THE
PUPPET
SHOW
BY MARTIN ARMSTRONG
THE GOLDEN COCKEREL PRESS
WALTHAM SAINT LAWRENCE
BERKSHIRE MCMXXII
Some of the following stories have appeared
in The vfthentfum, 'Broom, The Cambridge
Review, The Lyons uVlail^ and The
Statesman*
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE AUTHOR AND THE CRITICS: A STUDY IN
SYMBOLISM 9
BIOGRAPHY: A STUDY IN CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVI-
DENCE 1 7
THE EMIGRANTS 25
THE PUPPET SHOW 4!
ON THE THRESHOLD 49
THE WORCESTER BOWL 6 1
THE SCHOOLMASTER 69
HARE & HOUNDS 79
THE QUARREL 87
THE LABYRINTH 95
THE UNCOMFORTABLE EXPERIENCE OF MR.
PERKINS & MR. JOHNSON 1 07
A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW 113
OLD ALAN 121
THE MAGIC CARPET 129
NINE FABLES:
THE SNOWFLAKE 137
THE PRIEST & THE POET 139
THE INQUISITIVE MAN I4O
ETERNITY & INFINITY 142
THE SONG OF THE BIRD 144
THE MEANING OF LIFE 146
THE SHOWMAN & THE MARIONETTES 149
THE POETS & THE HOUSEWIFE 151
THE POET & THE MANDRILL 154
THE AUTHOR & THE CRITICS
THE AUTHOR & THE CRITICS
A STUDY IN SYMBOLISM
THERE FLOURISHED ONCE IN ALEPPO A
literary society consisting of seven old gentlemen whose
custom it was to meet fortnightly to read and interpret the writings
of the learned. And at one of such meetings the President stood
up and read out the following story, called The Garden of Nou-
reddin All.
'There lived once in the town of Moussoul a young gentleman
called Noureddin AH, the happy possessor of great beauty, great
accomplishments and great wealth. And when he was come of
age his tutors said to him, "Sir, you have now arrived at man's
estate and you have learnt from us all there is to be learnt. Go
forth, therefore, choose carefully a wife not less beautiful than
yourself, and live happily ever afterwards."
'Hearing this, Noureddin Ali went forth and chose for himself
a maiden called Fatima, lovely as the harvest moon, and he
bought himself a house set in a little rose-garden in which to live
happily ever afterwards. But when he had lived there three or
four years he became discontented, for, as he said, the place was
not worthy of the extreme beauty of his Fatima. Wherefore they
packed up, and himself and Fatima, followed by twenty camels,
twenty dromedaries and all their retinue, went forth to find a
more suitable home. And, having wandered up and down the
land for three months, they came to a garden of such beauty that,
after careful and detailed consideration, Noureddin exclaimed,
"It is not unworthy of my Fatima." And, having so exclaimed,
he purchased it out of hand.
'But at the end of two years Noureddin, having by this time
found leisure to examine the place in greater detail, called
10 TH^ PUPPET SHOW
together his household and said, "I have never been ashamed of
confessing to a mistake. This morning I discovered in the gar-
den a malformed rosebud, so that this place is, unfortunately, very
far from being worthy of my Fatima." So again they packed up
and wandered for six months.
'But at the end of the six months they came to a garden of
incomparable loveliness, for the place lay cool under a branching
roof of roses, and the soft hushing of innumerable fountains
soothed the air. And Noureddin, after profound and accurate
comparison, exclaimed: "The place is undoubtedly and incontro-
vertibly worthy of my Fatima." And they unpacked and entered
into possession.
'But at the end of one year and a half Noureddin, having
attained to the wisdom of years, perceived the folly of this deci-
sion. "No one," said he, "is infallible save Allah alone. What
could have led me to suppose that this place is worthy of my
Fatima." So with a sigh the slaves packed up again and they were
wanderers upon the face of the earth for nigh on a year.
'And things continued thus with greater and greater frequen-
cy until Noureddin Ali and his Fatima had reached the age of
sixty years, at which date Fatima died, worn out by excessive
travelling. But this event, so far from settling the question, only
complicated it, for Noureddin found it more difficult to discover
a garden worthy of the memory of his Fatima than it had been
to discover one comparable with that lady herself. So that he
continued to wander from place to place, and with such rapidity
that now, whenever he bought a new home, the slaves considered
it inexpedient to unpack, "for," they said, "we shall be ofFagain
in the morning."
'But one day, when Noureddin Ali had achieved his ninetieth
year, they came upon the garden which he had at first bought
when in the bloom of youth he had led home his bride. And when
he saw it he said: "Here, finally and irrevocably, is the garden
worthy of the memory of my Fatima. Here, then, will I remain
and live happily ever afterwards."
THE AUTHOR & THE CRITICS I I
'Unfortunately, however, he had made a small miscalculation,
for, worn out by excessive travelling, he died that night.'
As the President resumed his seat, a buzz of conversation arose
among which were heard such remarks as these: 'What an optim-
ist! . . What a pessimist! . . Pure idealism! . . Rank materialism!'
After allowing the buzz to continue for five minutes, the Presi-
dent called for silence and said, 'Gentlemen, following our usual
procedure, I will now ask each member in alphabetical order to
give us his interpretation of the story. I will call upon Mr. Agib
to begin.'
Mr. Agib, who was a little dry schoolmaster, began as follows:
'The key to this most instructive story undoubtedly lies in the
words spoken by the tutors: "Sir, you have learnt from us all there
is to learn." Considering the story in the light of this quotation,
we see at once that it is nothing but an educational satire. We see
Noureddin Ali, fresh from the hands of his tutors, falling into those
very misfortunes and errors which it is the function of education
to avert. For what is the object of education but to impart the
secret of true happiness, to develop the mind so that it shall sail an
orderly and peaceful course among the troubles and difficulties of
life and not drift incoherently after vague or unattainable desires?
The end of the story, I think, puts my interpretation beyond all
doubt, for it satirically shows Noureddin at ninety years of age, at
length on the point of finding a happiness which was within his
reach at the age of twenty-one.'
Mr. Agib having resumed his seat amid much applause, Mr.
Bedreddin next rose. He was a gentleman of a mystical turn of
mind, and was interested in hierarchies and cycles — not bicycles
nor tricycles, but mystic cycles. 'I think,' he said, 'that our learned
friend in his most interesting remarks does not lay sufficient stress
on the obviously symbolical aspect of the story. He very rightly
draws attention to the closing episode in which Noureddin Ali
returns to the original garden, but when he states that the happi-
ness which he there found was accessible to him when in early
manhood he first bought the garden, I am convinced that Mr.
12 THE PUPPET SHOW
Agib has entirely missed the significance of this passage. I main-
tain that it is impossible, gentlemen, that Noureddin should in the
first instance have found happiness there. It is of the very essence
of this subtly mystical tale that Noureddin should be unhappy in
his first experience of the garden and happy in his second; that he
should inevitably complete the cycle of discontent, of search, of
aspiration if you will, in order to bring with him on his second
visit the soul-development involved in completing that cycle with-
out which true happiness was impossible. And the fact that he is
made to die upon the achievement of happiness in that cycle sig-
nifies that he then enters on a higher plane of existence, there to
begin another cycle. It is also perhaps worth while to point out
that the beautiful Fatima is undoubtedly a symbol for the Spirit.'
The next speaker was Mr. Douban, a well-known dilettante.
'We have all, I am sure,' he began, 'been most interested by
Mr. Agib's and Mr. Bedreddin's highly ingenious expositions,
but personally I fail to see why a utilitarian or doctrinal signific-
ance should be thrust upon a simple and charming story. It is
always easy to weave tracts and sermons out of the plainest text,
but, in my opinion, the only teaching which can be legitimately
extracted from the story is that we should enjoy ourselves in the
present and not search the future for problematical and elusive
pleasures which we may never find.'
Mr. Giafar was the fourth speaker — a hard, incisive old man
with no imagination and, as he said, no illusions.
'I agree with Mr. Douban,' he said, 'as far as he goes, but he
seems to have ignored the subtle irony and keen observation re-
vealed by the writer of the story. We are shown a man, restless
and neurotic, never content because he will never face realities,
but must always be mooning after the vague fictions of a dis-
ordered fancy. He is a selfish man and, like all selfish persons, he
attempts to give unselfish reasons for his selfish actions. With a
fine irony the pretext for his restless wanderings is made to be a
desire to find a worthy frame for his wife's beauty; and this pre-
text is beautifully exposed by the fact that he sacrifices his wife's
THE AUTHOR & THE CRITICS I 3
life in his pursuit of it, upon which we have the instant substitu-
tion of the even more fantastic pretext of the sanctity of the wife's
memory. Finally, a stroke of masterly realism shows us the egoist
in the weakness and degeneration of senility, pathetically accept-
ing and submitting to what he had scorned when his faculties were
still unimpaired. The story is a fine piece of mordant realism.'
Mr. Giafar's sinister speech created a profound sensation,
which, however, was soon dispelled by the next speaker, a jolly
red-faced squire called Hassan. Rising from his seat, he smiled
jocularly on the company and remarked:
'Gentlemen, I am a plain man, and I flatter myself I can
understand a plain story. This is nothing more or less than a per-
fectly straightforward account of a fellow who had some difficulty
in getting a place to suit him, and when he did get one he unfor-
tunately died before he got thoroughly settled in. Exactly the
same thing happened to my uncle Mohammed.7 Having so said,
Mr. Hassan sat down amid hearty cheers.
The last to speak was the philosopher and psychologist Schem-
seddin. <I have been much interested,' he said, 'in the self-revealing
interpretations of our friends here present. The story, however,
is merely the expression in popular form of two philosophic truths.
It illustrates the idea that life in all its forms must be regarded not
as a beingy but as a becoming^or the very condition of life is ceaseless
change. With this idea the writer has ingeniously incorporated
that other enunciated by a Western sage "Les id£es tres sim-
ples," wrote the sage, "ne sont a la porte*e que des esprits tres
compliqueV' In other words, appreciation of the first garden, as
we saw, was not possible before the completion of a lifelong men-
tal apprenticeship. Everyone, I am sure, will applaud the writer
in thus placing within reach of the ordinary reading public im-
portant philosophic ideas such as these.'
When the last speaker had finished, the President arose.
'Gentlemen,' he said, 'I think you will all agree that never before
have we had such various and conflicting views expressed with
regard to a single work of art. Indeed so conflicting are they that
14 THE PUPPET SHOW
it is quite impossible for me to sum up the individual expositions
and extract, as we usually do, the general conclusions. I propose,
therefore, that we invite the talented author of the story to our
next meeting with the object of learning from him the correct
interpretation.'
This suggestion was received with unanimous approval and
the matter was arranged.
At the following meeting the President, after introducing the
talented author, addressed him as follows: —
'Sir, your well-known and fascinating story, The Garden of
Noureddin All, which was read and discussed at our last meeting,
has been the subject of great diversity of opinion. I shall there-
fore, if you will permit me, read you the interpretations of each
of our members, and then I shall ask you to be so good as to tell
us which one is right.'
The President then read all the interpretations and, turning
to the talented author, he requested him to indicate the correct
one.
'They are all correct,' replied the talented author.
This unexpected reply somewhat nonplussed the assembly,
but happily the President rose to the occasion. 'Perhaps,' he said,
'I should rather have asked you which of the interpretations you
yourself had in mind when composing the story.'
'None of them,' replied the talented author.
BIOGRAPHY
BIOGRAPHY
A STUDY IN CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
JOHN CAMPION FOLLOWED THE HOTEL
porter up the stairs which seemed almost pitch dark after the
white glare of the piazza. The porter unlocked a door, ushered
Campion into a bedroom, deposited his bag upon a wooden
stand, and departed, closing the door behind him.
Campion went to the window and opened the green shutters.
Dazzling autumn sunshine flooded the room and, looking out,
he received the sudden impression that he was standing on the
brink of a precipice, for, sheer below his window, the plain,
covered with miniature vineyards, miniature fields, miniature
trees, and streaked by miniature roads like chalk-lines on a slate,
spread far and wide, curving at last into a wall of violet hills
which rose peak above peak like wavecrests on a windy sea.
The room looked cool and spacious with its high, elaborately-
painted ceiling, smooth white sheets and pillows, and a pleasing
profusion of clean towels. He could detect only one fault: the
servant had omitted to sweep the empty hearth into which his
predecessor had thrown a quantity of tobacco-ash and several
cigar-ends. He dropped into an easy-chair, feeling suddenly that
he was very tired. His heart had been troubling him again in the
train, and he reflected that he had been foolish to carry his bag
to the station that morning.
Campion was a man of few friends. No one of his eminence
ever kept himself more aloof from his contemporaries. To the
public he was known by his books only: every detail of his life
and habits and even his personal appearance were wrapped in
complete mystery. A hatred of tobacco and a perfect irrespon-
siveness to music were among the characteristics of a tempera-
ment pharisaic, fastidious and cynical, which, in his work,
I 8 THE PUPPET SHOW
revealed itself in a terse, mordant style, a vehicle for sharp defini-
tion, exact criticism, pungent wit, and a scepticism which
delighted in playing havoc among the conventionally religious.
When he had sufficiently rested, Campion proceeded to un-
pack. His opened suit-case displayed perfection in the art of
packing, and as he carefully removed each article from its place
in the bag, he disposed it with extreme exactitude in its appointed
place in drawer or cupboard. Three or four paper-backed books
were placed symmetrically on a table near the bed. Between
finger and thumb he lifted from the bag a bundle of long Italian
cigars, sniffed them with an expression of disgusted curiosity, and
placed them in a drawer. The next article to be unpacked was a
Bible, newly bound in an elaborately tooled Florentine binding.
Campion opened it. The inside was much used: there were
pencillings here and there and on a loose sheet of paper were
various references headed 'Helpful Texts.' With a contemp-
tuous shrug Campion placed it in the drawer beside the cigars
and removed from the bag a large, thin volume on which the
title 'Beethoven's Sonatas' was printed in gold. He opened the
volume and glanced uncomprehendingly at the musical notation.
When all had been thus unpacked and disposed as precisely
and impeccably as one of his own essays, Campion took a writing-
case from a drawer and proceeded to write a letter. / arrived here
an hour ago^ he wrote, and after four days here I shall start for
England. I have already executed all your commissions. Your fifty
abominable cigars are bought and have already impregnated all my
linen with their disgusting stench. While in Florence I had your
wife's 'Bible bound according to her orders with the result that it now
loo^s as inviting as a no'Ve! by D'A nnunzio. By the way, I found in-
side it a loose half-sheet of prescriptions (for spiritual consumption
only) which I have preserved. When at Assisi yesterday I acquired
a sort of Christmas Card containing a leaf from one of St. Francis's
miraculous rose-trees. There is a printed guarantee to the effect that
excellent remits will be obtained from the leaf if used with faith. I
have enclosed It In the Bible. For myself, I prefer the old-fashioned
BIOGRAPHY 19
mustard-leaf which is equally efficacious ivith or without faith, since
it produces rapid conviction by certain compelling properties of its own.
When in Florence I happened to picJ^ up a Volume of Beethoven s
Sonatas, copiously annotated in pencil by a certain Rubinstein. The
acquaintance who pointed it out to me assured me that Rubinstein was
a famous pianist and that the volume was something of a curiosity. I
am therefore bringing it home for Muriel on the strict understanding
that she refrains from playing the contents while I am in the house.
Thanhs for your list of younger Italian writers. Obedient to your ex-
hortations, I have bought a volume or two ofPapini and some others.
'Papims Un Uomo Finite, which I shall finish in bed to-night, I
find extremely tedious. The feverish "verbosity tires and the entire lack
of restraint sickens me. I ha"Ve so far found no one to my taste among
these younger Italians.
Having addressed and stamped this letter, Campion posted it
in the hall as he went down to dinner. At dinner he found him-
self sharing a table with the only other Englishman in the hotel,
a well-informed fellow and a good talker. Campion liked him,
and after dinner they continued their conversation over coffee in
the lounge. But Campion's heart was bothering him again.
Clearly, he told himself, slightly scared, he ought not to have
carried his bag to the station that morning. He would have to
take it easy during the next few days. He rose heavily from his
chair and, ordering his cafe-au-lait for ten next morning, went
slowly and carefully up to bed.
In his bedroom he saw the Italian books on the cable near the
bed, Un Uomo Finito on top of the rest. The thought of them
filled him with weariness and depression. He could certainly not
stand any of that blustering stuff tonight, but he would have his
notebook and pencil near him in case of sleeplessness. But the
notebook could not be found. He did not even remember unpack-
ing it. Campion invariably folded the notebook inside some article
of clothing: he had done so that morning when packing, and at
once he realised that it must now be in one of the drawers, still
wrapped in clothes. The first drawer that he tried to open stuck,
20 THE PUPPET SHOW
the struggle involved in opening it irritated him, and when he got
it open he did not find the notebook. These occurrences repeated
themselves in the case of the second drawer and Campion, losing
all patience, pursued a frenzied and unsuccessful search through
both, leaving the contents in wild confusion. As they had refused
to open, so both drawers refused to shut, and it was only after re-
producing a stage thunderstorm that he succeeded in closing them.
He undressed, feeling breathless and upset, and as he unfolded his
pyjamas the notebook fell out of the jacket. In stooping to pick
it up he noticed that the cigar-ends still lay in the empty fireplace.
How disgusting! Feeling very ill-tempered, he got into bed and
switched out the light ....
When the waiter knocked at the door the next morning with
the cafe-au-lait Campion did not reply. The waiter entered and
put down the tray on the table near the bed. The English gentle-
man was asleep. In the twilight of the shuttered room the waiter
could see the motionless hands and face and the disordered bed-
clothes. He went to the window and opened the shutters. When
he turned again towards the bed the waiter received a shock, for
the English gentleman was not asleep, but dead. The fact was
immediately, appallingly obvious. The waiter glanced hurriedly
at the dressing-table, helped himself to a couple of gold studs, and
left the room, locking the door after him.
When the necessary investigations were made it was thought
best that the other Englishman in the hotel should be present. It
was only after a considerable search among Campion's effects that
his identity was eventually established.
In England the news of Campion's death produced those results
which always follow the death of an eminent writer. Monthly
and weekly publications and those dailies with literary pretensions
printed critical articles, more or less detailed, about Campion's
work. Here and there a few rare personal reminiscences appeared,
and that other Englishman who had seen Campion both alive and
dead in the Italian hotel where he died was pressed to contribute
his experiences. So little was known of Campion himself, it was
BIOGRAPHY 21
pointed out, that it became the duty of everyone who had anything
to tell about the great man to tell it. The Englishman, thus ex-
horted, contributed his experiences. After describing his dinner
and subsequent conversation with Campion, the Englishman con-
tinued as follows:
// may seem strange that one who had fyiown Campion for not more
than two hours should presume to •write about his life and habits, but
the fact that it was my melancholy duty to be present at the inspection of
his personal belongings an hour after his death and in the room where
he still lay as he had died, made it possible for me, by reason of this sud-
den intimate dip into his privacy, to learn a few details not perhaps
generally known concerning his tastes and habits.
