choice? To

the hour, then, of that first dance together, to that hour of which the

memory can never leave us; to that hour than which we have known nothing

fresher, keener, more romantic.

So be it; you are once again in that silk-hung alcove, in your ears the

sound of music and the stir of feet, in your heart a brimming ecstasy.

Let the handle turn. You are sitting there alone. The grey curtain is

drawn back; she steps towards you. You do not notice her partner. He

bows, steps backward, leaving you together. The sound of music ceases.

There is a silence. Your arms are about her neck, your lips are against

hers. You draw back, you look into her eyes, deep wide eyes, hazel,

below the fringe of hair: the dark brown hair that is curled in a

plaited loop about her ears; you think how wonderful it would be to kiss

her. Your hand slips from hers and you are talking, eagerly, happily,

and she is smiling up at you and you are thinking: “If this could last

for ever.” You are in the ballroom. She is in your arms. What are they

playing, she asks you, although you have told her it is “Honolulu Eyes.”

You have never known that a valse could be like this. Life is suddenly

a very marvellous, a very precious thing. The music ceases; you stand

beside her talking. You are thinking, “In a moment I shall be dancing

with her. In a moment she will be in my arms.” Your hostess is beside

you. Your name and hers are murmured in introduction. She is walking

away, backwards, beside your hostess. You are thinking, “I am going to

be introduced to her.” She is standing in the doorway of the ballroom.

You are dazzled by her as she hesitates there for a moment, radiant in

the black, low-waisted dress; then she turns behind the curtain. And all

knowledge, all memory of her is lost. You have never met her. You are

tired and dispirited; life has become a worthless, an empty thing.

Nothing remains of that high ecstasy, except far down a vague resentment

that no such miracle has come to you.

And you have had enough of the film. It is all very amusing, no doubt,

to see one’s life lived backwards, to recover one’s old enthusiasms and

prejudices and loyalties. But it is rather a cruel business, with the

evening coming before dawn; friendships must end at the hour when they

begin; the first kiss must always be the last; and you sit in your chair

and draw uncomfortable parallels and wonder whether old age is not

rather like that: the reversal of the film. Whether there will not come

a time at forty-five, at fifty, or at sixty when you will find yourself

sitting at the banquet, confident and happy, in harmony with yourself

and with your companions, replete with the good things of life. And then

slowly the wheel will turn. The scene of repose will pass. You will

gradually cease to be full of good food and wine. You will grow a little

cold, a little hungry. You will find yourself among strangers; you will

be embarrassed and unhappy, and you will rise from the table with the

_mauvais quart d’heure_ in front of you.

A far-fetched simile, and one that will, doubtless, hardly bear

examination. Morbid, too, perhaps, but then it is the privilege of youth

to make “copy” of its grey hairs. It is only natural that our

imagination should fly like a scout before us into the country where we

must travel. Age is as real to us now as our youth will be to us when we

are old. It is distant, unknown: romantic therefore. How will it come to

us, we wonder, this trial which must make or break us? In what words

will it address us, in what shape present itself? With what armour shall

we be defended? Shall we pass petulantly, resentfully, with struggles,

into middle-age? Shall we cry, as does a child in the nursery impotently

over a broken toy? Shall we beat our hands against the barred gates of

the enchanted garden? It is inconceivable that there should not be one

such moment of rage and bitterness and of frustration. But will it be

slow in passing? That is the question that we ask ourselves. Shall we

find it difficult to shrug our shoulders, to say: “The wine is

different, but it is still good.”

We seek our answer in the companionship of age. Venerable, white-haired

gentlemen who spend their afternoons asleep in the libraries of their

clubs, are messengers to us from that far country. They know the

geography of the road that we must travel. They have left much behind

them on the road. They, too, knew once courage and danger and ambition.

But it is not pity that we bring them for the loss of this rich

merchandise. We do not contrast consciously their weariness with our

vigour, our hope with their resignation, their weakness with our

capacity. We come in a mood of humble curiosity; is there comfort, we

ask them at that last tavern: Life is a bargain; you have lost much;

does the exchange content you?

And they tell us so little. They brag extravagantly of their youth, of

their feats and gallantries and disasters. “We lived, and fought and

suffered, and life was good.” But they overact the part. They are too

hearty about it. We are what they were once, and we know it to be a far

less ecstatic business than they would have us think. When they appeal

in contrast to our sympathies, we feel that they are, on the whole,

really rather enjoying themselves. After a certain age people seem to

lose the power of self-criticism. They will not place their life as they

have made it beside their life as they had hoped to make it. They

pretend to be something they are not. Instead of finding themselves,

they lose themselves.

