Chapter 9
MY theme is memory, that winged host that soared about me one grey morning of war-time.
These memories, which are my life - for we possess nothing certainly except the past - were always with me. Like the pigeons of St Mark’s, they were everywhere, under my feet, singly, in pairs, in little honey-voiced congregations, nodding, strutting, winking, rolling the tender feathers of their necks, perching sometimes, if I stood still, on my shoulder; until, suddenly, the noon gun boomed and in a moment, with a flutter and sweep of wings, the pavement was bare and the whole sky above dark with a tumult of fowl. Thus it was that morning of war-time.
For nearly ten dead years after that evening with Cordelia I was borne along a road outwardly full of change and incident, but never during that time, except sometimes in my painting - and that at longer and longer intervals - did I come alive as I had been during the time of my friendship with Sebastian. I took it to be youth, not life, that I was losing. My work upheld me, for I had chosen to do what I could do well, did better daily, and liked doing; incidentally it was something which no one else at that time was attempting to do. I became an architectural painter.
More even than the work of the great architects, I loved buildings that grew silently with the centuries, catching and keeping the best of each generation, while time curbed the artist’s pride and the Philistine’s vulgarity, and repaired the clumsiness of the dull workman. In such buildings England abounded, and, in the last decade of their grandeur, Englishmen seemed for the first time to become conscious of what before was taken for granted, and to salute their achievement at the moment of extinction. Hence my prosperity, far beyond my merits; my work had nothing to recommend it except my growing technical skill, enthusiasm for my subject, and independence of popular notions.
The financial slump of the period, which left many painters without employment, served to enhance my success, which was, indeed, itself a symptom of the decline. When the water-holes were dry people sought to drink at the mirage. After my first exhibition I was called to all parts of the country to make portraits of houses that were soon to be deserted or debased; indeed, my arrival seemed often to be only a few paces ahead of the auctioneer’s, a presage of doom.
I published three splendid folios - Ryder’s Country Seats, Ryder’s English Homes, and Ryder’s Village and Provincial Architecture, which each sold its thousand copies at five guineas apiece. I seldom failed to please, for there was no conflict between myself and my patrons, we both wanted the same thing. But, as the years passed, I began to mourn the loss of something I had known in the drawing-room of Marchmain House and once or twice since, the intensity and singleness and the belief that it was not all done by hand - in a word, the inspiration.
In quest of this fading light I went abroad, in the augustan manner, laden with the apparatus of my trade, for two years’ refreshment among alien styles. I did not go to Europe; her treasures were safe, too safe, swaddled in expert care, obscured by reverence. Europe could wait. There would be a time for Europe, I thought; all too soon the days would come when I should need a man at my side to put up my easel and carry my paints; when I could not venture more than an hour’s journey from a good hotel; when I should need soft breezes and mellow sunshine all day long; then I would take my old eyes to Germany and Italy. Now while I had the strength I would go to the wild lands where man had deserted his post and the jungle was creeping back to its old strongholds.
Accordingly, by slow but not easy stages, I travelled through Mexico and Central America in a world which had all I needed, and the change from parkland and hall should have quickened me and set me right with myself. I sought inspiration among gutted palaces and cloisters embowered in weed, derelict churches where the vampire-bats hung in the dome like dry seed-pods and only the ants were ceaselessly astir tunnelling in the rich stalls; cities where no road led, and mausoleums where a single, agued family of Indians sheltered from the rains. There in great labour, sickness, and occasionally in some danger, I made the first drawings for Ryder’s Latin America.
Every few weeks I came to rest, finding myself once more in the zone of trade or tourism, recuperated, set up my studio, transcribed my sketches, anxiously packed the complete canvases, dispatched them to my New York agent, and then set out again, with my small retinue, into the wastes.
I was in no great pains to keep in touch with England. I followed local advice for my itinerary and had no settled route, so that much of my mail never reached me, and the rest accumulated until there was more than could be read at a sitting. I used to stuff a bundle of letters into my bag and read them when I felt inclined, which was in circumstances so incongruous swinging in my hammock, under the net, by the light of a storm-lantern; drifting down river, amidships in the canoe, with the boys astern of me lazily keeping our nose out of the bank, with the dark water keeping pace with us, in the green shade, with the great trees towering above us and the monkeys screeching in the sunlight, high overhead among the flowers on the roof of the forest; on the veranda of a hospitable ranch, where the ice and the dice clicked, and a tiger cat played with its chain on the mown grass - that they seemed voices so distant as to be meaningless; their matter passed clean through the mind, and out leaving no mark, like the facts about themselves which fellow travellers distribute so freely in American railway trains. But despite this isolation and this long sojourn in a strange world, I remained unchanged, still a small part of myself pretending to be whole. I discarded the experiences of those two years with my tropical kit and returned to New York as I had set out. I had a fine haul - eleven paintings and fifty odd drawings and when eventually I exhibited them in London, the art critics many of whom hitherto had been patronizing in tone, as my success invited, acclaimed a new and richer note in my work. Mr Ryder, the most respected of them wrote, rises like a fresh young trout to the hypodermic injection of a new culture and discloses a powerful facet in the vista of his potentialities....By focusing the frankly traditional battery of his elegance and erudition on the maelstrom of barbarism, Mr Ryder has at last found himself. Grateful words, but, alas, not true by a long chalk. My wife, who crossed to New York to meet me and saw the fruits of our separation displayed in my agent’s office, summed the thing up better by saying: ‘Of course, I can see they’re perfectly brilliant and really rather beautiful in a sinister way, but somehow I don’t feel they are quite you.’
In Europe my wife was sometimes taken for an American because of her dapper and jaunty way of dressing, and the curiously hygienic quality of her prettiness; in America she assumed an English softness and reticence. She arrived a day or two before me, and was on the pier when my ship docked.
‘It has been a long time,’ she said fondly when we met. She had not joined the expedition; she explained to our friends that the country was unsuitable and she had her son at home. There was also a daughter now, she remarked, and it came back to me that there had been talk of this before I started, as an additional reason for her staying behind. There had been some mention of it, too, in her letters. ‘I don’t believe you read my letters,’ she said that night, when at last, late, after a dinner party and some hours at a cabaret, we found ourselves alone in our hotel bedroom.
‘Some went astray. I remember distinctly your telling me that the daffodils in the orchard were a dream, that the nursery-maid was a jewel, that the Regency four-poster was a find, but frankly I do not remember hearing that your new baby was called Caroline’. Why did you call it that?’
‘After Charles, of course.’
‘I made Bertha Van Halt godmother. I thought she was safe for a good present. What do you think she gave?’
‘Bertha Van Halt is a well-known trap. What?’
‘A fifteen shilling book-token. Now that Johnjohn has a companion - ‘ ‘Who?’
‘Your son, darling. You haven’t forgotten him, too?’
‘For Christ’s sake,’ I said, ‘why do you call him that?’
‘It’s the name he invented for himself. Don’t you think it sweet? Now that Johnjohn has a companion I think we’d better not have any more for some time, don’t you?’ ‘Just as you please.’
‘Johnjohn talks of you such a lot. He prays every night for your safe return.’ She talked in this way while she undressed with an effort to appear at ease; then she sat at the dressing table, ran a comb through her hair, and with her bare back towards me, looking at herself in the glass, said: ‘Shall I put my face to bed?’ It was a familiar phrase, one that I did not like; she meant should she remove her make-up, cover herself with grease and put her hair in a net. ‘No,’ I said, ‘not at once.’
Then she knew what was wanted. She had neat, hygienic ways for that too, but there were both relief and triumph in her smile of welcome; later we parted and lay in our twin beds a yard or two distant, smoking. I looked at my watch; it was four o’clock, but neither of us was ready to sleep, for in that city there is neurosis in the air which the inhabitants mistake for energy.
‘I don’t believe you’ve changed at all, Charles.’
‘No, I’m afraid not.’
‘D’you want to change?’
‘It’s the only evidence of life.’
‘But you might change so that you didn’t love me any more.’
‘There is that risk.’
‘Charles, you haven’t stopped loving me.’
‘You said yourself I hadn’t changed.’
‘Well, I’m beginning to think you have. I haven’t.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘no; I can see that.’
‘Were you at all frightened at meeting me today?’
‘Not the least.’
‘You didn’t wonder if I should have fallen in love with someone else in the meantime?’
‘No. Have you?’
‘You know I haven’t. Have you?’
‘No. I’m not in love.’
My wife seemed content with this answer. She had married me six years ago at the time of my first exhibition, and had done much since then to push our interests. People said she had ‘made’ me, but she herself took credit only for supplying me with a congenial background; she had firm faith in my genius and in the ‘artistic temperament’, and in the principle that things done on the sly are not really done at all. Presently she said: ‘Looking forward to getting home?’ (My father gave me as a wedding present the price of a house, and I bought an. old rectory in my wife’s part of the country.) ‘I’ve got a surprise for you.’
‘Yes?’
‘I’ve turned the old barn into a studio for you, so that you needn’t be disturbed by the children or when we have people to stay. I got Emden to do it. Everyone thinks it a great success.
There was an article on it in Country Life; I bought it for you to see.’
She showed me the article: ‘...happy example of architectural good manners...Sir Joseph Emden’s tactful adaptation of traditional material to modern needs...’; there were some photographs; wide oak boards now covered the earthen floor; a high, stone-mullioned bay-window had been built in the north wall, and the great timbered roof, which before had been lost in shadow, now stood out stark, well lit, with clean white plaster between the beams; it looked like a village hall. I remembered the smell of the place, which would now be lost.
‘I rather liked that barn.’ I said.
‘But you’ll be able to work there, won’t you?’
‘After squatting in a cloud of sting-fly,’ I said, ‘under a sun which scorched the paper off the block as I drew, I could work on the top of an omnibus. I expect the vicar would like to borrow the place for whist drives.’
‘There’s a lot of work waiting for you. I promised Lady Anchorage you would do Anchorage House as soon as you got back. That’s coming down, too, you know - shops underneath and two-roomed flats above. You don’t think, do you, Charles, that all this exotic work you’ve been doing, is going to spoil you for that sort of thing?’ ‘Why should it?’
‘Well, it’s so different. Don’t be cross.’
‘It’s just another jungle closing in.’
‘I know just how you feel, darling. The Georgian Society made such a fuss, but we couldn’t do anything...Did you ever get my letter about Boy?’ ‘Did I? What did it say?’
(‘Boy’ Mulcaster was her brother.)
‘About his engagement. It doesn’t matter now because it’s all off, but father and mother were terribly upset. She was an awful girl. They had to give her money in the end.’
‘No, I heard nothing of Boy.’
‘He and Johnjohn are tremendous friends, now. It’s so sweet to see them together. Whenever he comes the first thing he does is to drive straight to the Old Rectory. He just walks into the house, pays no attention to anyone else, and hollers out: “Where’s my chum Johnjohn?” and Johnjohn comes tumbling downstairs and off they go into the spinney together and play for hours. You’d think, to hear them talk to each other, they were the same age. It was really Johnjohn who made him see reason about that girl; seriously, you know, he’s frightfully sharp. He must have heard mother and me talking because next time Boy came he said: “Uncle Boy shan’t marry horrid girl and leave Johnjohn,” and that was the very day he settled for two thousand pounds out of court. Johnjohn admires Boy so tremendously and imitates him in everything. It’s so good for them both.’
I crossed the room and tried once more, ineffectively, to moderate the heat of the radiators; I drank some iced water and opened the window, but, besides the sharp night air, music was borne in from the next room where they were playing the wireless. I shut it and turned back towards my wife.