Like many people of artistic temperament, Campion was desperately
untidy. His clothing was flung pell-mell into drawers in a disorder
which one would almost haVe said was deliberate, c/fs I haVe already
stated^ Qampion did not smoke after our dinner together, so that I was
a little surprised to discover that he was an inveterate smoker. In his
bedroom, cigar-ash and several cigar-ends lay in the grate and on the
table was a bundle of at least fifty Toscani.
It will surprise those familiar with his writings to learn that actually
Campion was an intensely religious man. He carried with him on his
travels a 'Bible which gave evidence of continual use : many Verses were
pencil-marked and a carefully-written list of references headed < Help-
ful Texts' appeared on a loose sheet in the bool(. The Bible was evidently
one of his most cherished possessions, for it had recently been rebound in
an expensive Florentine binding. Enclosed in it was an illuminated
card from the church of the Porziuncula, doubtless brought by him from
Assisi on the day of his death.
Campion was an enthusiastic student of modern Italian literature.
By his bed were found two books by Giovanni Papini, whose noVel Un
Uomo Finito he was reading at the time of his death. Inside this
boo^, marking the page he had reached, was a long list of other Italian
writers of the younger school.
No one would suspect from his boofy that Campion was a keen musi- •
dan. Tet among his luggage he carried a Volume ofTBeethoVens Sonatas
22 THE PUPPET SHOW
which gave Evidence, like the TZible, of much use and was, moreover ,
copiously annotated in pencil. Whether these notes were his own or those
of a music-master, the fact remains that he had made a close study of
the Sonatas of the greatest of musicians.
It is facts like these which remind us once more how rash it is to
attempt to deduce too literally a writer's personality from his writings,
showing us, as they do, how large a portion of an artist's character may
be entirely unapparent in his art
Perhaps none of Campion's new friends ever saw this interest-
ing fragment; at least they never publicly commented on it: and
when, some years later, a well-known writer was compiling what
is now the standard biography of John Campion, the details of
this article, in view of the extraordinary scarcity of information
relating to the man, as distinguished from the writer, proved to
be of inestimable value.
THE EMIGRANTS
THE EMIGRANTS
HPHE HUGE GLASS-ROOFED TUNNEL OF THE
A station was full of a yellowish grey mist. The slim pillars
looked as unreal as shadows and the long perspective of waiting
trains and the waiting travellers crowded along the platforms
appeared dwarfed and mean under that vast and gloomy vault
which yawned emptily above them. On the grey stone pave-
ments black patches of wetness showed where the rain kept
dripping through the roof. Some of the trains had a deep layer of
snow heaped upon their tops and from under the carriages steam
from the heating-apparatus loomed thickly up through the damp
air as though the train, like a racehorse after a race, stood breath-
less and sweating from its wild course through an unknown
stormy country. That snow and the steam with its warm smell
suggested all the vague romance of travel: the bright warmth of
carriages, the desolation of mountain-tops cold under a grey twi-
light, the endless monotony of snow-covered plains. They were
symbols of change, escape, an unknown adventure, alluring,
disturbing, terrible.
The end of the station, the end opening on the world, was
closed by a screen of vertical rain stretched upon a flat and tar-
nished sky : beneath, a medley of low roofs, shapes of grey mist
and grey snow, crouched together in the misery of wetness.
A crowd of indistinguishable figures blackened for its entire
length one of the long platforms, a platform still without its
train. Huddled together there, listlessly expectant, they seemed,
in their patience and helplessness, more like a herd of sheep.
These folk, a miscellaneous collection from every part of the
26 THE PUPPET SHOW
country, had been waiting there already for two hours and as
they waited rumours spread and died among them. Sometimes
it was said that a bridge had collapsed and that the train would
not start till tomorrow: another rumour said that the train would
be in at any moment and another that the train would start, but
not for another hour. Meanwhile the hollow station became
more and more dull and chilly as dreary day faded imperceptibly
into comfortless evening. Lights began to appear here and there
hung invisibly under the murky roof: red and green lights showed
in the confused twilight outside: the station became a huge,
damp cavern.
That waiting human herd, emigrants who had just left their
homes for years, perhaps for ever, had split itself into little groups.
Some stood in small circles, talking, arguing, holding out explana-
tory hands, breaking suddenly into violent gesture: others,
having built their luggage into a mound, sat about the edges of
it, chattering, shouting to children, bursting into rapid quarrels,
dropping into sudden weary silences. The herd was made up of
individuals of every age. There were faces old and seamed like
shrivelled parchment, young faces of delicate fairness or dusky
brown or richly bronzed by a southern sun: faces handsome and
plain: beautiful faces sullen with discontent or grim with male-
volence: ugly faces made beautiful by serenity, patience, good-
humour: and faces so commonplace, so neutral, that it seemed as
if no stress of circumstance could make them interesting.
From time to time a figure would detach itself from its group
and move to the edge of the platform to gaze wistfully up the
line where sometimes out of the dimness at the end of the station
a sudden vision of moving lights would swim into view or the
black mass of an engine would materialize and loom slowly lar-
ger. Then a ripple of movement, an eager expectation, would
become evident in the inert mass on the platform: those sitting
would scramble to their feet, baggage would be shouldered and
the crowd would press forward to the edge of the platform: but
the advancing engine always veered off to the right or left and
THE EMIGRANTS 2J
the crowd would settle wearily and hopelessly back into stagna-
tion. To many of them this return to stagnation seemed almost
a relief, because it brought a respite, after the exhausting strain
of breaking with the familiar life of the past, from the exhausting
strain of pressing forward into an unknown future. Thus after
each disappointment they sank back into what would have
seemed apathy, even contentment, had not the silence which
followed revealed depths of weariness and discouragement.
When at last the train loomed grimly into sight, no one moved.
They were disillusioned by so many disappointments: waiting
had become a habit. Only when the engine thundered down the
long platform did a simultaneous clamour break from that listless
crowd, stirred throughout its length, like an ants' nest scattered
by a spade, with the quiverings of an infinite agitation. Now while
the train was still moving in, lithe forms leapt like monkeys on
to the footboards and clung to the door-handles, and when it
stopped the whole gang flung itself precipitately forward, fighting
and struggling up into the nearest carriages. There was a wild per-
spective of swinging doors, clutching arms, luggage flung and
hoisted upwards. Old people and children were being pushed from
below and hauled from above by those who had already climbed
up: others who had deposited their luggage struggled to get out
through the crowd that struggled to get in. Angry faces, laughing
faces, brutal faces, faces tragic and tormented, were seen and lost
and seen again in a tumult of smoke and lamplight.
When the train started, every carriage was crowded to the ut-
termost. Luggage of every shape and kind was heaped on to the
racks: there was luggage on the floor. Those who had been lucky
enough to secure seats had baskets and bundles on their knees.
The rest stood with their legs wedged among the knees of those
sitting and the luggage on the floor, and kept their balance by
holding on to the racks or on to one another.
The company, having settled itself down, broke into cheerful
talk. There was a general feeling of relief, almost of exhilaration.
After all those rumours and misgivings the train had actually
28 THE PUPPET SHOW
arrived, they were all actually in the train, and now they were on
their way and had only to sit or stand still, resigning themselves
and thinking of nothing, while the train moved forward into the
unknown future. In the release from the vague tension and anxi-
ety of waiting, in the soothing knowledge that they were now
mere passive flotsam on the stream of events and that thought and
effort were for a while unnecessary, their spirits rose and they
chattered and argued, the gusts of talk rising and falling from the
short clear phrase of a single voice to a clamourous babel in which
everyone talked at once. Their talk was not conversation, it was
the singing of birds, for everyone wished to talk, no one to listen,
except when somebody spoke of the land of their destination and
disturbed in each mind the half-sleeping ache to know something
certain about the mysterious goal which they half desired and half
feared. Then only silence fell and all listened to the speaker.
A dim lamp burned in the roof of the carriage. Outside, night
had fallen: unrecognizable shapes, black and grey, starred with
rare lights, moved vaguely past the window panes. At intervals,
the train stopped at a wayside station and in the dead silence
which possessed that snow-covered waste, the monotonous and
persistent crepitation of rain on the roof made the dryness and
warmth of each carriage seem homely and desirable. Someone
cleared a patch with his sleeve on the misty pane and revealed a
row of white railings, a single dreary gas-lamp, and a low hovel
thatched with snow, the line of its eaves glittering with a bright
row of raindrops which swelled and dropped in rapid succession.
Each halt seemed longer than than the last: each start more
laborious, preluded by the same leisurely routine, the dark shape
swinging a lantern past the window, the whistle, the distant rail-
way horn, and the remote answer from the engine as the train
lurched creaking into motion again.
After many of such halts there came one of interminable length.
Those tired travellers had long since sunk into an apathetic silence :
some slept collapsed forward on themselves with helpless heads
and arms : some stared with glassy eyes at the lamp : those standing
THE EMIGRANTS 2<)
seemed to hang limply, dark shapes suspended from the ceiling.
But now by degrees they came to themselves, disturbed, it seemed,
by the fact that the train was no longer moving. Throughout the
train they roused themselves, stared vacantly, wearily recognized
their surroundings. The sensation spread that an immense inter-
val of time had elapsed and that now time had come to a standstill.
What hour of the night or morning could it be? The rain was
still playing its endless tattoo on the roof and across the noise of
it were heard the slow pants of the engine. It panted like a thing
exhausted: it sounded as if it could never again move the huge
inertia of the train. Then came sounds of windows opening as
inquisitiveness began to stir those wanderers burdened by the
emotions of the past day, the hopelessness of an immoveable pres-
ent, the undefined threat of a vague future. As the windows fell,
a flood of cold air invaded the foul atmosphere of the carriages.
The train stood on a high embankment. Beneath it lay a desert
of grey snow. Like a vertical warp of grey strings, the rain os-
cillated before the square of open window. Once more rumours
spread and died among the herd. The engine had broken down
and they were waiting for another. The signals were against them.
That bridge, rumoured of before, had been damaged by floods:
it was impassible. This rumour was confirmed by a dripping
official who passed with a lantern: but still nothing happened and
another hour went by. The herd had sunk back once again into
weary unconsciousness when a voice out of the darkness pro-
claimed that everyone was to get out. The bridge must be crossed
on foot. 'All change. All change,' wailed the voice, and the words
spread a sensation of foreboding and despair among those unhappy
slaves of circumstance.
At once every carriage became the scene of a feverish energy:
sleepers, suddenly roused, sprang to their feet: luggage was torn
down from racks: doors were kicked open, and each carriage vom-
ited its struggling crowd and its load of luggage into the night.
Outside, all was dark vacuity. The air was full of hissing water.
Cowering shapes which had clambered half-asleep from the high
30 THE PUPPET SHOW
carriages, stood for a moment lost and helpless in the blackness,
their feet sunk into a mess of melting snow, their heads and shrink-
ing shoulders bowed beneath the vertical onslaught of the rain.
Then, following the drift of running figures felt rather than seen
in the darkness, they hurried along the interminable length of
the train.
When the towering mass of the engine had been passed, a
great conflagration of ruddy flares leapt suddenly into view far in
front, firing with red lustre the polished length of railway-lines
before them, whose parallel gleams guided their stumbling course.
A confusion of hurrying figures struggling under every kind of
burden flickered in violent silhouette against this lurid back-
ground. The clatter of the loose stones of the railway-track, the
rustle of drifted snow kicked up or trodden down by blundering
feet, the heavy breathing of strained and overloaded bodies, the
shouts of those who had lost their companions in the rush, all
sounded dulled and remote through the steady hush of the rain :
and as the straggling line of ghosts drew nearer to the flares,
another sound added itself to these, — gentle, remote, but more
penetrating, the soft aerial hissing of a torrent somewhere deep
down in the night, fading sometimes to the faintest sigh, swelling
again to the soft hiss of a slow wind among poplar-leaves. At the
same time a chill sense of depth and empty space pervaded the
night. They had reached the broken bridge.
The blinding glow of the flares now showed as a vast cave of
fire hollowed out of the darkness, and as the foremost figures en-
tered it and staggered forward, the straggling procession grew
rapidly into a grotesque dance of scarlet devils, slashed with rapid
black shadows which rushed forward after them out of the night
and capered wildly across the line of march.
Pitched high in the air between two darknesses, they crossed
the lurid roadway of the bridge. Beneath their feet the snow
gleamed like burning lava: the rain flashed among them like
drops of fire. On their left, behind a barricade of scaffold-poles,
a ragged edge of broken parapet showed where half the bridge
THE EMIGRANTS 3!
had fallen away into the gorge below. Here some, at the end of
their strength, set down their loads and stopped to rest a moment
in the glare. The breath puflfed from their mouths and encircled
their heads with a crimson mist: water dripped from their hat-
brims: their soaked and streaming shoulders gleamed like satin.
At the other side of the bridge, far up the line beyond the in-
fluence of that blaze, appeared the faint lights of another train
which had brought its load of passengers from the frontier and
was now waiting to receive the emigrants. Slowly they moved
towards it, a straggling line of hunched and flagging figures that
seemed like fugitives from some terrible disaster. Moving to meet
them from this train, the passengers who had just alighted from
it hurried forward through the downpour, laden, like the emi-
grants, with every kind of luggage: and soon those two tides met
and flowed together, a medley of dark shapes pushing and jostling
each other, each intent on urging itself forward.
When the main body of emigrants reached the train, the
struggle of boarding the carriages repeated itself, but now it was
fiercer and more desperate as the herd was more apprehensive
and more exhausted. Soon every carriage contained a mass of
humanity and baggage inextricably we-dged together: but the
train was much smaller than the one they had left and crowds
still remained outside, wandering hopelessly up and down the
length of the train, seeking in vain for room. The air was full of
the shouts of men who had lost their womenfolk, the sobs of
women, the weary crying of children. The sound rose and fell,
ceaseless and expressionless, like the bleating of driven sheep.
Some of them wandered desperately to and fro without even
trying to find places: it seemed as if they had forgotten in their
misery what they were looking for. There was a woman who
opened the same door time after time, chanting the same mono-
tonous supplication. 'Let me in. For God's sake let me in,' she
wailed. The carriage was crammed, visibly there was not room
for the smallest child. At first those in the carriage took no notice
of the woman. Human feelings, pity, sympathy, common charity,
32 THE PUPPET SHOW
as always happens in desperate straits, had exhausted them-
selves long since: the primitive instinct of self-preservation alone
remained. It was a case of every man for himself. They heard
the woman crying, they heard the crying of all those drenched
and helpless folk outside, and while their minds told them that
the thing was tragic, their emotions told them nothing at all:
they were tired out, they had ceased to function. So no one took
any notice of the woman until her persistence made them angry.
'Let me in. For God's sake, let me in,' wailed the voice. It was
like the cry of a beggar, a cry that seems to expect no response,
that from long habit hardly realizes what it is asking for, yet
persists in asking. Then exclamations of impatience were heard
in the carriage. 'There's no room/ shouted someone. 'Can't you
see there's no room?' But the woman continued her chant as
though nobody had spoken. 'Let me in. For God's sake, let me
in.' The voice sounded weak and listless, but the moment a hand
from within tried to shut the door, the woman, with an action
in startling contrast to her voice, clutched it and held it open
with fierce determination. 'Damn it all,' shouted the voice,
'can't the woman see we're jammed like bloody sardines?' 'Let
me in. For God's sake, let me in,' answered the exasperating
chant. 'I've lost my baby and the old man . . . the poor old man.'
People looked at one another indignantly with gestures of des-
pair. What could one do with such stupidity? 'Let her in,' said
another voice in the carriage, and, strangely enough, it echoed
the general feeling. They did not pity her. They hated her with
her lost baby and her miserable old man, but for some reason
they must let her in.
As they hauled her up, her fat red face appeared in the door-
way, a face bloated with weeping and streaming with rain and
tears. The flabby chin shook with sobs. On one arm she carried
a basket covered with a white cloth. They hoisted her up like a
limp and swollen sack and forced her into the centre of the
already overflowing carriage where someone gave her a seat. A
ruffian lolling in the place next to her, whose face wore an
THE EMIGRANTS 33
unchanging expression of dark malevolence, stared at her with
sullen disgust.
Once in the carriage, the woman let her emotions go. She
sobbed and blubbered: the tears streamed down her ugly, swollen
face and fell on to her basket: she described in broken phrases
and with a wealth of florid gesture how she had lost the child and
the old man . . . the poor old man. She pressed her fat hands des-
pairingly to her wide, loose bosom or flung them out appealingly
before her. Her despair was disgusting, as every exhibition of
unrestrained emotion is disgusting. Some of the travellers tried
to reassure her. They maintained that it was impossible for even
a baby to be lost, that the train would not start till everyone was
safely on board. 'But the old man,' she snivelled. 'He's quite
helpless. He may have fallen down the embankment. He's sure
to get lost.'
A correctly dressed commercial traveller laughed at such an
idea. 'Look here, missus,' he said: 'I know every inch of this
line. There are lots of officials looking after this train, seeing
that all the luggage is brought over, and that everyone gets a
place. It's impossible for anyone to get lost.' From his account
they were all travelling in the greatest luxury, watched over by
the most solicitous care. This surprising perversion of facts seemed
to comfort the woman. She became silent and dried her eyes on
an exceedingly dirty pocket-handkerchief.
But at her silence the continual crying outside became once
more audible and she soon broke out afresh. 'It's my Linda,' she
sobbed. 'I can hear her. I recognise her voice. Let me get to the
window. O, please, please.' She struggled up from her seat,
treading on the foot of a respectably dressed young woman who
swore fiercely and glared at her with intense hatred. People
muttered angrily,' You can't get to the window. Sit down. Damn
it, we've let you in here: isn't that enough?' But again the
woman had her will. Stumbling and floundering, regardless of
others, she forced her way through tightly jammed legs and
knees to the window. Two young sailors stood wedged in the
34 THE PUPPET SHOW
middle of the carriage. One of them with a comprehensive wink
summed up the situation in an astonishing flow of obscenity.
Some people sniggered: others looked shocked: many rejoiced
secretly at his smooth fluency, prepossessed by his jolly young
face and the good-natured and airy recklessness of his manner.
The woman leaned out, calling the child's name into the
streaming darkness. The child was not there, but, as ill luck
would have it, just as she was drawing in her head she spotted
the old man. There he was, God bless him, right under the win-
dow, looking up out of the rain.
'There he is,' she sobbed. 'There he is, poor old boy,' and she
made frantic efforts to open the door. But at this the whole car-
riage rose in revolt. 'He's not coming in here,' they growled:
'not likely. We're not having any old man in here.' Instantly
the woman broke into a torrent of supplication, disgusting, ex-
cessive, irresistible. 'O, please, please : for God's sake : the poor old
man : he's half dead. You can't leave a poor old man out in the rain.'
