_Chapter 27_
He hurried down the platform, wincing at every stride, from the memoryof Helena's last look of mute, heavy yearning. He gripped his fists tillthey trembled; his thumbs were again closed under his fingers. Like apicture on a cloth before him he still saw Helena's face, white,rounded, in feature quite mute and expressionless, just made terrible bythe heavy eyes, pleading dumbly. He thought of her going on and on,still at the carriage window looking out; all through the night rushingwest and west to the land of Isolde. Things began to haunt Siegmund likea delirium. He knew not where he was hurrying. Always in front of him,as on a cloth, was the face of Helena, while somewhere behind the clothwas Cornwall, a far-off lonely place where darkness came on intensely.Sometimes he saw a dim, small phantom in the darkness of Cornwall, veryfar off. Then the face of Helena, white, inanimate as a mask, with heavyeyes, came between again.
He was almost startled to find himself at home, in the porch of hishouse. The door opened. He remembered to have heard the quick thud offeet. It was Vera. She glanced at him, but said nothing. Instinctivelyshe shrank from him. He passed without noticing her. She stood on thedoor-mat, fastening the door, striving to find something to say to him.
'You have been over an hour,' she said, still more troubled when shefound her voice shaking. She had no idea what alarmed her.
'Ay,' returned Siegmund.
He went into the dining-room and dropped into his chair, with his headbetween his hands. Vera followed him nervously.
'Will you have anything to eat?' she asked.
He looked up at the table, as if the supper laid there were curious andincomprehensible. The delirious lifting of his eyelids showed the wholeof the dark pupils and the bloodshot white of his eyes. Vera held herbreath with fear. He sank his head again and said nothing. Vera sat downand waited. The minutes ticked slowly off. Siegmund neither moved norspoke. At last the clock struck midnight. She was weary with sleep,querulous with trouble.
'Aren't you going to bed?' she asked.
Siegmund heard her without paying any attention. He seemed only to halfhear. Vera waited awhile, then repeated plaintively:
'Aren't you going to bed, Father?'
Siegmund lifted his head and looked at her. He loathed the idea ofhaving to move. He looked at her confusedly.
'Yes, I'm going,' he said, and his head dropped again. Vera knew he wasnot asleep. She dared not leave him till he was in his bedroom. Againshe sat waiting.
'Father!' she cried at last.
He started up, gripping the arms of his chair, trembling.
'Yes, I'm going,' he said.
He rose, and went unevenly upstairs. Vera followed him close behind.
'If he reels and falls backwards he will kill me,' she thought, but hedid not fall. From habit he went into the bathroom. While trying tobrush his teeth he dropped the tooth-brush on to the floor.
'I'll pick it up in the morning,' he said, continuing deliriously: 'Imust go to bed--I must go to bed--I am very tired.' He stumbled over thedoor mat into his own room.
Vera was standing behind the unclosed door of her room. She heard thesneck of his lock. She heard the water still running in the bathroom,trickling with the mysterious sound of water at dead of night. Screwingup her courage, she went and turned off the tap. Then she stood again inher own room, to be near the companionable breathing of her sleepingsister, listening. Siegmund undressed quickly. His one thought was toget into bed.
'One must sleep,' he said as he dropped his clothes on the floor. Hecould not find the way to put on his sleeping-jacket, and that made himpant. Any little thing that roused or thwarted his mechanical actionaggravated his sickness till his brain seemed to be bursting. He gotthings right at last, and was in bed.
Immediately he lapsed into a kind of unconsciousness. He would havecalled it sleep, but such it was not. All the time he could feel hisbrain working ceaselessly, like a machine running with unslackeningrapidity. This went on, interrupted by little flickerings ofconsciousness, for three or four hours. Each time he had a glimmer ofconsciousness he wondered if he made any noise.
'What am I doing? What is the matter? Am I unconscious? Do I make anynoise? Do I disturb them?' he wondered, and he tried to cast back tofind the record of mechanical sense impression. He believed he couldremember the sound of inarticulate murmuring in his throat. Immediatelyhe remembered, he could feel his throat producing the sounds. Thisfrightened him. Above all things, he was afraid of disturbing thefamily. He roused himself to listen. Everything was breathing insilence. As he listened to this silence he relapsed into his sortof sleep.
