What are they fishing for? Do they catch them? How the children stare! Well, then home.
The words have meaning. An old man with whiskers can speak them. No, no, he didn’t really speak. But everything has meaning. Placards near doorways—names above shop-windows—red fruit in baskets—women’s heads in the hairdresser’s. All say “Minnie Marsh!” But here’s a jerk.
“Eggs are cheaper!” That’s what always happens!
I was heading her over the waterfall. A sheep turns the other way and runs between my fingers like a flock of dream. Eggs are cheap now.
The crimes, sorrows, rhapsodies, or insanities for poor Minnie Marsh. Never late for luncheon. Never without a mackintosh. Never utterly unconscious of the cheapness of eggs. So she reaches home. She scrapes her boots.
Do I understand you? But the human face—the human face at the top of the paper holds more. It withholds more. Now she looks out. In the human eye there’s a break—a division. How do you define it? When you grasp the stem the butterfly is away. The moth that hangs in the evening over the yellow flower. It moved. I won’t raise my hand. Quiver, life, soul, spirit—I, too, on my flower—the hawk over the down—alone. To rise in the midday; over the down. The flicker of a hand. Alone, unseen. So still and so lovely. The eyes of others are our prisons. Their thoughts are our cages. Air above, air below. And the moon and immortality.
Oh, but I drop! Are you down too? You are in the corner. What’s your name—woman—Minnie Marsh? Some such name as that? There she is. She opens her hand-bag. She takes a hollow shell from—an egg. Who was saying that eggs were cheaper? You or I? Oh, it was you who said it on the way home. You remember. The old gentleman was opening his umbrella—or sneezing? Anyhow, Kruger went. You came home. You craped your boots. Yes. And now you lay across your knees a pocket-handkerchief. You drop little angular fragments of eggshell into it. Fragments of a map—a puzzle. I want to join them together! She moved her knees. Gold and silver. But to return…
To what, to where? She opened the door. She put her umbrella in the stand. The whiff of beef from the basement; dot, dot, dot. But what I cannot thus eliminate is what I must. With the courage of a battalion and the blindness of a bull. Indubitably, the figures behind the ferns, commercial travellers. There I was hiding them all this time. Rhododendrons will conceal him utterly. I starve. I strive for red and white. But rhododendrons in Eastbourne—in December—on the Marshes’ table—no, no, I dare not. It’s all a matter of crusts and cruets, frills and ferns. Perhaps there’ll be a moment later by the sea.
Moreover, I want to prick through the green fretwork and over the glacis of cut glass. I want to peer and peep at the man opposite. James Moggridge is it, whom the Marshes call Jimmy? Minnie, you must promise not to twitch. James Moggridge sells buttons. The big ones and the little ones on the long cards. Some buttons are peacock-eyed. Others are dull gold. Some are cairngorms. Others are coral sprays.
He travels. On Thursdays, his Eastbourne day, he takes his meals with the Marshes. His red face, his little steady eyes, his enormous appetite. This is primitive. I don’t like it. Let’s see the Moggridge household. Well, James himself mends the family boots on Sundays. He reads Truth. But his passion? Roses and his wife, a retired hospital nurse. Interesting. But she’s of the unborn children of the mind. She is illicit. Like my rhododendrons. How many die in every novel—the best, the dearest, while Moggridge lives. It’s life’s fault. Here’s Minnie. She is eating her egg at the bench. There must be Jimmy at the other end of the line.
There must be Moggridge—life’s fault. Life imposes its laws. Life blocks the way. Life is behind the fern. Life is the tyrant. I assure you I come willingly. Heaven knows what compulsion took me across ferns and cruets, table and bottles. I come irresistibly to lodge myself somewhere on the firm flesh, in the robust spine. Wherever I can penetrate, in the soul, of Moggridge the man. The enormous stability. The spine tough as whalebone, straight as oaktree. The ribs; the flesh; the red hollows. The suck and regurgitation of the heart. And meat and beer fall in brown cubes. So we reach the eyes. Behind the aspidistra they see something: black, white, dismal. Now the plate again. Behind the aspidistra they see elderly woman; “Marsh’s sister”; the tablecloth now.
“Marsh will know what’s wrong with Morrises.”
Cheese. The plate again. Turn it round—the enormous fingers; now the woman opposite. “Marsh’s sister—not a bit like Marsh. She is a wretched, elderly female. You must feed your hens. Why is she twitching? Not what I said? Dear, dear, dear! these elderly women. Dear, dear!”
Yes, Minnie. I know you twitched. But one moment—James Moggridge.
“Dear, dear, dear!”
How beautiful the sound is! Like the knock of a mallet on a timber. Like the throb of the heart of an ancient whaler.
“Dear, dear!”
A bell for the souls of the fretful to soothe them and solace them. “So long. Good luck to you!” and then, “What’s your pleasure?” Though Moggridge will pluck his rose for her, that’s over[6]. Now what’s the next thing?
“Madam, you’ll miss your train”.
That’s the sound that reverberates. That’s St. Paul’s[7] and the motor-omnibuses[8]. Oh, Moggridge, you won’t stay? You must leave? Are you driving through Eastbourne this afternoon in one of those little carriages? Are you the man who is behind green cardboard boxes? Are you the man who sometimes sits so solemn like a sphinx? Please tell me. But the doors close. We shall never meet again. Moggridge, farewell!
Yes, yes, I’m coming. Right up to the top of the house. One moment I’ll linger. How the mud goes round in the mind! What a swirl these monsters leave! James Moggridge is dead now. He is gone for ever. Well, Minnie,
“I can face it no longer”.
If she said that… Let me look at her. She is brushing the eggshell. She said it certainly. When the self speaks to the self, who is speaking? The entombed soul, the spirit. The self that took the veil and left the world. A coward perhaps, yet somehow beautiful. It flits with its lantern restlessly up and down the dark corridors.
“I can bear it no longer,” her spirit says. “That man at lunch—Hilda—the children”.
Oh, heavens, her sob! The spirit is wailing its destiny, on the carpets—meager footholds—all the vanishing universe. Love, life, faith, husband, children.
“Not for me—not for me.”
But then—the muffins, the bald elderly dog? Bead mats and the consolation of underlinen. If Minnie Marsh is in the hospital, nurses and doctors will exclaim… There’s the vista. There’s the vision. There’s the distance—the blue blot at the end of the avenue.
“Benny, to your basket, sir, and see what mother’s brought you!”
So, you take the glove with the worn thumb. You renew the fortifications, you thread the grey wool.
In and out, across and over. You are spinning a web through which God himself… Hush, don’t think of God! How firm the stitches are! You must be proud. Let nothing disturb her. Let the light fall gently. Let the clouds show an inner vest of the first green leaf. Let the sparrow perch on the twig and shake the raindrop. Why look up? Was it a sound, a thought? Oh, heavens!
Back again to the thing you did. Back again
that’s over – всё кончено
St. Paul’s – собор св. Павла
motor-omnibuses – автомобили
