giggling.
“—was just cycling past—never dreamed—so this is the training college, is it? I come along this road a lot or shall do in the future. Yes, a course. I prefer cycling between the other place and the other place—no buses for me. Can’t stand ’em. Course in lithography. Were you going back to your digs? No. I’ll walk. Can I carry? Are you enjoying it here? Is the work hard? You seem to be thriving on—yes. Look. I was going to have a cup of tea before I ride the rest—how—oh, but you must! One doesn’t meet—and after all these months, too! Lyons. Yes. I can leave the bike——”
There was a small round table of imitation marble on three iron legs. She was sitting on the other side. I had her now for whole minutes, islanded out of all the complexities of living. By sheer hard work and calculation I had brought this about. There was much to be achieved in those minutes, things noted down and decided, steps to be taken; she was to be brought—oh, irony! a little nearer to a complete loss of freedom. I heard my voice babbling on, saying its lines, making the suggestions that were too general to be refused, the delicately adjusted assumptionsthat were to build up into an obligation; I heard my voice consolidating this renewed acquaintance and edging diplomatically a trifle further; but I watched her unpaintable, indescribable face and I wanted to say—you are the most mysterious and beautiful thing in the universe, I want you and your altar and your friends and your thoughts and your world. I am so jealousy-maddened I could kill the air for touching you. Help me. I have gone mad. Have mercy. I want to be you.
The clever, unscrupulous, ridiculous voice murmured on.
When she got up to go, I went with her, talking all the time, talking an attentive, amusing—oh, the calculated stories! pleasant young man into the picture; erasing the other Sammy, so incalculable, insolent and namelessly vicious. When she stopped dismissively on the pavement I accepted this as if the sky was not reeling round me. I allowed her to go, attached to me by a line no thicker than a hair, but at least, if one could not say that she had swallowed the fly, it was still there, dancing over the water; and she, she was still there—she had not flicked her tail and vanished under weed or rock. I watched her go and turned to my bike with something accomplished—a meeting with Beatrice in the privacy of a crowd, a contact re-established. I rode home, my heart molten with delight, goodness and gratitude. For it was good. She was nineteen and I was nineteen; we were male and female, we would marry though she did not know that yet—must not know that yet, lest she vanish under weed or rock. Moreover there was peace. For she would be working at her books tonight. Nothing could touch her. Until the next afternoon—for who knew what she would do that evening?Dance? Cinema? With whom? Nevertheless the jealousy was to-morrow’s jealousy and for twenty-four hours she was safe. I surrounded her with gratitude and love that came out strongly as a sense of blessing, un-sexual and generous. Those who have nothing are made wild with delight by very little. Once again as at school I yearned not to exploit but protect.
So my tiny thread was attached to her and I did not see that with every additional thread I myself was bound with another cable. Of course I went back next day, against my better judgment but with a desperate impulse to move on, to hurry things up; and she was not there, did not come. Then I spent an evening of misery and hung about the next day all the afternoon.
“Hullo, Beatrice! It looks as if we are going to meet quite often!”
But she had to hurry, she said, was going out that evening. I left her on the pavement with Lyons like an unvisited heaven and agonized as she vanished into the infinite possibilities of going out. Now I had ample time to consider the problems of attachment. I began to appreciate dimly that a
“—was just cycling past—never dreamed—so this is the training college, is it? I come along this road a lot or shall do in the future. Yes, a course. I prefer cycling between the other place and the other place—no buses for me. Can’t stand ’em. Course in lithography. Were you going back to your digs? No. I’ll walk. Can I carry? Are you enjoying it here? Is the work hard? You seem to be thriving on—yes. Look. I was going to have a cup of tea before I ride the rest—how—oh, but you must! One doesn’t meet—and after all these months, too! Lyons. Yes. I can leave the bike——”
There was a small round table of imitation marble on three iron legs. She was sitting on the other side. I had her now for whole minutes, islanded out of all the complexities of living. By sheer hard work and calculation I had brought this about. There was much to be achieved in those minutes, things noted down and decided, steps to be taken; she was to be brought—oh, irony! a little nearer to a complete loss of freedom. I heard my voice babbling on, saying its lines, making the suggestions that were too general to be refused, the delicately adjusted assumptionsthat were to build up into an obligation; I heard my voice consolidating this renewed acquaintance and edging diplomatically a trifle further; but I watched her unpaintable, indescribable face and I wanted to say—you are the most mysterious and beautiful thing in the universe, I want you and your altar and your friends and your thoughts and your world. I am so jealousy-maddened I could kill the air for touching you. Help me. I have gone mad. Have mercy. I want to be you.
The clever, unscrupulous, ridiculous voice murmured on.
When she got up to go, I went with her, talking all the time, talking an attentive, amusing—oh, the calculated stories! pleasant young man into the picture; erasing the other Sammy, so incalculable, insolent and namelessly vicious. When she stopped dismissively on the pavement I accepted this as if the sky was not reeling round me. I allowed her to go, attached to me by a line no thicker than a hair, but at least, if one could not say that she had swallowed the fly, it was still there, dancing over the water; and she, she was still there—she had not flicked her tail and vanished under weed or rock. I watched her go and turned to my bike with something accomplished—a meeting with Beatrice in the privacy of a crowd, a contact re-established. I rode home, my heart molten with delight, goodness and gratitude. For it was good. She was nineteen and I was nineteen; we were male and female, we would marry though she did not know that yet—must not know that yet, lest she vanish under weed or rock. Moreover there was peace. For she would be working at her books tonight. Nothing could touch her. Until the next afternoon—for who knew what she would do that evening?Dance? Cinema? With whom? Nevertheless the jealousy was to-morrow’s jealousy and for twenty-four hours she was safe. I surrounded her with gratitude and love that came out strongly as a sense of blessing, un-sexual and generous. Those who have nothing are made wild with delight by very little. Once again as at school I yearned not to exploit but protect.
So my tiny thread was attached to her and I did not see that with every additional thread I myself was bound with another cable. Of course I went back next day, against my better judgment but with a desperate impulse to move on, to hurry things up; and she was not there, did not come. Then I spent an evening of misery and hung about the next day all the afternoon.
“Hullo, Beatrice! It looks as if we are going to meet quite often!”
But she had to hurry, she said, was going out that evening. I left her on the pavement with Lyons like an unvisited heaven and agonized as she vanished into the infinite possibilities of going out. Now I had ample time to consider the problems of attachment. I began to appreciate dimly that a
Similar Books