Already the door was open and unseen hands were pushing
the old man up. His white, agonized face appeared, the protrud-
ing eyes blinded by rain, the limp moustache full of water. He
clung desperately with weak and helpless arms: his legs appeared
to be half paralysed. It seemed as if he would fall headlong back-
wards into the darkness. Again those in the carriage felt them-
selves forced to accept the situation. They accepted it resignedly,
without pity. As they hauled him up, the old man yelled with
pain. 'Wait, wait a minute. My knee. O God, my knee. My
foot, O . . . h !' At last they got him in, someone resigned a seat
to him, and, after incredible congestion, they dropped him ex-
hausted beside the woman. He was a horrible, helpless old man
with an unhealthy putty-coloured face and the pathetic, drooping
moustaches of a seal. He brought into the foul air of the carriage
a sickening stench like sour dough.
A silence of physical and emotional weariness fell upon
the company: each individual seemed to be concentrating his
remaining energies on mere endurance. The young sailors alone
THE EMIGRANTS 35
appeared undismayed and serene. To them the whole affoir
seemed to be a pleasant and diverting holiday.
The rain drummed on the roof: a wailing came from the
darkness, and in the carriage the woman fretted incessantly for
her lost child, disturbing the whole sleep-burdened company. A
storm of exasperated protest arose, above which the cheery voice
of the young sailor was heard. 'Listen here, ma,' he said: 'tell
us your name and we'll go and enquire for the nipper:' and he
and his mate began to climb like monkeys among the passengers,
swinging themselves by luggage-racks and hooks till, one after
the other, they slid sinously out of the window.
Before long, to the general astonishment, they returned with
the baby. The woman seized it in an ecstasy of tenderness and
smothered it in kisses. She stroked its face and head, she crooned
endearments over it, she wept and laughed and blew her nose.
Her joy was as excessive as her other emotions. The baby seemed
stupified by this unwonted treatment: it wore the permanently
amazed expression of a painted doll.
Suddenly the train started with a violent jolt and the everlasting
journey was resumed. Once more the long drumming of the rain
on the roof gave place to the long monotonous rumble of rolling
wheels. Once again each cramped and aching carriage-load drop-
ped with tousled hair and burning cheeks into uneasy slumber.
Those that stood, trying wearily to lean their nodding heads
against the arms with which they grasped the racks, drooped un-
controllably into fitful dozes. The woman and the baby alone
remained awake. She was feeding it with grapes out of her basket.
She burst each grape, removed the pips with dirty fingers, and
pressed it into the baby's mouth. After a while the baby choked
and vomited up a mouthful which she received into the handker-
chief which had already received so much. The woman's face
was transformed. All traces of the weeping had vanished: her
complexion was clear and healthy : her face, in its tender solicitude
for the child, was beautiful. Finally they too fell a prey to weari-
ness and the infected air of the carriage.
36 THE PUPPET SHOW
In the dim lamplight, the carriage looked like a cave full of
dead, — dead with drooping heads and strained necks, dead with
hanging hands and grotesquely-protruding knees, bodies fallen
forward on themselves as though fumbling for something on the
floor, bodies hung limply from a roof composed of luggage piled
on luggage. The tightly-closed windows were thick with steam,
human breath condensed on the roof and fell in heavy drops on
the sleepers, the hot air was fetid with the stench of rain-soaked
clothing and unclean humanity.
Hours went by and no one spoke. Asleep or -stupified by the
filthy atmosphere, mesmerized by the drum drum drum of the
wheels, they lay or stood in uneasy attitudes, aching, cramped
and broken. Sometimes a body changed its position with a gesture
of agonized discomfort, sometimes the rasp of a snore emerged
above the thick breathing and rose to a rattle which broke in a
stifled gasp. No one awoke now when the train stopped: relaxed
and sprawling bodies were jerked spasmodically but not awakened
by the jolt of restarting. The roar of tunnels, the cold swish of
pine forests, the hollow racket of rock-walled cuttings, passed
over their numbed senses as water over stones. But where noise
and motion had been powerless the cold succeeded.
That lifeless, all-pervading chill which takes possession of the
world before the dawn, penetrated even those closed windows
and doors, numbing the feet and chilling the marrows of those
fevered sleepers. The window-panes radiated an intense cold as
though they were made not of glass but of ice. One by one the
travellers stirred and shivered and opened their eyes upon the pale
squallor of the railway carriage. The atmosphere had lost its thick
warmth: its nauseating staleness was the more perceptible and
the more offensive in this thin, all-searching, death-like frigidity.
The lamp burned pale and livid. The black squares of the fogged
windows had faded to a wan grey. Outside, snow-covered fields,
gaunt skeletons of trees, dim shapes of deserted farms, swam past
as on the circumference of a great wheel, unspeakably mourn-
ful, unspeakably desolate. It seemed as if the train must never
THE EMIGRANTS 37
arrive anywhere but must continue to rush timelessly, infinitely,
through that ghastly twilight, across that funereal landscape, to
which sunlight, springtime, warmth and colour seemed ever-
lastingly unknown. A strange, husky voice spoke and then
another. Gradually life came back to the carriage. Some one let
down the window: cool air and cool grey light rushed in and in-
stantly everyone realized that the night was over. The light of
the lamp no longer penetrated beyond the yellow hemisphere of
its globe. People stretched themselves, straightened their clothes,
drew themselves up from their sprawling attitudes. They were
plunged into a tunnel and the lamp regained its influence: with
a roar, the train sloughed off the tunnel and burst out above dim
perspectives of rising valleys. Masses of phantasmal mountain-
side swung across the windows, devoured the view, and were
hurled behind them. Lines of gaunt houses rushed upon them,
passed in a flash, and receded as though borne away on a whirling
torrent. There was a shuddering of breaks. They had reached
the frontier.
When the train stopped in the station, the emigrants dis-
mounted without confusion, slowly, leisurely, each waiting his
turn. The hollow space of the station was full of the sharp, sweet
cleanliness of mountain air. After the dimness and confinement
of the carriages everything seemed wide and clear and free. In
front of the steaming engine the high arch of the station-roof
framed in a wonderful vision of live and glowing colour, warm
greys and tawny browns illuminated by great splashes of green
and burning yellow. It was a sector of the immense sunlit moun-
tainside bright with the autumnal glory of its climbing larch
forests.
And though their long pilgrimage was little more than begun
those emigrants were stirred and uplifted, vaguely, sub-con-
sciously, by that triumph of sunlight and colour over the dark
obstruction of night, as if by the promise of a great and resplen-
dent future.
THE PUPPET SHOW
THE PUPPET SHOW
ALL DAY THEY HAD QUARRELLED ABOUT
going for a drive. The whole pension knew about it. Not
that they quarrelled noisily: indeed, though sometimes verbally
and emotionally violent, they never raised their voices above the
pitch of perfect refinement. But they kept at it; and at the end
of the day none of the guests could say which sister had won, or,
in fact, if either had won. Some put their money on Mrs. Rams-
den. Mrs. Ramsden had the independence of the married woman :
she was heavier, more dignified, with a certain stone-wall quality,
an inexpugnability, which Miss Phipps lacked. Miss Phipps, on
the other hand, as her backers pointed out, was wiry: she had the
keen, monotonous tenacity of the spinster. She was frequently
able quite effectually to brush aside Mrs. Ramsden's cold, calm
logic by a really impressive pigheadedness, a quality which some-
times strained Mrs. Ramsden's self-control to the extreme limit:
for such a method of flooring her marshalled logic was, to Mrs.
Ramsden, the poison-gas method, while to Miss Phipps the in-
troduction of logical reasoning was a deliberate obscuring of the
issue on Mrs. Ramsden's part. Reasons never meant much to
Miss Phipps, nor did she for a moment believe in Mrs. Ramsden's
intellectual honesty. In this her intuition was correct: nothing
could have been more dishonest than Mrs. Ramsden's parade of
reasons, though Mrs. Ramsden herself would have been the last
to suspect it.
Yet the thing seemed simple. Miss Phipps had invited Mrs.
Ramsden to take a drive to Fiesole. Mrs. Ramsden had refused.
There, one would have thought, was the end of it. Take merely
the physical side of it. Mrs. Ramsden must have weighed
twelve stone; Miss Phipps could not have exceeded seven. By no
42 THE PUPPET SHOW
conceivable means could Miss Phipps single-handed have got an
unwilling Mrs. Ramsden downstairs and into the carriage. The
thing was obvious. Yet now it was teatime, and the question had
arisen at breakfast. The guests were amazed at such persistence,
for they did not see the real magnitude of the thing. They did
not see that no fewer than eight persons were at it, hammer and
tongs, all talking together, deafening one another, raising such a
Babel of opinions and prejudices and hatreds that it seemed as if
the Judgment Day alone could end the thing.
They failed to allow for those shadowy Mrs. Ramsdens, two,
three and four, standing fierce-eyed and obstructive round the
cha-ir of the visible Mrs. Ramsden, or the three ghostly Misses
Phipps whose shrill emotion haunted and bewildered the tangible
Miss Phipps: a goblin assembly prompting, exasperating, contra-
dicting, deluding, criticizing, pampering, deriding and hating
those two respectable middle-aged ladies. 'I love driving,' said a
shadowy Mrs. Ramsden. 'There is nothing I should like better
than to drive to Fiesole to-morrow, but I will not be patronized
by Ellen* Ellen seems to forget that I am a married woman. The
whole thing is a great nuisance, because my having to refuse Ellen's
invitation makes it impossible for me ever to go for drives here.'
'Augusta is most provoking,' sighed a Phipps ghost. 'Ever
since she married she has never allowed me to do anything for
her. I like doing things for people. Augusta says she hates
driving. That is a lie. But I don't care two straws whether she
hates it or likes it. All I want is to take her for a drive.'
'Why,' murmured a Mrs. Ramsden and a Miss Phipps in
wistful unison, 'why can't they stop these wretched bickerings
and let us do as we like? We both love driving and might have
such a charming day. We used to be so happy together as girls.'
Another voice emerged. 'I shall go on bothering Augusta and
she will go on refusing. If I stop bothering her she will always
get the upper hand too easily. Eventually she will probably get
the upper hand in any case. Then I shall have that martyred
feeling which in some ways is not unpleasant.'
THE PUPPET SHOW 43
'I hate telling lies,' complained a Mrs. Ramsden, 'yet Ellen
makes it necessary for me to keep on pretending I dislike driving.
I don't see how it is to end. The thing is getting so wearisomely
elaborate. What a nuisance Ellen is! I wish I had never decided
to come to Florence with her.'
'You know what the doctor said, Augusta,' remarked the
tangible Miss Phipps. 'He said that you required change and
gentle exercise. Indeed, he specified driving. It is for your good
that I wish to take you for a drive.'
Mrs. Ramsden sat impenetrable, a shop with the shutters up.
'The trouble is, Ellen,' she replied in cold, measured tones, 'that,
as you know, I dislike driving. I wish you would keep your
money for something more useful.'
'I shall do just as I like with my money,' snapped Ellen.
'Except take me for a drive, my dear,' corrected Augusta
acidly.
Next morning the Ramsdenites among the guests were trium-
phant. Not that Mrs. Ramsden had achieved anything spectacu-
lar. All that happened was that the two ladies did not go out
driving.
At lunch Miss Phipps counter-attacked. 'I think I shall take
you into town this afternoon, Augusta,' she said. 'You require
exercise and we can look at the shops.'
Mrs. Ramsden was prepared. Half closing her eyes for a mo-
ment, as though annoyed by tobacco smoke, she replied: 'I had
already decided that we would go into town, dear."
They left the pension at two o'clock. It was not clear whether
Miss Phipps was taking Mrs. Ramsden or Mrs. Ramsden Miss
Phipps.
In the Piazza del Duomo the offensive was resumed. Not that
there was any noise about it. The citizens of Florence noticed two
middle-aged ladies criticising Giotto's Tower a little unfavour-
ably : nothing more. None the less the whole eight were at it again.
It all began by Miss Phipps saying with seeming simplicity: 'We
will walk to the Via Tornabuoni. All the best shops are there.'
44 THE PUPPET SHOW
At once the Ramsdens were up in arms. 'Ellen is getting out
of hand,* said one, 'she is trying to show us the town. We must
refuse to look at shops. I adore shops and detest picture galleries.
But picture galleries bore Ellen: we should therefore insist on
visiting picture galleries.'
'Augusta is going to thwart us again,' sighed a ghostly Phipps.
'But we know the way to the galleries and Augusta does not.
Though less pleasantly, the galleries may answer the same pur-
pose.'
'How delightful it is to look at the shops,' mourned a Ramsden
and a Phipps in mutual regret, 'and how tedious to look at pic-
tures! Why can't they stop nagging and let us be happy among
the shops just as when we used to go up to town with Mamma?'
'Ellen is unbearable,' said an irritable Ramsden. 'She is making
me tell lies again and she is driving me to a picture gallery. I hate
telling lies, and, still more, I hate picture galleries.'
'Very well,' said a vindictive Phipps, 'she shall look at pictures.
We know the gallery, and she doesn't. She shall go through every
room twice.'
They climbed impossible stairs, they plunged down intermin-
able passages, they circled room after slippery room. But many a
noble scheme has been betrayed by physical weakness. The mere
accumulation of boredom and fatigue soon took from Mrs. Rams-
den the power of simulating an enthusiasm for pictures, and from
Miss Phipps the strength to persist in offering food for that en-
thusiasm.
They left the gallery speechless with exhaustion. Ellen re-
quired a yard of grey velvet ribbon. They entered a shop. 'It will
be difficult to match,' said Ellen. 'We had better sit down.'
But Mrs. Ramsden drifted off to another counter. When they
left the shop, Mrs. Ramsden carried a parcel. 'Some things I
wanted,' she explained. 'Let us have tea, Ellen. Take me to a
teashop.'
Tea is a great humanizer. Insensibly they began to talk, pleas-
antly, unguardedly. No sign from the ghostly Phippses, nothing
THE PUPPET SHOW 45
but the faintest chuckle from the shadowy Ramsdens troubled
their pleasure. Augusta was as unrestrained and charming as in
the old days. She even allowed Ellen to pay for tea.
At dinner they appeared radiant. They beamed like sunlight;
they blossomed like flowers. The guests were nonplussed. The
wildest theories were advanced and exploded. It was unnatural,
inexplicable, psychologically impossible. And the only incident
which could have thrown any light on it occurred when the two
had already retired to their bedroom. Mrs. Ramsden's parcel lay
on the bed. She took it up and handed it to Miss Phipps. *A little
surprise for you, Ellen,' she said.
Miss Phipps opened the parcel. It contained an expensive silk
blouse.
ON THE THRESHOLD
ON THE THRESHOLD
AUNT LOUISA WAS AN ADMIRABLE TRAVEL-
ling companion, admirable, Elizabeth thought, not only
because of her virtues but also because of her shortcomings. Her
mind was stored with information. Her knowledge of architec-
ture, for instance, was precise and unerring. She was perfect in
her dates and styles and periods, so that she would dissect a cathe-
dral for you as easily and accurately as she would carve a chicken
and, besides this, she knew, it seemed, the individual history of
every town they visited. It was as if her mind consisted of a series
of compact little cupboards, so that you only had to unlock the
Canterbury cupboard or the Rye cupboard or the Chester cup-
board to take from its shelf any detail you might require. And
the best of it was that Aunt Louisa never bothered you. She
never unlocked a cupboard unless you asked her to. She would
take you by easy and unhurrying stages to each point of interest,
but not a word would she say about it unless you enquired. Nor
did she expect to be asked : it was just as you liked. So that there
were often periods of silence between her aud Elizabeth, periods
in which, without any sense of constraint, each retired into her
secret world.
Elizabeth's world was very different from Aunt Louisa's. It
was a world of which she had only recently become fully con-
scious, though she had explored its fringes in childhood. She had
never spoken to anyone of this world, indeed it had never occurred
to her that, for anyone besides herself, it would have any meaning,
even if she had been able to put her sense of it into words. Of
what did it consist? It might perhaps be hinted at, she thought,
as a warm pool of fine emotion in which she could dip herself,
always to come out of it delighted and refreshed; or as an
50 THE PUPPET SHOW
illumination, a perfume, left in her mind by all beautiful things —
by music and colour, by certain poems, certain prose, by fine
buildings, beautiful or terrible aspects of nature. Yet those were
merely symbols, not definitions of it. It was something more than
that. It was vivid and alive and richly complex: perhaps, after all,
it was nothing less than her real innermost self, that self which
lies beyond the reach of any external disturbance. Whatever it
was, however ignored and inexplicable by the plain facts of life,
it was, to Elizabeth, intensely near; and often, during the
present tour with Aunt Louisa, when they visited some beautiful
old town, Elizabeth would let herself merge deliciously into that
world of hers from which she would look out with doubled en-
joyment on the scenes which they explored. And Aunt Louisa
never disturbed Elizabeth's silence on these occasions, for she
herself, whether talking or silent, was all the time hard at work,
recognising, corroborating, correcting, amplifying, rearranging
those cupboards of hers in the light of present experience. The
process was revealed by a running accompaniment of interjec-
tions, a sort of subdued ventriloquy. Elizabeth, when she heard
it going on, would say to herself: — 'Ah! She is registering!' and
suddenly feeling strangely alone, would contemplate with
amusement and admiration the efficient little engine by her side.
Aunt Louisa described nothing as beautiful and almost every-
thing as interesting. *I must warn you,' she would say to anyone
who showed a tendency to become metaphysical, 'that I am a
strictly matter-of-fact person.' And had she known that Eliza-
beth regarded her as an efficient machine, she would have felt it
to be a compliment.
And now, as the train rattled over the green levels of reclaimed
marshland, she sat, upright and intelligent, watching the flying
landscape. She was entertaining herself, Elizabeth knew, by
noting how obsequiously each red-roofed village and each Gothic
church complied with her exactly classified knowledge of them.
Theretheywere,beautifulbuthelpless:AuntLouisahadthemgrip-
ped in a system, a classification from which escape was impossible.
ON THE THRESHOLD 5 I
Elizabeth, too, gazed out of the carriage window, but she did
not see the landscape. Her thoughts, too, were busy with classi-
fication, but classification of a different kind. She was trying to
knit together the scattered threads of her dream. She had dreamed
it again last night for the third time. Each time it had been, she
was sure, the same dream, exact in every detail, but on this last
occasion it had been more vivid and clear than before. And when
she woke it had remained so real in her memory that she seemed
by waking from it rather to have fallen out of reality and into a
dream. Even now, as she sat in the train, she remained bathed in
the atmosphere of it, a warm, mellow mood, a glow half of fulfil-
ment, half of expectancy. But much of the detail which she Jiad
remembered at first, she had afterwards forgotten, and now the
thing remained in her mind rather as a series of detached experi-
ences.
She could still recall the charm of that thrice-visited town; the
little grass-grown street, too steep for any cart; the narrow door-
ways; the leaning gables looking down into the silence through
the bright eyes of small windows. She remembered how either
the place or she herself seemed to be expecting something, some
discovery or revelation: and then how halfway up the steep street
she had turned into one of the small doorways, feeling that there
perhaps the revelation awaited her, and had paused at the foot of
a dark staircase and, looking up, had seen a streamer of sunlight
from an upper window printing a bright square across dark panels.
But there was nothing there, she felt, except the same question,
the same quiet attention.
