Watt

  Mr Graves came to the back door four times a day. In the morning, when he arrived, to fetch the key of his shed, and at midday, to fetch his pot of tea, and in the afternoon, to fetch his bottle of stout and return the teapot, and in the evening, to return the key and the bottle.

  Watt conceived for Mr Graves a feeling little short of liking. In particular Mr Graves’s way of speaking did not displease Watt. Mr Graves pronounced his th charmingly. Turd and fart, he said, for third and fourth. Watt liked these venerable saxon words. And when Mr Graves, drinking on the sunny step his afternoon stout, looked up with a twinkle in his old blue eye, and said, in mock deprecation, Tis only me turd or fart, then Watt felt he was perhaps prostituting himself to some purpose.

  Mr Graves had much to say on the subject of Mr Knott, and of Erskine, Arsene, Walter, Vincent and others, whose names he had forgotten, or never known. But nothing of interest. He quoted as well from his ancestors’ experience as from his own. For his father had worked for Mr Knott, and his father’s father, and so on. Here then was another series. His family, he said, had made the garden what it was. He had nothing but good to say of Mr Knott and of his young gentlemen. This was the first time that Watt had been assimilated to the class of young gentlemen. But Mr Graves might just as well have been speaking of tavern companions.

  But Mr Graves’s chief subject of conversation was his domestic troubles. He did not, it appeared, get on well with his wife, and had not, for some time past. Indeed he did not get on with his wife at all. Mr Graves seemed to have reached the age at which the failure to get on with one’s wife is more generally a cause of satisfaction than of repining. But it greatly discouraged Mr Graves. All his married life he had got on with his wife, like a house on fire, but now for some time past he had been quite unable to do so. This was very distressing also to Mrs Graves, that her husband could not get on with her any more, for there was nothing that Mrs Graves loved better than to be got on well with.

  Watt was not the first to whom Mr Graves had unbosomed himself, in this connexion. For he had unbosomed himself to Arsene, many years before, when his trouble was green, and Arsene had given advice, which Mr Graves had followed to the letter. But nothing had ever come of it.

  Erskine too had been admitted, by Mr Graves, to his confidence, and Erskine had been most generous with his advice. It was not the same advice as Arsene’s, and Mr Graves had acted on it, to the best of his ability. But nothing had come of it.

  Now to Watt Mr Graves did not say, in so many words, Tell me wat to do, Mr Watt, in order tat I may get on wid me wife, as in former times. And it was perhaps as well that he did not, for Watt would have been unable to reply, to such a question. And this silence would perhaps have been misconstrued by Mr Graves, and made to mean that it was all the same to Watt whether Mr Graves got on with his wife, or whether he did not.

  The question was nevertheless implied, and indeed blatantly. For the first time that Mr Graves ended the relation of his trouble, he did not go away, but remained where he was, silent and expectant, floccillating his hard hat (Mr Graves always took off his hard hat, even in the open air, when in speech with his betters), and looking up at Watt, who was standing on the step. And as Watt’s face wore its habitual expression, which was that of Judge Jeffreys presiding the Ecclesiastical Commission, Mr Graves’s hopes ran high, of hearing something to his advantage. Unfortunately Watt was thinking of birds at the time, their missile flights, their canorous reloadings. But soon tiring of this he turned back into the house, closing the door behind him.

  But it was not long before Watt began to put out the key, overnight, by the step, under a stone, and to put out the pot of tea at midday, under a cosy, and to put out the bottle of stout in the afternoon, with a corkscrew, in the shade. And in the evening, when Mr Graves had gone home, then Watt would take in the teapot, and the bottle, and the key, which Mr Graves had put back, where he had found them. But a little later Watt ceased to take in the key. For why take in the key, at six, when it must be put out, at ten? So the key’s nail, in the kitchen, knew the key no more, but only Mr Graves’s pocket, and the stone. But if Watt did not take in the key, in the evening, when Mr Graves was gone, but only the teapot and the bottle, yet he never failed, when he took in the teapot and the bottle, to look under the stone, and make sure the key was there.

