Chapter VIII: Part TWO: Andante Cantabile (3)

Of course, it is very natural that young men and women should be interested in ideas, which are new to them though probably stale enough to those a bit older. But the young War Generation seem to me to have been abnormally swayed by ideas of grandiose “Social reform.” England swarmed with Social Reformers. I don’t pretend to know why. Perhaps it was due to the political idealism of Ruskin and Morris, aided by the infinitely more sensible work of the Fabians. Everybody was the architect of a New Jerusalem, and a rummy assortment of plans they provided. This passion has now reached the disinterested and noble-minded trade unionist and to some extent even the agricultural labourer. Consequently, you may now hear, at Hyde Park Corner or in pubs or third-class carriages, beautifully garbled versions of the highbrow talk of about twenty years ago. You thus have the encouraging and delightful spectacle of a proletariat eagerly expecting a millennium, impossible at any time, but particularly impossible after a catastrophe which has plunged the intellectuals into Spenglerian pessimism and hurled the weaker or more cynical into the ironic bosom of Mother Church....

George was pretty much affected by this social reform bunk. He was always looking at things from “the point of view of the Country” and far more frequently from “the point of view of humanity.” This may have been a result of his Public School, kicked-backside-of-the-Empire training. I know he resisted it with commendable contempt and fury, but where so much pitch was flying about he could scarcely avoid some of it. Perhaps the young are always like that, although one does not seem to notice it. As I pointed out to George years afterwards, he was quite right to discuss the matter frankly and openly with Elizabeth before they proceeded further, but all this bunk about eugenics and women’s rights and preventing wars by birth control would have discouraged any girl who had not fully made up her mind already that she wanted him. It was appallingly bad strategy as seduction—though, _en passant_ let it be noted that “seduction” is one of those primitive notions which could only inhabit the degenerate minds of lawyers and social uplifters, since in nine cases out of ten the “seducer,” if any, is the woman. I thought that George ought to have imparted a little elementary information, and have pointed out that in the present state of human affairs it is not quite right for people to have a child without being legally married because it’s so hard on the child, although in some cases it should be done deliberately as a protest against a foolish prejudice. He ought then to have explained how it may spoil a sexual relationship to have a child too soon and unthinkingly. And he should then have demonstrated by example and precept that love is an art, and a very difficult art, and one most dismally and disastrously neglected especially by “well-bred” Englishmen. It sounds incredible but it is true that there are thousands of such men, perfectly decent, humane persons, who despise a woman if they think or know that she experiences any sexual pleasure. And then they wonder vaguely why women are shrewish and discontented....

All this will sound very elementary to some people and very reprehensible to others. I am simply trying to explain these people. Of course, there is always the superior person who veils puritanism by saying: “I’m so bored with all this talk about sex. Why can’t people go to bed with the person they want to, and stop talking about it?” Well, why shouldn’t we talk about what interests us, and what, after all, is extremely important to adult life and happiness? Maybe we can learn something from the adulteries of others. It seems to me that the error of the Elizabeth and George generation was that they were far too absolute, too general, too dogmatic in their “ideas” about sex. They _would_ let the Social Reform bunk distort their view. They had seen in their own homes the dreadful unhappiness and suffering caused by Victorian, and indeed Edwardian, ignorance and domestic dennery and swarming infants, and they reacted violently against it. So far, good. But they failed to see that in the way they went about it, they were merely setting up another tyranny—the tyranny of free love. Why shouldn’t people be monogamous if they want to be? Maybe it suits them. Don’t be dragooned into it, of course, but don’t be frightened out of it if you’re made that way. There are certain elementary precepts which always hold good—for instance, Balzac’s “Never begin marriage with a rape”—but this is a wholly personal and very complex and delicate relation which people must work out for themselves. All one asks is that they shall not be interfered with by law and busybodies. It is an interesting comment on the sadism latent in communities that the cruelty and misery of the Victorian home are legally protected and held up as shining examples of behaviour, whereas any attempt to make people a little more natural and happy and tolerant is supposed to be wicked. How men destroy their own happiness! How they hate happiness and pleasure! Think of the insane delusion of female chastity which holds that any woman who has “had” more than one man is “impure,” whereas in fact many women soon come to dislike profoundly their first lover, and most are only really happy and satisfied with a fourth or sixth or tenth.

Alas! “with human nature what it is,” the love-lives of most people will always alternate between brief periods of happiness and long periods of suffering. The “sexual problem” will only be solved with the millennium which produces a perfect humanity. Until then we can only look on and sigh at the ruined lives; and reflect that men and women might be to each other the great consolation, while in fact they do little but torment each other....

* * * * *

I do not pity Elizabeth and George. They were very happy that day—and on other days—and to be quite happy even for one day is sufficient sanction for the misfortune of existence.

They went from the Wilderness into the large garden and walked slowly beside the Long Border where the gardeners were busily potting out spring flowers. The crocuses were almost over, and the large motor lawn-mower was smoothly humming over the delicate green turf of the great lawns. They looked at the trimmed yews and wondered if they had been planted by Cardinal Wolsey. They criticized, somewhat adversely, the lead statue of the three Graces and, walking under the trees by the canals, noticed the cold green lily-leaves just beginning to unfold under water. They stood at the end of the Long Border and for a long time in silence watched the swirl and eddy of the Thames, the house-boats being freshly painted for the season, the exquisite swaying fronds of the young willows. In the Privy Garden, on the raised walk and under the lime-tree avenue where the great clumps of crocuses lay sprawled and dying and overgrown at the foot of each tree, they talked of King Charles, and fought over the age-old contest of King and Parliament. Elizabeth was romantically for the handsome melancholy King; George Whiggish and all for political freedom, though gravely disapproving of Puritan vandalism. They went through the Fountain Court and the beautiful Tudor Courts, and walked along the river, and sat under a tree to eat their lunch. They talked and argued and laughed and made plans and reformed the world and felt important (God knows why!) and held hands and kissed when they thought no one was looking.... And yes, they were very happy.

