menu_book Chapter 24

CHAPTER XVIII. The Orson's bedroom was, as the maid would remark, a proper pink-sty, until he was out of it and could be renovated each day. He had a talent for disorder, said that the room looked as if three men instead of one had gone to bed in it. Clothes and shoes, brushes, water, tumblers, breakfast-tay, newspapers, French novels, cigarette-ends, none were ever

where they should have been, and the stale fumes from the many cigarettes he smoked before getting up, incommoded anyone whose duty it was to take him tea and shaving-water. When, on that first real summer day, the maid had brought Rosick up to him, he had been lying a long time on his back, dreamily watching the smoke from his cigarette and four flies waltzing in the sunlight that filtered through the green sun-blinds. This hour before he

rose was his creative moment, when he could best see the form of music and feel inspiration for its rendering. Of late he'd been stale and wretched, all that side of him dull. But this morning he felt again the delicious stir of fancy, that vibrating half-dreamy state when emotion seems so easily to find shape and the mind pierces through to new expression. Hearing the maid's knock and her murmured,

"'Count Rosick to see you, sir,' he thought. What the devil does he want? A larger nature, drifting without control, in contact with a smaller one who knows his own mind exactly, would instinctively be irritable, though he may fail to grasp what his friend is after.' And pushing the cigarette-box towards Rosick, he turned away his head. It would be money he had come about, or, oh, that girl, that girl, he wished she was dead, soft clinging

to that creature, a baby, God! What a fool he'd been! What a fool! Such absurdity, unheard of! First Jip, then her. He'd tried to shake the girl off, as well try to shake off a burr, how she'd clung. He'd been patient, oh yes, patient and kind. But how come a man was tired, tired of her, and wanting only Jip, only his own wife? That was a funny thing. And now, went for an hour or two, he'd shaken free of worry, had been feeling happy. Yes, happy.

This fellow must come and stand there with his face of a sphinx. And he said petishly, Well, Paul, sit down. What troubles have you brought? Rosick left a cigarette, but did not sit down. He struck even Fjorsen by his unsmiling pallor. You had better look out for Mr Wagg, Gustaf. He came to see me yesterday. He has no music in his soul. Fjorsen sat up. Satan take Mr Wagg. What can he do? I'm not a lawyer, but I imagine he can be unpleasant.

The girl is young. Fjorsen glared at him and said, Why did you throw me that cursed girl? Rosick answered a little too steadily. I did not, my friend. What? You did. What was your game? You never do anything without a game. You know you did. Come, what was your game? You like pleasure, I believe. Fjorsen said varmely, Look here, I have done with your friendship. You are no friend to me. I have never really known you, and I should not wish to. It is finished. Leave me in peace.

Rosick smiled. My dear, that is all very well, but friendships are not finished like that. Moreover, you owe me a thousand pounds. Well, I will pay it. Rosick's eyebrows mounted. I will. Jip will lend it to me. Oh, is Jip so fond of you as that? I thought she only loved her music lessons. Scratching forward with his knees drawn up, Fjorsen hissed out, Don't talk of Jip. Get out of this. I will pay you your thousand pounds.

Rosick, still smiling, answered, Christoph, don't be a fool. With a violin to your shoulder, you are a man. Without, you are a child. Lie quiet, my friend, and think of Mr Wagg. But you had better come and talk it over with me. Goodbye for the moment. Calm yourself. And, flipping the ash of his cigarette onto the tray by Fjorsen's elbow, he nodded and went. Fjorsen, who had leaped out of bed, put his hand to his head. The cursed fellow. Curse

be every one of them, the father and the girl, Rosick and all the other sharks. He went out onto the landing. The house was quite still below. Rosick had gone good riddance. He called, Jip. No answer. He went into her room. Its superlative daintiness struck his fancy. A scent of syclamen. He looked out into the garden. There was the baby at the end, and that fat woman. No Jip. Never in when she was wanted.

Wagg. He shivered. And going back into his bedroom, took a brandy bottle from a locked cupboard and drank some. He steadied him. He locked up the cupboard again and dressed. Going out to the music room, he stopped under the trees to make passes with his fingers at the baby. Sometimes he felt that it was an adorable little creature, with its big, dark eyes, so like Jip's. Sometimes it excited his disgust. A discoloured brat. This morning, while looking at it,

he thought suddenly of the other that was coming, and grimaced. Catching Betty's stare of horrified amazement at the face he was making at her darling, he burst into a laugh and turned away into the music room. While he was keying up his violin, Jip's conduct in never having come there for so long struck him as bitterly unjust. The girl who cared about the wretched girl, as if she had made any real difference. It was all so much deeper than that.