Then she had found herself on a high platform of the ramparts
under a great four-turretted tower. The plain below stretched in
green flats to a straight blue ribbon of sea, and over the green flats
sunlight and cloud-shadows kept up a ceaseless variegation of
violet and gold and rose. Away to the westward another hill-town
stood among clustered trees. Was it there, perhaps, that she would
find the answer to the secret? But no: the answer, she felt, lay in
something she had forgotten about the grey tower behind her.
52 THE PUPPET SHOW
The door of it was locked. She heard a dull reverberation from
within when she released the handle.
She skirted a great church and entered. Inside, all was height
and silence. The clear, watery light fell on grey walls and arches
which bloomed to yellow where sunshine fell through tall win-
dows. In the transepts, delicate Norman arches screened the
triforium, and again, as she studied their carving, she seemed on
the brink of a solution. As she watched for it, it brightened and
faded, came and went, like sunshine and shadow on a windy day.
But soon she seemed to lose the track of it, and then she became
aware that the silence was being meted out into great leisurely
lengths. There was a feeling that time moved slowly here: and
soon the feeling materialized into the slow, ponderous beat of a
great pendulum swinging its wide arc under the vault of the cen-
tral tower. Each pause between each great tick seemed to be
leading up to some final event, some release of the growing stress
of attention. But evidently the church had not given her the
answer, and she next remembered herself climbing four steps into
the doorway of a low, half-timbered house. Inside, she had found
herself in a wide dark-panelled room. After the bright sunshine
of the street the place seemed sunk in twilight, for the heavy-
beamed ceiling was almost within reach of her finger-tips and the
light came sparsely through closed lattices. Here the tension was
keener than ever. Something was impending, imminent. She
dared not move for fear of releasing the spring. A staircase de-
scended into the room. There were two doors in the panelling.
She listened breathless for a step on the stair, watched for a move-
ment of one of the doors. Had she waited thus for hours or only
for a few seconds? She could not tell, but, sure enough, as she
glanced from one door to the other, the unwatched one had opened
and a woman stood holding the handle. She was an old woman,
tall and thin, with weary, faded eyes set shallow in a sunken face
pale and discoloured like wax, and waxlike it caught the cold
gleam from the windows. She stood there for a second only, then
suddenly held out both hands to Elizabeth. 'You?' she whispered
ON THE THRESHOLD 53
eagerly: 'you at last?' And instantly the tension snapped and
Elizabeth, impelled by sudden recognition, rushed towards her,
exclaiming: 'Tell me, O tell me ... !' But the energy of her rush
had developed into a loud, chaotic whirlpool, and she had awoken
with thumping heart and the hollow disappointment of the un-
answered question
She was roused from her revery by the thuddering of the brakes.
The train was pulling up and Aunt Louisa was lifting luggage
from the rack. We can send our things on the hotel omnibus,1
she said, 'and then we shall be free to walk.'
Aunt Louisa attached great importance to method of approach.
She held that you should enter a town by the route on which you
will encounter in due order those essential details which together
compose the town's individuality. Thus the proper facts will sort
themselves simply and systematically in the mind and that labour
of classification which springs from haphazard sight-seeing will
be avoided.
Happily this method suits equally as well the aesthetic as the
scientific attitude, and Elizabeth knew from past experience that
she would best capture the spirit of the place by putting herself en-
tirely under her aunt's guidance.
Thus, instead of climbing the steep approach from the station,
they turned to the right and skirted the edge of the town: then,
wheeling to the left, they found themselves at the foot of a steeply
ascending little street, narrow and grass-grown. At the first glance
Elizabeth knew it. It was her street, the street which she had al-
ready visited three times in dream. There were the same narrow
doorways, the little houses climbing the ascent gable by gable,
the same earnest survey of the street by small, bright-eyed win-
dows.
They began to climb. Aunt Louisa was speaking. 'After we
have visited the churchyard,' she was saying, 'I want to find the
point of view of a drawing of the exterior which appears in my
history of Gothic architecture. It is a view which shows rather
interestingly the junction of three different periods.'
54 THE PUPPET SHOW
Elizabeth did not hear her. She was watching for the little
doorway on the left. Yes, there it was: exact, unmistakable. In-
evitably Elizabeth turned into it and with fluttering heart stood
at the foot of the stairs. The sun shone through the upper window,
lighting the dark panelling with a square of gold. And, just as in
her dream, the place was intent, listening, waiting. Outside, Aunt
Louisa was calling her, and Elizabeth turned and reluctantly left
the house. 'An interesting staircase,' she explained falteringly.
'But, my dear, the house is occupied,' remonstrated her aunt,
and they continued their ascent. Soon they were skirting the
church. 'A most interesting church,' said Aunt Louisa. 'It con-
tains some fine Norman work.'
'You mean the triforium arches in the transept?' Elizabeth
ventured. 'Elizabeth,' said her aunt, 'you have been reading the
guide-book.' Elizabeth thrilled silently. Were those arches in-
deed the same? Would she be able, this time, to seize their hidden
significance, to catch the glimpse which would irradiate the
whole mystery?
But, according to Aunt Louisa's method of approach, they
must visit the platform of the Flanders Tower before visiting the
church. There, too, everything seemed to Elizabeth to be ab-
sorbed, concentrated on the supreme event. Those changing
colours on the grass-flats, the violet, the gold and the rose, seemed
on the point of blossoming into some revealing splendour, and
again she found herself trying to recollect what it was that she
had forgotten about the tower. Aunt Louisa told her all about the
tower, its date, its function, its history, but that forgotten thing
remained forgotten and they left the tower for the church. 'And
after the church,' said Aunt Louisa, 'I must find the point of view
of that drawing.'
They entered by the well-remembered porch and Elizabeth at
once crossed to the south transept. The arches were there pre-
cisely as she knew them. Their loveliness returned to her with
the same shock of delight, the same vanishing hint of a forgotten
link, now seen, now lost, like the flicker of a flame, the flash of a
ON THE THRESHOLD 55
wing, the sudden, half-apprehended sense of a remembered per-
fume. When she studied them the memory vanished : she turned
away and it beckoned to her from remote distances. And then, as
before, she became suddenly aware of the measured swing of the
great pendulum, and as she listened she rose, as it were, on the
growing crest of each pause; but when the beat came she fell back
into the hollow of the next wave-trough. Surely, if she had pa-
tience, the tremendous moment would arrive: a beat would come
from which there would be no relapsing, but release, fulfilment,
revelation. She waited with growing excitement, growing con-
centration, till the tension of each pause became an agony. An
irrepressible cry rose in her throat. Just as she felt that she could
restrain it no longer, her aunt, who had completed her reclassifi-
cation of the building, touched her arm and suggested departure.
Elizabeth accompanied her aunt in her search for that inter-
esting view of the church, but it continued to elude them: houses
seemed to get in the way of it. Aunt Louisa attached great im-
portance to its discovery : 'It is so extremely instructive,' she said.
But before they found Aunt Louisa's view they found Elizabeth's
house, the low, half-timbered house with the four steps up to the
door. She came upon it without surprise, for she knew she must
find it sooner or later. The windows stared cold and dull. The
house was to let. Elizabeth tried the door: it was open and they
entered. As she latched it again, she felt the hush of an intense
expectancy close down on the place. They stood in the dim, low-
ceilinged room into which a clear light filtered through dusty
lattices. Aunt Louisa instantly took up the good work of classi-
fication, scrutinizing casement and ceiling, unerringly dating the
panelling: and soon she was climbing the stairs to carry her activi-
ties to the upper floor. Elizabeth stood alone, watching, listening.
The whole room was watching and listening too. The sense of
it was overpowering. The place was crouching, waiting for her
to move. She felt the heart-beats thickening in her throat. One
of the doors creaked and an inarticulate exclamation burst from
her. The spell was momentarily broken. She heard her aunt's
56 THE PUPPET SHOW
footsteps overhead. Taking a deep breath to ease the oppressive
tightening of her chest, she tiptoed quietly up the creaking stairs,
and silent, invisible things followed her.
She found herself on a darkly-panelled landing on to which
three doors opened. The one on the right was ajar: a spearhead
of sunlight gilded the floor and she heard her aunt pacing inside
the room. Just as Elizabeth turned to join her, the door on the
left opened and the dream-woman stepped out on to the landing.
The shallow, faded eyes were the same and the long, bony face of
polished wax. Elizabeth clapped her hand to her mouth to stifle a
cry. Then the woman recognised her. Her eyes lit up and she
stretched out her hands/ Your' she said eagerly, 'it's you?' A warm
tide of happiness invaded Elizabeth. She seemed on the point of
embracing again a friend long lost.
The voice of Aunt Louisa broke in upon them. 'Elizabeth!'
she called. 'Elizabeth.' Elizabeth started and half-turned towards
the door. When she looked round again the light was gone out of
the faded eyes and the woman stood calm with her hands clasped
at her waist.
'I beg your pardon, Miss,' she said, 'I mistook you . . .'
'For whom?' asked Elizabeth, breathlessly.
'For no-one, Miss, I thought ... I seemed to recognise you . . .
I thought you had come to tell me something.'
'But tell me, who did you think I was?'
'No-one, Miss: really, no-one. Only someone in a dream.'
Aunt Louisa was calling again. 'Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Come
here!' Elizabeth entered the room. Her aunt stood by the win-
dow. 'Look here, Elizabeth!' she said excitedly. 'I've found it.
There's no mistaking it. The view of the church. Most interest-
ing. Most instructive.' But Elizabeth could not reply. She seemed
to have suddenly been wakened out of a deep sleep. She was dazed.
Her mind was like a pool blurred by a shower of raindrops. What
had been the matter with her all day? Was she ill? Was her mind
unsettled? Her face flushed with sudden alarm and she wondered
nervously whether Aunt Louisa had noticed anything peculiar
ON THE THRESHOLD 57
in her behaviour. What could have given her all these strange
ideas about the town? The sense of them was leaving her now,
leaving her so rapidly that she already felt as though she were
criticising the eccentricities of another individual.
When they left the room to go downstairs, the woman was
still on the landing. Elizabeth glanced at her. 'Surely I never saw
her before?' she thought, and the woman, too, glanced at Eliza-
beth as at a stranger.
THE WORCESTER BOWL
THE WORCESTER BOWL
IT WAS SATURDAY AFTERNOON, AND IN
Heaven, as elsewhere, it was half-holiday. The gate of
Heaven was locked, the key in Peter's pocket, and Peter and the
Omnipotent, having shaken off the burden of the week, were
taking the celestial air on the ramparts.
In Hellsimilarconditionsprevailed. Thestoking for the week-
end was done, the devils had piled pitchforks, and Satan, like a
rabbit in the entrance of his burrow, sat idly in HelFs-Mouth,
sunning himself.
Meanwhile, in his vicarage upon the earth, the Reverend
Theophilus Jenkinson was entertaining to tea Mr. and the
Honourable Mrs. Plantagenet Jones, the noblest of his
parishioners.
Let us return to Heaven. The Omnipotent and Peter are still
taking the celestial air and approaching in their stroll one of those
many watch-towers which soar rotundly out of the ramparts of
Heaven, they climb into it and lean over its high parapet. Far
beneath them, through a thousand atmospheres and a thousand
voids, they see (and pretend not to see) Satan sunning himself in
Hell's-Mouth: and, each time they catch his eye they hear (and
pretend not to hear) his irreverent chuckling. Far and near, be-
neath them and around them, smoothly and faultlessly the tre-
mendous order of the Universe runs like an exquisite machine.
In the midst of it, minute but indispensable, the Solar System
weaves its inevitable dance, and, like a dust-mote in the swirl of
it, the World-of-Men sweeps in its orbit round the sun. And,
swarming on this fraction of a fraction, life in the tiniest seed
grows and blossoms and is changed in obedience to Nature's
unalterable laws.
62 THE PUPPET SHOW
But Peter and the Omnipotent had watched it all so long that,
for them, the wonder was gone out of it. In the Dawn-of-Time,
when the Omnipotent in the exuberant vigour of his youth had
conceived it and fashioned it, they had delighted in the miracle
of its perfect economy. It had seemed to them food for eternal
thought that this huge scheme of things should depend upon its
minutest, as upon its greatest, law: that, should a nightingale be
hatched from a hedge-sparrow's egg, Time and Space would go
down into eternal chaos; and if once a flung pebble were to float
on the face of a stream, that instant would the Universe dissolve
in a puff of smoke. But from long custom these things were be-
come to them as a familiar nursery-rhyme, sounding in the ear
but silent to the mind. Yet the pleasure of watching the system
at work remained, and they gazed down on things in general.
'I perceive/ said the All-Seeing presently, 'that my servant
Jenkinson is giving a tea. He is handing hot cakes.*
'To the Honourable Mrs. Plantagenet Jones,' said Peter: 'a
woman of unerring tact.'
'My servant Jenkinson/ continued the Omnipotent/is a very,
very good man. I have watched him closely for a fortnight and,
during that period, he has not committed the smallest indiscre-
tion. Conduct so unusual deserves recognition. The question
(always a difficult one) is, what form should recognition take?
Happiness he already possesses. Long life is not always considered
an advantage.'
'Riches?' suggested Peter.
'Riches, being a saint, he would, or should, despise.' And the
All-Knowing knitted his brows.
'I have it/ he said at last, and he smote the parapet. 'I will
leave it to him. All his prayers shall be granted.'
At this there arose through the void of space such a becackle-
ment from Hell's-Mouth that the Omniscient knew at once that
he had made a mistake. Peter knew it too and urged him to recall
his decision. But Satan's laughter and Peter's importunity only
hardened the determination of the Ancient-of-Days.
THE WORCESTER BOWL 63
Satan laughed again, and that settled it. ...
The Reverend Theophilus Jenkinson had only one worldly
preoccupation, and that was .... china. Now the Honourable
Mrs. Plantagenet Jones hated china, yet at the moment when
Peter and the All-Seeing carried their attention back on to the
tea-party,she had just turned on her brightest smile and was saying
as follows:
'They tell me, Mr. Jenkinson, that your china is quite won-
derful. I simply dote on china. Though/ she hastened to add, as
a precaution against pitfalls, 'I know nothing whatever about it.
Still, as I always tell Plantagenet, I know what I like.'
'That,' said the All-Knowing, 'is a lie.'
'Surely the woman knows what she likes,' quoth Peter.
'Possibly, though not necessarily. Possibly, too, she always
tells Plantagenet. But she said she doted on china. She doesn't.'
'That,' Peter explained, 'is tact.'
'Perhaps,' growled the All-Wise, 'but not fact. Make a note
of it.' Peter made a note of it.
'This,' Mr. Jenkinson was saying, 'is the gem of my little col-
lection,' and he tenderly lifted from the shelf a small Worcester
bowl. 'Pray,' said he, 'observe the mark.'
Now Satan had been watching his opportunity and, as the Rev-
erend Theophilus inverted the bowl to show its mark to Mrs.
Jones, Satan deftly knocked it out of his hand.
Hearts stood still. Like a pair of old vultures, Peter and the
Omnipotent craned further over Heaven's Parapet. Mrs. Jones
gasped, and the Reverend Theophilus snapped out the two words:
'Stop it.'
How much hung on those words. For observe that he did not
say 'May I catch it,' or 'May it not break,' but simply 'Stop it,'
and that so quickly that the words were out before the bowl was
half-way to the floor. And, craning over the battlements, the Om-
nipotent heard Mr. Jenkinson 's prayer and the Worcester bowl
stopped miraculously in mid-passage. But only for a fraction of a
second, for the next moment the earth, hurled off at a tangent to
64 THE PUPPET SHOW
its wonted orbit, was consumed in a holocaust of stampeding
planets; the Solar System buckled and was shattered like a bursting
shell, and the Universe was dissolved in a puff of smoke.
And through the racket there rang from the mouth of Hell
shriek upon shriek of Satanic laughter.
Then, in the twinkling of an eye, Heaven and Hell were
flooded with millions of human souls. To Hell went the Honour-
able Mrs. Plantagenet Jones who did not dote on china: to
Heaven, the Reverend Theophilus Jenkinson, best of men.
But to the Omnipotent, when he had finished sneezing, the
thought came that perhaps his servant Jenkinson attached too
much importance to china. The more he reflected upon it, the
more indignant he became. 'Unheard of,' he muttered. 'Prepos-
terous! Was there ever such disproportion! Jenkinson is much to
blame:' and the callow soul of Jenkinson was haled before him.
Very transparent and piteous it looked as it hung before the
Presence.
'What is the meaning of this, Jenkinson?' boomed the Omni-
potent.
'What indeed?' piped the thin soul of Theophilus.
The Omnipotent scowled. 'You do not appear, Jenkinson,
to realise what you have done. You have been thoughtless
enough to wreck the Universe.'
Jenkinson was dazed by his recent experience, and the dark
hints of the Omnipotent dazed him still more. He did not reply.
He simply flapped in the celestial air.
'You dropped a piece of china,' the Omnipotent explained.
'Many people drop china: especially servants. The pieces are
swept up, and there the matter ends. But you, to save your pal-
try bowl, must needs break my Law of Gravitation. "Stop it,"
you said. You had no time for more. Had there been time, you
would have said, "O Lord to whom all things are possible, may
it please Thee to suspend in mid-air this my most exquisite bowl
of Worcester . . ." and so on. You understand now?'
The soul of Jenkinson bowed.
THE WORCESTER BOWL 65
'Have you any explanation to offer?*
'It all happened so suddenly . . .' the pale soul babbled.
'It did,' agreed the Omnipotent ruefully. 'But here, where
time is not, such a plea can have little weight. Indeed,' he added,
prompted by nudges and whispers from Peter, 'since you have
stupidly destroyed my Law of Gravitation, it is obvious that
nothing can have any weight.'
A silence fell.
ll submit,' said the soul tentatively, 'that the inventor of
Worcester is as much to blame as I.'
Peter snorted. 'Had Worcester not been invented,' he broke
in, 'doubtless you would have dropped some Crown Derby."
'You cannot deny it, Jenkinson,' said the Omnipotent.
Jenkinson, intrigued by the argument, grew bolder.
'Since, O Lord, you created me, the inventor of Worcester,
and everybody else, surely ' An interrupting cackle from
Hell warned them that they were on dangerous ground. The
soul of Jenkinson did not complete its sentence: the Omnipotent,
doubtful where the pitfall lay, kept quiet and looked profound,
and again Peter came to the rescue.
'His Omnipotence is surprised, Jenkinson,' he boomed, 'that
you, a Bachelor of Divinity, should ventilate unorthodox views
on the subject of free-will.'
'And not only surprised, but also grieved,' added the Omni-
potent. Jenkinson's soul changed colour and grew cautious.
'At least,' he cried, 'may I not claim credit for having saved
from destruction, if only for a moment, a thing of exquisite
beauty?' And even yet there was a ring in his voice as he touched
on the Worcester bowl. The Omnipotent was moved: he
wavered visibly. Again Peter snatched the reins, for this was no
time to stand on ceremony.
'No,' he thundered, 'for, as the Omniscient will tell you, if
your bowl had reached the floor, it would not, as a matter of fact,
have broken.'