* * * * *

Dear Lovers! If it were not for you, how dreary the world would be! Never shall a pair of you pass me without a kindly discreet glance and a murmured wish, “Be happy.” How my heart warmed to an old French poet as we walked slowly on the Boulevard, and the lovers in the soft evening air passed us by, hand so close in hand, bodies so amorously near, eyes so sparkling and alive. Now and then, in the intoxicating air of the spring and the tolerant kindliness of the Parisians, a pair would feel so exuberant and so enthusiastic and so moved with each other’s perfections, that they would have to stop and exchange a long kiss, perfunctorily hidden by a quite inadequate tree-trunk. Nobody interrupted them, nobody scowled, no policeman arrested them for indecency. And the old poet paused, and laid his hand on my arm, and said: “Mon ami, I grow old! I am nearly sixty. And sometimes as I pass along these streets and see these warm young people I find myself thinking: ‘How impudique! Why is this permitted? Why do they intrude their passions on me?’ And then I remember that I too was young, and I too passed eagerly and happily with one or other of my young mistresses whom I thought so beautiful, each of whom I loved with so immortal a love! And I look at the lovers passing and I say to myself: ‘Allez-y, mes enfants, allez-y, soyez heureux!’”

Dear Lovers! Let us never forget that you are the sweetness of the bitter world.

* * * * *

And Elizabeth and George lingered through the sunny hours; and before the afternoon became too chill—for April is cold in England—they went back slowly through the long glades of the Park, they too hand in hand like the lovers on the Boulevard, they too with bodies amorously near, they too with eyes sparkling and alive, they too pausing to join their lips when the loveliness of life and the ecstasy of loving drew them together in a kiss.

They were so happy they did not know they were tired.

[ V ]

It is fascinating to observe how people organize and disorganize their lives, fascinating to see how an impulse of vitality sends them off on a certain line, how they wobble, err, suffer, recover themselves. What is the most banal street, the most tedious place you know? Think how fascinating if only you knew the real lives of those tedious people!

There are two centres or poles of activity in every adult life—the economic and the sexual. Hunger and Death, the enemies. Your whole adult life depends on how you deal with the two primitive foes, Hunger and Death. Never mind how much the conditions of collective human life seem to have altered them, they are there; you can never really get away from Hunger and Death, from the need to eat and the will to live again.

Thus, two problems are created—the economic and the sexual. There is no cut-and-dried solution of either. Existence is tolerable—I will not say “happy,” though I believe in happiness—to the extent that as an individual you are successful in solving these two problems. Certain traditional solutions are presented to us all in youth, and the swiftness with which we see their foolishness is an almost unerring test of intelligence. When we have seen through them, a new and delicate problem presents itself—we have to create our own happiness underneath or in despite of the Laws (or rules for collective life) and at the same time preserve intact the sense of Justice, or that which is due to each.

The primitive, the proletarian, the common man and woman solution is merely one of _quantity_. Get all the grub and copulation you want and more than you want and ipso facto you will be happy. Put money in thy purse. Excellent Iago, what a fool you are! Noble Caliban, what a silly beast! Savages, the heroes of Homer and working men gorge on the flesh of beeves. To sack a town and rape all the women was the sexual ideal of centuries of civilized savages. To do the same thing with money sneakingly, instead of with the sword openly, is the actual ideal of Dr. Frank Crane’s world-famous business men. The judgment of the wiser world is upon them all. Let them join the megatherium and the wild ass.

Then you have the Rudyard Kipling or British Public School solution. Not so far removed from the other as you might think, for it is a harnessing of the same primitive instincts to the service of a group—the nation—instead of to the service of the individual. Whatever is done for the Empire is right. Not Truth and Justice, but British Truth and British Justice. Odious profanation! You are the servant of the Empire, never mind whether you are rich or poor, do what the Empire tells you, and so long as the Empire is rich and powerful you ought to be happy. Woman? A rag, a bone, and a hank of hair. Get rid of the sexual problem by teaching men to despise women, either by open scorn or by putting them on the pedestal of chastity. Of course, they’re valuable as possessions. Oh, quite! There can be no world peace because the man who has the most money gets the best woman, as the German Kaiser said at the gathering of the nations. As if the nations were a set of Kiplingesque characters bidding against each other for an expensive tart! How despicable, how odious!

No, each of us has to work out the problems for himself and, I repeat, on the correct solution of both depends happiness in life. I do not pretend to be able to teach what is your solution. I think I know what is mine; but that is not necessarily yours. But I am quite sure that the quantitative and the British Public School solutions are wrong....