At length she began talking again, more drowsily ‘The garden’s come on a lot...The box hedges you planted grew five inches last year...I had some men down from London to put the tennis court right...first-class cook at the moment...’ As the city below us began to wake, we both fell asleep, but not for long; the telephone rang and a voice of hermaphroditic gaiety said: ‘Savoy-Carlton-Hotel-goodmorning. It is now a quarter of eight.’
‘I didn’t ask to be called, you know.’
‘Pardon me?’
‘Oh, it doesn’t matter.’
‘You’re welcome.’
As I was shaving, my wife from the bath said: ‘Just like old times. I’m not worrying any more, Charles.’
‘Good.’
‘I was so terribly afraid that two years might have made a difference. Now I know we can start again exactly where we left off.’
‘When?’ I asked. ‘What? When we left off what?’
When you went away, of course.’
‘You are not thinking of something else, a little time before?’ ‘Oh, Charles, that’s old history. That was nothing. It was never anything. It’s all over and forgotten.’
‘I just wanted to know,’ I said. ‘We’re back as we were the day I went abroad, is that it?’
So we started that day exactly where we left off two years before, with my wife in tears.
My wife’s softness and English reticence , her very white, small regular teeth, her neat rosy finger-nails, her schoolgirl air of innocent mischief and her schoolgirl dress, her modern jewellery, which was made at great expense to give the impression, at a distance, of having been mass produced, her ready, rewarding smile, her deference to me and her zeal in my interests, her motherly heart which made her cable daily to the nanny at home - in short, her peculiar charm - made her popular among the Americans, and our cabin on the day of departure was full of cellophane packages - flowers, fruit, sweets, books, toys for the children - from friends she had known for a week. Stewards, like sisters in a nursing home, used to judge their passengers’ importance by the number and value of these trophies; we therefore started the voyage in high esteem. My wife’s first thought on coming aboard was of the passenger list. ‘Such a lot of friends,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be a lovely trip. Let’s have a cocktail party this evening.’
The companion-ways were no sooner cast off than she was busy with the telephone. ‘Julia. This is Celia - Celia Ryder. It’s lovely to find you on board. What have you been up to? Come and have a cocktail this evening and tell me all about it.’ ‘Julia who?’
‘Mottram. I haven’t seen her for years.’
Nor had I; not, in fact, since my wedding day, not to speak to for any time, since the private view of my exhibition where the four canvases of Marchmain House, lent by Brideshead, had hung together attracting much attention. Those pictures were my last contact with the Flytes; our lives, so close for a year or two, had drawn apart. Sebastian, I knew, was still abroad; Rex and Julia, I sometimes heard said, were unhappy together.
Rex was not prospering quite as well as had been predicted; he remained on the fringe of the Government, prominent but vaguely suspect. He lived among the very rich, and in his speeches seemed to incline to revolutionary policies, flirting, with Communists and Fascists. I heard the Mottrams’ names in conversation; I saw their faces now and again peeping from the Tatler, as I turned the pages impatiently waiting for someone to come, but they and I had fallen apart, as one could in England and only there, into separate worlds, little spinning planets of personal relationship; there is probably a perfect metaphor for the process to be found in physics, from the way in which, I dimly apprehend, particles of energy group and regroup themselves in separate magnetic systems; a metaphor ready to hand for the man who can speak of these things with assurance; not for me, who can only say that England abounded in these small companies of intimate friends, so that, as in this case of Julia and myself, we could live in the same street in London, see at times, a few miles distant, the rural horizon, could have a liking one for the other, a mild curiosity about the other’s fortunes, a regret, even, that we should be separated, and the knowledge that either of us had only to pick up the telephone and speak by the other’s pillow, enjoy the intimacies of the levee, coming in, as it were, with the morning orange juice and the sun, yet be restrained from doing so by the centripetal force of our own worlds, and the cold, interstellar space between them. My wife, perched on the back of the sofa in a litter of cellophane and silk ribbons, continued telephoning, working brightly through the passenger list...’Yes, do of course bring him, I’m told he’s sweet...Yes, I’ve got Charles back from the wilds at last; isn’t it lovely...What a treat seeing your name in the list! It’s made my trip...darling, we were at the Savoy-Carlton, too; how can we have missed you?’...Sometimes she turned to me and said: ‘I have to make sure you’re still really there. I haven’t got used to it yet.’ I went up and out as we steamed slowly down the river to one of the great glass cases where the passengers stood to watch the land slip by. ‘Such a lot of friends,’ my wife had said. They looked a strange crowd to me; the emotions of leave-taking were just beginning to subside; some of them, who had been drinking till the last moment with those who were seeing them off, were still boisterous; others were planning where they, would have their deck chairs; the band played unnoticed - all were as restless as ants. I turned into some of the halls of the ship, which were huge without any splendour, as though they had been designed for a railway coach and preposterously magnified. I passed through vast bronze gates on which paper-thin Assyrian animals cavorted; I trod carpets the colour of blotting paper; the painted panels of the walls were like blotting paper, too - kindergarten work in flat, drab colours - and between the walls were yards and yards of biscuit-coloured wood which no carpenter’s tool had ever touched, wood that had been bent round comers, invisibly joined strip to strip, steamed and squeezed and polished; all over the blotting-paper carpet were strewn tables designed perhaps by a sanitary engineer, square blocks of stuffing, with square holes for sitting in, and upholstered, it seemed, in blotting paper also; the light of the hall was suffused from scores of hollows, giving an even glow, casting no shadows - the whole place hummed from its hundred ventilators and vibrated with the turn of the great engines below. ‘Here I am,’ I thought, ‘back from the jungle, back from the ruins. Here where wealth is no longer gorgeous and power has no dignity. Quomodo sedet sola civitas’ (for I had heard that great lament, which Cordelia once quoted to me in the drawing-room of Marchmain House, sung by a half-caste choir in Guatemala, nearly a year ago). A steward came up to me.
‘Can I get you anything, sir?’
‘A whisky and soda, not iced.’
‘I’m sorry, sir, all the soda is iced.’
‘Is the water iced, too?’
‘Oh yes, sir.’
‘Well, it, doesn’t matter.’
He trotted off, puzzled, soundless in the pervading hum.
‘Charles.’
I looked behind me. Julia was sitting in a cube of blotting paper, her hands folded in her lap, so still that I had passed by without noticing her. ‘I heard you were here. Celia telephoned to me. It’s delightful.’
‘What are you doing?’
She opened the empty hands in her lap with a little eloquent gesture. ‘Waiting. My maid’s unpacking; she’s been so disagreeable ever since we left England. She’s complaining now about my cabin. I can’t think why. It seems a lap to me.’ The steward returned with whisky and two jugs, one of iced water, the other of boiling water; I mixed them to the rig ht temperature. He watched and said: ‘I’ll remember that’s how you take it, sir.’
Most passengers had fads; he was paid to fortify their self-esteem. Julia asked for a cup of hot chocolate. I sat by her in the next cube.
‘I never see you now, ‘ she said. ‘I never seem to see anyone I like. I don’t know why.’ But she spoke as though it were a matter of weeks rather than of years; as though, too, before our parting we had been firm friends. It was dead contrary to the common experience of such encounters, when time is found to have built its own defensive lines, camouflaged vulnerable points, and laid a field of mines across all but a few well-trodden paths, so that, more often than not, we can only signal to one another from either side of the tangle of wire. Here she and I, who were never friends before, met on terms of long and unbroken intimacy.
‘What have you been doing in America?’
She looked up slowly from her chocolate and, her splendid, serious eyes in mine, said: ‘Don’t you know? I’ll tell you about it sometimes I’ve been a mug. I thought I was in love with someone, but it didn’t turn out that way.’ And my mind went back ten years to the evening at Brideshead, when that lovely, spidery child of nineteen, as though brought in for an hour from the nursery and nettled by lack of attention from the grown-ups, had said: ‘I’m causing anxiety, too, you know,’ and I had thought at the time, though scarcely, it now seemed to me, in long trousers myself, ‘How important these girls make themselves with their love affairs.’
Now it was different; there was nothing but humility and friendly candour in the way she spoke.
I wished I could respond to her confidence, give some token of acceptance, but there was nothing in my last, flat, eventful years that I could share with her. I began instead to talk of my time in the jungle, of the comic characters I had met and the lost places I had visited, but in this mood of old friendship the tale faltered and came to an end abruptly.
‘I long to see the paintings,’ she said.
‘Celia wanted me to unpack some and stick them round the cabin for her cocktail party. I couldn’t do that.’
‘No...is Celia as pretty as ever? I always thought she had the most delicious looks of any girl of my year.’
‘She hasn’t changed.’
‘You have, Charles. So lean and grim; not at all the pretty boy Sebastian brought home with him. Harder, too.’
‘And you’re softer.’
‘Yes, I think so...and very patient now.’
She was not yet thirty, but was approaching the zenith of her loveliness, all her rich promise abundantly fulfilled. She had lost that fashionable, spidery look; the head that I used to think quattrocento, which had sat a little oddly on her, was now part of herself and not at all Florentine; not connected in any way with painting or the arts or with anything except herself, so that it would be idle to itemize and dissect her beauty, which was her own essence, and could only be known in her and by her authority and in the love I was soon to have for her.
Time had wrought another change, too; not for her the sly, complacent smile of la Gioconda; the years had been more than ‘the sound of lyres and flutes’, and had saddened her. She seemed to say: ‘Look at me. I have done my share. I am beautiful. It is something quite out of the ordinary, this beauty of mine. I am made for delight. But what do I get out of it? Where is my reward?’
That was the change in her from ten years ago; that, indeed, was her reward, this haunting, magical sadness which spoke straight to the heart and struck silence; it was the completion of her beauty.
‘Sadder, too,’ I said.
‘Oh yes, much sadder.’
My wife was in exuberant spirits when, two hours later, I returned to the cabin.
‘I’ve had to do everything. How does it look?’
We had been given, without paying more for it, a large suite of rooms, one so large, in fact, that it was seldom booked except by directors of the line, and on most voyages, the chief purser admitted, was given to those he wished to honour. (My wife was adept in achieving such small advantages, first impressing the impressionable with her chic and my celebrity and, superiority once firmly established, changing quickly to a pose of almost flirtatious affability.) In token of her appreciation the chief purser had, been asked to our party and he, in token of his appreciation, had sent before him the life-size effigy of a swan, moulded in ice and filled with caviar. This chilly piece of magnificence now dominated the room, standing on a table in the centre, thawing gently, dripping at the beak into its silver dish. The flowers of the morning delivery hid as much as possible of the panelling (for this room was a miniature of the monstrous hall above).
‘You must get dressed at once. Where have you been all this time?’
‘Talking to Julia Mottram.’
‘D’you know her? Oh, of course, you were a friend of the dipso brother. Goodness, her glamour!’
‘She greatly admires your looks, too.’
‘She used to be a girl friend of Boy’s.’
‘Surely not?’
‘He always said so.’
‘Have you considered,’ I asked, ‘how your guests are going to eat this caviar?’ ‘I have. It’s insoluble. But there’s all this’ - she revealed some trays of glassy titbits - ‘and anyway, people always find ways of eating things at parties. D’you remember we once ate potted shrimps with a paper knife?’
‘Did we?’
‘Darling’ it was the night you popped the question.’
‘As I remember, you popped.’
‘Well, the night we got engaged. But you haven’t said how you like the, arrangements.’
The arrangements, apart from the swan and the flowers, consisted of a steward already inextricably trapped in the corner behind an improvised bar, and another steward, tray in hand, in comparative freedom.
‘A cinema actor’s dream,’ I said.
‘Cinema actors,’ said my wife; ‘that’s what I want to talk about.’ She came with me to my dressing-room and talked while I changed. It had occurred to her that, with my interest in architecture, my true métier was designing scenery for the films, and she had asked two Hollywood magnates to the party with whom she wished to ingratiate me.
