_Chapter 20_
At first they had a carriage to themselves. They sat opposite each otherwith averted faces, looking out of the windows and watching the houses,the downs dead asleep in the sun, the embankments of the railway withexhausted hot flowers go slowly past out of their reach. They felt as ifthey were being dragged away like criminals. Unable to speak or think,they stared out of the windows, Helena struggling in vain to keep backher tears, Siegmund labouring to breathe normally.
At Yarmouth the door was snatched open, and there was a confusion ofshouting and running; a swarm of humanity, clamouring, attached itselfat the carriage doorway, which was immediately blocked by a stout manwho heaved a leather bag in front of him as he cried in German that herewas room for all. Faces innumerable--hot, blue-eyed faces--strained tolook over his shoulders at the shocked girl and the amazed Siegmund.
There entered eight Germans into the second-class compartment, five menand three ladies. When at last the luggage was stowed away they sankinto the seats. The last man on either side to be seated lowered himselfcarefully, like a wedge, between his two neighbours. Siegmund watchedthe stout man, the one who had led the charge, settling himself betweenhis large lady and the small Helena. The latter crushed herself againstthe side of the carriage. The German's hips came down tight against her.She strove to lessen herself against the window, to escape the pressureof his flesh, whose heat was transmitted to her. The man squeezed in theopposite direction.
'I am afraid I press you,' he said, smiling in his gentle, chivalricGerman fashion. Helena glanced swiftly at him. She liked his grey eyes,she liked the agreeable intonation, and the pleasant sound of his words.
'Oh no,' she answered. 'You do not crush me.'
Almost before she had finished the words she turned away to the window.The man seemed to hesitate a moment, as if recovering himself from aslight rebuff, before he could address his lady with the good-humouredremark in German: 'Well, and have we not managed it very nicely, eh?'
The whole party began to talk in German with great animation. They toldeach other of the quaint ways of this or the other; they joked loudlyover 'Billy'--this being a nickname discovered for the GermanEmperor--and what he would be saying of the Czar's trip; they questionedeach other, and answered each other concerning the places they weregoing to see, with great interest, displaying admirable knowledge. Theywere pleased with everything; they extolled things English.
Helena's stout neighbour, who, it seemed, was from Dresden, began totell anecdotes. He was a _raconteur_ of the naive type: he talked withface, hands, with his whole body. Now and again he would give littlespurts in his seat. After one of these he must have become aware ofHelena--who felt as if she were enveloped by a soft stove--struggling toescape his compression. He stopped short, lifted his hat, and smilingbeseechingly, said in his persuasive way:
'I am sorry. I am sorry. I compress you!' He glanced round inperplexity, seeking some escape or remedy. Finding none, he turned toher again, after having squeezed hard against his lady to freeHelena, and said:
'Forgive me, I am sorry.'
'You are forgiven,' replied Helena, suddenly smiling into his face withher rare winsomeness. The whole party, attentive, relaxed into a smileat this. The good humour was complete.
'Thank you,' said the German gratefully.
Helena turned away. The talk began again like the popping of corn; the_raconteur_ resumed his anecdote. Everybody was waiting to laugh. Helenarapidly wearied of trying to follow the tale. Siegmund had made noattempt. He had watched, with the others, the German's apologies, andthe sight of his lover's face had moved him more than he could tell.
She had a peculiar, childish wistfulness at times, and with this anintangible aloofness that pierced his heart. It seemed to him he shouldnever know her. There was a remoteness about her, an estrangementbetween her and all natural daily things, as if she were of an unknownrace that never can tell its own story. This feeling always movedSiegmund's pity to its deepest, leaving him poignantly helpless. Thissame foreignness, revealed in other ways, sometimes made him hate her.It was as if she would sacrifice him rather than renounce her foreignbirth. There was something in her he could never understand, so thatnever, never could he say he was master of her as she was of himthe mistress.
As she smiled and turned away from the German, mute, uncomplaining, likea child wise in sorrow beyond its years, Siegmund's resentment againsther suddenly took fire, and blazed him with sheer pain of pity. She wasvery small. Her quiet ways, and sometimes her impetuous clinging madeher seem small; for she was very strong. But Siegmund saw her now,small, quiet, uncomplaining, living for him who sat and looked at her.But what would become of her when he had left her, when she was alone,little foreigner as she was, in this world, which apologizes when it hasdone the hurt, too blind to see beforehand? Helena would be left behind;death was no way for her. She could not escape thus with him from thishouse of strangers which she called 'life'. She had to go on alone, likea foreigner who cannot learn the strange language.
'What will she do?' Siegmund asked himself, 'when her loneliness comesupon her like a horror, and she has no one to go to. She will come tothe memory of me for a while, and that will take her over till herstrength is established. But what then?'
Siegmund could find no answer. He tried to imagine her life. It would goon, after his death, just in the same way, for a while, and then? He hadnot the faintest knowledge of how she would develop. What would she dowhen she was thirty-eight, and as old as himself? He could not conceive.Yet she would not die, of that he was certain.
Siegmund suddenly realized that he knew nothing of her life, her realinner life. She was a book written in characters unintelligible to himand to everybody. He was tortured with the problem of her till it becameacute, and he felt as if his heart would burst inside him. As a boy hehad experienced the same sort of feeling after wrestling for an hourwith a problem in Euclid, for he was capable of great concentration.
He felt Helena looking at him. Turning, he found her steady, unswervingeyes fixed on him, so that he shrank confused from them. She smiled: byan instinctive movement she made him know that she wanted him to holdher hand. He leaned forward and put his hand over hers. She had peculiarhands, small, with a strange, delightful silkiness. Often they were coolor cold; generally they lay unmoved within his clasp, but then they wereinstinct with life, not inert. Sometimes he would feel a peculiarjerking in his pulse, very much like electricity, when he held her hand.Occasionally it was almost painful, and felt as if a little virtue werepassing out of his blood. But that he dismissed as nonsense.
The Germans were still rattling away, perspiring freely, wiping theirfaces with their handkerchiefs as they laughed, moving inside theirclothing, which was sticking to their sides. Siegmund had not noticedthem for some time, he was so much absorbed. But Helena, though shesympathized with her fellow-passengers, was tormented almost beyondendurance by the noise, the heat of her neighbour's body, the atmosphereof the crowded carriage, and her own emotion. The only thing that couldrelieve her was the hand of Siegmund soothing her in its hold.
She looked at him with the same steadiness which made her eyes feelheavy upon him, and made him shrink. She wanted his strength of nerve tosupport her, and he submitted at once, his one aim being to give her outof himself whatever she wanted.