  Then one bitter night Watt left his warm bed and went down, and took in the key, and he wrapped it in a snippet of blanket, that he had snipped, from his own blanket. And then he put it out again, under the stone. And when he looked the next evening he found it, as he had left it, in its blanket, under the stone. For Mr Graves was a very understanding man.

  Watt wondered if Mr Graves had a son, as Mr Gall had, to step into his shoes, when he was dead. Watt thought it most probable. For does one get on with one’s wife, all one’s married life, like a house on fire, without having at least one son, to step into one’s shoes, when one dies, or retires?

  Sometimes in the vestibule Watt would catch a glimpse of Mr Knott, or in the garden, stock still, or moving slowly about.

  One day Watt, coming out from behind a bush, almost ran into Mr Knott, which for an instant troubled Watt greatly, for he had not quite finished adjusting his dress. But he need not have been troubled. For Mr Knott’s hands were behind his back, and his head bowed down, towards the ground. Then Watt in his turn looking down at first saw nothing but the short green grass, but when he had looked a little longer he saw a little blue flower and close by a fat worm burrowing into the earth. So this was what had attracted Mr Knott’s attention, perhaps. So there for a short time they stood together, the master and the servant, the bowed heads almost touching (which gives Mr Knott’s approximate height, does it not, assuming that the ground was level), until the worm was gone and only the flower remained. One day the flower would be gone and only the worm remain, but on this particular day it was the flower that remained, and the worm that went. And then Watt, looking up, saw that Mr Knott’s eyes were closed, and heard his breathing, soft and shallow, like the breathing of a child asleep.

  Watt did not know whether he was glad or sorry that he did not see Mr Knott more often. In one sense he was sorry, and in another glad. And the sense in which he was sorry was this, that he wished to see Mr Knott face to face, and the sense in which he was glad was this, that he feared to do so. Yes indeed, in so far as he wished, in so far as he feared, to see Mr Knott face to face, his wish made him sorry, his fear glad, that he saw him so seldom, and at such a great distance as a rule, and so fugitively, and so often sideways on, and even from behind.

  Watt wondered if Erskine was better served, in this matter, than he.

  But as time, as time will, drew on, and Watt’s period of service on the ground floor approached its term, then this wish and this fear, and so this sorrow and this gladness, like so many other wishes and fears, so many other sorrows and gladnesses, grew duller and duller and gradually ceased to be felt, at all. And the reason for that was perhaps this, that little by little Watt abandoned all hope, all fear, of ever seeing Mr Knott face to face, or perhaps this, that Watt, while continuing to believe in the possibility of his seeing one day Mr Knott face to face, came to regard its realization as one to which no importance could be attached, or perhaps this, that as Watt’s interest in what has been called the spirit of Mr Knott increased, his interest in what is commonly known as the body diminished (for it is frequent, when one thing increases in one place, for another in another to diminish), or perhaps some quite different reason, such as mere fatigue, having nothing to do with any of these.

  Add to this that the few glimpses caught of Mr Knott, by Watt, were not clearly caught, but as it were in a glass, not a looking-glass, a plain glass, an eastern window at morning, a western window at evening.

  Add to this that the figure of which Watt sometimes caught a glimpse, in the vestibule, in the garden, was seldom the same figure, from one glance to the next, but so various, as far as Watt could make out, in its corpu
lence, complexion, height and even hair, and of course in its way of moving and of not moving, that Watt would never have supposed it was the same, if he had not known that it was Mr Knott.

  Watt had never heard Mr Knott either, heard him speak, that is to say, or laugh, or cry. But once he thought he heard him say Tweet! Tweet! to a little bird, and once he heard him make a strange noise, PLOPF PLOPF Plopf Plopf plopf plopf plop plo pl. This was in the flower garden.

  Watt wondered if Erskine was any better off in this respect. Did he and his master converse? Watt had never heard them do so, as he surely would have done, if they had done so. In an undertone perhaps. Yes, perhaps they conversed in undertones, the master and the servant, in two undertones, the master’s undertone, the servant’s undertone.

  One day towards the end of Watt’s stay on the ground floor, the telephone rang and a voice asked how Mr Knott was. Here was a teaser, to be sure. The voice said further, A friend. It might have been a high male voice, or it might have been a deep female voice.