We returned to the sitting-room.
‘Darling, I believe you’ve taken against my bird. Don’t be beastly about it in front of the purser. It was sweet of him to think of it. Besides, you know, if you had read about it in the description of a sixteenth-century banquet in Venice, you would have said those were the days to live.’
‘In sixteenth-century Venice it would have been a somewhat different shape.’
‘Here is Father Christmas. We were just in raptures over your swan.’
The chief purser came into the room and shook hands, powerfully. ‘Dear Lady Celia,’ he said, ‘if you’ll put on your warmest clothes and come on an expedition into the cold storage with me tomorrow, I can show you a whole Noah’s Ark of such objects. The toast will be along in a minute. They’re keeping it hot.’ ‘Toast!’ said my wife, as though this was something beyond the dreams of gluttony.
‘Do you hear that Charles? Toast.’
Soon the guests began to arrive; there was nothing to delay them. ‘Celia,’ they said, ‘what a grand cabin and what a beautiful swan!’ and, for all that it was one of the largest in the ship, our room was soon painfully crowded; they began to put out their cigarettes in the little pool of ice-water which now surrounded the swan. The purser made a sensation, as sailors like to do, by predicting a storm. ‘How can you be so beastly?’ asked my wife, conveying the flattering suggestion that not only the cabin and the caviar, but the waves, too, were at his command. ‘Anyway, storms don’t affect a ship like this, do they?’
‘Might hold us back a bit.’
‘But it wouldn’t make us sick?’
‘Depends if you’re a good sailor. I’m always sick in storms, ever since I was a boy.’ ‘I don’t believe it. He’s just being sadistic. Come over here, there’s something I want to show you.’
It was the latest photograph of her children. ‘Charles hasn’t even seen Caroline yet.
Isn’t it thrilling for him?’
There were no friends of mine there, but I knew about a third of the party, and talked away civilly enough. An elderly woman said to me, ‘So you’re Charles. I feel I know you through and through, Celia’s talked so much about you.’ ‘Through and through,’ I thought. ‘Through and through is a long way, madam. Can you indeed see into those dark places where my own eyes seek in vain to guide me? Can you tell me, dear Mrs Stuyvesant Oglander - if I am correct in thinking that is how I heard my wife speak of you - why it is that at this moment, while I talk to you, here, about my forthcoming exhibition, I am thinking all the time only of when Julia will come? Why can I talk like this to you, but not to her? Why have I already set her apart from humankind, and myself with her? What is going on in those secret places of my spirit with which you make so free? What is cooking, Mrs Stuyvesant Oglander?’ Still Julia did not come, and the noise of twenty people in that tiny room, which was so large that no one hired it, was the noise of a multitude. Then I saw a curious thing. There was a little red-headed man whom no one seemed to know, a dowdy fellow quite unlike the general run of my wife’s guests; he had been standing by the caviar for twenty minutes eating as fast as a rabbit. Now he wiped his mouth with his handkerchief and, on the impulse apparently, leaned forward and dabbed the beak of the swan, removing the drop of water that had been swelling there and would soon have fallen. Then he looked round furtively to see if he had been observed, caught my eye, and giggled nervously.
‘Been wanting to do that for a long time,’ he said. ‘Bet you don’t know how many drops to the minute. I do, I counted.’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Guess. Tanner if you’re wrong; half a dollar if you’re right. That’s fair.’
‘Three,’ I said.
‘Coo, you’re a sharp one. Been counting ‘em yourself.’ But he showed no inclination to pay this debt. Instead he said: ‘How d’you figure this out. I’m an Englishman born and bred, but this is my first time on the Atlantic.’
‘You flew out perhaps?’
‘No, nor over it.’
‘Then I presume you went round the world and came across the Pacific.’ ‘You are a sharp one and no mistake. I’ve made quite a bit getting into arguments over that one.’
‘What was your route?’ I asked, wishing to be agreeable.
‘Ah, that’d be telling. Well, I must skedaddle. So long.’
‘Charles, said my wife, ‘this is Mr Kramm, of Interastral Films.’
‘So you are Mr Charles Ryder,’ said Mr Kramm.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, well., well,’ he paused. I waited. ‘The purser here says we’re heading for dirty weather. What d’you know about that?’
‘Far less than the purser.’
‘Pardon me, Mr Ryder, I don’t quite get you.’
‘I mean I know less than the purser.’
‘Is that so? Well, well, well. I’ve enjoyed our talk very much. I hope that it will be the first of many.’
An Englishwoman said: ‘Oh, that swan! Six weeks in America has given me an absolute phobia of ice. Do tell me, how did it feel meeting Celia again after two years? I know I should feel indecently bridal. But Celia’s never quite got the orange blossom out of her hair, has she?’
Another woman said: ‘Isn’t it heaven saying good-bye and knowing we shall meet again in half an hour and go on meeting every half-hour for days?’ Our guests began to go, and each on leaving informed me of something my wife had promised to bring me to in the near future; it was the theme of the evening that we should all be seeing a lot of each other, that we had formed one of those molecular systems that physicists can illustrate. At last the swan was wheeled out, too, and I said to my wife, ‘Julia never came.’
‘No, she telephoned. I couldn’t hear what she said, there was such a noise going on - something about a dress. Quite lucky really, there wasn’t room for a cat. It was a lovely party, wasn’t it? Did you hate it very much? You behaved beautifully and looked so distinguished. Who was your red-haired chum?’
‘No chum of mine.’
‘How very peculiar! Did you say anything to Mr Kramm about working in Hollywood?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Oh, Charles, you are a worry to me. It’s not enough just stand about looking distinguished and a martyr for Art. Let’s go to dinner. We’re at the. Captain’s table. I don’t suppose he’ll dine down tonight, but it’s polite to be fairly punctual.’ By the time that we reached the table the rest of the party had arranged themselves.
On either side of the Captain’s empty chair sat Julia and Mrs Stuyvesant Oglander;
besides them there was an English diplomat and his wife, Senator Stuyvesant Oglander,
and an American clergyman at present totally isolated between two pairs of empty
chairs. This clergyman later described himself - redundantly it seemed - as an
Episcopalian Bishop. Husbands and wives sat together here. My wife was confronted
with a quick decision, and although the steward attempted to direct us otherwise, sat so that she had the senator and I the Bishop. Julia gave us both a little dismal signal of sympathy.
‘I’m miserable about the party,’ she said, ‘my beastly maid totally disappeared with every dress I have. She only turned up half an hour ago. She’d been playing ping-pong.’ ‘I’ve been telling the Senator what he missed,’ said Mrs Stuyvesant Oglander.
‘Wherever Celia is, you’ll find she knows all the significant people.’ ‘On my right,’ said the Bishop, ‘a significant couple are expected. They take all their meals in their cabin except when they have been informed in advance that the Captain will be present.’
We were a gruesome circle; even my wife’s high social spirit faltered. At moments I heard bits of her conversation.
‘...an extraordinary little red-haired man. Captain Foulenough in person.’
‘But I understood you to say, Lady Celia, that you were unacquainted with him.’
‘I meant he was like Captain Foulenough.’
‘I begin to comprehend. He impersonated this friend of yours in order to come to your party.’
‘No, no. Captain Foulenough is simply a comic character.’ ‘There seems to have been nothing very amusing about this other man. Your friend is a comedian?’
‘No, no. Captain Foulenough is an imaginary character in an English paper. You know, like your “Popeye”.’
The senator laid down knife and fork. ‘To recapitulate: an impostor came to your party and you admitted him because of a fancied resemblance to a fictitious character in a cartoon.’
‘Yes, I suppose that was it really.’
The senator looked at his wife as much as to say: ‘Significant people, huh!’ I heard Julia across the table trying to trace, for the benefit of the diplomat, the marriage-connections of her Hungarian and Italian cousins. The diamonds flashed in her hair and on her fingers, but her hands were nervously rolling little balls of crumb, and her starry head drooped in despair.
The Bishop told me of the goodwill mission on which he was travelling to Barcelona...’a very, very valuable work of clearance has been performed, Mr Ryder. The time has now come to rebuild on broader foundations. I have made it my aim to reconcile the so-called Anarchists and the so-called Communists, and with that in view I and my committee have digested all the available documentation of the subject. Our conclusion, Mr Ryder, is unanimous. There is no fundamental diversity between the two ideologies. It is a matter of personalities, Mr Ryder, and what personalities have put asunder personalities can unite...’
On the other side I heard: ‘And may I make so bold as to ask what institutions sponsored your husband’s expedition?’
The diplomat’s wife bravely engaged the Bishop across the gulf that separated them.
‘And what language will you speak when you get to Barcelona?’ ‘The language of Reason and Brotherhood, madam,’ and, turning back to me, ‘The speech of the coming century is in thoughts not in words. Do you not agree, Mr Ryder?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes.’
‘What are words?’ said the Bishop.
‘What indeed?’
‘Mere conventional symbols, Mr Ryder, and this is an age rightly sceptical of conventional symbols.’
My mind reeled; after the parrot-house fever of my wife’s party, and unplumbed emotions of the afternoon, after all the exertions of my wife’s pleasures in New York, after the months of solitude in the steaming, green shadows of the jungle, this was too much. I felt like Lear on the heath, like the Duchess of Malfi bayed by madmen. I summoned cataracts and hurricanoes, and as if by conjury the call was immediately answered.
For some time now, though whether it was a mere trick of the nerves I did not then know, I had felt a recurrent and persistently growing motion - a heave and shudder of the large dining-room as of the breast of a man in deep sleep. Now my wife turned to me and said: ‘Either I am a little drunk or it’s getting rough,’ and, even as she spoke we found ourselves leaning sideways in our chairs; there was a crash and tinkle of falling cutlery by the wall, and on our table the wine glasses all together toppled and rolled over, while each of us steadied the plate and forks and looked at the other with expressions that varied between frank horror in the diplomat’s wife and relief in Julia. The gale which, unheard, unseen, unfelt, in our enclosed and insulated world had, for an hour, been mounting over us, had now veered and fallen full on our bows. Silenced followed the crash, then a high, nervous babble of laughter. Stewards laid napkins on the pools of spilt wine. We tried to resume the conversation, but all were waiting, as the little ginger man had watched the drop swell and fall from the swan’s beak, for the next great blow; it came, heavier than the last. ‘This is where I say good night to you all,’ said the diplomat’s wife, rising.
Her husband led her to their cabin. The dining-room was emptying fast. Soon only Julia, my wife, and I were left at the table, and, telepathically, Julia said, ‘Like King Lear.’
‘Only each of us is all three of them.’
‘What can you mean?’ asked my wife.
‘Lear, Kent, Fool.’
‘Oh dear, it’s like that agonizing Foulenough conversation over again. Don’t try and explain.’
‘I doubt if I could,’ I said.
Another climb, another vast drop. The stewards were at work making things fast, shutting things up, hustling away unstable ornaments.
‘Well, we’ve finished dinner and set a fine example of British phlegm,’ said my wife.
‘Let’s go and see what’s on.’
Once, on our way to the lounge, we had all three to cling to a pillar; when we got there we found it almost deserted; the band played but no one danced; the tables were set for tombola but no one bought a card, and the ship’s officer, who made a speciality of calling the numbers with all the patter of the lower deck - ‘sweet sixteen and never been kissed - key of the door, twenty-one - clickety-click, sixty-six’ - was idly talking to his colleagues; there were a score of scattered novel readers, a few games of bridge, some brandy drinking in the smoking-room, but all our guests of two hours before had disappeared.
The three of us sat for a little by the empty dance floor- my wife was full of schemes by which, without impoliteness, we could move to another table in the dining-room. ‘It’s crazy to go to the restaurant,’ she said, ‘and pay extra for exactly the same dinner. Only film people go there, anyway. I don’t see why we should be made to.’ Presently she said: ‘It’s making my head ache and I’m tired, anyway. I’m going to bed.’