The struggle with Hunger, or the economic problem, leads to situations of astonishing “human interest,” as Balzac recognized. But we are not much concerned with it here. It was highly important in the case of Isabel; very little in the case of Elizabeth and George. They were content with very little, which they obtained quite easily—Elizabeth from her parents, George by various odd jobs which occupied only a comparatively small part of his time. Each wanted to avoid the slavery of working eight hours a day at a stated wage, for some one else, though both were willing to work sixteen hours a day on their own, at what they wanted to do. Neither had the slightest ambition to dominate others through wealth. Of course, you may say they solved the economic problem by dodging it. However, as far as they are concerned as individuals, that _was_ a solution.

But this “dodging solution” (if you like to call it such) involved the sexual problem, too. It was quite obvious that George was incapable of supporting a woman and children on his perfunctorily performed jobs, while his painting was rather a liability than an asset. On the other hand, it was equally obvious that Elizabeth was not rich enough to afford the luxury of an artist husband and a family. It therefore followed that they could not afford children, and since they didn’t want them, this was a misfortune they contemplated with calm. But, since they didn’t want children, it followed that there was no need to get married. Why get married, except for the sake of the unfortunate little bastard?

All of which they talked out very fully before they ever lay together. You may say, of course, that this is very wicked and “unnatural,” that if every one acted in this way the human race would soon come to a full stop. I shall not make the obvious retort of “a good job too,” but merely say that I observe no danger of under-population in Europe. Since the population of England is about three times the amount which the land of England can feed, I am inclined to think that George and Elizabeth should be regarded as a national hero and heroine in this respect....

If you are as quick-witted as you ought to be you will already have noticed one big difference between the George-Elizabeth _ménage_ (I don’t mean the legal irregularity, which is of no importance) and the _ménages_ of George Augustus-Isabel, Dear Mamma-Dear Papa, Ma-and-Pa Hartly. “They talked it out very fully before they ever lay together.” You get the point? They used their intelligence, they actually used their intelligence _before_ embarking on a joint sexual experience. That’s the great break in the generations. Trying to use some intelligence in life, instead of blindly following instincts and the collective imbecility of the ages as embodied in social and legal codes. Isabel “married for money” and got what she deserved, viz., bankruptcy. But she had been obliquely taught that it was a girl’s duty to use men’s sexual passions as a means of acquiring property. Whoring within the law. The Trade Union of married women. George Augustus was greatly attracted by Isabel and wanted to lie with her. Why not? My God, why not? But he had never thought about the problems. He didn’t want children; Isabel didn’t want children. Not really. But they had been taught that if a man and woman wanted to lie together it was horribly wicked to do so unless they were “married.” The parson, the public ceremonies and the signatures made “sacred” what was otherwise inexpressibly wrong and sinful. But in the code on which George Augustus and Isabel were reared “marriage” meant “a dear little baby” nine months after the wedding bells. All right for those who go into it with open eyes. Perfect. Charming. I’ll be godfather every ten months. J’adore les enfants. But all wrong, all so rottenly wrong, if you go into it like a couple of ninnies, mess up your sexual life, disappoint the man, disgust the woman, and produce an infant you can’t look after properly....

Which is precisely what George Augustus and Isabel did, and what their parents did before them....

Now the marriage of Molière’s time was jolly sensible so far as it went. You, Eraste, love Lisette? Good. You, Lisette, love Eraste? Admirable. You wish to crown your flame? Most natural and delightful. But you know that means infants? Perfect. How much money have you got, Eraste? Nothing? Ah!... But your father approves? Will give ten thousand crowns if Lisette’s father will give another five thousand? Delicious. _Quite_ a different situation. Your father approves, Lisette? Yes? Quick, a notary. Bless you, my children.

That was blunt, bluff common-sense. I’m sorry for Lisette, but not for Lisette’s children.

The only trouble was that Lisette and Eraste were not very happy sexually—hence the _amants_ of Lisette and the _amies_ of Eraste. So you dropped into promiscuity, and Eraste didn’t know if Lisette’s later brats were his; and Lisette didn’t know how many dear little bastards Eraste was scattering about the world. All of which made for nastiness, cantankerousness and hypocrisy.

The simple process of dissociating sex life from the philoprogenitive instinct was performed by the War Generation—at least on the grand scale, for isolated practitioners had long existed. The march of Science (how delightful clichés are!) had brought certain engines within the reach of all; and sensible people profited by them. The old alternative of burning or marrying disappeared. And the following, far better proposition arose. It was perfectly possible for man or woman to live a satisfactory sex life without having children. Hence, by the scientific process of trial and error, it became possible for each to seek the really satisfactory lover; while those who were philoprogenitively inclined might marry (en attendant mieux) for the sake of the children. Thus there was a return to the wise promiscuity of the Ancients (if the Ancients ever did anything so sensible, which I greatly doubt) which was a great advance on humbug, domestic tyranny, furtive promiscuity and whoring. One definite result, which we see to-day, is an undeniable decline in the number of whores—the first time this has occurred since the Edict of Milan.

Unfortunately the pre-war “engines” were rather crude and not wholly reliable....

George and Elizabeth, then, were either extremely sensible or disgustingly immoral—I don’t mind what your judgment is, I am recording facts. I don’t, however, attempt to disguise my own prejudice, which is that intelligence makes for a far better life than “Luv” and “God,” those euphuisms for stupidity and ignorance. In a manner of speaking they were pioneers. At any rate, they thought they were, which is all that matters here. They really thought they had worked out a more sensible, more intelligent, more humane relationship between the sexes. But there were certain rather important little snags they overlooked. Like most bright young things, they were very cock-sure of themselves, a good bit too cock-sure. And then, while one doesn’t at all deny that they were pretty bright, and on the right track, their knowledge was unhappily theoretical, chiefly derived from George’s reading and meditations. It’s a confoundedly dangerous thing for two virgins to take on the job of initiating each other into a complicated art they only know theoretically. Dangerous, in that high hopes may be dashed, rather lovely emotions sadly frustrated and a beautiful relationship spoiled. There are dangers in meeting the undeniably right person too soon in life. Two handsome young married people, obviously deeply in love—what a charming spectacle, how delightful.... Wait! You wait! Not very long either....