  Watt stated this incident as follows:

  A friend, sex uncertain, of Mr Knott telephoned to know how he was.

  Cracks soon appeared in this formulation.

  But Watt was too tired to repair it. Watt dared not tire himself further.

  How often he had poohpoohed it, this danger of tiring himself further. Poohpooh, he had said, poohpooh, and set to, to repair the cracks. But not now.

  Watt was now tired of the ground floor, the ground floor had tired Watt out.

  What had he learnt? Nothing.

  What did he know of Mr Knott? Nothing.

  Of his anxiety to improve, of his anxiety to understand, of his anxiety to get well, what remained? Nothing.

  But was not that something?

  He saw himself then, so little, so poor. And now, littler, poorer. Was not that something?

  So sick, so alone.

  And now.

  Sicker, aloner.

  Was not that something?

  As the comparative is something. Whether more than its positive or less. Whether less than its superlative or more.

  Red, bluer, yellowist, that old dream was ended, half ended, ended. Again.

  A little before morning.

  But at last he awoke to find, on arising, on descending, Erskine gone, and, on descending a little further, a strange man in the kitchen.

  He did not know when this was. It was when the yew was dark green, almost black. It was on a morning white and soft, and the earth seemed dressed for the grave. It was to the sound of bells, of chapel bells, of church bells. It was on a morning that the milkboy came singing to the door, shrilly to the door his tuneless song, and went singing away, having measured out the milk, from his can, to the jug, with all his usual liberality.

  The strange man resembled Arsene and Erskine, in build. He gave his name as Arthur. Arthur.

  1 Watt, unlike Arsene, had never supposed that Mr Knott’s house would be his last refuge. Was it his first? In a sense it was, but it was not the kind of first refuge that promised to be the last. It occurred to him, of course, towards the end of his stay, that it might have been, that he might have made it, this transitory refuge, the last, if he had been more adroit, or less in need of rest. But Watt was very subject to fancies, towards the end of his stay under Mr Knott’s roof. And it was also under the pressure of a similar eleventh hour vision, of what might have been, that Arsene expressed himself on this subject, in the way he did, on the night of his departure. For it is scarcely credible that a man of Arsene’s experience could have supposed, in advance, of any given halt, that it was to be the last halt.

  2 Haemophilia is, like enlargement of the prostate, an exclusively male disorder. But not in this work.

  3 The figures given here are incorrect. The consequent calculations are therefore doubly erroneous.

  III

  It was about this time that Watt was transferred to another pavilion, leaving me behind in the old pavilion. We consequently met, and conversed, less than formerly. Not that at any time we had met, or conversed, very much, for we had not. For we seldom left our mansions, Watt seldom left his mansion and I seldom left mine. And when the kind of weather we liked did induce us to leave our mansions, and go out into the garden, it did not always do so at the same time. For the kind of weather that I liked, while resembling the kind of weather that Watt liked, had certain properties that the kind of weather that Watt liked had not, and lacked certain properties that the kind of weather that Watt liked had. So that when, together tempted from our mansions by what each felt to be the kind of weather he liked, we met in the little garden, and perhaps conversed (for though we could not converse without meeting, we could, and often did, meet without conversing), the disappointment of one of us at least was almost certain, and the regret, the bitter regret, at ever having left his mansion at all, and the vow, the hollow vow, never to leave his mansion again, never never to leave his mansion again, on any account. So we knew resistance too, resistance to the call of the kind of weather we liked, but seldom simultaneously. Not that our resisting simultaneously had any bearing on our meeting, our conversing, for it had not. For when we both resisted we no more met, no more conversed, than when the one resisted, the other yielded. But ah, when we yielded both, then we met, and perhaps conversed, in the little garden.