He was awakened finally by his own perspiration. He was terribly hot.The pillow, the bedclothes, his hair, all seemed to be steaming with hotvapour, whilst his body was bathed in sweat. It was coming light.Immediately he shut his eyes again and lay still. He was now conscious,and his brain was irritably active, but his body was a separate thing, aterrible, heavy, hot thing over which he had slight control.
Siegmund lay still, with his eyes closed, enduring the exquisite tortureof the trickling of drops of sweat. First it would be one gathering andrunning its irregular, hesitating way into the hollow of his neck. Hisevery nerve thrilled to it, yet he felt he could not move more than tostiffen his throat slightly. While yet the nerves in the track of thisdrop were quivering, raw with sensitiveness, another drop would startfrom off the side of his chest, and trickle downwards among the littlemuscles of his side, to drip on to the bed. It was like the running of aspider over his sensitive, moveless body. Why he did not wipe himself hedid not know. He lay still and endured this horrible tickling, whichseemed to bite deep into him, rather than make the effort to move, whichhe loathed to do. The drops ran off his forehead down his temples. Thosehe did not mind: he was blunt there. But they started again, in tiny,vicious spurts, down the sides of his chest, from under his armpits,down the inner sides of his thighs, till he seemed to have a myriadquivering tracks of a myriad running insects over his hot, wet,highly-sensitized body. His nerves were trembling, one and all, withoutrage and vivid suspense. It became unbearable. He felt that, if heendured it another moment, he would cry out, or suffocate and burst.
He sat up suddenly, threw away the bedclothes, from which came a puff ofhot steam, and began to rub his pyjamas against his sides and his legs.He rubbed madly for a few moments. Then he sighed with relief. He sat onthe side of the bed, moving from the hot dampness of the place where hehad lain. For a moment he thought he would go to sleep. Then, in aninstant his brain seemed to click awake. He was still as loath as everto move, but his brain was no longer clouded in hot vapour: it wasclear. He sat, bowing forward on the side of the bed, hissleeping-jacket open, the dawn stealing into the room, the morning airentering fresh through the wide-flung window-door. He felt a peculiarsense of guilt, of wrongness, in thus having jumped out of bed. Itseemed to him as if he ought to have endured the heat of his body, andthe infernal trickling of the drops of sweat. But at the thought of ithe moved his hands gratefully over his sides, which now were dry, andsoft, and smooth; slightly chilled on the surface perhaps, for he felt asudden tremor of shivering from the warm contact of his hands.
Siegmund sat up straight: his body was re-animated. He felt the pillowand the groove where he had lain. It was quite wet and clammy. There wasa scent of sweat on the bed, not really unpleasant, but he wantedsomething fresh and cool.
Siegmund sat in the doorway that gave on to the small veranda. The airwas beautifully cool. He felt his chest again to make sure it was notclammy. It was smooth as silk. This pleased him very much. He looked outon the night again, and was startled. Somewhere the moon was shiningduskily, in a hidden quarter of sky; but straight in front of him, inthe northwest, silent lightning was fluttering. He waited breathlesslyto see if it were true. Then, again, the pale lightning jumped up intothe dome of the fading night. It was like a white bird stirringrestlessly on its nest. The night was drenching thinner, greyer. Thelightning, like a bird that should have flown befor
e the arm of day,moved on its nest in the boughs of darkness, raised itself, flickeredits pale wings rapidly, then sank again, loath to fly. Siegmund watchedit with wonder and delight.