* * * * *

You haven’t forgotten Fanny and the young man from Cambridge....

* * * * *

Well, Elizabeth and George worked out their scheme, and for a considerable time it all worked admirably. But for the war and the upset of every one’s mind and life and character, it might have weathered the small storms of Fanny and the young man—and perhaps other Fannies and other young men—and still have gone on working. Elizabeth abandoned her Hampstead boarding house, and found a large room, which did as a studio, in Bloomsbury. She wrote her parents in Manchester that she did this for the sake of economy and to be nearer her “work”—whatever that might mean. The economy consisted in the fact that when she spent the night with George at his “studio” she was obviously not wearing out her own bed clothes. Elizabeth’s mother paid her a surprise visit. Most luckily George had gone away for the week-end, and Elizabeth was “discovered” calmly painting by herself. She behaved with the admirable dissimulation which comes so naturally to women, swiftly whipped away one or two objects (such as a tobacco pipe and pouch, the _Psychology of Sex_, inscribed “To darling Elizabeth from George”) which might have betrayed a certain intimacy with a male, and sent George a long warning telegram. Mrs. Paston stayed three days. Of course, she suspected “something.” Elizabeth looked about ten times prettier, was much more smartly dressed, talked differently, used all sorts of new phrases, and was obviously very happy, so happy that even three days of her mother failed to depress her completely. Elizabeth treated her char-lady with reasonable humanity, so when Mrs. Paston severely cross-examined her in secret about Elizabeth, the char-lady just went beautifully stupid and stood by Elizabeth nobly. “Oh, no, Ma’am, I never seen nothin’ wrong.” “Oh, yes, Ma’am, Miss Elizabeth’s such a nice young lady.” “I’m only here of mornings, Ma’am.” So Mrs. Paston, baffled but somewhat suspicious—what right had Elizabeth to look so well and happy and pretty away from her dear parents?—had to return home and present a blank report.

So that alarm died down.

* * * * *

Elizabeth became inordinately proud of being no longer a virgin. You might have thought she was the only devirginated young woman in London. But, like King Midas, she burned to share her secret, to make somebody else envious. So one week when George had run over to Paris about some pictures, she invited Fanny to tea, and after a tremendous amount of preparation, confessed the lovely secret. Partly to Elizabeth’s disappointment and partly to her relief, Fanny took the news as something very ordinary.

“I’m really surprised you waited so long, my dear.”

“But you’re nearly as old as I am!”

“Oh, but, darling, didn’t you _know?_ I’ve had two or three affairs. Only I didn’t say anything to _you_. I thought you’d be shocked.”

“Shocked?” Elizabeth laughed scornfully, though she _was_ a bit surprised. “Why on earth should _I_ be shocked? _I_ think people should be free to have all the love affairs they want.”

“Do tell me who he is!”

Elizabeth blushed slightly and hesitated.

“No, I won’t tell you now, but you’ll meet him soon.”

“But, Elizabeth, I hope you’re careful? You won’t go and have a baby?”

Elizabeth laughed scornfully again.

“Have a baby? Of course not! Why ever do you think I’m so silly? George and I talked it—”

“Oh! His name’s ‘George’ is it?”

“Yes. Did I let that out? Yes, George Winterbourne. Well, we talked it all out, and we’ve got a perfectly good arrangement. George says we’re too young to have children, so why get married; and anyway we’re too poor. If we want children later on, we can always _get_ married. I said I wouldn’t tie myself down with _any_ man—I don’t want anybody else’s name. I told George that if I wanted other lovers I should have them, and if he wanted any one else he was to have her. But, of course, when there’s a relationship as firmly established as ours, one doesn’t _want_ any one else.”

Fanny smiled.

* * * * *

As a matter of fact, Elizabeth had not said anything of the sort, when George drew up his Triumphal Scheme of the Perfect Sex Relationship. She had been rather timid and uncertain at first. But George’s discourses and the books on physiology and psychology and sex which he made her read and her own exultation at being no longer a virgin had sent her spinning in the other direction. She had, in a few months, far outdistanced George in “freedom.” Her argument was rational and quite defensible; indeed it was a corollary to George’s own views, though he hadn’t seen it. Because you were very fond of one person, she argued, that was no reason why you shouldn’t be attracted by others. Monogamy was established to tyrannize women and to make sure offspring were legitimate and to provide for them and the mother. But where women are free and there is no offspring, what on earth is the good of an artificial and forced fidelity? Directly one has to _promise_ fidelity, directly an effort of will is made to “remain faithful,” a false position is set up. The effort of keeping such a promise is the surest assurance that it will be broken sooner or later. On the other hand, while you are in love with some one, well, you’re in love, and you either don’t want any one else, or if you do, you’re probably only too happy to get back speedily to the person you do really care for.

