Crome Yellow

  CHAPTER XX.

  Ivor was gone. Lounging behind the wind-screen in his yellow sedan hewas whirling across rural England. Social and amorous engagements of themost urgent character called him from hall to baronial hall, from castleto castle, from Elizabethan manor-house to Georgian mansion, overthe whole expanse of the kingdom. To-day in Somerset, to-morrow inWarwickshire, on Saturday in the West riding, by Tuesday morning inArgyll--Ivor never rested. The whole summer through, from thebeginning of July till the end of September, he devoted himself to hisengagements; he was a martyr to them. In the autumn he went back toLondon for a holiday. Crome had been a little incident, an evanescentbubble on the stream of his life; it belonged already to the past. Bytea-time he would be at Gobley, and there would be Zenobia's welcomingsmile. And on Thursday morning--but that was a long, long way ahead. Hewould think of Thursday morning when Thursday morning arrived. Meanwhilethere was Gobley, meanwhile Zenobia.

  In the visitor's book at Crome Ivor had left, according to hisinvariable custom in these cases, a poem. He had improvised itmagisterially in the ten minutes preceding his departure. Denis and Mr.Scogan strolled back together from the gates of the courtyard, whencethey had bidden their last farewells; on the writing-table in the hallthey found the visitor's book, open, and Ivor's composition scarcelydry. Mr. Scogan read it aloud:

  "The magic of those immemorial kings, Who webbed enchantment on thebowls of night. Sleeps in the soul of all created things; In the bluesea, th' Acroceraunian height, In the eyed butterfly's auricular wingsAnd orgied visions of the anchorite; In all that singing flies andflying sings, In rain, in pain, in delicate delight. But much moremagic, much more cogent spells Weave here their wizardries about mysoul. Crome calls me like the voice of vesperal bells, Haunts like aghostly-peopled necropole. Fate tears me hence. Hard fate! since farfrom Crome My soul must weep, remembering its Home."

  "Very nice and tasteful and tactful," said Mr. Scogan, when he hadfinished. "I am only troubled by the butterfly's auricular wings. Youhave a first-hand knowledge of the workings of a poet's mind, Denis;perhaps you can explain."

  "What could be simpler," said Denis. "It's a beautiful word, and Ivorwanted to say that the wings were golden."

  "You make it luminously clear."

  "One suffers so much," Denis went on, "from the fact that beautifulwords don't always mean what they ought to mean. Recently, for example,I had a whole poem ruined, just because the word 'carminative' didn'tmean what it ought to have meant. Carminative--it's admirable, isn'tit?"

  "Admirable," Mr. Scogan agreed. "And what does it mean?"

  "It's a word I've treasured from my earliest infancy," said Denis,"treasured and loved. They used to give me cinnamon when I had acold--quite useless, but not disagreeable. One poured it drop by dropout of narrow bottles, a golden liquor, fierce and fiery. On the labelwas a list of its virtues, and among other things it was described asbeing in the highest degree carminative. I adored the word. 'Isn't itcarminative?' I used to say to myself when I'd taken my dose. It seemedso wonderfully to describe that sensation of internal warmth, that glow,that--what shall I call it?--physical self-satisfaction whichfollowed the drinking of cinnamon. Later, when I discovered alcohol,'carminative' described for me that similar, but nobler, more spiritualglow which wine evokes not only in the body but in the soul as well.The carminative virtues of burgundy, of rum, of old brandy, of LacrymaChristi, of Marsala, of Aleatico, of stout, of gin, of champagne, ofclaret, of the raw new wine of this year's Tuscan vintage--I comparedthem, I classified them. Marsala is rosily, downily carminative; ginpricks and refreshes while it warms. I had a whole table of carminationvalues. And now"--Denis spread out his hands, palms upwards,despairingly--"now I know what carminative really means."

  "Well, what DOES it mean?" asked Mr. Scogan, a little impatiently.

  "Carminative," said Denis, lingering lovingly over the syllables,"carminative. I imagined vaguely that it had something to do withcarmen-carminis, still more vaguely with caro-carnis, and itsderivations, like carnival and carnation. Carminative--there was theidea of singing and the idea of flesh, rose-coloured and warm, witha suggestion of the jollities of mi-Careme and the masked holidays ofVenice. Carminative--the warmth, the glow, the interior ripeness wereall in the word. Instead of which..."