The day was pushing aside the boughs of darkness, hunting. The poor moonwould be caught when the net was flung. Siegmund went out on the balconyto look at it. There it was, like a poor white mouse, a half-moon,crouching on the mound of its course. It would run nimbly over to thewestern slope, then it would be caught in the net, and the sun wouldlaugh, like a great yellow cat, as it stalked behind playing with itsprey, flashing out its bright paws. The moon, before making its lastrun, lay crouched, palpitating. The sun crept forth, laughing to itselfas it saw its prey could not escape. The lightning, however, leaped lowoff the nest like a bird decided to go, and flew away. Siegmund nolonger saw it opening and shutting its wings in hesitation amid thedisturbance of the dawn. Instead there came a flush, the white lightninggone. The brief pink butterflies of sunrise and sunset rose up from themown fields of darkness, and fluttered low in a cloud. Even in the westthey flew in a narrow, rosy swarm. They separated, thinned, risinghigher. Some, flying up, became golden. Some flew rosy gold across themoon, the mouse-moon motionless with fear. Soon the pink butterflies hadgone, leaving a scarlet stretch like a field of poppies in the fens. Asa wind, the light of day blew in from the east, puff after puff fillingwith whiteness the space which had been the night. Siegmund sat watchingthe last morning blowing in across the mown darkness, till the wholefield of the world was exposed, till the moon was like a dead mousewhich floats on water.
When the few birds had called in the August morning, when the cocks hadfinished their crowing, when the minute sounds of the early day wereastir, Siegmund shivered disconsolate. He felt tired again, yet he knewhe could not sleep. The bed was repulsive to him. He sat in his chair atthe open door, moving uneasily. What should have been sleep was an acheand a restlessness. He turned and twisted in his chair.
'Where is Helena?' he asked himself, and he looked out on the morning.
Everything out of doors was unreal, like a show, like a peepshow. Helenawas an actress somewhere in the brightness of this view. He alone wasout of the piece. He sighed petulantly, pressing back his shoulders asif they ached. His arms, too, ached with irritation, while his headseemed to be hissing with angry irritability. For a long time he satwith clenched teeth, merely holding himself in check. In his presentstate of irritability everything that occurred to his mind stirred himwith dislike or disgust. Helena, music, the pleasant company of friends,the sunshine of the country, each, as it offered itself to his thoughts,was met by an angry contempt, was rejected scornfully. As nothing couldplease or distract him, the only thing that remained was to support thediscord. He felt as if he were a limb out of joint from the body oflife: there occurred to his imagination a disjointed finger, swollen anddiscoloured, racked with pains. The question was, How should he resethimself into joint? The body of life for him meant Beatrice, hischildren, Helena, the Comic Opera, his friends of the orchestra. Howcould he set himself again into joint with these? It was impossible.Towards his family he would henceforward have to bear himself withhumility. That was a cynicism. He would have to leave Helena, which hecould not do. He would have to play strenuously, night after night, themusic of _The Saucy Little Switzer_ which was absurd. In fine, it wasall absurd and impossible. Very well, then, that being so, what remainedpossible? Why, to depart. 'If thine hand offend thee, cut it off.' Hecould cut himself off from life. It was plain and straightforward.
But Beatrice, his young children, without him! He was bound by anagreement which there was no discrediting to provide for them. Verywell, he must provide for them. And then what? Humiliation at home,Helena forsaken, musical comedy night after night. That wasinsufferable--impossible! Like a man tangled up in a rope, he was notstrong enough to free himself. He could not break with Helena and returnto a degrading life at home; he could not leave his children and goto Helena.
Very well, it was impossible! Then there remained only one door which hecould open in this prison corridor of life. Siegmund looked round theroom. He could get his razor, or he could hang himself. He had thoughtof the two ways before. Yet now he was unprovided. His portmanteau stoodat the foot of the bed, its straps flung loose. A portmanteau strapwould do. Then it should be a portmanteau strap!
'Very well!' said Siegmund, 'it is finally settled. I had better writeto Helena, and tell her, and say to her she must go on. I'd bettertell her.'
He sat for a long time with his notebook and a pencil, but he wrotenothing. At last he gave up.
'Perhaps it is just as well,' he said to himself. 'She said she wouldcome with me--perhaps that is just as well. She will go to the sea. Whenshe knows, the sea will take her. She must know.'
He took a card, bearing her name and her Cornwall address, from hispocket-book, and laid it on the dressing-table.
'She will come with me,' he said to himself, and his heart rose withelation.
'That is a cowardice,' he added, looking doubtfully at the card, as ifwondering whether to destroy it.
'It is in the hands of God. Beatrice may or may not send word to her atTintagel. It is in the hands of God,' he concluded.
Then he sat down again.