'Perfectly true,' confirmed the Omniscient: 'absolutely true.
66 THE PUPPET SHOW
A little fact, Jenkinson, which reveals the monstrous futility of
your crime.' And he made a gesture as though to terminate the
interview. 'Nothing,' he said conclusively, 'can be gained by pro-
crastination. In short, Jenkinson, what is your final excuse?'
'It is this,1 answered the soul of Jenkinson, 'that when I said
"Stop it" I was speaking, as it happened, to Mrs. Plantagenet
Jones.'
THE SCHOOLMASTER
THE SCHOOLMASTER
IN THE VILLAGE SCHOOLROOM THE BLIND
was drawn except for three inches at the bottom through
which the September sun threw on to the sill a blazing band of
light which, as the breeze stirred the blind, alternately spread and
retired across it like an ebbing and flowing wave, or dropped
sheer over the edge of it on to the floor. The room was filled with
that limpid grey light which is found in shaded places on days of
brilliant sunshine. It illuminated the round backs of thirty-three
village boys who did not wish to learn, and the mild presence of
Mr. Hinks, the village schoolmaster, who did not wish to teach.
Both he and they, bowed beneath the bondage of circumstances,
felt the occasional flutter of a delicious breeze in the room and
longed to escape into the summer awaiting them outside.
This longing revealed itself differently in master and pupils.
In the pupils it appeared as a subdued insubordination, in the
master as a certain apprehensive timidity vainly fretting at the
incredibly slow passage of time.
Nature had not been kind to Mr. Hinks. It seemed as if at
first she had designed him to be a low comedian, for she had given
him the long, meek, bony face, the shapeless, elastic mouth, the
red nose, and that appearance of perpetual chilliness, which com-
prise the external outfit of a certain traditional type of low come-
dian— an appearance which is usually achieved only with the
aid of artificial means. But, after loading him with these qualifi-
cations, Nature had cruelly withheld the rest — the self-assurance,
the tricks of gesture, the secret of laughter. Thus Mr. Hinks
was not a low comedian but a poor, shrinking creature with the
pathos and appeal of ineffectuality about him.
He was that type of man which always seems destined to fail-
ure: a man with a craving, in some vague sense, for the beautiful,
70 THE PUPPET SHOW
stirred by vague enthusiasms which seemed never to define
themselves — an artistic temperament which could find no outlet,
or rather, perhaps, it was no more than a desire to possess the ar-
tistic temperament. For his parents and teachers, the only dis-
tinctive fact about the boy Hinks had been that he was a scholar.
He was fond of books and was a painstaking and indefatigable
student. Obviously he was intended to be a schoolmaster. The
young Hinks did not want to be a schoolmaster: the prospect
frightened him. But as others had decided the question and he
himself was unable to suggest an alternative, he resigned himself,
and in course of time this sensitive and ineffectual soul (the last
man on earth to control those slippery, impulsive little animals
called schoolboys) was duly installed in a village school
This morning Hinks was in a state of miserable tension. He
knew by infallible signs that he had somehow allowed the class
to break its moorings and that it was slowly and surely moving
beyond his control. The room was full of a subdued murmur.
Silence had somehow ceased and now a low hum of universal
conversation confronted him. What was he to do? Experience
told him that a certain intonation would check the anarchy: but
it told him also that he could not be sure of commanding that
intonation, and that if he tried and failed, if the note rang false,
his fear would be a naked and laughable fact and that, so far from
improving matters, he would loose chaos on himself there and
then. His uncertainty became agonising. His cheeks pulsed ner-
vously where they covered the jawbones, his moist hands grew
restless, his poor red nose shone.
The disturbance grew horribly. Above the general buzz, details
which pricked him with terror became more and more frequent.
Somebody whistled. A slate fell with a clatter. Robson was strug-
gling with Green for the possession of a cap. Something must be
done. He pulled himself together, confiscated the cap, and made
the two offenders stand out. A perceptible ripple of laughter ran
round the class, but the hubbub had broken off short. Intense re-
lief came over him. He felt like an invalid who has just come
THE SCHOOLMASTER J I
through a paroxysm, exhausted but freed from torture. A warm
breeze from the window touched his face and for a moment he
thrilled to the deliciousness of the day, but only to be reminded
that he was embarked on another year of this unbearable existence.
He had made attempts to find other work, always in vain. His
very appearance gave him away and when he spoke the unfavour-
able impression was reinforced. He had no self-confidence, he
could not assert himself.
He set himself to envisage his position clearly. Could he ac-
cept the fact that he would still be a schoolmaster a year, even a
month, hence? Emphatically not. The prospect of repeating
week after week, month after month, this losing battle against
opposition and ridicule was unendurable. The thing would drive
him mad. He must escape at all costs: so much was settled.
Now for the question how ! That question was seldom out of
his mind, but now he tried to weigh the pros and cons coldly,
mathematically, as an impersonal problem. He had spent what
little capital he possessed in qualifying as a schoolmaster; therefore
the only job he could take must be one paid from the beginning.
But all the occupations which came into his mind necessitated an
apprenticeship, and for this reason one after another had had to
be ruled out. He had read somewhere that one ought to live dan-
gerously. Simply to abandon the school without attempting to
get other work, to trust to chance, become a tramp, a beggar, —
that would be to live dangerously: but commonsense rebelled.
It was bold and romantic in theory, mere rash senselessness in
practice. Gradually he felt the prison closing round him as he
disposed one by one of the possibilities of escape. As a result of his
reasoning two facts emerged: — he could not continue his present
existence, and . . . there was no means of escape from it.
This dreadful conclusion somehow consoled him. He felt at
least that he had cleared away a great incubus of vague specula-
tion and fruitless worry, that the thing was reduced to its essential
simplicity. . . .
As if from a great distance and after a long interval of time, he
72 THE PUPPET SHOW
suddenly found himself back in the schoolroom. He recognised
with surprise the rows of towzle-headed boys, his own ink-stained
desk, and the sunny blind which was still undulating to the
breeze. The church clock began to strike. It must be eleven.
But, to his amazement, the clock struck twelve, and he realised
that a whole hour had passed like a flash. What had happened in
the interval? How had the boys behaved? He had no idea.
At a sign from him, a turmoil of noise and hurry burst upon
the room, the clatter of shaken desks, the knocking of boots
against forms, the beat of frenzied feet on the wooden floor. In
fifteen seconds the room was empty and silent. It returned Hinks's
gaze with an intense familiarity, half hateful, half loveable, which
seemed to be symbolised by the faded maps on the walls and the
pervading smell of schoolboy. Absent-mindedly he wound a long
strap round and round a pile of five or six books and buckled it.
Then he went out, automatically carrying with him the bundle
of books and the confiscated cap.
Out-of-doors sunshine pervaded everything. He noticed for
the first time vivid green moss under the step, green grass-
blades springing above the line of the gutter which edged the
eaves, a spider's web between the brickwork and the window.
The familiar scene in this strong, live, illumination seemed to
present itself to him with an intensity which gave to it a feeling
of strangeness like a vivid dream: it seemed to him something
more than reality. Hinks felt strong, free and self-possessed, and
yet suddenly, to his surprise, he had to choke down a sob which
rose in his throat. Instead of returning indoors to his dinner, he
walked away from the school, bare-headed, carrying the cap and
books. . . .
An old barn stood in a corner of a field close to the school. The
huge expanse of its tiled roof sagged and bulged with the distor-
tion of age. Behind it rose the green solemnity of ancient oaks, as
old as the barn itself, lifting above its long roof mound over mound
of luxuriant foliage. The great doorway generally stood open:
seen from the dark interior it looked like the mouth of a huge
THE SCHOOLMASTER 73
shining cavern whose brightness threw a ragged splash of gold
into the twilight of the barn. At one end of it trusses of hay had
been heaped up almost to the roof.
The barn was the headquarters of a gang of which Robson and
Green were the chiefs. In times of emergency they barred the
door from within and the place became forthwith impregnable,
so that even the owner himself, Reed the farmer, had more than
once been shut out of his own property. Thence arose complaints
to the schoolmaster and timid and in variably unsuccessful attempts
on the part of Mr. Hinks to establish the identity of the culprits.
Upon the stroke of the clock, Robson and Green, abandoning
their attitudes of disgrace, had hurried off to the barn without
waiting to recover the cap from Mr. Hinks. They had reason to
suspect that the commissariat of the gang, which consisted of
apples, a tin of bullseyes, and a bottled filled with a terrible home-
made drink, had been looted. They had reached the barn and
were absorbedly digging in the mounds of hay, when they heard
a step in the doorway which they had closed but not barred. In-
stinctively they assumed the immobility of rocks, but on this
occasion in vain, for the door creaked on its hinges and the sun
projected a streamer of light precisely on to the crouching form
of Green. He glanced round cautiously. The intruder stood
looking at him. It was Mr. Hinks.
'Come here,' said Hinks, in a voice startlingly unlike his own.
The boys climbed down and approached him. Something seemed
to be wrong with him. Not only his voice but his face was
changed: it had the strangest expression, like a smile, and yet it
did not seem that he was either happy or amused. Was he drunk?
Or mad? There was something vaguely disquieting about him.
He was struggling to speak again.
'Are there any others here?' he asked in a strange dry voice.
'No, only us,' answered Robson. Hinks undid the straps from
the books which he was carrying.
'Here,' he continued, holding out the books. 'Take these to
my desk.' Robson took them and the boys started off, glad to go.
74 THE PUPPET SHOW
'Green. Here!' said the voice again. 'Your cap!' Green
paused and glanced back. Mr. Hink's eyes were looking at him,
but as though they did not see him. They reminded him of the
eyes of a drowned tramp whom he had once seen dragged out of
a pond. He turned and ran after Robson
After dinner, the boys returned to school. Mr. Hinks was
late. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by
and still he failed to appear. The boys were delighted, exhilarated.
Something unusual must have happened. Twenty minutes,
twenty five, half an hour. The excitement grew intense. Per-
haps he wasn't going to turn up at all. They would get the
afternoon off. Meanwhile, to pass the time, Robson and Green
began an impromptu riot. The riot was interrupted by a step in
the passage and in five seconds each boy was in his place, wearing
an appearance of guileless and patient propriety.
The intruder, however, was not Mr. Hinks but Reed the
farmer, and evidently he was in a temper.
'Here,' he growled at the nearest boy. 'Where's Mr. Hinks?
They'll get it this time, I'll take good care of that.'
The boys stared at him uncomprehendingly.
'Which are they, now?' he continued. 'You may just as well
tell me. I'll find out anyhow in the end.* He glared round on
them, but, getting no response, he turned to go. 'Very well. I'll
have to break the door in and then they'll get such a whacking
as they'll not forget in a hurry.'
Mention of the door enlightened Robson and Green.
'It's none of us,' said Green. 'You can see for yourself we're
all here.'
The boys' faces convinced Reed that this was true. 'Then it's
tramps,' he said, and hurried out followed by most of the boys.
Solemn adjurationsat the barn-door elicited no reply. 'There's
no use pretending you're not there: I can see you,' roared the
untruthful but diplomatic Reed. Then, taking up one of the
heavy stones which were used to prop open the door, he broke in
one of the planks and climbed in.
THE SCHOOLMASTER 7$
'Now don't any of you dare to follow me,' he said as he dis-
appeared into the darkness. The boys clustered eagerly round
the door, listening. Presently Reed made a sound. It was not a
word but an exclamation like the cough of a sheep. Immediately
afterwards he came hurrying out, his face transformed. Evidently
he had received a shock.
'Now you can all run away home,' he said to them. 'There'll
be no school this afternoon. And Bobby, you stay with me,' he
said to his own boy who was among the rest.
When the boys had cleared off he spoke to his son. 'Now you
cut along as fast as you can, first to Jackson the policeman, and
then to Dr. Mawson. Tell them Mr. Hinks has hanged himself
in the barn. Say I'm waiting here, and, mind, not a word to
anyone.'
HARE AND HOUNDS
HARE AND HOUNDS
IT WAS NOT UNTIL HE UNPACKED HIS
portmanteau at the Albergo Centrale in a small Tuscan hill-
town that Marlyon felt really safe. He had done the whole journey
without a stop, for it would have been madness to hope to pass
unobserved in London, Paris, Turin, or Florence. The thing had
become altogether beyond endurance. Every large town in
Europe and America was now closed to him. His only hope of
safety was to hide himself in some remote village. He realized
what it must feel like to be a criminal fleeing from justice.
Marlyon was not, however, a criminal: he was simply a pian-
ist,— not merely one among the dozen first-class pianists, but an
astounding phenomenon whose like had never been known. The
English papers boasted that he was an all-British product, even
British-trained: they traced back his pedigree to the 1 4th century.
And now things had come to such a pass that to every city of
Europe and America his face was as familiar as the face of its king
or president. Wherever he went, people nudged one another and
he found himself stared at. Whenever he gave a recital it was al-
most impossible for him to get into the hall through the crowd
waiting to catch a glimpse of him. Inside, he was yelled at and
worried to death with rapture, bouquets and adulation; and, at
the end, it was more difficult to get clear of the place than it had
been to reach it. It was like living amongst a continuous insur-
rection and, in order to escape it, Marlyon had quietly disappeared
without confiding to a soul his destination.
When he arrived the inn was empty, so that he enjoyed his
meals without apprehension at the little table in the corner of the
large tile-floored dining-room. But on the following morning the
motor-bus which plied between the little town and the nearest
railway station was delivered, outside the Albergo Centrale, of at
80 THE PUPPET SHOW
least a dozen persons, all of them, to Marlyon's horror, English
or American. Marlyon instantly left the town by the south gate.
He would lunch at some trattoria in the country and not return
until dinner-time, when the party would doubtless have left by
the evening bus.
And sure enough, when he did return, he found the dining-
room empty. It was not until he had finished his soup that he
became aware that two ladies had entered and taken their seats
at a table on the opposite side of the room. It was Mrs. Congle-
ton Snaggs of New York and her daughter Eveline, and in ten
minutes they had marked him down. Their four eyes were trained
on him like four guns, but Marlyon believed he could read in this
uncompromising stare the hint of a lingering doubt. They were
very nearly certain, but they were not quite certain. The mother
turned to the daughter and Marlyon felt sure she was saying:
cWe shall see to-morrow, dear, by daylight.'
To nourish this precious doubt, Marlyon tucked his table-
napkin under his chin and, helping himself plentifully to Spagh-
etti, he got down to it in the Italian fashion, shovelling it whole-
sale into his mouth so that his face suggested a Rococo fountain.
Having accomplished this, he glanced across at the enemy. The
guns were still ranged on him but, yes, he was sure of it, the
doubt had deepened. Then they rallied, it seemed, for Eveline
leaned towards her mother and her lips seemed to say:
'Still, one might fall into the habit after several visits/
The following morning Marlyon bought a pot of pomade and
succeeded in making his hair lie flat and sleek, brushed straight
back from the forehead.
At lunch he found the enemy in double strength. Not only
were Mrs. Congleton Snaggs and her daughter in position but,
at the table next them, sat old Mr. Rippington and his young
wife. Evidently Mrs. Snaggs had already roped them in and,
English though they were, they had been willing, in considera-
tion of the greatness of the enterprise, to emerge from their
national exclusiveness.
HARE AND HOUNDS 8 I
Marlyon's coiffure shook them visibly. He could interpret the
pantomime.
'But so different, even in colour,' Mrs. Rippington was saying.
'Last night, Eveline?' said Mrs. Snaggs. 'I hardly remember,
indeed I doubt if we could see by artificial light.'
'Always fluffy and parted on the right,' Mrs. Rippington as-
serted positively.
'Still, a change is not impossible,' put in Mrs. Snaggs. 'And
the face so very like, don't you think?'
As the meal advanced it was obvious that old Mr. Rippington
was being egged on. As Marlyon passed their table, he caught the
end of a phrase from Mrs. Rippington. 'At least it is simple to try.'
The plan of attack declared itself that afternoon. As he sat
outside the caf£ in the piazza Marlyon found himself caught by
old Rippington. The old boy, Marlyon could not but admit, had
done it neatly. No one could have called it an intrusion. By the
purest accident they seemed to find themselves sitting at adjacent
tables and before Marlyon could come on guard, old Rippington
had caught his eye.
'Wonderful old place, isn't it?' he said jovially. 'And the life
too, so entirely different for us English, don't you think?' This
was subtle, but Marlyon now had himself in hand.
'Yes, you English have no outdoor cafes,' he replied. The
parry was effective: it bamboozled the old boy. Marlyon could
almost hear him muttering to himself: 'You English? You}'
Then he counter-attacked.
'You speak good English, sir, if I may say so.'
'Ah,' replied Marlyon with a typically Italian gesture, 'my
mother, you see, was English.' And he beckoned to the waiter.
At dinner the enemy was quite evidently depressed. Apparent-
ly they had already argued it out. Marlyon pictured old Ripping-
ton puffing out his flabby cheeks and a little irritably ending the
discussion. 'You can't deny that when a man says "my mother
was English," with an accent, mind you, on the mother, it means
quite clearly that his father was not.'
82 THE PUPPET SHOW
Marlyon followed up the advantage of the afternoon by wiping
his knife and fork on his bread after each course and retaining
them when the waiter removed his empty plate. The enemy
reeled. Mrs. Rippington was profoundly demoralized. 'Really
quite incredible, Mrs. Snaggs,' she said. 'But never, simply ne*very
in England!'
Marlyon went to bed in high spirits. The victory was surely
his.
Next day at lunch, however, the enemy had been heavily rein-
forced. It was not the quantity of the reinforcements that disturbed
Marlyon, but their quality. They consisted solely of Miss Daisy
Schiedemeyer. But an American damsel of that definite, high
handed, stick-at-nothing type, was an army-corps in herself. The
moral effect of her arrival was tremendous. Desolating doubt had
given place to glowing faith and the ten relentless eyes focussed
on his unprotected person shone with a terrible menace.
Mrs. Snaggs was apparently summing up for Miss Schiede-
meyer the unsatisfactory results of their investigations, but she
brushed them aside with scorn. ''You English? That proves noth-
ing. These people have no nationality. They're cosmopolitan.
Besides, everyone knows his father w^wzVEnglish. He was Scotch.
Have none of you asked him his name? I'd have thought that was
the easiest way.' But tactics of such terrible directness were as-
serted to be impossible. 'Impossible?' cried Miss Schiedemeyer.
'Wait till this afternoon.'
But even Miss Schiedemeyer was not so brutal as she sounded.
She did not actually, in so many words, demand his name from
Marlyon, but she watched her opportunity, and when he was
settled at his cafe" after lunch she suddenly appeared on the scene.
In one hand she carried a book and, bearing straight down on
Marlyon, she held it out to him with her most winning smile and
said: 'Excuse me, but please write something in my autograph
book. I've got lots of swells but it's hardly complete without
you, is it?' and, placing the book on the table, she glided grace-
fully away.