But occasionally, now and again, one does meet an old man who will tell

you the truth about himself, who will not try and dramatise his life,

who will face the past as once he could face the future, with unbandaged

eyes. Such a man I have the privilege to number among my friends. We

meet casually, once or twice a month, in our club at lunch. And usually

we sit together afterwards over our coffee and liqueurs. And in the

summer we can watch from the terrace the grey water of the river moving

sluggishly below us, bearing pleasure-boats, tramps, and steamers on its

muddied surface, carrying them to sea or harbour. And we find it easy to

talk there of the drift and hurry, the traffic and confusion of human

life, and of that abiding rhythm that makes out of discord, harmony.

He speaks always unassumingly, always confidently, as a man should who

has achieved balance.

“Life is still as entertaining to me,” he will say, “as surprising, as

adventurous as it was thirty years ago. I am the spectator, and that is

the only difference. I sit ‘quiet handed’ in the shadow and find the

answer to much that, when I was young, puzzled me.

“At sixty we cease to make love, if we are wise. _On fait voyeur_ and

women lift their mask. It is our recompense for the loss of youth: this

privilege of confidence.”

He talks to me of his friends whom he has the leisure to observe and

understand, and in particular of a certain lady who has flavoured the

charm of youth with widowhood.

“A man of my age,” he says, “may speak of all things, even of love, with

complete propriety to a young and attractive person. And as I sit beside

her in that softly-lighted drawing-room, in that dusk of lilac and

lavender, with the sound of a woman’s voice about me, and before my eyes

the loveliness of brown hair and hazel eyes and pouted mouth, and in my

heart the knowledge that she could love, I reflect how once I should

have been the prisoner of a single impulse, and I tell myself I am

happier now, sitting there, listening while she lays bare her soul to me

as thirty years ago she might have revealed her body.

“‘It isn’t worth it, my dear Gerald,’ she will say; ‘really it isn’t

worth it. There’s so little harmony, so much friction. We read of love

at first sight, of people rushing into each other’s arms. But how often

does that happen? Half the time we are trying to make a man who is

indifferent fall in love with us, and the other half to get rid of a man

who has begun to weary us. It’s always the same.’

“There is a pause, and she leans back against the high-heaped pile of

cushions with a little sigh that is half-boredom and half-petulance.

“‘There was Roger, now,’ she says. ‘I didn’t care for him a bit at

first. I thought he was uncouth and ill-mannered, and he would so pester

me to go out with him. And when I did go out I used to be oh! so bored.

He never said anything: he just sat opposite, gazing at me with greedy,

adoring eyes, and then one day he kissed me. I shall never forget that

moment. We were standing, after a game of tennis, in the shade of that

big oak tree by the lake at Barolin, leaning against the bridge, and

suddenly I felt his fingers on my arms, hard and compelling. I was swung

round against him. “You little fool,” he said, “I am sick of this. You

have got to love me!” And then he kissed me.’

“Only a week ago she told me that. The wide-set, luminous eyes were

dilated and very tender; the lines of the pouted mouth became softer and

less sensual. Then she shrugged her shoulders and was once again the

petulant, cynical child of pleasure. ‘But afterwards,’ she sighed.

“You had that moment, though,” I said, and I began to quote from

Meredith: “‘Love that had robbed us of immortal things.’ But she

interrupted me. ‘I know, I know, but I had to pay for it, and I am

asking myself whether it was worth the price. Men and women, they are

just paths that intersect and then go their own ways. We had a while of

perfect harmony; then Roger grew tired of me at the very moment when I

had really begun to love him. Although I knew that he didn’t love me, I

tried to keep him; and that’s degrading, it hurts one’s self-respect.

It’s always like that, or else it’s the other way; one wants a man, one

woos him, one makes love to him; and then as soon as one’s got him,

one’s tired of him.’

“‘From which,’ I said, ‘one may gather that you are finding Paul a

little too exacting.’

“The hazel eyes flashed a look of grateful recognition.