'"But for that fear of something after-death,"' he quoted to himself.
'It is not fear,' he said. 'The act itself will be horrible andfearsome, but the after-death--it's no more than struggling awake whenyou're sick with a fright of dreams. "We are such stuff as dreams aremade on."'
Siegmund sat thinking of the after-death, which to him seemed sowonderfully comforting, full of rest, and reassurance, and renewal. Heexperienced no mystical ecstasies. He was sure of a wonderful kindnessin death, a kindness which really reached right through life, thoughhere he could not avail himself of it. Siegmund had always inwardly heldfaith that the heart of life beat kindly towards him. When he wascynical and sulky he knew that in reality it was only a waywardnessof his.
The heart of life is implacable in its kindness. It may not be moved tofluttering of pity; it swings on uninterrupted by cries of anguish orof hate.
Siegmund was thankful for this unfaltering sternness of life. There wasno futile hesitation between doom and pity. Therefore, he could submitand have faith. If each man by his crying could swerve the slow, sheeruniverse, what a doom of guilt he might gain. If Life could swerve fromits orbit for pity, what terror of vacillation; and who would wish tobear the responsibility of the deflection?
Siegmund thanked God that life was pitiless, strong enough to take histreasures out of his hands, and to thrust him out of the room;otherwise, how could he go with any faith to death; otherwise, he wouldhave felt the helpless disillusion of a youth who finds his infallibleparents weaker than himself.
'I know the heart of life is kind,' said Siegmund, 'because I feel it.Otherwise I would live in defiance. But Life is greater than me oranybody. We suffer, and we don't know why, often. Life doesn't explain.But I can keep faith in it, as a dog has faith in his master. After all,Life is as kind to me as I am to my dog. I have, proportionally, as muchzest. And my purpose towards my dog is good. I need not despairof Life.'
It occurred to Siegmund that he was meriting the old gibe of theatheists. He was shirking the responsibility of himself, turning it overto an imaginary god.
'Well,' he said, 'I can't help it. I do not feel altogetherself-responsible.'
The morning had waxed during these investigations. Siegmund had beenvaguely aware of the rousing of the house. He was finally startled intoa consciousness of the immediate present by the calling of Vera athis door.
'There are two letters for you. Father.'
He looked about him in bewilderment; the hours had passed in a trance,and he had no idea of his time or place.
'Oh, all right,' he said, too much dazed to know what it meant. He heardhis daughter going downstairs. Then swiftly returned over him thethrobbing ache of his head and his arms, the discordant jarring ofhis body.
>
'What made her bring me the letters?' he asked himself. It was a veryunusual attention. His heart replied, very sullen and shameful: 'Shewanted to know; she wanted to make sure I was all right.'
Siegmund forgot all his speculations on a divine benevolence. Thediscord of his immediate situation overcame every harmony. He did notfetch in the letters.
'Is it so late?' he said. 'Is there no more time for me?'
He went to look at his watch. It was a quarter to nine. As he walkedacross the room he trembled, and a sickness made his bones feel rotten.He sat down on the bed.
'What am I going to do?' he asked himself.
By this time he was shuddering rapidly. A peculiar feeling, as if hisbelly were turned into nothingness, made him want to press his fistsinto his abdomen. He remained shuddering drunkenly, like a drunken manwho is sick, incapable of thought or action.
A second knock came at the door. He started with a jolt.
'Here is your shaving-water,' said Beatrice in cold tones. 'It's halfpast nine.'
'All right,' said Siegmund, rising from the bed, bewildered.
'And what time shall you expect dinner?' asked Beatrice. She was stillcontemptuous.
'Any time. I'm not going out,' he answered.
He was surprised to hear the ordinary cool tone of his own voice, for hewas shuddering uncontrollably, and was almost sobbing. In a shaking,bewildered, disordered condition he set about fulfilling his purpose. Hewas hardly conscious of anything he did; try as he would, he could notkeep his hands steady in the violent spasms of shuddering, nor could hecall his mind to think. He was one shuddering turmoil. Yet he performedhis purpose methodically and exactly. In every particular he wasthorough, as if he were the servant of some stern will. It was amesmeric performance, in which the agent trembled withconvulsive sickness.