Jip had never loved him, never given him what he wanted, never quenched his thirst of her. That was the heart of it. No other woman he had ever had to do with had been like that, kept his thirst unquenched. No, he had already tired of them before they tired of him. She gave him nothing, really. Nothing. Had she no heart, or did she give it elsewhere? What was that Paul had said about her music lessons? Suddenly it struck him that he knew

nothing, absolutely nothing, of where she went or what she did. She never told him anything. Music lessons? Every day nearly she went out was away for hours. The thought that she might go to the arms of another man made him put down his violin with a feeling of actual sickness. Why not? That deep and fearful whipping of the sexual instinct which makes the ache of jealousy so truly terrible was at its full in such a nature as Fioson's. He drew a long breath and shuddered.

The remembrance of her fastidious pride, her candour, above all her passivity, cut in across his fear. No, not Jip. He went to a little table whereon he stood a tampilas, tumblers and a siphon and, pouring out some brandy, drank. It steadied him, and he began to practice. He took a passage from Brahms' violin concerto and began to play it over and over. Suddenly he found he was repeating the same flaws each time. He was not attending. The tinkering of that thing was ghastly.

Music lessons? Why did she take them? Waste of time and money she would never be anything but an amateur. Unconsciously he had stopped playing. Had she gone there today? It was past lunchtime. Perhaps she had come in. He put down his violin and went back to the house. No sign of her. The maid came to ask if he would lunch. No. Was the mistress to be in? She had not said. He went into the dining room, ate a biscuit and drank a brandy and soda. It steadied him. Lighting a

cigarette he came back to the drawing room and sat down at Jip's bureau. How tidy. On the little calendar a pencil cross was set against today, Wednesday, another against Friday. What for? Music lessons. He reached to a pigeon-hole and took out her address book. H. Harmost, 305A, Malverpun Road. And against it, the words in pencil, 3 P.M. Three o'clock. So that was her hour. His eyes rested idly on a little old coloured print of a back auntie with flowing green scarf,

shaking a tambourine at her naked cupid, who, with a baby bow and arrow in his hands, was gazing up at her. He turned it over. On the back was written in a pointed, squiggly hand, to my little friend E. H. The awesome Drew smelt deep down into his lungs, expelled it slowly and went to the piano. He opened it and began to play, staring vacantly before him. The cigarette burned nearly to his lips. He went on scarcely knowing what he played.

At last he stopped and sat dejected. A great artist. Often nowadays he did not care if he never touched a violin again. Tired of standing up before a sea of dull faces, seeing the blockades knock their silly hands one against the other. Sick of the sameness of it all. Besides, besides, were his powers beginning to fail? What was happening to him of late? He got up, went into the dining room and drank some brandy. Chip could not bear his drinking. Well, she shouldn't be out

so much taking music lessons. Music lessons! Nearly three o'clock. If he went for once and saw what she really did, went and offered her his escort home, an attention it might please her. Better anyway than waiting here until she chose to come in with her face all closed up. He drank a little more brandy, ever so little. Took his hat and went. Not far to walk, but the sun was hot and he reached the house feeling rather dizzy. A maid servant opened the door to him.

I am Mr Fjorsson. Mrs Fjorsson here? Yes, sir. Would you wait? Did she look at him like that? Ugly girl! How hateful ugly people were! When she was gone, he reopened the door of the waiting room and listened. Chopin. The Polonaise in A-flat. Good. Could that be Chip? Very good. He moved out down the passage drawn on by her playing and softly turned the handle. The music stopped. He went in. When Winton had left him an hour and a half later that afternoon,

Fjorsson continued to stand at the front door swaying his body to and fro. The brandy-nerd churn burst of jealousy which had made him insult his wife and old Monsieur Amoust had died suddenly when Chip turned on him in the street and spoke in that icy voice. Since then he'd felt fear increasing every minute. Would she forgive? The one who always acted on the impulse of the moment said that he really knew afterward exactly what he had done or whom hurt. Chip's self-control had

ever been mysterious and a little frightening. Where had she gone? Why did she not come in? Anxiety is like a ball that rolls downhill gathering momentum. Suppose she did not come back? But she must. There was the baby, their baby. The first time the fortific gave him unalloyed satisfaction. He left the door and after drinking at last to steady him flung himself down on the sofa in the drawing-room. While he lay there the brandy warm within him, he thought,