There was logic and a good deal of sense in this, George had to admit. But he also had to admit to himself that he didn’t altogether like the idea of Elizabeth “going with” somebody else. Nor, for that matter, would Elizabeth have liked George “going with” another girl. But she deceived herself unknowingly. At that time she was very much under the influence of a Swedish book she had read, a book devoted to the Future of the Race. This was the work of an earnest-minded virgin of fifty who laid it down as an indisputable axiom that there must be complete frankness between the sexes. “The old notion of sexual fidelity must go,” declared this enthusiastic writer, “and only from the golden sun-bath of divinely nude freedom can rise the glorious new race et cetera, et cetera.” Elizabeth didn’t know the authoress was an old maid, and she was annoyed with George for making fun of the “golden sun-bath of divinely nude freedom.”

“But, Elizabeth,” George had said, when she propounded this argument, “of course, I believe that people should be free, and it’s disgusting for them to stay together when they don’t any longer love each other. But suppose I happened to want some one else, just a sort of whim, and went on loving you, wouldn’t it be better if I said nothing about it? And the same with you?”

“And tell each other lies? Why, George, you yourself have said time and again that there can be no genuine relationship which involves deceit. The very essence and beauty and joy of our relation depend upon its being honest and frank and accepting facts.”

“Why, yes, but...”

“Look at the lives of our parents, look at all the sneaking adulteries going on at this very moment in every suburb of London. Don’t you see, why, you _must_ see, that what’s wrong about adultery is not the sexual part of it at all, but the plotting and sneaking and dissimulation and lies and pretence....”

“That’s true,” said George slowly and reflectively, “that’s true. But—suppose I told you that when I was last in Paris I spent the nights with Georgina Harris?”

“Did you?”

“No, of course not. But, you see...”

“What would it have mattered if you had? My Swedish woman you make fun of is very sound about that. She says that two people should spend a few days or more away from each other every few weeks, and that it may be a very good thing for them to have other sexual experience. It prevents any feeling of sameness and satiety, and often brings two people together more closely than ever, if only they’re frank about it.”

“I wonder,” said George, “I wonder. Is there any one you’re interested in, Elizabeth?”

“Of course not. You’re really rather unintelligent about this, George. You know perfectly well I love you and shall never love any one else so much. But there mustn’t be any lying and dissimulation, and no artificial fidelity. If you want to go off for a night or a week-end or a week with some charming girl or woman, you must go. And if I want to do the same with a man, I must. Don’t you see that by thwarting a mere _béguin_ you may turn it into something more serious, whereas by enjoying it you get rid of it? Probably, as my Swedish woman says, one is so much disappointed that a single night is more than enough, and one returns to one’s love eagerly, cured of wandering fancies for the next six months.”

“Yes, I daresay there’s something in that. It seems sound. And yet if the original relationship is so secure and if the other affair is so slight and unimportant and merely physical, it seems unnecessary to hurt one’s love by speaking about it. I don’t tell you every day what I had for lunch. Besides, even if one spends only one night with another person that implies at least a one night’s preference which might hurt.”

“Which might hurt!” Elizabeth mocked. “George, you’re being positively old-fashioned. Why, when you go to Paris, isn’t that a preference? And when I go to Fanny’s cottage in the country for a week-end, isn’t that a preference? How do you know we’re not Sapphic friends?”

“I’m jolly sure you’re not! You’re neither of you in the least bit Lesbian types. Besides, you’d have told me.”

“You see! You know quite well I’d have told you.”

“Yes, but going to Paris or the country for a few days isn’t the same sort of ‘preference.’”

The argument tailed off in a futile attempt to define “preference.” Ultimately Elizabeth carried her point. It was definitely established that “nothing could break” a relationship such as theirs; but that “love itself must have rest” and therefore there was wisdom in occasional short separations; that so far from breaking up such a relationship occasional “slight affairs” elsewhere would only strengthen and stimulate it. George allowed himself to be convinced. The snag here lay in the fact that he had definitely sensed the possible danger of arousing jealousy, whereas Elizabeth, confident in herself and the theories of her Swedish old maid, scorned the idea that so base a passion could even enter _their_ relation.

* * * * *

About two months after this George and Elizabeth were cheerfully dining in a small Soho restaurant when Fanny came in with a young man, the “young man from Cambridge,” Reggie Burnside.

“Oh, look!” exclaimed Elizabeth, “there’s Fanny and a friend with her. Fanny! Fanny!” signalling across the room. Fanny came across.

“This is George Winterbourne. You’ve often heard of Fanny, George. I say, Fanny, do come and have dinner with us.”

“Yes, do.”

“But I’ve got Reggie Burnside with me.”

“Well, bring him along too.”

The young man was introduced, and they sat down at the table. In most respects Fanny was curiously different from Elizabeth; each was not so much the antithesis as the complement to the other. Fanny was just a little taller than Elizabeth (George disliked short women), and where Elizabeth was dark and Egyptian-looking and pale, Fanny was golden and English (not chocolate-box English) and most delicate white and red. She was a bit like Priscilla, George thought, but with the soft gold of Priscilla made hard and glittering like an exquisite metallic flower. There was something both gem-like and flower-like in Fanny. Perhaps that was due to her eyes. With other women you are conscious almost immediately of all sorts of beauties and defects, but with Fanny you were instantaneously absorbed by the eyes. When you thought about her afterwards, you just saw a mental image of those extraordinary blue eyes, disassociated from the rest of her, like an Edgar Poe vision. But unlike so many vivid blue eyes, they were gem-like rather than flower-like; they were not soft nor stupid nor sentimental nor languid, but clear, alert and rather hard. You may see exactly their shade of colour in the deeper parts of Lake Garda on a sunny day. Yet the quality was not aqueous, but vitreous. Venetian glass, perhaps? No, that is too opaque. It is very hard to say what was the quality which made them so remarkable. Men looked at them once and fell helplessly in love, one might say almost noisily in love—Fanny didn’t mind, it was obviously her _métier_ to have men fall in love with her. Perhaps Fanny’s eyes were simply made a symbol in the imagination of that mysterious sexual attraction which radiated from her, or perhaps they conformed to some unwritten but instinctively recognized canon of the perfect eye, the Platonic “idea” of eyes....