Julia went with her. I walked round the ship, on one of the covered decks where the wind howled and the spray leaped up from the darkness and smashed white and brown against the glass screen; men were posted to keep the passengers off the open decks.
Then I, too, went below.
In my dressing-room everything breakable had been stowed away, the door to the cabin was hooked open, and my wife called plaintively from within. ‘I feel terrible. I didn’t know a ship of this size could pitch like this, she said, and her eyes were full of consternation and resentment, like those of a woman who, at the end of her time, at length realizes that however luxurious the nursing home, and however well paid the doctor, her labour is inevitable; and the lift and fall of the ship came regularly as the pains of childbirth.
I slept next door; or, rather, I lay there between dreaming and waking. In a narrow bunk, on a hard mattress, there might have been rest, but here the beds were broad and buoyant; I collected what cushions I could find and tried to wedge myself firm, but through the night I turned with each swing and twist of the ship - she was rolling now as well as pitching - and my head rang with the creak and thud. Once, an hour before dawn, my wife appeared like a ghost in the doorway, supporting herself with either hand on the jambs, saying: ‘Are you awake? Can’t you do something? Can’t you get something from the doctor?’
I rang for the night steward, who had a draught ready prepared, which comforted her a little.
And all night between dreaming and waking I thought of Julia; in my brief dreams she took a hundred fantastic and terrible and obscene forms, but in my waking thoughts she returned with her sad, starry head just as I had seen her at dinner.
After first light I slept for an hour or two, then awoke clearheaded, with a joyous sense of anticipation.
The wind had dropped a little, the steward told me, but was still blowing hard and there was a very heavy swell; ‘which there’s nothing worse than a heavy swell’, he said, ‘for the enjoyment of the passengers. There’s not many breakfasts wanted this morning.’ I looked in at my wife, found her sleeping, and closed the door between us; then I ate salmon kedgeree and cold Bradenham ham and telephoned for a barber to come and shave me.
‘There’s a lot of stuff in the sitting-room for the lady,’ said the steward; ‘shall I leave it for the time?’
I went to see. There was a second delivery of cellophane parcels from the shops on board, some ordered by radio from friends in New York whose secretaries had failed to remind them of our departure in time, some by our guests as they left the cocktail party. It was no day for flower vases; I told him to leave them on the floor and then, struck by the thought, removed the card from Mr Kramm’s roses and sent them with my love to Julia.
She telephoned while I was being shaved.
‘W hat a deplorable thing to do, Charles! How unlike you!’
‘Don’t you like them?’
‘What can I do with roses on a day like this?’
‘Smell them.’
There was a pause and a rustle of unpacking. ‘They’ve absolutely no smell at all.’
‘What have you had for breakfast?’
‘Muscat grapes and cantaloupe’
‘When shall I see you?’
‘Before lunch. I’m busy till then with a masseuse.’
‘A masseuse?’
‘Yes, isn’t it peculiar? I’ve never had one before, except once when I hurt my shoulder hunting. What is it about being on a boat that makes everyone behave like a film star?’ ‘I don’t.’
‘How about these very embarrassing roses?’
‘The barber did his work with extraordinary dexterity indeed, with agility, for he stood like a swordsman in a ballet sometimes on the point of one foot, sometimes on the other, lightly flicking the lather off his blade, and swooping back to my chin as the ship righted herself; I should not have dared use a safety razor on myself. The telephone rang again.
It was my wife.
‘How are you Charles?’
‘Tired.’
‘Aren’t you coming to see me?’
‘I came once. I’ll be in again.’
I brought her the flowers from the sitting-room; they completed the atmosphere of a maternity ward which she had managed to create in the cabin; the stewardess had the air of a midwife, standing by the bed, a pillar of starched linen and composure. My wife turned her head on the pillow and smiled wanly; she stretched out a bare arm and caressed with the tips of her fingers the cellophane and silk ribbons of the largest bouquet. ‘How sweet people are, ‘ she said faintly, as though the gale were a private misfortune of her own for which the world in its love was condoling with her. ‘I take it you’re not getting up.’
‘Oh no, Mrs Clark is being so sweet’; she was always quick to get servants’ names.
‘Don’t bother. Come in sometimes and tell me what’s going on.’
‘Now, now, dear,’ said the stewardess, ‘the less we are disturbed today the better.’
My wife seemed to make a sacred, female rite even of sea-sickness. Julia’s cabin, I knew, was somewhere below ours. I waited for her by the lift on the main deck; when she came we walked once round the promenade; I held the rail; she took my other arm. It was hard going; through the streaming glass we saw a distorted world of grey sky and black water. When the ship rolled heavily I swung her round so that she could hold the rail with her other hand; the howl of the wind was subdued, but the whole ship creaked with strain. We made the circuit once, then Julia said: ‘It’s no good. That woman beat hell out of me, and I feel limp, anyway. Let’s sit down.’ The great bronze doors of the lounge had torn away from their hooks and were swinging free with the roll of the ship; regularly and, it seemed, irresistibly, first one, then the other, opened and shut; they paused at the completion of each half circle, began to move slowly and finished fast with a resounding clash. There was no real risk in passing them, except of slipping and being caught by that swift, final blow; there was ample time to walk through unhurried but there was something forbidding in the sight of that great weight of uncontrolled metal, flapping to and fro, which might have made a timid man flinch or skip through too quickly; I rejoiced to feel Julia’s hand perfectly steady on my arm and know, as I walked beside her, that she was wholly undismayed. ‘Bravo,’ said a man sitting nearby. ‘I confess I went round the other way. I didn’t like the look of those doors somehow. They’ve been trying to fix them all the morning.’ There were few people about that day, and that few seemed bound together by a camaraderie of reciprocal esteem; they did nothing except sit rather glumly in their armchairs, drink occasionally, and exchange congratulations on not being seasick. ‘You’re the first lady I’ve seen,’ said the man.
‘I’m very lucky.’
‘We are very lucky,’ he said, with a movement which began as a bow and ended as a lurch forward to his knees, as the blotting-paper floor dipped steeply between us. The roll carried us away from him, clinging together but still on our feet, and we quickly sat where our dance led us, on the further side, in isolation; a web of life-lines had been stretched across the lounge, and we seemed like boxers, roped into the ring. The steward approached. ‘Your usual, sir? Whisky and tepid water, I think. And for the lady? Might I suggest a nip of champagne?’
‘D’you know, the awful thing is I would like champagne very much,’ said Julia. ‘What a life of pleasure - roses, half an hour with a female pugilist, and now champagne!’ ‘I wish you wouldn’t go on about the roses. It wasn’t my idea in the first place.
Someone sent them to Celia.’
‘Oh, that ‘s quite different. It lets you out completely. But it makes my massage worse.’
‘I was shaved in bed.’
‘I’m glad about the roses,’ said Julia. ‘Frankly, they were a shock. They made me think we were starting the day on the wrong foot.’
I knew what she meant, and in that moment felt as though I had shaken off some of the dust and grit of ten dry years; then and always, however she spoke to me, in half sentences, single words, stock phrases of contemporary jargon, in scarcely perceptible movements of eyes or lips or hands, however inexpressible her thought, however quick and far it had glanced from the matter in hand, however deep it had plunged, as it often did, straight from the surface to the depths, I knew; even that day when I still stood on the extreme verge of love, I knew what she meant.
We drank our wine and soon our new friend came lurching towards us down the life-line.
‘Mind if I join you? Nothing like a bit of rough weather for bringing people together. This is my tenth crossing, and I’ve never seen anything like it. I can see you are an experienced sailor, young lady.’
‘No. As a matter of fact, I’ve never been at sea before except coming to New York and, of course, crossing the Channel. I don’t feel sick, thank God, but I feel tired. I thought at first it was only the massage, but I’m coming to the conclusion it’s the ship.’ ‘My wife’s in a terrible way. She’s an experienced sailor. Only shows, doesn’t it?’ He joined us at luncheon, and I did not mind his being there; he had clearly taken a fancy to Julia, and he thought we were man and wife; this misconception and his gallantry seemed in some way to bring her and me closer together. ‘Saw you two last night at the Captain’s table,’ he said, ‘with all the nobs.’ ‘Very dull nobs.’
‘If you ask me, nobs always are. When you get a storm like this you find out what people are really made of’ ‘You have a predilection for good sailors?’
‘Well, put like that I don’t know that I do - what I mean is, it makes for getting together.’
‘Yes.’
‘Take us for example. But for this we might never have met. I’ve had some very romantic encounters at sea in my time. If the lady will excuse me, I’d like to tell you about a little adventure I had in the Gulf of Lions when I was younger than I am now.’
We were both weary; lack of sleep, the incessant din, and the strain every movement required, wore us down. We spent that afternoon apart in our cabins. I slept and when I awoke the sea was as high as ever, inky clouds swept over us, and the glass streamed still with water, but I had grown used to the storm In my sleep, had made its rhythm mine, had become part of it, so that I arose strongly and confidently and found Julia already up and in the same temper.
‘What d’you think?’ she said. ‘That man’s giving a little “get together party” tonight in the smoking-room for all the good sailors. He asked me to bring my husband.’ ‘Are we going?’
‘Of course...I wonder if I ought to feel like the lady our friend met on the way to Barcelona. I don’t, Charles not a bit.’
There were eighteen people at the ‘get-together party’; we had nothing in common except immunity from seasickness. We drank champagne, and presently our host said:
‘Tell you what, I’ve got a roulette wheel. Trouble is we can’t go to my cabin on account of the wife, and we aren’t allowed to play in public.’
So the party adjourned to my sitting-room and we played for low stakes until late into the night, when Julia left and our host had drunk too much wine to be surprised that she and I were not in the same quarters. When all but he had gone, he fell asleep in his chair, and I left him there. It was the last I saw of him, for later - so the steward told me when he came from returning the roulette things to the man’s cabin - he broke his thigh, falling in the corridor, and was taken to the ship’s hospital. All next day Julia and I spent together without interruption; talking, scarcely moving, held in our chairs by the swell of the sea. After luncheon the last hardy passengers went to rest and we were alone as though the place had been cleared for us, as though tact on a titanic scale had sent everyone tip-toeing out to leave us to one another. The bronze doors of the lounge had been fixed, but not before two seamen had been badly injured. They had tried various devices, lashing with ropes and, later, when these failed, with steel hawsers, but there was nothing to which they could be made fast; finally, they drove wooden wedges under them, catching them in the brief moment of repose when they were full open, and these held firm.
When, before dinner, she went to her cabin to get ready (no one dressed that night) and I came with her, uninvited, unopposed, expected, and behind closed doors took her in my arms and first kissed her, there was no alteration from the mood of the afternoon. Later, turning it over in my mind, as I turned in my bed with the rise and fall of the ship, through the long, lonely, drowsy night, I recalled the courtships of the past, dead, ten years; how, knotting my tie before setting out, putting the gardenia in my buttonhole, I would plan my evening and think at such and such a time, at such and such an opportunity, I shall cross the start-line and open my attack for better or worse; ‘this phase of the battle has gone on long enough’, I would think; ‘a decision must be reached.’ With Julia there were no phases, no start-line, no tactics at all. But later that night when she went to bed and I followed her to her door, she stopped me.
‘No, Charles, not yet. Perhaps never. I don’t know. I don’t know if I want love.’ Then something, some surviving ghost from those dead ten years - for one cannot die, even for a little, without some loss made me say, ‘Love? I’m not asking for love.’ ‘Oh yes, Charles, you are,’ she said, and putting up her hand gently stroked my cheek; then shut her door.