I would turn over a new leaf, give up drink, give up everything, send the baby into the country, take Chip to Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Rome, anywhere out of this England, anywhere, away from that father of hers and all these stiff, dull folk. She liked that. She loved traveling. Yes, they would be happy. Delicious nights, delicious days, air that did not weigh you down and make you feel that you must drink. Real inspiration, real music. The acrid wood-smoke

scent of parished streets, the glistening cleanness of the tear-garden, a serenading song in a Florence back street, fireflies in the summer dusk at Sorrento. He had intoxicated memories of them all. Slowly the warmth of the brandy died away and despite the heat he felt chill and shuddery. He shut his eyes thinking to sleep till she came in, but very soon he opened them because, I think unusual with him of late, he saw such ugly things, faces, vivid, changing as he looked,

growing ugly and uglier, becoming all holes, holes, horrible holes, corruption, matted, twisted, dark, human tree roots of faces, horrible. He opened his eyes, for when he did that they always went. It was very silent, no sign from above, no sound of the dogs. He would go up and see the baby. While he was crossing the hall there came a ring. He opened the door himself, a telegram. He tore the envelope. Jip and the baby are with me, letter follows. Winton. He gave a short laugh,

shut the door in the boy's face and ran upstairs. Why, heaven knew, there was nobody there now, nobody. Did he mean that she had really left him, was not coming back? He stopped by the side of Jip's bed and flinging himself forward lay across it burying his face and he sobbed, as men will, unmanned by drink. Had he lost her? Never to see her eyes closing and press his lips against them? Never to soak his senses in her loveliness? He deeped up with the tears still wet on his face.

Lost her? Absurd. That calm, prim, devilish Englishman, her father, he was to blame, he had worked it all, stealing the baby. He went downstairs and drank some brandy. It steadied him a little. What should he do? Letter follows. Drink and wait? Go to Berry Street? No. Drink. Enjoy himself. He laughed and, catching up his hat, went out, walking furiously first, then slower and slower, for his head began to whirl, and taking a cab was driven to a restaurant

in Soho. He had eaten nothing but a biscuit since his breakfast, always a small matter, and ordered soup and a flask of their best Chianti, solids he could not face. For the two hours he sat white and silent, perspiration on his forehead, now and then grinning and flourishing his fingers, to the amusement, sometimes the alarm, of those sitting near. But for being known there, he would have been regarded with suspicion. About half past nine there had been no more wine.

He got up, put a piece of gold on the table, and went out without waiting for his change. In the streets the lamps were lighted, but daylight was not quite gone. He walked unsteadily towards Piccadilly. A girl of the town passed and looked up at him. Staring hard, he hooked his arm in hers without a word. It titted him, and they walked on thus together. Suddenly he said, Well, girl, are you happy?

She stopped and tried to disengage her arm. A rather frightened look had come into her dark-eyed, powdered face. He also laughed and held it firm. When the young happy meets, they walk together. Come on, you're just a little like my wife. Will you have a drink? She shook her head, and with a sudden movement slipped her arm out of this madman's, and dived away like a swallow through the pavement traffic. Gerson stood still and laughed with his head thrown

back. The second time today, she had slipped from his grasp. Passers looked at him amazed. The ugly devils! With a grimace he turned out of Piccadilly past St James's Church, making for Berry Street. They wouldn't let him in, of course, not they. But he would look at the windows. They had flower boxes. Flower boxes! And suddenly he groaned aloud. He thought of Jib's figure busy among the flowers at home. Missing the right turning, he came in at the

bottom of the street. A fiddler in the gutter was scraping away on an old violin. Gerson stopped to listen. Poor devil! Pagliacci! Going up to the man, dark, lame, very shabby, he took out some silver and put his other hand on the man's shoulder. Brother, he said, Name me your fiddle. Here's money for you. Come, lend it to me. I am a great violinist. Vraiment, monsieur? Ah, vraiment, voyons. Donnez un instant pour vous verrez. The fiddler, doubting but hypnotized, handed him the fiddle.

His dark face changed when he saw this stranger fling it up to his shoulder and the ways of his fingers with bow and strings. Gerson had begun to walk up the street, his eyes searching for the flower boxes. He saw them, stopped, and began playing. Che faro! He played it wonderfully on that poor fiddle. And the fiddler, who had followed at his elbow, stood watching him, uneasy, envious, but a little entranced. Sapristi! This tall, pale monsieur with his strange face and the eyes that

looked drunk and the hollow chest played like an angel. Ha! But it was not so easy as all that to make money in the streets of this sacred town. He might play like forty angels and not a copper. He begun another tune, like little plucking into your heart, very jolly. Do a fioncouron. Ah, there it was. A monsieur, as usual, closing the window, drawing the curtains, always the same thing. The violin and the bow were thrust back into his hands,

and the tall, strange monsieur was off, as if devils were after him. Not bad they drunk that one. And not a sou thrown down, but an uneasy feeling that he had been involved in something that he did not understand. A lame, dark fiddler limped his way round the nearest corner, and for two streets at least did not stop. Then, counting the silver fjossen put into his hand, and carefully examining his fiddle, he used the word MIGRE and started for home.