With Elizabeth you saw not the eyes alone, but the whole head. You would have liked to keep Fanny’s eyes, magnificently set in gold, in an open jewel-casket, to look at when you doubted whether any beauty remained in the dull world. But with Elizabeth you wanted the whole head, it was so much like one of those small stone heads of Egyptian princesses in the Louvre. So very Egyptian. The full delicately-moulded lips, the high cheek-bones, the slightly oblique eye-sockets, the magnificent line from ear to chin, the upward sweep of the wide brow, the straight black hair. Oddly enough, on analysis Elizabeth’s eyes proved to be quite as beautiful as Fanny’s, but somehow less ostentatiously lovely. They were deeper and softer, and which is rare in dark eyes, intelligent. Fanny’s blue eyes were intelligent enough, but they hadn’t quite the subtle depths of Elizabeth’s, they hadn’t the same reserve.

Elizabeth lived very much in and on herself; Fanny was a whole-hearted extravert. Where Elizabeth hesitated, mused, suffered, Fanny acted, came a cropper, picked herself up gaily and started off again with just the same zest for experience. She was more smartly dressed than Elizabeth. Of course, Elizabeth was always quite charming and attractive, but you guessed that she had other things to think about beside clothes. Fanny loved clothes, and with no more money than Elizabeth, contrived to look stunningly fashionable where Elizabeth merely looked O. K. Oddly enough, Fanny was not devoured by the Scylla of clothes, the monster of millinery which is never satiate with its female victims. Her energy saved her from that. She and Elizabeth were both restlessly energetic, but whereas Elizabeth’s energy went into dreaming and arguing and trying to paint, Fanny’s went into all sorts of activities with all sorts of persons. She did not “do” anything, having sense enough to see that in most young women, “art” is merely a kind of safety-valve for sex. Fanny, I’m glad to say, did not need a safety-valve for her sex; the steam-pressure was kept regulated and the engine worked perfectly, thank you very much. She was emotionally and mentally far less complicated than Elizabeth, less profound; therefore to her the new sexual régime, where perfect freedom has happily taken the place of service, presented fewer possible snags. I’ve said, of course, that Fanny sometimes came a cropper; she did, but she hadn’t Elizabeth’s capacity for suffering, Elizabeth’s desolate despair when her silk purse turned out to be a sow’s ear—which every one else had known long before.

Perhaps the remarkable quality of Elizabeth’s mind and character is best shown by the fact that she never said or implied anything mean or nasty about Fanny’s clothes....

* * * * *

Reggie Burnside was a rich young man engaged in some mysterious “research work” at Cambridge, something connected with the structure of the atom, and highly impressive because the nature of his work could only be explained in elaborate mathematical symbols. He wore spectacles, talked in a high intellectual voice with the peculiar intonation and blurred syllables favoured by some members of that great centre of learning, and appeared exceedingly weary. Even Fanny’s impetuous dash never galvanized him into a spontaneous action or a natural remark. He also was extremely modern, and was devoted to Fanny. He was always at hand when nothing better presented itself—the permanent second string to the fiddle, or, as Fanny put it, one of her _fautes_, adding sotto-voce, my _faute-de-mieux_.

The talk at first was the usual high-brow chatter of the period—Flecker and Brooke and Mr. Russell, referred to as “Bertie” in a casual way by Fanny and Reggie, to the mystification of George. This is one of the charming traits of the English intelligentsia. Every one they don’t know is an outsider, and they love to keep the outsider outside by a gently condescending patronage. A most effective method is to talk nonchalantly about well-known people by their Christian names:

“Have you read Johnny’s last book?”

“No-oh. Not yet. The last one was a dreadful bore. Is this any better?”

“No-oh, I don’t think so. Tommy dislikes it profoundly. Says it reminds him of sports on the village green.”

“How a-_mus_ing!”

“Oh, Tommy can be quite a-_mus_ing at times. I was with him and Bernard the other day, and Bernard said...”

And if the outsider is silly enough to bite, and to say timidly or bluntly: “Who’s Johnny?” the answer comes swift and sweet:

“O-oh! Don’t you _know_...!”

And then the dazzled outsider is condescendingly informed who “Johnny” is, and especially if a mere American or Continental, is crushed to learn that “Johnny” is Johnny Walker or some other enormously brilliant light in the firmament of British culture....

* * * * *

George got sick of hearing about “Bertie” without being told who the devil Bertie was, and began to talk about Ezra Pound, Jules Romains and Modigliani. But he soon learned by sweet implication that such people might be all very well in their way, but after all, well, you know what I mean, Cambridge _is_ Cambridge.... So George shut up, and said nothing. Then Reggie began to talk to Elizabeth about Alpine climbing, the sport of Dons—and a very appropriate one too, if you think about it. And Fanny talked to George.