And I reeled back, first on one wall, then on the other, of the long, softly lighted, empty corridor; for the storm, it appeared, had the form of a ring; all day we had been sailing through its still centre; now we were once more in the full fury of the wind and that night was to be rougher than the one before.
Ten hours of talking: what had we to say? Plain fact mostly, the record of our two lives, so long widely separate, now being knit to one. Through all that storrn-tossed night I rehearsed what she had told me; she was no longer the alternate succubus and starry, vision of the night before; she had given all that was transferable of her past into my keeping. She told me, as I have already retold, of her courtship and marriage; she told me, as though fondly turning the pages of an old nursery-book, of her childhood, and I lived long, sunny days with her in the meadows, with Nanny Hawkins on her camp stool and Cordelia asleep in the pram, slept quiet nights under the dome with the religious pictures fading round the cot as the nightlight burned low and the embers settled in the grate. She told me of her life with Rex and of the secret, vicious, disastrous escapade that had taken her to New York. She, too, had had her dead years. She told me of her long struggle with Rex as to whether she should have a child; at first she wanted one, but learned after a year that an operation was needed to make it possible; by that time Rex and she were out of love, but he still wanted his child, and when at last she consented, it was born dead.
‘Rex has never been unkind to me intentionally,’ she said. ‘It’s just that he isn’t a real person at all; he’s just a few faculties of a man highly developed; the rest simply isn’t there. He couldn’t imagine why it hurt me to find two months after we came back to London from our honeymoon, that he was still keeping up with Brenda Champion.’ ‘I was glad when I found Celia was unfaithful,’ I said. ‘I felt it was all right for me to dislike her.’
‘Is she? Do you? I’m glad. I don’t like her either. Why did you marry her?’
‘Physical attraction. Ambition. Everyone agrees she’s the ideal wife for a painter.
Loneliness, missing Sebastian.’
‘You loved him, didn’t you?’
‘Oh yes. He was the forerunner.’
Julia understood.
The ship creaked and shuddered, rose and fell. My wife called to me from the next room: ‘Charles, are you there?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve been asleep such a long while. What time is it?’
‘Half past three.’
‘It’s no better, is it?’
‘Worse.’
‘I feel a little better, though. D’you think they’d bring me some tea or something if I rang the bell?’
I got her some tea and biscuits from the night steward.
‘Did you have an amusing evening?’
‘Everyone’s seasick.’
‘Poor Charles. It was going to have been such a lovely trip, too. It may be better tomorrow.’
I turned out the light and shut the door between us.
Waking and dreaming, through the strain and creak and heave of the long night, firm on my back with my arms and legs spread wide to check the roll, and my eyes open to the darkness, I lay thinking of Julia.
‘...We thought papa might come back to England after mummy died, or that he might marry again, but he lives just as he did. Rex and I often go to see him now. I’ve grown fond-of him... Sebastian’s disappeared completely...Cordelia’s in Spain with anambulance...Bridey leads his own extraordinary life. He wanted to shut Brideshead after mummy died, but papa wouldn’t have it for some reason, so Rex and I live there now, and Bridey has two rooms up in the dome, next to Nanny Hawkins, part of the old nurseries. He’s like a character from Chekhov. One meets him sometimes coming out of the library or on the stairs - I never know when he’s at home - and now and then he suddenly comes in to dinner like a ghost quite unexpectedly. ‘...Rex’s parties! Politics and money. They can’t do anything except for money; if they walk round the lake they have to make bets about how many swans they see...sitting up till two, amusing Rex’s girls, hearing them gossip, rattling away endlessly on the backgammon board while the men play cards and smoke cigars. The cigar smoke. I can smell it in my hair when I wake up in the morning; it’s in my clothes when I dress at night. Do I smell of it now? D’you think that woman who rubbed me, felt it in my skin?
‘...At first I used to stay away with Rex in his friends’ houses. He doesn’t make me any more. He was ashamed of me when he found I didn’t cut the kind of figure he wanted, ashamed of himself for having been taken in. I wasn’t at all the article he’d bargained for. He can’t see the point of me, but whenever he’s made up his mind there isn’t a point and he’s begun to feel comfortable, he gets a surprise - some man, or even woman, he respects, takes a fancy to me and he suddenly sees that there is i whole world of things we understand and he doesn’t ... he was upset when I went away. He’ll be delighted to have me back. I was faithful to’ him until this last thing came along. There’s nothing like a good upbringing. Do you know last year, when I thought I was going to have a child, I’d decided to have it brought up a Catholic? I hadn’t thought about religion before; I haven’t since; but just at that time, when I was waiting for the birth, I thought, “That’s one thing I can give her. It doesn’t seem to have done me much good, but my child shall have it.” It was odd, wanting to give something one had - lost oneself. Then, in the end, I couldn’t even give that: I couldn’t even give her life. I never saw her; I was too ill to know what was going on, and afterwards, for a long time, until now, I didn’t want to speak about her - she was a daughter, so Rex didn’t so much mind her being dead.
‘I’ve been punished a little for marrying Rex. You see, I can’t get all that sort of thing out of my mind, quite - Death, Judgement, Heaven, Hell, Nanny Hawkins, and the catechism. It becomes part of oneself, if they give it one early enough. And yet I wanted my child to have it...now I suppose I shall be punished for what I’ve just done. Perhaps that is why you and I are here together like this...part of a plan.’ That was almost the last thing she said to me -‘part of a plan’ - before we went below and I left her at the cabin door.
Next day the wind had again dropped, and again we were wallowing in the swell. The talk was less of seasickness now than of broken bones; people had been thrown about in the night, and there had been many nasty accidents on bathroom floors. That day, because we had talked so much the day before and because what we had to say needed few words, we spoke little. We had books; Julia found a game she liked. When after long silences we spoke, our thoughts, we found, had kept pace together side by side.
Once I said, ‘You are standing guard over your sadness.’
‘It’s all I have earned. You said yesterday. My wages.’
‘An I.O.U. from life. A promise to pay on demand.’
Rain ceased at midday; at evening the clouds dispersed and the sun, astern of us, suddenly broke into the lounge where we sat, putting all the lights to shame. ‘Sunset, ‘ said Julia, ‘the end of our day.’
She rose And, though the roll and pitch of the ship seemed unabated, led me up to the boat-deck. She put her arm through mine and her hand into mine, in my great-coat pocket. The deck was dry and empty, swept only by the wind of the ship’s speed. As we made our halting, laborious way forward, away from the flying smuts of the smokestack, we were alternately jostled together, then strained, nearly sundered, arms and fingers interlocked as I held the rail and Julia clung to me, thrust together again, drawn apart; then, in a plunge deeper than the rest, I found myself flung across her, pressing her against the rail, warding myself off her with the arms that held her prisoner on either side, and as the ship paused at the end of its drop as though gathering strength for the ascent, we stood thus embraced, in the open, cheek against cheek, her hair blowing across my eyes; the dark horizon of tumbling water, flashing now with gold, stood still above us, then came sweeping down till I was staring through Julia’s dark hair into a wide and golden sky, and she was thrown forward on my heart, held up by my hands on the rail, her face still pressed to mine.
In that minute, with her lips to my ear and her breath warm in the salt wind, Julia said, though. I had not spoken, ‘Yes, now,’ and as the ship righted herself and for the moment ran into calmer waters, Julia led me below.
It was no time for the sweets of luxury; they would come, in their season, with the swallow and the lime flowers. Now on the rough water there was a formality to be observed, no more. It was as though a deed of conveyance of her narrow loins had been drawn and sealed. I was making my first entry as the freeholder of a property I would enjoy and develop at leisure.
We dined that night high up in the ship, in the restaurant, and saw through the bow windows the stars come out and sweep across the sky as once, I remembered, I had seen them sweep across the sky as once, I remembered, I had seen them sweep above the towers and gables of Oxford. The stewards promised that tomorrow night the band would play again and the place be full. We had better book now, they said, if we wanted a good table’.
‘Oh dear,’ said Julia, ‘where can we hide in fair weather, we orphans of the storm?’ I could not leave her that night, but early next morning, as once again I made my way back along the corridor, I found I could walk without difficulty; the ship rode easily on a smooth sea, and I knew that our solitude was broken.
My wife called joyously from her cabin: ‘Charles, Charles, I feel so well. What do you think I am having for breakfast?’
I went to see. She was eating a beef-steak.
‘I’ve fixed up for a visit to the hairdresser - do you know they couldn’t take me till four o’clock this afternoon, they’re so busy suddenly? So I shan’t appear till the evening, but lots of people are coming in to see us this morning, and I’ve asked Miles and Janet to lunch with us in our sitting-room. I’m afraid I’ve been a worthless wife to you the last two days. What have you been up to?’
‘One gay evening,’ I said, ‘we played roulette till two o’clock, next door in the sitting-room, and our host passed out.’
‘Goodness. It sounds very disreputable. Have you been behaving, Charles? You haven’t been picking up sirens?’
‘There was scarcely a woman about. I spent most of the time with Julia.’ ‘Oh, good. I always wanted to bring you together. She’s one of my friends I knew you’d like. I expect you were a godsend to her. She’s had rather a gloomy time lately. I don’t expect she mentioned it, but...’ my wife proceeded to relate a current version of Julia’s journey to New York. ‘I’ll ask her to cocktails this morning,’ she concluded. Julia came among the others, and it was happiness enough, now merely to be near her.
‘I hear you’ve been looking after my husband for me,’ my wife said.
‘Yes, we’ve become very matey. He and I and a man whose name we don’t know.’
‘Mr Kramm, what have you done to your arm?’
‘It was the bathroom floor, ‘ said Mr Kramm, and explained at length how he had fallen.
That night the captain dined at his table and the circle was complete, for claimants came to the chairs on the Bishop’s right, two Japanese who expressed deep interest in his projects for world-brotherhood. The captain was full of chaff at Julia’s endurance in the storm, offering to engage her as a seaman; years of sea-going had given him jokes for every occasion. My wife, fresh from the beauty parlour, was unmarked by her three days of distress, and in the eyes of many seemed to outshine Julia, whose sadness had gone and been replaced by an incommunicable content and tranquillity; incommunicable save to me; she and I, separated by the crowd, sat alone together close enwrapped, as we had lain in each other’s arms the night before. ‘There was a gala spirit in the ship that night. Though it meant rising at dawn to pack, everyone was determined that for this one night he would enjoy the luxury the storm had denied him. There was no solitude. Every corner of the ship was thronged; dance music and high, excited chatter, stewards darting everywhere with trays of glasses, the voice of the officer in charge of tombola - ‘Kelly’s eye - number one; legs, eleven; and we’ll Shake the Bag’ - Mrs Stuyvesant Oglander in a paper cap, Mr Kramm and his bandages, the two Japanese decorously throwing paper streamers and hissing like geese. I did not speak to Julia, alone, all that evening.
We met for a minute next day on the starboard side of the ship while everyone else crowded to port to see the officials come aboard and to gaze at the green coastline of Devon.
‘What are your plans?’
‘London for a bit, ‘ she said.
‘Celia’s going straight home. She wants to see the children.’
‘You too?’
‘No.’
‘In London then.’
‘Charles, the little red-haired man Foulenough. Did you see? Two plain clothes police have taken him off.’
‘I missed it. There was such a crowd on that side of the ship.’ ‘I found out the trains and sent a telegram. We shall be home by dinner. The children will be asleep. Perhaps we might wake Johnjohn up, just for once.’ ‘You go down,’ I said. ‘I shall have to stay in London.’
‘Oh, but Charles, you must come. You haven’t seen Caroline.’
‘Will she change much in a week or two?’
‘Darling, she changes every day.’
‘Then what’s the point of seeing her now? I’m sorry, my dear, but I must get the pictures unpacked and see how they’ve travelled. I must fix up for the exhibition right away.’