  "Do come to the point, my dear Denis," protested Mr. Scogan. "Do come tothe point."

  "Well, I wrote a poem the other day," said Denis; "I wrote a poem aboutthe effects of love."

  "Others have done the same before you," said Mr. Scogan. "There is noneed to be ashamed."

  "I was putting forward the notion," Denis went on, "that the effectsof love were often similar to the effects of wine, that Eros couldintoxicate as well as Bacchus. Love, for example, is essentiallycarminative. It gives one the sense of warmth, the glow.

  'And passion carminative as wine...'

  was what I wrote. Not only was the line elegantly sonorous; it was also,I flattered myself, very aptly compendiously expressive. Everythingwas in the word carminative--a detailed, exact foreground, an immense,indefinite hinterland of suggestion.

  'And passion carminative as wine...'

  I was not ill-pleased. And then suddenly it occurred to me that I hadnever actually looked up the word in a dictionary. Carminative had grownup with me from the days of the cinnamon bottle. It had always beentaken for granted. Carminative: for me the word was as rich in contentas some tremendous, elaborate work of art; it was a complete landscapewith figures.

  'And passion carminative as wine...'

  It was the first time I had ever committed the word to writing, and allat once I felt I would like lexicographical authority for it. A smallEnglish-German dictionary was all I had at hand. I turned up C, ca,car, carm. There it was: 'Carminative: windtreibend.' Windtreibend!" herepeated. Mr. Scogan laughed. Denis shook his head. "Ah," he said, "forme it was no laughing matter. For me it marked the end of a chapter, thedeath of something young and precious. There were the years--yearsof childhood and innocence--when I had believed that carminativemeant--well, carminative. And now, before me lies the rest of mylife--a day, perhaps, ten years, half a century, when I shall know thatcarminative means windtreibend.

  'Plus ne suis ce que j'ai ete Et ne le saurai jamais etre.'

  It is a realisation that makes one rather melancholy."

  "Carminative," said Mr. Scogan thoughtfully.

  "Carminative," Denis repeated, and they were silent for a time. "Words,"said Denis at last, "words--I wonder if you can realise how much I lovethem. You are too much preoccupied with mere things and ideas and peopleto understand the full beauty of words. Your mind is not a literarymind. The spectacle of Mr. Gladstone finding thirty-four rhymes tothe name 'Margot' seems to you rather pathetic than anything else.Mallarme's envelopes with their versified addresses leave you cold,unless they leave you pitiful; you can't see that

  'Apte a ne point te cabrer, hue! Poste et j'ajouterai, dia! Si tu nefuis onze-bis Rue Balzac, chez cet Heredia,'

  is a little miracle."

  "You're right," said Mr. Scogan. "I can't."

  "You don't feel it to be magical?"

  "No."

  "That's the test for the literary mind," said Denis; "the feeling ofmagic, the sense that words have power. The technical, verbal part ofliterature is simply a development of magic. Words are man's first andmost grandiose invention. With language he created a whole new universe;what wonder if he loved words and attributed power to them! With fitted,harmonious words the magicians summoned rabbits out of empty hats andspirits from the elements. Their descendants, the literary men, stillgo on with the process, morticing their verbal formulas together, and,before the power of the finished spell, trembling with delight and awe.Rabbits out of empty hats? No, their spells are more subtly powerful,for they evoke emotions out of empty minds. Formulated by their art themost insipid statements become enormously significant. For example, Iproffer the constatation, 'Black ladders lack bladders.' A self-e
videnttruth, one on which it would not have been worth while to insist, hadI chosen to formulate it in such words as 'Black fire-escapes have nobladders,' or, 'Les echelles noires manquent de vessie.' But since Iput it as I do, 'Black ladders lack bladders,' it becomes, for allits self-evidence, significant, unforgettable, moving. The creation byword-power of something out of nothing--what is that but magic? And, Imay add, what is that but literature? Half the world's greatest poetryis simply 'Les echelles noires manquent de vessie,' translated intomagic significance as, 'Black ladders lack bladders.' And you can'tappreciate words. I'm sorry for you."

  "A mental carminative," said Mr. Scogan reflectively. "That's what youneed."