HARE AND HOUNDS 83
In a way, it was a bold stroke, but bold diplomacy rather than
bold tactics, and it made him a present of a certain period of spare
time. Marlyon thought over the situation carefully. Of course it
was possible that he was actually and irretrievably found out and
MissSchiedemeyer simply wanted his autograph; but this, judging
by the mood of the enemy at lunch, he disbelieved. They were
very nearly certain, but they were still not quite certain. Even
in Miss Schiedemeyer there had been, for all her boldness, he
thought, just a quaver. In this case her object was clearly, by pre-
tending to know him, to bluff him into giving himself away.
However it was, the state of affairs was critical enough: only the
most drastic action could save him. Meanwhile she had left the
situation, such as it was, in his hands and he at once resolved to
keep it stationary for a day or two by simply putting her book in-
to his portmanteau.
By the evening his plan of action had matured and he wrote
and posted a card addressed to Signer Giovanni Pimpinelli at the
Albergo Centrale. When he returned to the inn Miss Schiede-
meyer stood at the door. He smiled as he passed her. 'I am
thinking of something to write in your book,' he said, with
the slightest foreign accent. 'One of your English proverbs, per-
haps.'
Next morning he came upon her in the hall. 'And my book?'
she said.
'I have not forgotten,' he answered reassuringly, 'but I have
been so busy.'
'Busy?' cried Miss Schiedemeyer. 'I fancied you were taking
a rest.'
By no means,' replied Marlyon. 'We novelists never rest.'
And he left her with that to carry on with.
The post card for Signor Pimpinelli had duly arrived. Marlyon
took it from the letter-rack and put it in his pocket as he went in
to lunch. At lunch the mood of the enemy was indecipherable.
They were silent, but were they merely baffled or were they not
rather preparing to launch another great attack?
84 THE PUPPET SHOW
Marlyon finished his lunch first, and, as he passed the enemy's
tables, he dropped his post card. He heard the screech of a chair on
the tiled floor as he passed into the hall. Miss Schiedemeyer had
sprung like a wild-cat upon the post card. She followed him into
the hall and returned it to him a little glumly, he thought.
'O, so many thanks,' he said. 'And your book. It is ready.
Shall I bring it to you now?'
In a minute he returned with it and, bursting with excitement,
Miss Schiedemeyer carried it off into the dining room. Yes, he
had copied in an English proverb — Let Sleaping dogs He — and be-
low, it was signed Giovanni (Pimpinelli. Evidently his English
mother had not taught him to spell.
The rout was complete. As he went in to dinner that evening
a remark overheard as he passed the enemy's table assured him of
his victory. 'But the nose at close quarters,' Mrs. Congleton
Snaggs was saying, 'is really not at ail like.'
THE QUARREL
THE QUARREL
HARRIET AUSTIN HAD BEEN LOOKING
over a heap of childish possessions which ever since her
marriage had been packed away in an old portmanteau. She had
ordered the portmanteau to be carried down into the morning-
room not because she really wished to unpack it, but with some
vague idea of asserting herself against her husband. When he
found her at work, she had thought, he would certainly ask her
what she was doing and she would reply: *O, nothing to do with
you!' and this would count, she felt, as a score for her.
But now, as she rummaged, she became really interested. Ar-
ticle after forgotten article, as she took it up and wonderingly
recognized it, gave out, as a flower gives out its scent, the poignant
intense memory of some phase or event of her vanished girlhood.
How much of that time she had, it seemed, forgotten. It had not
been a happy time and for this reason she seldom looked back on
it. When she did so, it seemed to be filled by her fear and hatred
of her father. Every recollection led back to that one haunting
fact. But now, as she looked over these old things, the memory
of another life, apart from but parallel with that life of hatred and
fear, came back into her consciousness: a life of hidden joys, secret
enthusiasms, all the more intense because guarded jealously from
external intrusion.
She came upon a piece of embroidery, long forgotten but now
at the first glance vividly recognized. She remembered how it had
kept her for a month in a state of delighted exaltation which the
troubles of her daily life were powerless to disturb. She could re-
member the intensity of that emotion — the feeling that she was
watching and assisting in the growth of some beautiful miracle —
and her glowing delight when it was finished. But though she
88 THE PUPPET SHOW
remembered the emotion she no longer felt it,and the thing, as she
held it up now, was nothing more than the clumsy work of a child.
And here, too, was her old notebook, the notebook into which
she had copied in a careful rounded hand, verses which for her
childish imagination had been full of a strange magic. One of
them, a hymn, had seemed to be saturated with all the fierce and
sinister beauty of stormy winter sunsets. Now, except for the faint
perfume of that remote memory, it was the merest platitude:
Every morning the red sun
Rises warm and bright,
But the evening cometh on
And the dark cold night.
How her husband would laugh if he were to discover all these
old things: and with a glow of passionate resentment she tenderly
wrapped up each object, vowing that he should never see it, that
she would keep from him at least these cherished secrets, this
small room of her mind into which she could escape. And so to
each re-discovered toy she attached a fictitious devotion born of
his imagined ridicule of it.
Harriet often invented for her husband sins which he could by
no possibility have committed and then harboured a deep resent-
ment against him for these fantastic unrealities.
She had almost finished her task and Maurice had not yet come
in, when with a shock she came upon a forgotten photo of her
father. With extraordinary vividness it called up those sensations
which the sight or thought of him had always produced in her:
and, as the force of this emotional wave spent itself, she realized
that they were almost identical with her feelings towards her hus-
band. Almost, but not quite, because though she hated Maurice
she did not fear him.
Harriet never reasoned about her feelings. If she had been
asked why she hated Maurice she could have given no reason.
She felt vaguely, or perhaps only tried to feel, that she was wronged
and misunderstood, but she never defined: she merely felt, simply
and strongly. Her hatred was a conviction, almost a principle.
THE QUARREL 89
Harriet's first impulse had been to burn her father's photo.
Then, for some reason, she changed her mind and balanced the
thing on a vase upon the mantelpiece, leaning its top edge against
one of her husband's precious engravings, which it partly obscured.
In this position it looked strangely out of place.
When at last Maurice came in she was pretending to write
letters. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him notice the photo
and frown. Instantly a gust of anger enveloped her. Then he
looked at it more closely and smiled. The smile irritated her even
more than the frown and she waited like a set mousetrap, ready
to go off. But Maurice said nothing, and as her tension relaxed
it came into her mind that she had placed the photo there with
the express purpose of provoking him, and, unused though she
was to introspection, she felt ashamed of herself. But immediately
the sensation, the irrefutable fact, of her hatred for him returned
to her, sufficient in itself to answer all rebukes.
Next day the photograph was still there. She saw Maurice look
at it critically and, the moment after, he asked:
'Is that photo going to remain there?'
*I don't know,' Harriet replied and closed her lips with deter-
mination.
'I should have thought that you would have preferred to put it
away,' he continued.
4 Why?' asked Harriet, turning round on him aggressively.
Seeing that she was determined to quarrel, he shrugged his
shoulders and went out.
Maurice, too, was acutely aware of this barrier of hate which
had imperceptibly risen between them. He could look back to a
time when it had been a small and spasmodic event, and further
still to a time when it had not existed, but to him, as to Harriet,
its origin was a mystery. It seemed like a terrible force of nature
which, once they had unconsciously allowed it to take root, had
towered up beyond their control, growing, spreading, entangling
them like a jungle. But, whereas for Harriet hate was a simple,
direct, intuitive thing, for him it was much more complex and
90 THE PUPPET SHOW
self-conscious. Even when he yielded to it, he loathed it, rebelled
against it, as something cruel and degrading. At sudden moments
he was seized with remorse: he stood as it were apart and saw
Harriet as a poor misguided child and himself as a cad, and he
longed to take her in his arms and exorcise once for all this ob-
session which bound them like an enchantment, poisoned their
lives like an abscess. He felt that, as an abscess, it might be laid
open and drained, that a perfectly frank discussion of the thing
would let out the poison like a surgeon's knife and the sore would
dry up, even though both of them remained ignorant of its cause.
But Maurice could never bring himself to make the attempt.
Whenever he contemplated it, a great nightmare of vague preju-
dice and inhibitions loomed up and made the thing more impossible
than all the labours of Hercules. Once it might have been done:
now it was impossible unless some crisis were first to transform
both of them.
Several days passed and Harriet did not move the photo. It
occupied her thoughts to a strange degree. She watched it as if
fascinated. It was as though she were testing a bar of iron, adding
weight to weight, watching for the moment when the elastic
limit would be reached. 'One more day,' she kept saying to her-
self, and then she would hesitate, as though she had detected herself
in some dishonest act, and with a feeling of disgust and weari-
ness would resolve to take the photo down. But some inner
compulsion was too much for her and she dismissed the photo
from her mind, feeling that by forgetting she was eluding re-
sponsibility.
The thing was becoming equally an obsession to Maurice. It
was not the position of the photo that exasperated him but the
fact that Harriet was so obviously leaving it there on purpose. It
stared him in the face, a symbol of her untiring hatred of him.
The fact that she hated her father made it the more wounding,
for it was a standing proof that she was willing even to do violence
to her own feelings if only, by so doing, she could wound his. The
thing in itself was so absurd, yet, because of what it represented,
THE QUARREL 9!
so desperately serious. He thought of removing the photo when
Harriet was out of the room and of making a comic mystery
of its disappearance, but he knew only too well what weari-
ness and misery were involved in maintaining a hollow pretence
of a joke in the face of deadly earnestness: it was worse than
quarrelling outright. So he ended by taking the photo down in
her presence and asking casually:
'May I remove this?'
'No. Why should you?' answered Harriet, and she was aware
in some dim corner of her being of a feeling of exultation that he
was in the trap at last.
'But why have it there, Harriet?' he argued. 'It hides the en-
graving and, after all, photos are not generally balanced on the
tops of vases.' He spoke calmly but his hand trembled.
'Put it back,' said Harriet threateningly.
'Not there, Harriet.'
'Then give it to me.' She rose from her chair.
'Only on condition that you put it somewhere else,' and he
held it up out of her reach.
'Give it to me when you're told,' she persisted furiously.
Maurice let her snatch it and she at once replaced it on the vase.
'There,' she said. 'Now let it alone.'
Maurice instantly took it down. His blood was boiling: his legs
and arms trembled. Harriet sprang at him like a wild cat and they
struggled fiercely for the photo. Harriet got hold of it and as he
did not relax his grip she tore offa corner of it. Then it was torn
again and, sickened and horrified at what they had come to,
Maurice let her snatch the remaining piece.
Having nothing left to fight for, Harriet's nerves collapsed and,
falling on her knees over the fragments of the photo, she broke
into a torrent of sobs. Something of loneliness and despair in the
droop of her shoulders, a glimpse of the unhappy, bewildered
child in this perplexing woman sobbing over her scraps of torn
cardboard, cut him to the heart. A flood of remorse and pity came
over him and he knelt beside her and took her in his arms.
92 THE PUPPET SHOW
'Harriet dear,* he said, 'why do you drive me into behaving
like a beast?' She abandoned herself in his arms without a struggle
and, as he rocked and soothed her like a child, she wept as though
weeping were a relief to her, as though a dam had burst and all
this obstruction of hatred and misunderstanding had been sud-
denly swept away.
After a while she looked up and said that she would go and
bathe her eyes. In ten minutes she returned with an almost prig-
gish radiance about her, like a little girl determined to be good.
Maurice was seated at a table, ruefully trying to piece together
the torn photo. She bent over him, took the scraps from him, and
with a smile of sweet self-righteousness threw them into the fire.
And Maurice, smiling back at her, realized with a sort of hor-
ror that his wife had never grown up, that she was still hopelessly
a child; and he asked himself wearily, without illusion, how long
this new mood was going to last.
THE LABYRINTH
THE LABYRINTH
OLD MR. FANSHAW, WHO HAD LIVED
alone since the death of his wife eight months ago, sat at his
breakfast table. He sat there though he had long ago finished
breakfast, holding in one hand his pince-nez, a letter in the other,
and gazing in front of him in a state of profound abstraction. He
had just made a decision which, he felt, would open up a new vista
in his life, or rather, would turn his feet back towards old vistas
almost forgotten, but now vaguely illuminated for him by the
letter in his hand.
Since he had retired from business ten years ago, Mr. Fanshaw
had led both outwardly and inwardly a life of uneventful routine,
a life in which the past and the future had seemed to have no
share. He had lived from day to day consciously and contentedly
enacting each detail of the invariable routine, looking forward to
nothing. And, until Emmy's death, he had not been aware of
the need of anything to look forward to. But, after that event,
Mr. Fanshaw had suddenly found that all those small daily de-
tails which used to occupy his mind so fully and so pleasantly had
suddenly been emptied of all significance: and, forced by this
sudden dereliction of the present to turn his eyes to the future, he
saw that the future too was empty. So circumstanced, he became
aware that small accidents of life which had formerly floated un-
heeded over his head, now thrust themselves irritafingly on his
attention. He became discontented and acutely conscious that he
was daily growing older and more inefficient: the sweet current
of his existence had grown stagnant, and in this stagnation, un-
accountably, at odd moments, reflections of his remote childhood
dawned, shone, and faded. And now this letter with its train of
dim associations seemed to have floated into his consciousness
simply as another of these ghosts of the past.
96 THE PUPPET SHOW
The letter was from his sister Agnes with whom he had quar-
relled forty years ago, soon after his return from the East. From
that day to this he had not heard from her, but now she wrote
from the home of their childhood where she had lived ever since
the death of their mother. She had only just heard, she wrote, of
Emmy's death eight months ago and she could not resist the de-
sire to write and offer her sympathy. She pressed him to come and
stay with her for as long or short a time as he felt inclined: it was
unnecessary to fix the length of his visit until he found how the
place suited him.
Mr. Fanshaw had decided immediately to accept Agnes's in-
vitation. He was pleased that she had not alluded to their quarrel,
that she had allowed it quietly to drop out: he was himself the
more willing to do so that he had forgotten what it was they had
quarrelled over. For him, the quarrel had long ceased to represent
an emotion: it had continued merely as a tradition.
As he came to himself and got up from the breakfast table,
Mr. Fanshaw found that his life, which during the last few
months had become so grey and empty that to contemplate it
filled him with a growing terror, was suddenly filled with colour
and variety. His mind was all astir with a happy impatience and
with a hand trembling with emotion he sat down to write to
Agnes.
2.
The drive from the station to the house was through scenes
unknown to Mr. Fanshaw. A desolating change had come over
the old place. What in his childhood had been a green and quiet
countryside was now a straggling suburb of brick and slate. His
heart sank as the cab rattled down streets of monotonous jerry-
built dwellings. He remembered a clear brook bordered with
willows. The willows were gone and the brook buried in a
drain somewhere under these mean, depressing streets. A
chill of disappointment came over him: he looked forward with
THE LABYRINTH 97
fear to his arrival. Suppose the old home were changed too: he
would never be able to stay among this wreckage of gentle mem-
ories. He felt even older and more disillusioned than in his lone-
liness at home.
The cab drove out into a broader street full of busy shops:
down its length trams hummed with a hiss of overhead wires. The
cab turned into a narrower road to the right and then swung in-
to a gravel drive. A gatepost caught his eye and with a sudden
leap of the heart he leant out of the cab window. Yes, he had
arrived. The house stood there, surveying its square of garden
just as of old. Thank God, there was no change here at least. The
windows looked as he remembered them looking when he came
home for the holidays, glassing white flecks of sky, extraordinarily
bright and clean, and at the top of each exactly four inches of red
blind were visible, — those red blinds which always gave a certain
distinction to the house-front and seemed somehow to promise
warm fires and a dining-table set with a profusion of bright silver.
In the hall, too, the old haunting impression awaited him, the
sense of a thick carpet underfoot and in the air a pervading sweet-
ness of flowering bulbs. He had not foreseen that the place would
touch him so intimately, so deeply. He was taken off his guard,
so that he nearly forgot to pay the cabman and when Agnes came
hurrying forward to meet him he could hardly see her.
For many days after his arrival Mr. Fanshaw moved amid the
unreality of a dream. That first glimpse of the old place, the
merging of the dim memory into the vivid reality, had so over-
whelmed him, disturbing such slumberous depths, arousing such
unaccustomed processes in his consciousness, that, ever since, he
had felt dazed, and he seemed to see everything now, in the re-
action of that first shock, through the coloured mist of a dream.
His memory, made strangely sensitive by contact with these
familiar surroundings, kept throwing up a profusion of minute de-
tails, details never once thought of for over half a century. They
would suddenly, for no apparent reason, leap up into his con-
sciousness, fresh and vivid as growing flowers. At one moment
98 THE PUPPET SHOW
his memory suddenly affirmed that in a large cupboard at the top
of the stairs there used to be a polished mahogany medicine-chest,
its lid inlaid with a shell enclosed in a green ellipse: and, leaping
further, memory asserted that in his childish mind this shell had
been associated with two lines from a hymn:
From Greenland's icy mountains
To India's coral strand.
How absurd! And yet how real and how poignant the thing was!
At another moment the ghost of a woolwork stool embroidered
with coloured roses on a black ground, emerged from oblivion: it
was always to be found under the writing-table in the dining-
room, and one of the embroidered roses had possessed for him a
mysterious beauty which suggested what? He could not
capture the association. It floated up to the very verge of his
memory and then sank before he could identify it. Were both the
medicine-chest and the footstool the fictions of his bewildered
mind? He questioned Agnes and she took him to the cupboard
and showed him the medicine-chest. The footstool too was still
under the writing-table. Mr. Fanshaw gazed at them in amaze-
ment, as at things incredible, miraculous, trying in vain to grasp
their reality. To him they were incredible not because they
seemed unreal but because they seemed more than real. They
were, in some strange way, vital parts of himself, and he could
not stand away from them and envisage them coldly and sanely
as objective material forms. How could he explain these curious
sensations to Agnes? She would have thought him mad. Unbro-
ken intercourse with all these familiar objects of their childhood
must have blunted her sensitivity: for her, he felt, a footstool was
a footstool and there was an end of it. But for himself it was
different. It seemed almost as if he were the central consciousness
through which all these old shadowy things, Agnes herself among
them, floated in recurring procession.
And, besides this, his mind in these heavily-charged surround-
ings kept reproducing, as a series of lantern-slides, small, remote
occurrences and adventures: the killing; of the mouse in the
THE LABYRINTH 99
kitchen, whose small protesting hands and pink nose had filled a
small boy with sudden remorse: the day when his shuttlecock
had flown over the garden-wall and he had climbed the wall after
it and, jumping down on the other side, had found himself in a
wonderful unknown garden, and at the sounds of approaching
voices he had hurried away through the bushes, pausing in his
flight to gaze in wonder at a marvellous scarlet flower.
What a strange thing the mind was! It amused Mr. Fanshaw
to sit and watch it at work, executing its kaleidescopic variations.
It was amusing but it was also a little disquieting: it gave him a
curious feeling of dizziness and irresponsibility. But, however
that might be, he felt very happy in this haunting atmosphere
which grew daily richer with new disclosures. It was as though
time were subsiding before his eyes like the waters of a lake and
above its surface the city of his childhood were pushing up higher
and higher, sharply familiar but also strangely transformed into
something mellower and richer, bright from its long immersion,
mossed over with the glossy growths of more than half a century.