‘Must you?’ she said, but I knew that her resistance ended when I appealed to the mysteries of my trade. ‘It’s very disappointing. Besides, I don’t know if Andrew and Cynthia will be out of the flat. They took it till the end of the month.’ ‘I can go to an hotel.’
‘But that’s so grim. I can’t bear you to be alone your first night home. I’ll stay and go down tomorrow.’
‘You mustn’t disappoint the children.’
‘No.’ Her children, my art, the two mysteries of our trades.
‘Will you come for the week-end?’
‘If I can.’
‘All British passports to the smoking-room, please,’ said a steward. ‘I’ve arranged with that sweet Foreign Office man at our table to get us off early with him,’ said my wife.
我的主题是回忆，在战争时期一个阴暗的早晨，一群长着翅膀的东西在我的周围飞翔。
这些回忆时时刻刻伴随着我，构成了我的生命——因为我们确定能拥有的，除了过去一无所有了。这些回忆就像圣马克教堂外面的鸽子一样，到处都是，在脚边，或是单个，或是成双，悦耳地咕咕叫着聚在一起，点着头，神气地走着，眯着眼睛，梳理脖颈间柔软的羽毛，如果我站着不动，它们有时会栖息在我的肩膀上；直到突然传来一阵中午的炮声，马上，它们全都扑棱棱地乱飞起来，人行道空荡荡的了，整个天空被喧嚣的鸽子遮得黑压压的。战争时期的那个阴暗的早晨就是这样。
自从和科迪莉娅度过了那个晚上，以后就是死寂的十年，我被迫沿着一条表面上充满了动荡与事变的道路走下去，但是在此期间，除了有时当我画画的时候——而且间隔的时间越来越长——我都没有像和塞巴斯蒂安交往的日子里那样活跃过。我认为我正在失去的是青春，而不是岁月。我的工作支撑着我，因为我选择了我能干好的工作，一天比一天干得更好，而且也很喜欢干；顺便说一句，这种工作当时也是没有什么人愿意干的。我成了一位建筑画家。
甚至比起伟大的建筑师们的作品来，我还是更爱那些默默地过了好几个世纪的建筑物，这些建筑物保留并记录了每个时代的最出色的特点，与此同时，时间限制了艺术家的骄傲和市侩的鄙俗，却弥补了那些平庸工匠的拙陋。这类建筑物在英格兰比比皆是，英国人在他们鼎盛的最近十年中，似乎第一次对于以前熟视无睹的东西有了认识，并且在那些建筑物即将败落的时期第一次颂扬起它们的成就来了。因此我的幸运远远超过我的功绩；而我的作品也并没有什么值得称道的，只不过是技巧日臻成熟，对主题充满热情，对流行的见解不屑一顾而已。
这个时期的经济萧条，使许多画家找不到雇主，却使我更加成功，当然这种情形本身就是经济衰退的征兆：当水泉干涸时，人们会寻求海市蜃楼来解渴。我在第一次画展以后，就被请去全国各地给那些马上就要荒废衰败的宅第画像；的确，我常常要比拍卖商早几步赶到那里，成为厄运的先兆。
我还出版了三种富丽堂皇的对开画册——即“赖德的乡间别墅”、“赖德的英国住宅”、“赖德的乡村建筑和外省建筑”，每一种以每份五个畿尼卖了上千份。我很少使人不满意，因为在我和我的主顾之间没有什么摩擦，我们双方的要求是一致的。不过，随着岁月的流逝，我开始为马奇梅因公馆客厅里我所熟悉的、但没有表现出来的东西而感到悲哀，这以后我有一两次认识到那就是画的力度与单一性，我并且相信这光靠手是表现不出来的——一句话，得靠灵感。
为了寻求日渐消失的灵性，我以一种古典的方式，携带着大批我这个行当所需要的工具，出国到各种异域情调中旅游了两年岁月。我没有去欧洲；欧洲的珍品保护得很牢靠，甚至太牢靠了，受到重重的专门保护，而且被顶礼膜拜弄得云遮雾障。欧洲可以等一等。早晚有时间去欧洲的。我想，岁月催人，不久后我需要有一个人在身旁，帮助我安放画架，携带油彩颜料；那时我从一家上等旅馆出去也不能超过一个小时的路程；那时我将要整天沐浴在轻柔的微风和温和的阳光里；那时我那双褐色的眼睛会紧紧注视着德国和意大利，这样的日子很快就会来到。现在当我有力量的时候，我要去那些蛮荒之地，那里人们已经抛弃了他们的岗哨，莽丛密林一步一步地蔓延到了古老的城堡。
因此，经历了缓慢然而并不轻松的几个阶段，我游历了墨西哥和中美洲，一个有着我需要的一切的天地，离开别墅园林和客厅，已经增加了我的活力，并使我心情愉快。那些宫殿的内部陈设荡然无存，修道院的回廊野草埋径，教堂被废弃，吸血蝠像豆荚一样倒挂在穹顶上，只有蚂蚁在富丽的长排座椅间熙熙攘攘不停地钻洞掘穴，城镇没有道路相通，高大阴森的房子里有一家冷颤的印第安人在躲避风雨，所有这一切都是我寻取灵感的地方。我历尽千辛万苦，忍受疾病的折磨，有时还要冒着危险，创作了《赖德的拉丁美洲》画册中最初几幅作品。过几个星期我就要休息一下，置身于商业区或游览区，借此来恢复精力，建起自己的画室，把我的那些速写详细画出来，然后急急忙忙把已经画完了的画布包装好，给我纽约的代理人寄出。接着我又出发了，带着我的小随从踏上荒原。
我没有尽力跟英国保持联系。我根据当地人的建议来安排自己的行程，没有固定的路线，结果很多邮件没有到我手里，而收到的邮件积攒起来，到了坐下来一次都读不完的程度。我常常把一捆信件塞在袋子里，等我有兴致的时候来读，读的时候和当时的环境是那样不协调——或是躺在吊床上晃来晃去，或是在蚊帐里，就着防风灯的光亮；或是漂在水上顺流而下，坐在独木舟上由我身后的孩子们划着船，缓缓驶离岸边，幽暗的河水载着我们流向前方，或是坐在绿阴里，巨树直插云天，鲜花在头顶上高高的树冠从中，猴子们晒着太阳发出尖叫声；或是在宜人的大牧场的阳台上，耳旁响着杯中冰块的搅动声和掷骰子声，在修剪过的草坪上，一只豹猫玩着脖子上的链子——以至信件仿佛是遥远的声音，没有什么意义，其中的事情在心头一闪而过，不留痕迹，就像在美洲火车车厢中，萍水相逢的旅客随意讲起他们自己的事，听后都成了过眼烟云。
尽管与世隔绝，长期旅居在一个陌生的天地，我却依然故我，然而真正未变的那几分故我只残留在我的音容笑貌上，貌似我过去的全部形象罢了。我把这两年的经历连同热带用的工具一股脑儿甩到一边，回到了纽约，它样子和我出发时一样。我满载而归——十一幅油画，外加五十多张素描——后来我把这些作品在伦敦展览的时候，那些艺术评论家们，他们当中很多人至今一直对别人的作品持一种屈尊迁就的态度，现在我的成功使他们不得不赞扬我的作品中具有崭新的和更加丰富的意境。文艺批评家中最受人景仰的人这样写道：赖德先生的崛起就像一条欢蹦乱跳的小鳟鱼在皮下注射了一种新的营养，是一种新兴的文化的皮下注射，在他蕴藏的潜力中发出了强大的威力……由于他把自己的优雅风度和渊博学识这种显然属于传统的排炮瞄准了野蛮的浩劫，赖德先生最终发现了自己。
天啊，这些溢美之词没有一个字是实事求是的。我的妻子远渡重洋到纽约和我相见，当她看到了我们分别的成果陈列在我的代理人的办公室里的时候，她说的这样一句话颇为中肯：“当然，我看得出这些画极为出色，而且在那邪恶的表现方式中确实有非常优美的地方。不过不知怎的，我总觉得这些画根本没有表现你。”
在欧洲，我的妻子由于穿着打扮时髦和她的出奇的健美，有时被人误认为是个美国人；而在美国，她却表现出一副英国人的温顺和沉默的气派。她比我先到一两天，当我的船抵达港口时，她在码头上等候着。
“分离的时间多么长啊。”我们一见面她就亲热地说道。
她没有参加这次探险；她对朋友们解释说这是因为那个国家对她很不相宜，而且家里还有个儿子，她还说，现在又添了一个女儿，这时我才想起在我动身之前曾经说起这件事，这就成为她留下来的附加理由。这件事在她的信中也曾提起过。
“我想你没有看我的信吧。”那天夜里她说道，其时天色已晚，晚餐的聚会已经结束，在一家有歌舞表演的餐馆又逗留了几个小时以后，我们终于发现自己独自在旅馆卧室里了。
“有些信寄丢了。我清楚地记得你写信说什么果园的水仙花就是一个梦境啦，什么保姆就是一颗宝石啦，什么发现了一张摄政时期的四柱床啦，可是老实说我并不记得你说过新生的婴儿取了卡罗琳这个名字。你为什么要起这个名字？”
“那当然是随着查尔斯起的啰。”
“啊！”
“我请了伯莎·范·霍尔特做孩子的教母。我考虑她保险会送一份像样的礼物。你知道她送了什么吗？”
“伯莎·范·霍尔特是一个出名的诡计多端的人。送了什么呢？”
“一张十五先令的书籍预约证。既然约翰约翰有了一个伴儿——”
“你说谁？”
“你的儿子呀，亲爱的。你还没有忘了他吧？”
“看在基督的面上，”我说，“你怎么这样叫他呢？”
“这个名字是他自己发明的。你不觉得这名字很甜吗？既然约翰约翰已经有了一个伴儿，所以我认为在一段时间里我们最好还是不要再有孩子了，你说呢？”
“随便怎么都行。”
“约翰约翰常常念叨你。他每天晚上都要为你祈祷，祝你平安归来。”
她一边这么说着，一边脱掉衣服，极力表现出随随便便的样子。随后她坐在梳妆台前，用一把梳子梳理着头发，她那赤裸的脊背冲着我，自己照着镜子，她说道：“我要不要卸妆上床？”
这是我不喜欢的一句熟悉的话；她的意思是说她该去掉脸上的脂粉，搽上油，戴上发网。
“不要，”我说，“眼下不要。”
然而她明白需要的是什么。在那种事情上她也讲究清洁卫生的方式，不过在她那种表示欢迎的微笑中有着宽慰和胜利的表情。后来我们分开了，各自躺在相隔一二码远的一对床上，吸着烟。我看了看表，已经四点了，但我们谁也没有睡意，在这座城市里流传着一种神经机能病，居民们都误以为是精力旺盛的表现。
“我认为你一点也没有变，查尔斯。”
“不错，恐怕是没有变。”