  It is so easy to accept, so easy to refuse, when the call is heard, so easy, so easy. But to us, in our windowlessness, in our bloodheat, in our hush, to us who could not hear the wind, nor see the sun, what call could come, from the kind of weather we liked, but a call so faint as to mock acceptance, mock refusal? And it was of course impossible to have any confidence in the meteorological information of our attendants. So it is not to be wondered at if, through sheer ignorance of what was going on without, we spent indoors, now Watt, now I, now Watt and I, many fleeting hours that might have fled, just as well, if not better, certainly not worse, from us with us as we walked, Watt, or I, or Watt and I, and perhaps even went through some of the forms of conversation, in the little garden. No, but what is to be wondered at is this, that to us both, disposed to yield, each in his separate soundless unlit warmth, the call should come, and coax us out, as often as it did, as sometimes it did, into the little garden. Yes, that we should have ever met, and spoken and listened together, and that my arm should ever have rested on his arm, and his on mine, and our shoulders ever touched, and our legs moved in and out, together over more or less the same ground, parallelly the right legs forward, the left ones back, and then without hesitation the reverse, and that, leaning forward, breast to breast, we should ever have embraced (oh, exceptionally, and of course never on the mouth), that seemed to me, the last time I remembered, strange, strange. For we never left our mansions, never, unless at the call of the kind of weather we liked, Watt never left his for me, I never left mine for him, but leaving them independently at the call of the kind of weather we liked we met, and sometimes conversed, with the utmost friendliness, and even tenderness, in the little garden.

  No truck with the other scum, cluttering up the passageways, the hallways, grossly loud, blatantly morose, and playing at ball, always playing at ball, but stiffly, delicately, out from our mansions, and through this jocose this sniggering muck, to the kind of weather we liked, and back as we went.

  The kind of weather we liked was a high wind and a bright sun mixed.1 But whereas for Watt the important thing was the wind, the sun was the important thing for Sam. With the result that though the sun though bright were not so bright as it might have been, if the wind were high Watt did not audibly complain, and that I, when illuminated by rays of appropriate splendour, could forgive a wind which, while strong, might with advantage have been stronger. It is thus evident that the occasions were few and far between on which, walking and perhaps talking in the little garden, we walked there and perhaps talked with equal enjoyment. For when on Sam the sun shone bright, then in a vacuum panted Watt, and when Watt like a leaf was tossed, then stumble
d Sam in deepest night. But ah, when exceptionally the desired degrees of ventilation and radiance were united, in the little garden, then we were peers in peace, each in his own way, until the wind fell, the sun declined.

  Not that the garden was so little, for it was not, being of ten or fifteen acres in extent. But it seemed little to us, after our mansions.

  In it great pale aspens grew, and yews ever dark, with tropical luxuriance, and other trees, in lesser numbers.

  They rose from the wild pathless grass, so that we walked much in shade, heavy, trembling, fierce, tempestuous.

  In winter there were the thin shadows writhing, under our feet, in the wild withered grass.

  Of flowers there was no trace, save of the flowers that plant themselves, or never die, or die only after many seasons, strangled by the rank grass. The chief of these was the pissabed.

  Of vegetables there was no sign.

  There was a little stream, or brook, never dry, flowing, now slow, now with torrential rapidity, for ever in its narrow ditch. Unsteadily a rustic bridge bestrode its dark waters, a rustic humpbacked bridge, in a state of extreme dilapidation.

  It was through the crown of this construction that one day Watt, treading more heavily than was his wont, or picking his steps with less than his usual care, drove his foot, and part of his leg. And he would certainly have fallen, and perhaps been carried away by the subfluent flood, had I not been at hand to bear him up. For this trifling service, I remember, I received no thanks. But we set to work at once, Watt from the one bank, I from the other, with stout boughs and withes of willow, to repair the havoc. We lay at full length on our stomachs, I at my full length on my stomach, and Watt at his on his, partly (for security) on our banks, partly on the up slopes of the stages, and worked with diligence with arms outstretched until our task was done, and the place mended, and as good as before, if not better. Then, our eyes meeting, we smiled, a thing we did rarely, when together. And when we had lain a little thus, with this exceptional smile, on our faces, then we began to draw ourselves forward, and upward, and persisted in this course until our heads, our noble bulging brows, met, and touched, Watt’s noble brow, and my noble brow. And then we did a thing we seldom did, we embraced. Watt laid his hands on my shoulders, and I laid mine on his (I could hardly do otherwise), and then I touched Watt’s left cheek with my lips, and then Watt touched my left cheek with his (he could scarcely do less), the whole coolly, and above us tossed the overarching boughs.