“‘There’s nothing about that man, my dear, that doesn’t absolutely

exasperate me, and he won’t let me alone. He rings me up every hour of

the day; he sends me letters by special messenger. I can’t get away from

him. It seems incredible to me that eighteen months ago I couldn’t be

happy away from him; that I could think of nothing but him; that my

heart beat every time I heard the postman’s knock, every time the bell

of the telephone rang. I don’t know how it happened. His wife, I think,

very largely. I hated her, the great fat cow, so domineering and

unwomanly. I hated the proprietary way in which she said, “my husband.”

I wanted to humble her. There was pity in it, too: Paul looked so

forlorn as he sat plucking at his beard while his wife’s voice boomed

across the dinner table. But it’s hard enough to know how one felt a

year and a half ago, let alone the “why” of it. I wanted him; that’s all

that matters. I wanted him. It took a long time: little by little I

broke down his reserve. I felt his sympathy, his interest in me, change

to tenderness. His voice was like a diffident caress. I longed to throw

myself into his arms; to be his utterly; to give him love as no other

woman had ever given it him; and, then, within a couple of months he had

become as every other man. They are all much the same when the glamour

has passed. And, of course, I began to mean more to him every day; an

endless flow of telephone calls and special messengers; desperate,

imploring notes. He must see me. He couldn’t exist away from me. And all

the time I was growing more and more tired of him; he exasperated me

with his quiet voice and woman’s hands. I began to hate all the things

about him that I had loved before: his weakness, his diffidence, his

self-pity, his ceaseless references to his wife: how she bullied him;

how he was dependent on her; how it would break his father’s heart were

he to leave her; how he could not bear to leave his child. I grew as

impatient of those two words “my wife,” as once I had of that

proprietary “my husband.” I wanted to scream at him, “For God’s sake, be

a man!” I tried to make him jealous by talking to him of earlier love

affairs. No one, not even you, Gerald, knows as much about me as he

does. I’ve told him all those little intimate things that would have

made any other man hate me or hate himself for loving me. But nothing

moved him.

“‘I told him once of a quarrel that I had had with Roger. Roger had

threatened to leave me, never to see me again. I said nothing. I stood

straight up in front of him, looking him in the eyes; then, with a

sudden sweep, I tore away from my arms the soft silk of my evening

dress, and stood there, my shoulders bare, the white skin stained with

the bruises of our love-making. We stood there, we said nothing, but we

read in our eyes those things of memory for which there are no words.

Then he took a quick step forward, caught me in his arms and kissed away

our quarrel. I told Paul that. “There was a man,” I said to him. I flung

the words at him as one flings a glove in a challenge. But he didn’t hit

back. He said none of the things he might have said. He just took my

hand. “Margaret,” he said, “I can’t love you in that way; each man has

his own way of loving, and that isn’t mine. But in my own way I love you

more than the others have. Do believe that, my dear, I do--I do!”’

“‘What was I to do, Gerald--what was I to say? I was moved. What woman

wouldn’t be? I felt a pig, and kissed him, and let him make love to me.

That’s the worst of those people--they get under one’s guard; they

disarm one; one can’t hurt them; they are too weak; and, oh! Gerald,

it’s more than I can stand. It’s hateful to have a coward for a lover:

I’d much rather be a strong man’s toy. I keep saying to myself:

“Margaret, my girl, you’ve got to make an end of this.” But I can’t. He

always gets round me in the end. You can only fight what’s stronger than

yourself.’

“She paused, out of breath, flushed, bright-eyed, amazingly attractive.

Then, in a sudden, chastened voice, ‘Oh! Gerald, Gerald, why don’t

people keep pace with one another in love, why don’t they fall in love

at the same time and fall out of love at the same time? Why must it be a

race in which everyone is handicapped, and starts at different times and

different paces, when it is all a chasing and a being chased, and there

is only a few yards of running side by side together?’

“Never before, I think, had she so completely revealed herself to me, or

it would, perhaps, be more true to say never before had she revealed

that particular facet of her personality. She had become suddenly a

woman wistful and self-doubting, frightened of her mortality, saddened

by the contrast between the dream and the actuality, by the passage of

good things.

“I sat watching her, held silent in the spell of her beauty, wondering

what next would come, when, from below, came the faint ring of an

electric bell, the sound of an opening door, the soft stir of feet on

Axminster.

“‘Mr Paul Johnson, madam!’

“There was a pause. I saw a look, half terror, half relief, pass across

Margaret’s face; then she appeared to pull herself together. ‘Very well,

Parker,’ she said, ‘show him up.’