“难道你希望变吗？”
“变是生活的唯一证明。”
“不过你可能变，变得不再爱我了。”
“这种危险是存在的。”
“查尔斯，你还爱我吧？”
“你自己说过我并没有变。”
“唔，我现在开始觉得你变了。可我没变。”
“没有，”我说道，“没有，我看得出没变。”
“你今天和我见面一点也不害怕吗？”
“一点也不。”
“难道你不怀疑我在此期间爱上了别的人吗？”
“没有。你爱上啦？”
“你知道我没有，你呢？”
“没有。我并没有恋爱。”
我妻子对这个回答看来很满意。她是六年前我第一次画展时和我结婚的。从那时起，为了扩展我们的事业，她做了很多事情。大家都说是她“成就”了我，不过她自己只承认她的功劳是给我提供了一个合适惬意的环境；她对我的天才和“艺术家的气质”深信不疑，并且深信这样一条准则，背着人干的事情实际就等于根本没干。
过了一会儿她说：“你现在盼着回家吗？”（我父亲送给我够买一所房子的钱作为结婚礼物，后来我在妻子的家乡买了一所教区长的房子。）“我有件惊人的事告诉你。”
“是吗？”
“我已经把那间谷仓给你改成了一间画室，这样不管是孩子们还是来了人，都不会打扰你了。我叫埃姆登改建的。大家都认为好极了。《乡村生活》上还有一篇文章谈到这件事哩；我买了这份杂志留给你看。”
她给我看那篇文章：“……建筑学上优美形式的好范例……约瑟夫·埃姆登爵士独具匠心，把传统材料变得适合于现代的需要……”；还刊登了几幅照片；地上已经铺了宽大的橡木地板；北面的墙上开了一个石质中棂的凸窗，巨大的木屋顶，以前这所房子全部笼罩在阴影里，而现在突兀而立，轮廓清楚，光线充足，桁条之间都还抹上了洁白的灰泥；看上去简直像一所乡村府邸。我还记得原来那里的气味，大概现在也没有了。
“我倒喜欢那个谷仓，”我说。
“可是你现在可以在这儿工作了呀，不是吗？”
“经历了蹲在蜇人的飞虫团里作画，”我说，“头顶上的烈日把纸张都烤成了铁砧那种日子以后，即便在公共汽车的顶上我也能够工作了。我想教区牧师大概会乐意借这个地方玩惠斯特牌的。”
“有一大堆工作在等着你呢。我已经答应了安柯雷奇夫人，等你一回来就去画安柯雷奇公馆。那里也败落下来了，知道吧——就剩了下面几间铺子和上面两居室的一套房子。你没想到吧，查尔斯，你一直画着所有异国情调的画儿，会把你毁了，会使你画不了英国的建筑，你想到没有？”
“怎么会呢？”
“嗨，因为太不相同啦。请别生气。”
“这不过是即将被另一片莽丛包围住的地方。”
“我完全知道你的感受，亲爱的。乔治王朝协会弄得乱哄哄的了，我们也没有办法……你收到我谈到博伊的那封信了吗？”
“是吗？信上说什么？”
（博伊·马尔卡斯特是她的哥哥。）
“是关于他订婚的事，现在关系不大了，事情全过去了，不过当时这件事使爸爸和妈妈搞得非常心烦意乱。她可是个可怕的姑娘。后来他们还是给了她钱才算了事。”
“我可一点儿也没有听说博伊的事。”
“他现在和约翰约翰好得要命。看着他们在一起的样子可真让人心里觉得甜滋滋的。他不管何时来，首先把车子径直开到教区长的旧宅去。走进屋里，谁也不理睬，马上喊道：‘我的小哥们儿约翰约翰在哪儿？’接着约翰约翰东倒西歪地从楼上跑下来，然后他们就出去，一起到小灌木林里去一连玩上好几个小时。你想想，要是听听他们之间的谈话，你还以为他们一般大呢。正是约翰约翰，使他在那个姑娘的问题上接受了劝告；说正经的，知道吧，他可机灵了。他可能是听到我和妈妈的谈话了，博伊再来的时候他就说：‘博伊舅舅别跟那个可怕的姑娘结婚，丢下约翰约翰一个人。’就在这天，他不经过法庭，用二千英镑把这件事给了结了。约翰约翰对博伊佩服极了，事事处处都要模仿他。这对他们两人倒都挺好的。”
我走到房间那边，再次徒劳无益地试图调节散热器的热度。我喝了些放了冰块的水，把窗子打开，可是除了夜晚清冽的空气外，音乐声从隔壁那间屋子飘进来，那儿人们正放着收音机。我又关上窗户，转过身来朝我的妻子走过去。
她又开始详详细细地说开了，带着困倦的睡意……“花园里长得可茂盛了……你种的黄杨树篱去年长高了五英寸……我已经从伦敦找了几个人把网球场拾掇好了……当时第一流的厨师……”
当我们下面的城市醒过来的时候，我们两人却都睡着了，但是没过多久；电话铃响了，一个快乐的男不男女不女的声音说道：“萨沃伊——卡顿——旅馆——早安。现在是八点一刻。”
“我并没有要求你叫我，知道吗。”
“对不起。”
“噢，没关系。”
“向你问好。”
当我正在刮脸的时候，妻子在浴室中说道：“跟过去一样了。我不再担忧了，查尔斯。”
“很好。”
“我原来真是担心两年的时间可能会产生什么影响，现在我知道，我们可以完全从停下来的地方重新开始啦。”
“什么时候？”我问道，“什么？我们什么时候停下什么了？”
“自然是你离开的时候呗。”
“不久以前，你就没有想到别的事情？”
“哟，查尔斯，那是过去的事了。已经没什么了。从来也没有什么事。事情已经过去了，早忘掉了。”
“我只是想知道，”我说。“我们又回到我出国时我们那样的情形了，是吗？”
就这样，我们恰恰又在两年前我们停下来的地方开始了这一天的生活，我的妻子流下了眼泪。
我妻子的温柔和英国人的沉默气质，她的细小整齐的白牙齿，整洁的玫瑰色指甲，天真无邪的调皮的女学生样子和女学生的衣着，她那些昂贵的从远处看好像是成批生产的时髦首饰，她那常常挂在脸上善于应酬的微笑，她对我的尊敬顺从，她对我的爱好的热心，还有使她每日都要朝家里保姆拍海底电报的慈母之心——总而言之，她独具的魅力——使她在美国人当中很得人心。动身那天，我们的船舱里堆满了她认识不过一个星期的朋友们送的玻璃纸包装的大包小包礼品——鲜花、水果、糖、书籍和孩子们的玩具等等。而服务员也像育婴堂的修女一样，常常根据礼品的数量和价值来判断旅客的身份高下；所以航行开始时我们就倍受尊重。
一上了船我的妻子首先想到的就是旅客名单。
“有这么多的朋友呢，”她说，“这次旅行一定是很有意思的。今天晚上我们举办一次鸡尾酒会吧。”
升降口的扶梯刚一撤走，她就忙着打起电话来。
“朱莉娅吗？我是西莉娅——西莉娅·赖德。发现你也在船上真高兴极了。你一直在干什么呢？今天晚上到这儿来参加鸡尾酒会吧，跟我谈谈你的一切情况。”
“哪个朱莉娅？”
“朱莉娅·莫特拉姆呀。我好多年没有看见她了。”
我也好多年没见她了；事实上，自从我的婚礼那天起，我就再也没有见过她，自从我的画展预展以后也就再没有跟她说过话了，在那次画展上，布赖兹赫德提供的我画的那四幅马奇梅因公馆的油画挂在一起十分引人注目。这些画就是我和弗莱特家的最后联系了；我们密切来往了一两年，后来我们的生活就此分道扬镳。我知道塞巴斯蒂安还在国外；雷克斯和朱莉娅呢，我有时听说他们在一起并不幸福。雷克斯并没有完全像原来预测的那样飞黄腾达，他仍然停留在政府的边缘，名声不小，但令人暗生疑端。他与富豪们来往，他的讲演却似乎倾向革命政策，既向共产党又向法西斯暗送秋波。我听到人们在谈话中提到莫特拉姆的名字。当我翻着报纸不耐烦地等候某人的时候，我不时看到他们的面孔在《闲话报》上隐现，但是我和他们已经是陌路人了。人们在英国，而且只有在英国，才会处在隔离的世界里，彼此无关，各在一个旋转着的星球上。这个过程也许在物理学上可以找到十分贴切的比喻来，我模模糊糊地领悟到，带能量的粒子都是分别组合和重新组合到不同的磁力体系中；对于一个很有把握谈这类物理学现象的人们来说，这个比喻倒是现成的；但对于我却不适用，我只能说英国处处都有这种亲朋密友的小圈子，因此，就我和朱莉娅的情形而论，即使我们住在伦敦同一条街上，有时同时看到几英里外乡间的地平线，而且我们可能彼此很有好感，比较关心对方的前途，甚至为彼此分开感到惆怅，而且知道我们每一方只消拿起电话筒，就可以在枕边跟对方通话，说上几句，借以享受一下见面的亲密，仿佛随着早餐的橙汁和阳光一道进来；但是，由于受到我们各自的星球的向心力作用以及包围着各自的星球的冷寂的星际空间的限制而不能这样做。
我的妻子高踞在堆放在玻璃纸和丝绸彩带中的沙发背上，继续打着电话，兴致勃勃地查阅旅客名单……“是的，当然要带他来，听说他很可爱……是的，我终于把查尔斯从蛮荒的地方弄回来了；真够好的吧……没想到在登记簿上看到你的名字，真是太好啦！这使我的旅途……亲爱的，我们也是住在萨沃伊—卡顿旅馆呢，我们怎么能把你们漏掉呢？”……有时她转过身来对我说，“我得看看你是否确实还在那儿；我现在还不习惯呢。”
我走出舱外，这时轮船缓慢地驶进河道，我走向一扇大玻璃窗，旅客们正站在许多玻璃窗前注视着向后滑去的陆地。“有这么多朋友哩，”我妻子刚才是这么说的。这一群人对我来说都是素不相识的；刚才告别的激情也正在开始冷下去；有些人直到最后一刻还在和送行人一起饮酒话别，这时更是激情高涨；而另一些人则在盘算在什么地方弄到甲板坐椅；乐队不引人注意地演奏着——所有的人都像一群乱哄哄的蚂蚁。
我转身走进了几个娱乐厅，那里都非常大，但一点也不富丽堂皇，仿佛是设计成铁路车厢似的，而且荒唐地扩大了几倍。我走过一道巨大的青铜大门，上面刻着像纸一样薄的栩栩如生的亚述时代的动物；我脚下的地毯，颜色如同吸墨纸一样；彩绘的墙壁镶板也像吸墨纸一样——一种单调的、不鲜明的幼儿园的手工制品——在墙和墙之间有着一码又一码未经木匠斧凿过的淡褐色木头，还有墙角里扭弯了的镶木，它们经过蒸、挤、抛光，表面上看不出来地一片一片地连接起来；吸墨纸似的地毯上四处摆着大约是卫生设备工程师设计出来的桌子和填心的块料，块料上是方形的凹陷，可以坐进去，而且装上垫子，这些东西上面看上去似乎也显出吸墨纸的颜色；大厅的灯光从几十个洞中散射出来，光线均匀，没有留下阴影——整个大厅里充斥着上百个通风器的嗡鸣声，并且由于大厅下面转动着的巨大蒸汽机而颤动着。
“我回来了，”我想，“是从密林里归来，从废墟中归来。所以此时此刻，财富已不再那么令人目眩，权力也不再具有尊严。‘寂无人烟的城市就像这样屹立在那里’。”（我以前听到这句伟大的赞美诗，一次是科迪莉娅在马奇梅因公馆的客厅里给我念的，另一次是大约一年以前在危地马拉听一个混血儿的唱诗班唱的。）
一个服务员走到我跟前。
“先生，我可以给你弄点什么吃的吗？”
“一杯威士忌和苏打水，不要冰镇的。”
“非常抱歉，所有的苏打水都是冰镇的。”
“难道水也冰镇了吗？”
“是的，先生。”
“那好吧，冰镇就冰镇吧。”