Now Fanny was quite a subtile little beast of the field, and saw that George was a bit sulky, and guessed why. Vapourish airs were indifferent to her. She had been brought up among such people, and unconsciously adopted their tone when speaking to them. But when she was among other sorts of people she just as unconsciously dropped the vapourish airs, and let her natural self respond to theirs. She had a foot, one might almost say a leg, in several social worlds; and got on perfectly well in any of them. There was a sort of physical indifference in Fanny which at first sight looked like mere hardness, and wasn’t. In fact, she wasn’t nearly as hard as Elizabeth, who could be quite Stonehenge-y at times. And then suddenly crumble. But Fanny’s physical indifference carried her through a lot; one felt that her morning bath had something Lethean about it, and washed away the memory of last night’s lover along with his touch.

So Fanny began to talk to George quite naturally and gaily. He was suspicious, and gave her three verbal bangs in quick succession. She took them with unflinching good humour, and went on talking and trying to find out what he was interested in. George pretty soon melted to her gaiety—or perhaps it was the gem-like eyes. He looked at them, and wondered what it felt like to possess natural organs which were such superb _objets d’art_. They must, he reflected, cause her a good deal of annoyance. Every man who met her would feel called upon to inform her that she had wonderful eyes, as if he had made an astounding discovery, hitherto unrevealed by any one. George decided that it would be well _not_ to comment upon Fanny’s eyes at a first meeting.

Reggie had failed to interest Elizabeth in Alpine climbing, and switched off on to “a_mus_ing” anecdotes, which were more successful. Under the mild influence of a little wine and a sympathetic listener Reggie shed some of his worst mannerisms, and became almost human. He liked Elizabeth. She might not be wholly “a_mus_ing” but she was “re_fresh_ing.” (She was a good listener.) And when the talk once again became general, George began to think that Reggie was not such a bad fellow after all; there was a sort of “niceness” about him, the genuine English pride and good nature under a screen of affectation.

They sat over coffee and cigarettes until the fidgeting of the waiter and “Madame’s” little games with the electric switches warned them that their money and absence would now be more welcome than their company. It was well after ten—too late for the cinema. They walked down Shaftesbury Avenue, George with Reggie, and Elizabeth with Fanny.

“I like your George,” said Fanny.

“Do you? I’m so glad.”

“He’s a bit _farouche_, but I like the way he enthuses about what interests him. It’s not put on.”

“I think Reggie’s rather nice.”

“Oh! Reggie....” and Fanny waved her hand with a little shrug.

“But he _is_ nice, Fanny. You know you like him.”

“Yes, he’s all right. I’m not wild about him. You can have him, if you want.”

“Oh! Oh!” Elizabeth laughed, “wait till I ask you!”

* * * * *

They separated at Piccadilly Circus. Fanny and Reggie went off somewhere in a taxi. Coming down Shaftesbury Avenue, George had noticed that it was a clear night with a full moon, and insisted on going to the Embankment to see the moonlight on the Thames. They turned into the Haymarket.

“What do you think of Fanny?” asked Elizabeth.

“I think she has most marvelous eyes.”

“Yes, that’s what every one says.”

“I was trying to be original! But she’s a nice girl, too. At first, when she and Burnside began talking, I thought she was hopelessly infected by his sort of affectation.”

“Why! Don’t you like him? I thought he was charming.”

“Charming? I shouldn’t say that. I think he’s not a bad sort of fellow really, but you know how exasperating I find the Cambridge bleat. Ah’d much raver lis’n to a muckin’ Cawkn’y, swop me bob, I would.”

“But you know he’s a very important young scientist, and supposed to be doing marvelous research work.”

“Do you know what it is?”

“No. Fanny couldn’t tell me. She said you had to be a specialist yourself to understand what he’s doing.”

“Well, I must say I’m a bit suspicious of these mysterious ‘specialists,’ who can’t even tell you plainly what they’re doing. I think Boileau’s right—what’s accurately conceived can be clearly expressed. When Science begins to talk the language of mystic Theology and superstition, I begin to suspect it vehemently. Besides, only the feeble sections of any aristocracy take on vapourish airs and affected ways of talk. Well-bred people haven’t any affectations. And men with really fine minds haven’t any intellectual vanity.”

“Oh, but Reggie isn’t vain. He didn’t even mention his work to me. And he told such a_mus_ing stories.”

“That’s just another form of insolence—they assume you’re too ignorant and stupid to understand their great and important labours, so they never condescend even to mention them, but tell ‘a_mus_ing stories,’ as I see you’ve already learned to call Common-Room gossip.”

Elizabeth was silent, ominously silent. She was more used to the Cambridge manner than George was, and thought he fussed too much about it. Besides, she had been really attracted by Reggie. She thought George was making a jealous scene. There she did him a wrong; it never occurred to George that Elizabeth might fall in love with Reggie. (Oddly enough, it never _does_ occur to a husband or a lover _in esse_ to suspect his probable coadjutor—until it is too late. He suspects plenty of wrong people, but rarely the right one. The Cyprian undoubtedly has artful ways.) As a matter of fact, George had not the slightest feeling of jealousy. He was merely saying what he felt, as he would have done about any other chance acquaintance. He respected Elizabeth’s silence. It was one of their numerous pacts—to respect each other’s silence. So they walked mutely down Whitehall, while George thought vaguely about Fanny and his next day’s work and cocked his head up to try to see the moon and watched the occasional busses bounding along like rapid barges in the empty light-filled river of Belgian blocks; and Elizabeth brooded over the supposed revelation of a hitherto unsuspected tendency to silly jealousy in George. But just as they approached the Abbey, George slipped his arm through hers so naturally, affectionately and unsuspiciously that Elizabeth’s ill-humour vanished, and in two minutes they were chattering as volubly as ever.