“I rose to go. But she stretched out a hand of admonition.

“‘No, please, Gerald, no,’ she said, in a fluttered, nervous voice. ‘It

may be--I don’t know--I’d rather you stayed.’

“I had known Paul Johnson for a long time. I had seen him change from a

silent youth into a diffident, ineffectual man; I had been present at

his wedding; and I had felt vaguely sorry for him as I shook hands with

his bride and scanned for a hurried moment the hard-set rigor of her

mouth. I had noticed his absence from the club, and learnt later of his

resignation. From time to time I had seen him at dinner parties and

garden parties, always silent, almost shy, his eyes timidly following

his wife. I had not seen him, though, since his romance with Margaret. I

was curious to know if it had altered him, whether he was more of a man,

more confident, or whether he had been overwhelmed, scorched, shrivelled

by the hot flame of her love for him.

“His appearance, as he stood for a moment irresolute in the centre of

the room, shifting from one foot to the other, with one finger plucking

at the bottom button of his waistcoat and his other hand raised to

stroke the curling down of his beard, gave me small guide to whatsoever

change the past eighteen months might have worked in him. He was

obviously the prey of one emotion, an emotion that obliterated the

chance characteristics of environment. He was a man wounded, frightened,

desperate. Without acknowledging my presence, without seeming even to

notice me he began to pour forth an eager stream of words.

“‘Oh, Margaret, my dear! my dear! I don’t know what to do, it’s terrible

after all these months, after all we’ve meant one to another, for this

to happen. Oh! my dear! my dear!’

“He stumbled towards her, sat on the edge of the footstool at her feet,

and leant his face forward in his hands.

“She rested her hand upon his shoulder.

“‘What is it, Paul, darling?’

“Her voice was soft and caressing: the note of anger and impatience had

passed from it utterly. ‘That is how he will always win her back to

him,’ I thought. ‘He is weak and makes her pity him, a sort of maternal

mistress.’

“And again her voice said gently: ‘What is it, my darling, tell me?’

“For an answer he dived his hand into his breast pocket, withdrew a

letter, and handed it to her.

“‘Read that,’ he said. ‘It’ll explain everything. Someone has written to

my wife, has told her all about us. You’ll see, it’s there, read it!’

“She took the letter, a short, five-line thing, unsigned, undated. Her

cheeks flushed, she turned to him and laid her hand on his. ‘Oh, Paul!’

she said, ‘Paul!’

“There was a poignant, dramatic silence. Then he spoke again in the calm

tones of despair.

“‘There’s nothing to be done; you know how things are with me. I am

weak, I daresay, but I’ll have to do what my wife wants. There’s my

father, you see: it would break his heart, and our child, I can’t leave

him with my wife; I can’t, I owe that much to him.’

“‘So it’s over then, Paul?’

“He nodded, and I could see, from the sudden paling of the flesh, how

tightly her fingers were pressing upon his. It seemed to me that at the

moment of separation they had won back to the ecstasy of their first

embraces: that they were nearer now than they had been for many months.

“I rose from my chair.

“‘Good-bye, Margaret, my dear,’ I said. ‘Good-bye!’

“She said nothing, but the eyes that met mine were dim and very tender.

“And as I walked down the street I pondered the contradictions, the

inequalities of life. Only a few minutes ago she was praying to be rid

of him, and now she could ask for nothing better than to be for all time

within his arms.”

* * * * *

He paused; for comment; for encouragement.

“And the sequel?” I said.

He smiled.

“Three days later,” he said, “I met her at a friend’s house.

“‘So it’s over?’ I said to her.

“She nodded.

“‘And have you any idea who wrote the letter?’

“She made no answer, but across her lips and in her eyes flickered a

curious smile, a smile that was part cunning, part pride, part triumph.

“‘I wonder,’ I continued, ‘if it was a man or a woman. A woman more

likely. Constance, perhaps, or Mrs. Berridge, or Marjorie

Godwin--Marjorie was once in love with him, so they said, it might have

been she.’

“‘I shouldn’t think so!’ And the curious smile deepened, grew more

baffling, more evocative, more triumphant.

“Suddenly I had a wave of intuition; our eyes met in the glance of two

conspirators who share a secret.

“‘Margaret,’ I said, ‘you wrote that letter.’

“The curious smile became infinitely suggestive. ‘But, my dear,’ she

said, ‘of course.’”