他一溜小跑走开了，很困窘地在弥漫的嗡嗡声中无声无息地走掉了。
“查尔斯。”
我回过头去，只见朱莉娅正坐在一个吸墨纸般的方垫上，她的双手叠着放在大腿上，不声不响，所以我经过的时候没注意到她。
“我听说你也在这儿。西莉娅打电话告诉我的。真高兴。”
“你在干什么呢？”
她摊开放在腿上的空空的双手，做了一个优雅的手势。“在等着。我的女仆正在解行李；自从我们离开英国以来，她就一直很别扭。现在又抱怨起我的客舱来啦。真不知道有什么可抱怨的。好像我要的饮料来了。”
那个服务员又回来了，端着威士忌和两个杯子，一杯是冰镇水，另一杯是开水；我把酒和水兑在一起，使温度合适。他一边观察，一边说道：“先生，我得记住你是怎么兑的。”
大部分旅客都各有所好；他是雇来增强这些旅客的自信心的。朱莉娅要了一杯热巧克力。我挨着她坐在另一个方垫上。
“刚才我根本就没有看到你，”她说，“凡是我喜欢的人我似乎永远看不见。我不知道是怎么回事。”
可是她说话的口气就仿佛只是隔了几个星期，而不是已经隔了很多年了；而且好像我们在分别以前就已经是挚友似的。时光的流逝筑起了层层防线，把薄弱环节伪装起来，并且除了几条人来人往的熟路以外到处都布了地雷，因而我们大概只能在缠得乱七八糟的电线的这一头，向对方发发信号而已。像这样的不期而遇，情形就与普通的经历大不相同了。我和她以前算不上什么朋友，现在却以长期亲密无间的关系在这里相遇了。
“你在美国干些什么来着？”
她喝着巧克力，这时慢慢扬起头来，抬起那双明亮而严肃的眼睛看着我的眼睛，说：“你不知道吗？那我以后什么时候再告诉你吧。我真是个傻瓜。我自以为我爱上了什么人，可是结果并不是那么回事。”这时我的思绪回到了十年前在布赖兹赫德的那个夜晚，当时这个可爱的、细胳膊瘦腿的十九岁的女孩，仿佛是从育婴室带出来待一个小时，由于成年人不注意她而着恼，当时她说道：“我也在引起别人心神不安呢，你知道。”而我当时想：“这些姑娘把她们的恋爱看得多么重要啊。”但现在我却几乎没有这种看法了。
现在情形却不相同了；她说话的态度只剩下谦卑和亲切的直爽了。
我本希望对她的这种信任能有所反应，做出接受的表示，可是在我过去平淡的、多事的岁月里，实在没有什么可以与她同甘共苦的东西。我只好跟她谈谈我在丛林中的日子，遇到过的滑稽可笑的人物，游历过的废墟遗址，可是老交情的心情使故事讲得吞吞吐吐，最后突然中断了。
“我渴望看看那些画儿，”她说道。
“西莉娅为了鸡尾酒会也希望我能拿出一些挂在客舱里，这我办不到。”
“对的……西莉娅还那么漂亮吗？我一向认为比起当年我们那些女孩子来，她长得最秀气了。”
“她没有什么变化。”
“你变了，查尔斯。你瘦多啦，也严峻了；一点儿也不是当年塞巴斯蒂安带回家来的那个漂亮的男孩子了。也更刚强了。”
“而你却更温柔了。”
“是的，我也这么觉得……而且现在很有耐性。”
她还不到三十岁，正走向她美的顶峰，她原来丰富的潜在的美已经完全显现出来了。她已经没有了当年风行一时的那种细胳膊瘦腿的模样了；而我曾经觉得具有意大利文艺复兴时期风味的头，原来多少有些不协调地长在她的肩上，现在真正成了她自己的一部分，完全没有佛洛伦萨美人的风韵了；如果不是多多少少同绘画、或是同艺术等类事情联系起来的话，要对她的美详加列举，细加分析是无济于事的，她的美丽是她的本质，只有在她身上，得到她的认可，在我很快就要对她产生的爱情中她的美才能被理解。
岁月还造成了另一种变化，对于她来说，倒没有那种含蓄而自得其乐的蒙娜丽莎式的微笑；岁月比“七弦竖琴和长笛的声音”更使她忧愁。她仿佛在说：“看看我吧。我尽了我的本分。我是美丽的。我的美是不寻常的美。我是为快乐而生的。可是我从中得到什么呢？而我的报酬又在哪儿呢？”
这就是她十年来的变化；这确实就是她的报酬，那种令人魂牵梦绕的具有魔力的哀伤，它直接向心灵倾诉并使人沉默。这就是她的美的顶峰。
“也更哀伤了。”我说道。
“噢，不错，哀伤得多了。”
两个小时以后我回到了客舱，这时我的妻子精神饱满，情绪高涨。
“我不得不把一切都准备好了。看上去怎么样？”
我们没有花过多的钱，一套宽绰的舱房就为我们准备好了，其中的一间大得除了这家轮船公司的董事们使用外实际上很少预订出去，在大多数的航行中，经事务长同意，这套舱房常常租给他希望致以敬意的旅客。（我的妻子是很擅长捞取这种小小实惠的，先是用她的漂亮和我的声望给很吃这一套的人以深刻印象，一旦优势既已造成，马上变换出一种讨人喜欢的姿态来。）为了表示她的谢意，事务长被邀请来参加鸡尾酒会，而他为了表示他的谢意，在赴会之前送了一只和实物一般大小的天鹅塑像，塑像是用冰浇铸出来的，里面填满了鱼子酱。这件寒气逼人的豪华礼物雄视全屋，摆在房子中央的桌子上，它渐渐地融化，天鹅喙上滴下的水落在盛它的那只银盘子里。今天早上送来的鲜花尽可能地把镶板都遮盖住了（这间客舱是上面那个巨大的大厅的雏形）。
“你得赶快换礼服了。你一直在哪儿呀？”
“跟朱莉娅·莫特拉姆聊天。”
“你认识她？噢，自然啦，你以前是她那嗜酒如命的哥哥的朋友。谢天谢地，她还挺有魅力吧！”
“她也极为称赞你的漂亮呢。”
“她原来还是博伊的一位女朋友呢。”
“不至于吧？”
“他自己常常这么说的。”
“你考虑过没有，”我问道，“你的客人们怎么吃里面的鱼子酱呢？”
“考虑过了。是不好办。不过东西这儿全有啦。”——她给我看了装满几个托盘的透明的美味珍品——“不管怎么样，参加酒会的人总找得到吃东西的办法的。你还记得我们有一次曾有一把裁纸刀吃罐装的小虾吗？”
“是吗？”
“亲爱的，就是你求婚的那个晚上嘛。”
“就我记得，是你求的婚。”
“好啦，反正是我们订婚的那个晚上。可是你还没有说你觉得安排得如何呢。”
所谓安排，除了那只天鹅和那些鲜花以外，还包括一个已经无法脱身、被困在临时柜台后面角落里的服务员，和另外一个手里端着托盘相对地要自由得多的服务员。
“一个电影演员的梦。”我说。
“电影演员们，”我的妻子说，“这正是我要谈论的。”
她跟着我来到化妆室，我一边换衣服，她一边跟我说话。她脑子一转便想到，既然我的兴趣是在建筑方面，那我的专长就是给电影设计布景，所以就邀请了两位好莱坞的大亨参加鸡尾酒会，并且希望我巴结巴结他们。
我们又回到起居室。
“亲爱的，我知道你对我的这只鸟很反感。在事务长面前可不要对它太厉害了。他想到这个也怪不错的了。再说，你知道，如果你在描述十六世纪威尼斯宴会的情况中看到过这种天鹅的话，那么你就会说这是那个时代的再现啦。”
“十六世纪威尼斯天鹅的样子也会有些不同的。”
“这位是圣诞老人。我们对你的这只天鹅都喜欢得发狂啦。”
那位事务长走进客舱，有力地和人们握了握手。
“亲爱的西莉娅夫人，”他说道，“明天如果你愿意穿上最暖和的衣服，和我到冷库里去探探险的话，我还能让你看到一条装着这类东西的完整的诺亚方舟。烤面包片一会儿就来。他们正在把它烤热一些。”
“烤面包片！”我的妻子说道，仿佛烤面包片是什么超过大吃大喝的美味。“你听见了吗，查尔斯？烤面包片呀。”
客人们很快就陆续光临了；没有什么事情耽搁他们。“西莉娅，”客人们都说，“多么大的客舱啊！多么漂亮的天鹅啊！”尽管这间客舱是全船最大的，这里还是很快就挤得水泄不通了。这时客人们也开始在环绕着那只天鹅的小水池里熄灭他们的烟头了。
这时事务长照水手们的习惯预言将有一场暴风雨来临，于是造成了一阵骚动。“你怎么这么狠心啊？”我妻子问道，弦外之音让人听出一种讨好恭维的意思，似乎不仅这间客舱，这些鱼子酱，而且还有风浪也都统统听候这个事务长的调遣似的。“不管怎么样，暴风雨总不会影响到这样的一条客轮吧？”
“也许会稍微阻碍我们航行。”
“不过不会使我们晕船吧？”
“那就要看你是不是一个不晕船的人了。在暴风雨中我总是晕船，我从小就是这样。”
“这我可不信。他这是故意折磨人的。到这儿来，我给你看点儿东西。”
那是一张她的孩子们的近照。“查尔斯还没有见过卡罗琳呢。看了一定会快乐得发抖啦。”
这里没有我的朋友，不过三分之一参加酒会的人我都认识，我十分彬彬有礼地和他们一直聊天。一个老妇人对我说，“你就是查尔斯啊。我觉得我彻底了解你了，西莉娅谈你谈得可多啦。”
“彻底了解，”我在心里想，“彻底了解可需要很长时间呀，夫人。难道你真能够看透我企图支配自己思想感情的隐秘地方吗？难道你能够跟我讲清楚，施托伊弗桑特·奥格兰德夫人——我妻子这样叫你，如果我没有听错的话——那么为什么就在此刻，我和你在这里一边谈我即将举行的展览，却一直在想朱莉娅什么时候会来呢？为什么我能跟你这样聊天，跟她却不能呢？为什么我已经把她和我自己置身于世人之外呢？你知道我精神的隐秘地方正在发生些什么吗？你竟敢肆意胡说？施托伊弗桑特·奥格兰德夫人，你在捏造些什么呢？”
朱莉娅还没有来，这间房子本来由于太大而没有人租用，现在这间小屋里二十余人的喧闹声，却成了一大群人的吵闹声。
这时我看到一个很出奇的家伙。那边有一个红脑袋的小个子男人，似乎谁也不认识他，而且这个邋里邋遢的家伙也完全不像我妻子的客人那一流人；他一直站在鱼子酱旁边，有二十来分钟了，吃得就像野兔吃食一样快。这时他用手帕揩干净嘴，显然是一时冲动，他向前探探身子，轻轻地擦了擦天鹅的嘴，擦掉了一滴已经凝聚在天鹅嘴上马上就要滴落下去的水珠。然后他偷偷摸摸地四下里张望了一下，看看是不是有人注意他，他碰到了我的眼光，就神经质地咯咯笑起来。
“早就想干这个了，”他说道，“谅你也不知道每分钟滴多少下。我可知道，我数过了。”
“不知道。”
“猜猜看。如果你错了就给六便士；如果你猜着了就是半个美元。这是很公平合理的。”
“三下。”我说。
“哦呀呀，你真够机灵的。你自己一直在数着吧。”不过他并没有露出要付款的意思来，而是说，“你是怎么算出来的啊。我生长在英国，不过这是头一次在大西洋上航行呢。”
“大概你是坐飞机出国的吧？”
“不对，根本没有坐过飞机。”
“那我猜你是环绕地球，从太平洋那边绕过来的吧？”
“你真够机灵的，没错儿。我还因为这个问题跟别人争论得相当厉害呢。”
“那你走的是哪条路线呢？”我问道，想要投其所好。
“啊，这以后再说吧。好啦，我得赶快逃啦，再见！”
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谢谢分享