Surrounded by these hosts of dreamlike memories, Mr. Fan-
shaw was never idle, never in need of entertainment. Each thing
in the house was charged with a power for producing visions: he
had only to touch it or contemplate it to set the process in mo-
tion. Though he was left alone all morning while Agnes attended
to household affairs, though it rained incessantly for three days so
that he could not go out, these things troubled him not at all.
On the fourth day the rain stopped and Agnes left him imme-
diately after lunch to pay a visit to a friend. She left him comfort-
ably ensconced in an armchair with a book on his knee. Mr.
Fanshaw was contentedly aware that he had had an excellent
lunch, that small busy flames were purring pleasantly in the grate,
and that red reflections outlined the curved edges of the brass
fender-rails. He took up his book and read a page or two and
IOO THE PUPPET SHOW
again studied the behaviour of the fire with extreme satisfaction.
Then, as he resumed his reading, he became conscious of a soft,
continuous roar, a long hushing like a distant train. He knew the
sound of old: it had come at infrequent intervals and had always
brought with it a suggestion of something unusual and exciting.
Mr. Fanshaw could not locate it among the sensations of his
childhood. He listened to it again, and again a sharp but indefin-
able sensation rose in him. Then,all at once,he captured it. The
river was in flood, the river that ran through the dene. He had
quite forgotten the dene. Was it still there, he wondered, or had
the trees been cut down, the wells filled, and this place too become
an ugly slate-roofed suburb?
The hushing filled the air as he descended the steep hawthorn-
hedged lane that led down into the dene. The path was still
cinder-paved and still among trees on the summit of the grass
slope to the left stood the old weather-stained house which was
said to be haunted. As he descended the steep incline his memory
ran on before, and in a flash he recollected how near the further
end of the dene a little green passage between dense thickets led
away from the main path to open suddenly into a moss-floored
circle hedged impenetrably round with hazels, in whose centre
rose a great silvery tree-trunk, a pillar supporting the hanging
roof of green boughs. He seemed to remember that as children
they had christened this place the Labyrinth. There had always
been something mysterious about it, a silent expectancy that was
almost alarming. His visits to it had always stood, in the solemn
make-believe of his young imagination, for the performance of a
magic rite and, as he left it, he had always felt a disposition to run
as though something were following him. What strange fancies
children had! Grown-ups were always apt to forget these childish
mysteries, unrealized echoes, probably, of august realities. And
now he would be visiting the Labyrinth again.
THE LABYRINTH 1 01
The lane grew steeper and soon dropped abruptly on to a nar-
row wooden bridge, and as he emerged from between the hedges
of the lane on to the hollow planking, the roar which still filled
his ears suddenly opened out into a great hissing and Mr. Fanshaw
seemed to be hung in mid-air. Far below, the stream swirled rap-
idly away from under him and he experienced a strange feeling
of instability as though the foundations of things were melting
beneath his feet. A fresh breeze enveloped him and stirred the
leafless trees that climbed far above him up either side of the val-
ley. As he leaned over the bridge he remembered that the wooden
handrail used to be covered with carved initials and that it had
rotted away where the iron clamps encircled it to fasten it to the
rail-posts. As a child, he used always to scrape the moss out of
the initials with a sharp pebble. But now the handrail was a new
one, painted grey. The old one must have gone to pieces years
ago. Under the swirling water he could see the little spit of land
that ended in a great boulder from which he and his brother used
to throw Mucks-and-drakes' across the stream. The stream
and the valley seemed to him now to have shrunk to half their
former size.
The sun came out. A bloom of diaphanous violet lingered
among far tree-trunks and in the distant hollows of the valley.
As he followed the path upstream, Mr. Fanshaw tried to remem-
ber what lay round each bend, and the more he tried, the less he
remembered; it was only when he gave up trying that he caught
his mind fluently building up the unseen on the seen, foretelling
what was coming in the next hundred yards from what had al-
ready appeared. A small red-tiled cottage with a stone-flagged
garden-path, a little theatre of rock over whose steep face the
stream dropped like a great pillar of blown glass into the seething
bath below, rose in his memory with amazing clearness, and, five
minutes later, the cottage itself, the waterfall itself, glided into
view, vivid, baffling, unreal from excess of reality. Both had
shrunk in size, but what they had lost in size it seemed that they
had gained in intensity, for the tiled roof was unbelievably bright,
102 THE PUPPET SHOW
the column of the waterfall shone with the transparent greenness
of a jewel, the whiteness of the water that boiled below gleamed
like silk. It seemed as if his memory's vision of those things had
been the plain reality and that this actuality before him were a
vision bathed in the colours and sensations of a dream, too intense
to last. And as his old brain fumbled among this bewildering in-
terchange of inner and outer, of seen and imagined, in the mist
that steamed up from the feet of the waterfall the bright appari-
tion of a rainbow hovered for a moment and then faded.
What, he wondered as he went his way, was the reality of ma-
terial things: for directly we envisage them, even for the first time,
we have begun to overlay them with the colours and glosses of
our own personalities. We see them only as our senses and our
understanding interpret them to us in terms of other things akin
to them which we already know, have already wrested out of
their true being into forms apprehensible to us. And the more we
study these things, the less, for us, they retain of their true selves.
Therefore we can never know the true being of things: indeed
if they remained locked in their true being we should not be
aware of them at all. Surely then, he reflected, matter is but po-
tentiality that waits for a human mind to endow it with being.
And, losing his way in these dim pathways of thought, he gave
up the search and, turning his attention outwards, he found that
during his meditations he had followed a path that wound through
dense undergrowth, among the tall trunks of oak-trees, and at
once the Labyrinth came back into his mind. It was here, he felt
sure, that the little passage turned off. But he could not find it
and soon he began to doubt that this was the place. The path
rose higher between denser undergrowth and again he thought
that he was on the point of discovering the turning. But again
his memory had deceived him and now the path emerged from
the undergrowth and climbed a wooded slope. It was here, yes,
here it was, that every spring they used to gather primroses. It
was too early for primroses yet but, stooping down, he could de-
tect the dark, crinkled leaves of innumerable primrose plants
THE LABYRINTH 1 03
among the grass. He reflected that nearly sixty generations of
primroses must have flowered and withered since they had gath-
ered them there. What a strange, monotonous, incomprehensible
process it was. Birth, reproduction, death, round and round in-
cessantly. Mankind was just the same, but mankind, it seemed,
was unique in having a mind, a sort of immaterial mirror into
which visions and sensations floated and mixed together and then
faded. What on earth was the meaning of it all? Mr. Fanshaw
looked round him feeling again blindly the presence of a reality
which always evaded him behind these appearances of quiet trees,
green grass, and the suffused violet of distance. The whole busi-
ness was baffling, unfathomable, incomprehensible. It was like
that perception of a mysterious expectancy in things which as a
child he had experienced in the Labyrinth,and he felt about it too
as he had felt this afternoon when searching for the Labyrinth,
the sensation of being on the brink of a discovery which always
escaped him.
Automatically, as if from long habit, his feet led him home by
a short-cut which he had forgotten. He walked in a dream, be-
wildered, tired, but strangely happy in this mingling whirlpool of
past and present, troubled only at not having found the Labyrinth.
But, after all, perhaps the Labyrinth was only the memory of a
dream or of some old story heard in infancy.
Now he was again level with the stream. His senses were again
drowned in the long hiss of its swirling waters. He recrossed the
high wooden bridge and began slowly to climb the cindered lane.
When Agnes returned she found him asleep in the chair in
which she had left him. He was muttering to himself about finding
a Labyrinth. He awoke and stared at her.
'Well, Alfred,' she said, 'I hope you have managed to amuse
yourself.'
His gaze wandered round the room, uncertain, puzzled.
IO4 THE PUPPET SHOW
'I believe I have been asleep,' he said.
'Asleep all afternoon?' asked Agnes.
'I ... I believe so,' replied Mr. Fanshaw.
Then suddenly Agnes pointed at his boots. 'Why, I declare,
Alfred,' she exclaimed. 'How can you tell such fibs? You've been
out. Your boots are covered with mud.'
Mr. Fanshaw glanced at his boots. There was mud on them,
sure enough, and he noticed now that his legs ached, that he was
pleasantly tired.
'And where did you go for your walk?' asked Agnes.
The old man gazed at her with profound, unseeing eyes. Then
his mind, tired and perplexed amid all this fluctuation of real and
unreal, gave up the struggle. It was as though a passing wind
blurred the clear pool of his memory.
'Will you believe me, Agnes,' he replied, 'when I tell you that
I don't know.'
THE UNCOMFORTABLE EXPERIENCE
OF MR. PERKINS & MR. JOHNSON
THE UNCOMFORTABLE EXPERIENCE
OF MR. PERKINS & MR. JOHNSON
npHERE WERE ONCE TWO GENTLEMEN
JL called Mr. Perkins and Mr. Johnson who were great trav-
ellers. And they travelled so far and into lands so foreign and
uncouth that they found themselves at last in a country full of
devils and wizards and in an hotel without a bathroom. 'And so,'
said they, 'we must go to the public baths.'
So they went to the public baths. And as they sat in the wait-
ing-room, waiting until baths should be vacant for them, they fell
into a dilemma as to how each should know when the other had
finished bathing. And at length Mr. Perkins, being the more re-
sourceful of the two, propounded the following scheme. 'If,' said
he, <I do not find you in this waiting-room when I have finished
my bath, I shall gather that you have not finished yours. But if,
on the other hand, I find you sitting here already, I shall conclude
that you have finished and that we can both go away without
more ado.'
'But what about me?' asked Mr. Johnson.
'That,' answered Mr. Perkins, 'is equally simple. For if you
find me waiting, you may be sure that I have already finished and
that we can go away forthwith : but if you do not find me here
you will know that I am still in my bathroom and you will sit
down and wait for me patiently.'
Mr. Johnson thought for a moment. 'But what am I to think,'
said he, 'if I find someone sitting here who is not you?'
'That,' answered Mr. Perkins, 'will have no bearing on the
case.'
No sooner had Mr. Perkins thus made all things plain, than
the keeper of the baths came to say that two bathrooms were now
IO8 THE PUPPET SHOW
ready, and Mr. Perkins and Mr. Johnson went into their allotted
bathrooms and the doors were closed.
But in his bathroom Mr. Johnson was assailed by perplexing
thoughts and ruminations, so that the delight of sliding into hot
water was blunted for him and the delicious sense of emerging
into cleanliness was benumbed, for he kept saying to himself:
'Something may occur in this matter for which we have not made
provision.'
But after that space of time which is necessary for the achieve-
ment of perfect cleanliness, Mr. Johnson issued from his bathroom
and proceeded down the passage to the waiting-room: and he
could see in the waiting-room a pair of legs protruding from a
chair. And he said to himself: 'Those are the legs of Perkins,
who has been sparing with the soap and so has finished first.'
But when he had reached the waiting-room and looked into
the chair he sprang back with a loud and fearful exclamation, for
— horror of horrors — seated in that chair was not Perkins but his
very self, to wit, Johnson. And he became cold all over.
But when he had collected himself a little, he approached that
Other in the chair, which was himself, and, by way of clearing
things up, asked it: 'Are you by any chance, waiting for me?'
'Do not ask foolish questions,' replied the Other. 'For how can
a man wait for himself? I am waiting for Perkins, as we arranged
three-quarters-of-an-hour ago before going to our baths.'
'But I too arranged in a similar way to wait for Perkins,' said
Johnson.'
'That,' said the Other, 'cannot be, because no third party was
involved.'
At these words Mr. Johnson shuddered, for it seemed that his
identity was slipping away from him. Then he remembered that
the number of his bathroom was 13, and the remembrance of
that number came to him as a ray of hope, for if he could prove
that he and he alone had occupied that bathroom during the last
three-quarters-of-an-hour, it would surely be some sort of a proof
of his identity. So, trembling with eagerness, he asked the Other:
MR. PERKINS & MR. JOHNSON
'Tell me> what was the number of your bathroom?*
'The number of my bathroom,' said the other, 'was 13. I left
it ten minutes ago.'
Again Mr. Johnson shuddered and the horror of madness came
upon him, for now it seemed that his identity hung by the merest
thread. 'At least,' he said finally, 'when Perkins comes out we
shall hear from his own lips which of us he is looking for.'
Now as they talked, a third person had come from one of the
bathrooms into the waiting-room. He was a tall person, with
beard, moustaches, and eyebrows of an extreme fierceness, and he
sat and watched the other two and listened to their conversation
with a saturnine amusement.
But after a few minutes a bolt was shot, the door opened, and
Perkins came out into the passage and so to the waiting-room.
Instantly Johnson and the Other arose and, speaking in perfect
unison, they asked him: 'Which of us, Perkins, are you looking
for?'
But Perkins scowled at the two and replied: 'I am looking for
neither of you, but for Johnson here.' And, taking the arm of the
fierce-looking gentleman who had also risen, he disappeared with
him into the street without further parley, leaving those two
others with open mouths and staring eyes.
And after they had managed to pull themselves together, they
discussed the situation at some length: and the results of their
discussion were, firstly that, whichever of them was Johnson and
whichever was not, at least it was certain that he with whom
Perkins had departed was emphatically not Johnson: and secondly
that both of themselves were obviously the real Johnson, unhap-
pily split into two by some local devilry. And they laid their heads
together as to how to reduce themselves to unity again. And
finally they decided to draw lots and that the one on whom the
lot fell should return to number 1 3 bathroom and drown himself
in the bath. So Johnson and the Other drew lots: and the lot fell
to the Other. And they repaired to number 13 bathroom and,
with the help of Johnson, the Other drowned himself in the bath
IIO THE PUPPET SHOW
as arranged. And as the bubbles ceased to rise, Johnson felt him-
self invaded by a flood of energy and reassurance, and he smacked
himself on the chest, saying: 'Good! I feel that I am quite myself
again.' So saying, he drew out the plug of the bath and the Other
passed out through the waste-pipe.
Then taking his hat and stick, Mr. Johnson hurried out to the
rescue of Mr. Perkins who, bewitched by some local devilry, had
so unfortunately gone out for a walk with a wizard disguised as a
gentleman with fierce eyebrows.
A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW
BIRD'S-EYE VIEW
MR. BISCO SAT IN THE MORNING-ROOM
reading the paper. Mrs. Bisco stood at the table near the
window arranging flowers. The sun spread a large pool of light
on the floor at Mr. Bisco's feet and laid brilliant splashes on the
copper coal-box and on the pewter dish on the mantelpiece above
it. Outside, the jackdaws circled in the sunny air round the mas-
sive church-tower and perched on its pinnacles. The scarlets and
golds of autumn flowers glowed in the long border that edged the
Biscos' lawn, and across the low wall beyond it the crowded
gravestones of the churchyard looked almost gay under the ma-
ture autumn sunshine.
In the morning-room there was complete silence, except when
Mrs. Bisco poured water into one of her vases or snapped a too
long chrysanthemum stalk, or when a South American revolution
or the madness of contemporary politics caused the paper in Mr.
Bisco's hands to crackle spasmodically. Then all at once he
bounced in his chair.
Why, bless my soul!' he exclaimed; 'look here! "A marriage
has been arranged and will shortly take place." . . .'
'Yes, dear, I know,' said his wife soothingly.
'Well, really ... I ... I ... and her husband hardly cold in his
grave over the wall there!'
'It's over a year ago, George,' said Mrs. Bisco.
'A year! And what's a year? Scandalous, I call it! Monstrous!'
'Surely scandalous and monstrous are rather strong, dear; and,
after all, isn't it their own affair?'
'Really, Louisa, you astonish me!' replied Mr. Bisco, assuming
the appearance of a Cochin China cock. 'Upon my word, I be-
lieve it means no more to you than one of these South American
I I 4 THE PUPPET SHOW
squabbles that are always cropping up in the papers. I should have
thought you would have had more respect for the memory of poor
old Belford.'
'Don't be so foolish, George! All I mean is that one ought not
to judge these things without first knowing all the circumstances;
and we do not know all the circumstances.'
'Personally, I know all I want to know. I know that the woman
has run off and married again before — before her husband is cold
in his grave over the wall there.'
'And you feel that, if he knew, it would pain him. But you
can't tell, George.'
'Surely I can believe my own eyes. You couldn't point me out
a kinder husband than poor old Belford was.'
'Quite true, dear; everyone knows they were excellent friends,
but that may have been all. Suppose she always loved the other
man better?'
'Love someone better than your husband? Monstrous! She
ought to be ashamed of herself!'
'Possibly, dear. But isn't it rather difficult to choose in these
matters? So long as she gave him no cause for unhappiness '
'It's no use, Louisa. These imaginary excuses are all very well,
but . . . Well, it's not the thing. I — I strongly disapprove.'
'My dear,' said Louisa, bringing a vase of chrysanthemums to
the little table at his elbow, 'you'll always be a child as long as you
live. Don't bother yourself with the newspaper, but go out into
the sun.'
Mr. Bisco strolled out of the French window and down the
lawn. From time to time he snorted indignantly, although if you
had asked him what he was indignant about, it would already
have cost him an effort to remember. He remembered, however,
that he was indignant, and that, after all, was enough. But a sparrow
came and took a dust-bath among his new begonias and made
him forget even that. Then, glancing after the sparrow's flight
over the wall, his eye fell on Belford's grave, and he began to
snort again. As usual, there were flowers on the grave — white
A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW 115
chrysanthemums, like those which his wife had put on his table
just now. But to-day those on the grave were not fresh. 'She is
too taken up with other things, of course,' he said to himself, and
snorted again. His wife called him from the house.
'George, if you are going for a walk before lunch, you had
better go now; it's after twelve.'
Every day Mr. Bisco went for a walk before lunch, and every
day he forgot to start until his wife reminded him; and when she
did, Mr. Bisco invariably replied, 'God bless my soul! I'd no idea
it was so late.' He always took the same direction, because he pre-
ferred, even in so unimportant a matter, to be methodical. But
on this occasion, as he passed the church gate, he met John Pride,
the sexton.
'Good morning, John,' he said.
'Good morning, sir,' replied John. 'I left the keys in the tower
door, sir, if you think of goin' up.' It was then that Mr. Bisco
remembered that, sitting in his garden on the previous day, he
had suddenly experienced a desire to be on the top of the church
tower. It seemed strange that he had never thought of it before
during the past twenty years, and now that he hadho, felt ashamed
of his ignorance of the top of the tower. Suppose some stranger
had questioned him about it, he would have had to make a dis-
creditable evasion. Clearly, he owed it to himself to climb the
tower, and without delay, and he spoke to John about it when he
met him a few hours later.
Therefore Mr. Bisco now answered: 'Thank you, John, thank
you. Yes, I'll go now.' And as he skirted the porch and made
for the tower door he felt the thrill of one on the brink of an ad-
venture. It would be quite an event. He imagined himself saying
to Louisa at lunch : 'Well, and where do you think P*pe been this
morning?'
The climb was easier than he had expected, and soon he
emerged puffing into the dazzling sunshine on the leaded roof.