They walked along the Embankment from Westminster Bridge towards the City. A serene sky hung over London, transposed to an astonishing blue by the complementary yellow of the brilliant street lights. A few trams and taxis were still moving on the Embankment, but after the ceaseless roar of day traffic, the air seemed almost silent. At times, they could hear the lap and gurgle of the swift river water, as the strong flood tide ran inland, bearing a faint flavour of salt. The river was beautifully silver in the soft steady moonlight which wavered into multitudes of ripples as soon as it touched the broken surface of the Thames. Blocks of moored barges stood black and immovable in the silver flood. The Southern bank was dark, low and motionless, except for the luminous announcements of the blessings of Lipton’s Tea and the Daily Mail. The Scotchman in coloured moving lights pledged the bonny highlands in countless sparkling glasses of electric whiskey. Hungerford Railway Bridge seemed filled with the red eyes of immense dragons, whose vast bulk lay coiled somewhere invisibly on either bank. Occasionally a red eye would wink green, and presently a brightly-lit train would crawl cautiously and heavily over the vibrating bridge. The lighted windows of the Cecil and the Savoy aroused no envy in them. Nor did they pine to inspect the records of a great people lying behind the darkened and silent façade of Somerset House.

Opposite the quiet Temple Garden they paused by the parapet and looked up and down that magnificent sweep of river, with its amazing mixture of dignified beauty and almost incredible sordidness. They stood for some time, talking in quiet tones, comparing the Thames with the Seine, and wondering what dream-like city would have arisen by those noble curves if London had been inhabited by a race of artists. Elizabeth wanted to set Florence or Oxford on either side of the Thames between Westminster and St. Paul’s. George agreed that that would be lovely, but thought the buildings would be dwarfed by the width of the river, the long bridges and the length of façade. And they finally agreed that with all its sordidness and hugger-mugger and strange contrast of palaces abutting on slums, the Embankment had a beauty of its own which they would not exchange even for the dream-city of a race of artists.

Midnight boomed with majestic, policeman-like slowness from Big Ben; and as the last deep vibrations faded from the air, the great city seemed to be gliding into sleep and silence. They lingered a little longer, and then turned to go.

Then, for the first time they noticed what they knew would be there but had forgotten in their absorbed delight in the silvery water and moon-washed outlines of the city—that on every bench sat crouched or huddled one or more miserable ragged human beings. In front of them ran the mystically lovely river; behind them the dark masses of the Temple rose solidly and sternly defensive of Law and Order behind the spear-front of its tall sharp-pointed iron fence. And there they crouched and huddled in rags and hunger and misery, free-born members of the greatest Empire the earth has yet seen, citizens of Her who so proudly claimed to be the wealthiest of cities, the exchange and mart of the whole world.

George gave what change he had in his pockets to a noseless syphilitic hag, and Elizabeth emptied her purse into the hand of a shivering child which had to be awakened to receive the gift, and cowered as if it thought it was going to be struck.

Ignoring the hag’s hoarse: “Thank yer kindly, Sir, Gord bless yer, Lidy,” they fled clutching each other’s hands. They did not speak until they said good-night outside Elizabeth’s door.

[ VI ]

During 1913 life ran on very pleasantly and happily for George and Elizabeth. As in the cases of the fortunate nations without a history, there appears to be very little to record about this year. I make no doubt that it was the happiest in George’s life. He was, as they say, “getting on,” and had less need to worry about money. In the spring they went to Dorsetshire and stayed at an Inn. Elizabeth did a certain amount of painting, but apart from a few sketches George did not attempt landscape—especially the picturesque landscape; he wanted his painting to be urban, contemporary and hard. They walked a good deal over Worbarrow Down and the rather desolate heath land round about. On more than one occasion they traversed the very same piece of land where George was afterwards in camp with me, a coincidence which seemed to make a great impression upon him. Certain aspects of a familiar landscape always call up the same train of thought: and as people are never weary of telling us what particularly strikes them, so George rarely failed to convey this piece of stale news to me as we walked out of camp by what had once been the rough cart-track he and Elizabeth had followed in less desolate days. He seemed to think it remarkable that he should be so miserable in exactly the same place where he had once been so happy. As I pointed out, that showed great ignorance of the ironic temper of the gods, who are very fond of such genial contrasts. They delight to lay a corpse in a marriage bed, and to strike down a great nation in the fullest flush of its pride and power. One might think that happiness was “hubris,” the excess which calls down the vengeance of Fate.

They returned to London for a few weeks, and then went to Paris, Elizabeth adored Paris, and wanted to live there permanently; but George was against it. He had got some bug about the best art being “autochthonous,” and declared that an artist ought to live in his own country. But the real reason was that Parisian life seemed so pleasant and the town so full of artists more gifted and more advanced than himself that he found it almost impossible to work there. It was easier to feel important in the comparative desert of London. So they returned to London, and in the autumn George had his first “show,” which was not altogether such a failure as he had expected.