What a large area it seemed, and how tall the pinnacles were —
twice as tall as he had imagined! He approached the parapet with
I I 6 THE PUPPET SHOW
the curiosity of a child and gazed cautiously over. Beneath him
sprawled the grey roof of the church, and all round it clustered
the little red roofs of the village, for all the world like a collection
of Noah's arks. Gradually he began to distinguish familiar houses.
There was Jackson the joiner's. And there was Jackson himself
moving white planks in his yard. That gleaming streak on the
western horizon — could it be the sea? It must be. He swelled
with pride at the thought of having seen the sea. There below,
to the left, lay the vicarage. And there, on the front drive, was
the vicar's spaniel pup playing by itself. Mr. Bisco laughed to see
it indulging in extravagant antics, apparently for no reason, since
it was all alone. He had always supposed that dogs reserved such
exhibitions for the entertainment of their owners. Certainly
the top of a tower was a delightful place. As he gazed benefi-
cently down on the earth beneath, he felt unusually pleased with
existence.
Then suddenly he thought of his own house. It took him a
moment or two to locate it, although it was close to the church.
How strange it looked from this aspect! He could see the whole
roof plan at a single glance. It looked quite imposing; he felt
proud of such an expanse of tiles. Then he saw his wife come out
on to the lawn. She went to the herbaceous border and began to
gather more chrysanthemums. He chuckled to himself. It seemed
somehow comical that she should be so utterly unconscious of his
scrutiny. It was as amusing as it had been a few minutes before
to watch the vicar's spaniel pup. But what was she carrying in
the other hand? Surely it was the morning-room footstool. He
saw her glance back at the house end then hurry, flowers in one
hand, footstool in the other, to the wall. Then she put down the
foolstool and, using it as a step, got up on to the wall and so over
into the churchyard. Somethingstirredbehind him, startling him,
and he glanced round guiltily. It was only a jackdaw fluttering
off one of the pinnacles. When he looked again his wife was
kneeling beside a grave — Belford's grave; yes, unmistakably Bel-
ford's — hastily removing the dead flowers and arranging in their
A BIRD'S EYE VIEW 117
place the fresh ones she had gathered. For a moment Mr. Bisco
lost all consciousness of external things. The four pinnacles, the
lead roof, the parapet over which he had been leaning, all ceased
to exist for him and he floundered about in a sea of conflicting
emotions. Then suddenly coming to himself, he found, to his
surprise, that he was still on the top of the tower. He seemed,
within the last three minutes, to have gone through the experi-
ence of a week. Pulling himself together, he climbed in at the
low door and made his way down the winding stairs. Below he
met John.
*I say, John,' he stammered, 'do me the favour not to mention
the fact that I've been up the tower. It might get to Mrs. Bisco's
ears. She wouldn't like it. Thinks the climb too much for me.
"Women have strange ideas.' And as he walked slowly home he
felt as one who, after watching the reflections of clouds and
branches on the surface of a pond, has received a sudden glimpse
into the vague depths below. He felt half afraid effacing his wife
thus suddenly transformed for him; and she wondered to herself
why he patted her shoulder half timidly, half tenderly, when they
met in the hall.
OLD ALAN
OLD ALAN
AS LONG AS ANYONE IN THE VILLAGE
could remember, old Alan had been a casual labourer. He
was to be seen haymaking, carting, gardening, hedging, clearing
ditches, road-scraping, or stone-breaking as season and oppor-
tunity offered. He appeared and disappeared fitfully, and no one
could be said to know him. Though he did not shun conversa-
tion, he was never the one to speak first. You felt afraid of
speaking to him lest you should frighten him away, and you also
felt that to speak to him would be like speaking to a squirrel —
you would simply not be understood. Little was known of his
manner of life beyond the fact that he occupied a cottage a mile
out on the highway, for he never appeared in those social centres
of the village, the cattle-market, the church, and the Golden
Lion. His life was secret like the squirrel's: folk looked upon him
as a familiar object of the countryside rather than as a human
being, and his elusiveness, like the squirrel's, was put down to a
natural shyness rather than to moroseness or hatred of mankind.
It was impossible to guess old Alan's age. The red, weather-
beaten face; the loose, puckered mouth; the little bright half-
obsequious, half-humorous eyes; the unkempt hair which
appeared sometimes grey and sometimes sandy, might equally
well have belonged to a young man of sixty-five or a prematurely
old man of forty. But, whatever his age, the prefix old was so
obviously right that nobody ever spoke of Alan alone but always
of old Alan, indeed on more than one occasion the name had
been written Oldalan.
Old Alan, then, was not so much a human being as a sort of
familiar sprite, a detail of the unchanging order of things, so that
it was a matter for universal astonishment when on a certain
122 THE PUPPET SHOW
occasion he went off to the next parish, apparently on a one day's
job, and returned married. The sensation caused in the village
was as great as if the Golden Lion had been burnt down. It was
incredible that all this while they had not, as they had believed,
completely known old Alan as they knew the houses and trees
about them: that he apparently had, besides his visible life, a
secret, unsuspected existence of thoughts, emotions, and schemes,
like other folk who love, hate, marry, beget children, and die.
The established idea of him had apparently been incorrect, or
rather perhaps, he had suddenly deviated from his true nature.
The only person who showed no surprise was old Alan himself.
On the day after the wedding he was to be seen going about his
work precisely the same as before, nor did he once refer to the
event. Gossip remarked that it was a wonder that he could afford
to keep a wife and it was generally agreed that he must have
money put by.
As soon as the village got accustomed to the idea of old Alan
married, gossip admitted that it was natural that he should want
a woman to look after him, that indeed the wonder was that he
should have done without one for so long. This admission is of
importance, for it indicates a change of attitude towards old Alan.
It implies that he was now accepted as actually human, with the
needs and feelings of a human being, and it also implies that
gossip had altered the previously accepted idea and had construc-
ted a wider conception of old Alan capable of containing him in
his new aspect. And it is a fact that after his marriage his nature
did undergo a modification. He was still a squirrel, but now he
was a tame squirrel: it was possible to get closer to him, and this
closer approach revealed unsuspected richnesses in old Alan. It
was discovered that he was full of profound country wisdom. He
could tell you the one infallible way to exterminate rats, he knew
how to dress moleskins, how to make elderberry wine, how to
stamp out disease in potatoes. He was deeply versed in the strange
and secret ways of birds and animals, winds and seasons. He
could tell you exactly where to dig for water, and if you asked
OLD ALAN 123
him how he had discovered it he would tell you that he hadn't
discovered it, that he just knew.
It was found also that there was something strangely attrac-
tive about old Alan: it was either his comically pleasant face, his
twinkling blue eye, or some magnetic aura of happiness which
radiated from him like the nimbus of a saint. Whatever it was,
it caused people who met him to experience a sensation of sud-
den happiness, a pleasure half like that of meeting an old friend,
half like that of coming suddenly upon some beautiful wild
creature — a squirrel seated pertly on a beech-bough, a kingfisher
gleaming on a stake in mid-stream.
As before, old Alan never spoke unless spoken to, nor did he
seem to want to be spoken to. But now it was you who spoke.
He merely went on with his work and inevitably you stopped
and spoke to him: and immediately you seemed to have tapped a
spring of rich humanity, for old Alan talked with a quiet inge-
nuousness, a quaint and coloured humour, a happy self-possession
equally without shyness and without presumption. You went
on your way feeling warmed and invigorated and, as you went,
you felt that old Alan never looked after you but that he serenely
continued his work, forgetting you as the pool forgets the bather.
Under this new aspect old Alan settled down and gossip forgot
the momentary disturbance caused by his marriage.
But old Alan had not exhausted his power of surprising the
village, for within a year of his marriage a son and heir appeared
in the cottage. There was somehow something comical in the
idea of old Alan as a father. For the second time he had disturbed
the traditional conception of him, a conception which, apparent-
ly, excluded the idea of fatherhood. The village was interested
and amused, and again the only person who was not amused,
who did not feel the thing to be comical, was old Alan himself.
This event again had the effect of modifying old Alan's
nature. More and more he was becoming a gregarious human
being, subject to doctor and parson, and when, shortly after the
birth of the child, he abandoned casual labour and appeared as
124 THE PUPPET SHOW
undcr-gardener to the squire, his humanization seemed complete.
He was no longer a will-o'-the-wisp flitting fitfully from place
to place, but a man with a fixed point of activity, fixed hours of
work, and fixed wage. He even appeared occasionally at the
Golden Lion to drink a pint of beer and talk to his kind.
Yet even now he was not as other men, for whereas before he
had seemed less human than the rest, he now seemed more
human. Those richly human qualities of his, that strong but
indefinible attraction, were no longer to be encountered only
unexpectedly and at more or less rare intervals: they were now
continually accessible. Members of the squire's household would
unconsciously take the path near where old Alan happened to be
working, in preference to another, so as to be able to exchange a
word with him in passing. The squire and his wife each uncon-
sciously invented countless excuses for speaking to him.
And it was not merely what old Alan said that so warmed the
cockles of your heart: it was also his voice, his straight blue
glance, his frank, polite, diffident yet paternal way, a certain gol-
den quality of mind, warm, clear and serene like music, which
appealed at once to the best in you. When difficulties arose —
when the pup started with distemper, when a bees' nest was
found in the roof, when dry rot appeared in the timbers of the
barn, old Alan was consulted and the difficulty vanished. It
seemed as if some bright sun-god had taken the form of an under-
gardener to bless the village with a brief visit.
Old Alan himself, too, was as happy as could be. It was all
because of the child. The child absorbed his thoughts. It was for
the child's sake that he had resolved to take a permanent job, and
as he raked the drive or weeded the flower-beds he was continual-
ly making golden plans for the child's future. For him, the child
was a miracle: he would gaze at it in an ecstasy for which time
and space had ceased to be.
Old Alan's sojourn in the civilized world lasted four years.
During four years that serene and radiant creature worked unob-
trusively in the squire's garden and moved quietly among men
OLD ALAN 125
and women of the village, sometimes carrying the child or leading
it by the small upstretched hand as it trotted busily behind him.
But one morning old Alan failed to appear. He arrived in the
afternoon shy and woe-begone. The child was ill. He had been
for the doctor and the doctor could not say what was the matter.
Old Alan's trouble spread through the entire household. They
could not bear to see him like this, his face drawn and pallid, the
bright humorous eyes clouded and scared. Anxiety had quite un-
manned him. He gazed at them like a wounded animal: the
change in him from the old Alan they knew sent a chill to their
hearts.
Next day again he did not come. The child was worse. In the
afternoon the squire's wife went over to the cottage. Old Alan
was sitting by the small bed. He had sat there, his wife said, all
night and all that morning. He looked up once only as the
squire's wife entered to hold up a finger for silence and then at
once resumed his agonized watch.
That evening the child died
For weeks after that old Alan led a wandering existence,
coming home occasionally for a night and disappearing next
morning without a word. Sometimes he came home with his
clothing soaked and stained as though he had passed the night in
the woods. One day the squire's wife, in her carriage, met him
tramping down a road fifteen miles from the village. She stopped
the carriage and got out. At first he seemed hardly to recognise
her, but it ended by his returning with her in the carriage, and
when she left him at his cottage he had promised to come back
to the garden next day.
And next day they saw him in the avenue, a forlorn automa-
ton, sweeping the fallen chestnut leaves. He laboured blindly,
often sweeping where no leaves lay, as though the physical action
alone were remembered and the sense and object of it forgotten.
He came regularly to the garden for three days and then again
he vanished. Now that the child, the only reason for his visit to the
civilized world, had departed, he could not be persuaded to remain.
126 THE PUPPET SHOW
Later he reappeared fitfully in his old haunts, now here, now
there, clipping fences, clearing ditches, mending the thatch of
barns, and those who stopped to speak to him found the same
attraction, the same rich humanity, even the same serenity, but
there was also a deep tinge of melancholy, softening them and
muting them as it were, as though a light had been extinguished
in his mind. Once more he was a thing apart. The village saw
him no more: his social significance had fallen from him and he
was once again the shy but familiar haunter of country places,
the elusive sprite of woods and fields, appearing less and less fre-
quently among the homes of men. And long after the date of his
death it was not known whether he had actually died or only
vanished deeper into the country.
THE MAGIC CARPET
THE MAGIC CARPET
RUSSELL'S UNCLE HAD ACHIEVED
perfection in the art of giving a present, for not only did he
give it in the form of a cheque but he went on to stipulate that
the cheque should be spent on something entirely useless. He
knew Russell's taste to a nicety, so that he could himself have
made an infallibly successful choice of a watercolour, a statuette
or a book. But the perfection of the uncle's art consisted also in
the fact that he gave not only the ultimate object chosen but all
those racking emotions which he knew Russell would go through
in the choosing.
And, true enough, it kept Russell going for a week. During
that week he went about in a fever of torturing uncertainties, de-
licious temptations, agonized renunciations, delightful anticipa-
tions. Wherever he went, a troop of bright visions attended him.
For the first two days he merely took stock, flitting from shop-
window to shop-window, flattening his nose against the glass,
sometimes obscuring the objects of his inspection by the haze of
his excited breathing on the pane. He took his meals in a dream,
unconscious of what he was eating: he collided with people in
the streets and frequently failed to answer when spoken to. After
he had turned out the light and got into bed he reviewed all the
salient objects of the day's inspection, compared, rejected, filtered,
and finally went to sleep in the small hours of the morning in a
confused whirl of glowing fantasies.
Awaking after two days and two nights of this distracting ex-
istence, he found that he had achieved some sort of definition.
The thing chosen must have colour, strong, arresting colour, and
sharp and significant line. This at once threw overboard all liter-
ature, etchings, engravings, and all the plastic art that is without
colour.
I3O THE PUPPET SHOW
Awaking after the third day and night, he found that the
definition had not only clarified to the point of articulating vari-
eties of actual objects to be chosen from but had further reduced
these varieties to three. It had been settled that the thing would
have to be either an Oriental rug, a Japanese print, or a piece of
Venetian glass.
His inquisition of shop-windows now became highly specialized
and he returned home on the fourth evening having narrowed his
hunting-ground for Japanese prints to a single shop whose win-
dow seemed to display the finest specimens, and furthermore
having reduced his Oriental rug-hunt and his Venetian glass-
hunt not only to single windows but to single objects in those
windows.
The goblet of Venetian glass which had taken his fancy was
unquestionably a fine specimen. At the centre of a base of yellow
glass like an inverted saucer, three yellow dragons powdered
with gold stood on their hind-legs, springing outwards with paw-
ing forefeet and lolling tongues and supporting on their heads a
great serene bubble of purple glass. The upward curve of the
sides turned inwards towards the lip. Russell's facile imagination
asserted that it was a frozen bubble of wine or a newly-opened
water-lily on the deeply-shadowed edge of a tropical lake. Which-
ever it was, it was very expensive.
Then, the same afternoon, he had discovered the rug. He
spotted it hanging among several others, in the window of a shop
recommended to him by a friend, and it was the others which
first attracted his attention by the brilliance of their colours. It
was a Kelim rug of elaborate and fantastic geometrical design. Its
only colours at first sight seemed to be white and black in bold
alternation. Then, as Russell looked into it more attentively, he
saw that the white composed the ground on which the black was
scored in a bold, many-hooked pattern, and that besides this the
rug had an indented border of brick-red and brick-red appeared
within the rug in a notched pattern alternating with the black,
and soon Russell found that the other rugs had grown vulgar and
THE MAGIC CARPET 13!
garish and that this Kelim rug was rich, distinguished, severe, a
thoroughbred among rugs. He had actually gone so far as to enter
the shop and ask the price. The price was within his reach. The
shopman had brought the rug from the window and had showed
some others of the same kind. Russell kindled with delight, his
heart beat fast, he pursed his lips like a gourmet over a fine Port,
and as he compared one with another his preference hovered in
torment between rug and rug. But whenever he returned to that
first rug it always asserted its superiority unmistakably, supremely.
He left the shop, a prey to acute nervous excitement, saying that
he would think it over. He felt almost sure about the rug, but
still he would look at other things before deciding. What a tragedy
if he were rashly to buy the rug and afterwards discover that what
he ought to have bought was a Japanese print. A taxi which al-
most ran him down brought to his notice the fact that he was
walking rapidly in the wrong direction. He turned about and
hurried towards home.
On the way he passed the Venetian goblet. 'Not much of a
thing,' hesaid to himself: yet he glanced backat it as he hastened on.
As he lay in bed that night, the goblet regained some of its lost
glory. The purple bubble swam before him, burning and fading
and burning again : the golden dragons expanded into great sym-
bolical monsters, terrible and sublime. But then came a sense of
something fiercely and splendidly barbaric, before which the
dragons shrank and the burning bubble faded. It was the rug.
Next morning it was settled. The goblet was definitely off. It
only remained for him to guard against a final error by a visit to
the Japanese print shop. The print shop turned out to be an
agonising proposition. Print after print was set before him,
miracles of colour, balance, and singing line. Over each Russell
hovered desperately in an ecstasy of indecision. At length he
noticed that he was returning with most frequency to Hiroshige's
Monkey Bridge. He inspected it more carefully.
On either side of the picture rose a sharp perspective of straw-
. coloured cliffs whose fluted faces swung outwards towards the
132 THE PUPPET SHOW
base. Between them swirled a stream of bright blue water in
parallel bands of lighter and darker shade which curled and un-
curled deliciously in the eddying of the current. The gorge was
spanned by the arc of a little bridge and over the top of either
cliff leaned tufted maple-bushes in a shower of autumnal scarlet.
Far off, seen in the gap framed between the cliff-walls, beyond
green fields and piney knolls and groups of pigmy huts, delicately
carved mounds of blue hills stood against a luminous yellow sky.
The print was a wonder of delicate precision and delightful colour.
Russell cast a lingering glance at the others and returned to
The Monkey Bridge sweating under the stress of selection. 'It
will be that one if it's any,' he told the print-seller and staggered
from the shop, a broken man.
He thought of the rug. How harsh it seemed now with its
black, white, and red. There was no warmth in it, no mellow-
ness, but a coldness, a fierceness that repelled him. After lunch
he fled to the rug-shop blinded by visions of Japanese prints, like
Orestes pursued by Furies.
The rug was still in the window and at the first glance the
prints faded into thin air, so great was the spell of it. Every doubt
vanished in a flash : all was certainty and security. He felt as
though he had come out of a jungle of dark perplexity on to the
sunny highway of perfect wisdom. He hastened to the shop-door.
It was locked. He had forgotten that it was a half-holiday.
Now he would have to wait till the following afternoon, for
he would be occupied all next morning. Throughout that
evening and the next morning Russell fretted and chafed like a
caged leopard. His peace of mind, his joy in life, were woven into
the patterns of that rug and, separated from it, he was tormented,
lost.
Next day at the first possible moment he was back at the shop.
He burst in, breathless. 'I have decided to take that rug,' he
panted.
'The Kelim, sir?' replied the shopman. 'I'm sorry: it was sold
this morning.'
THE MAGIC CARPET 133
Russell's world crashed about his ears. He stared stupidly at
the shopman, stammered something incoherent and fled from the
shop.
At home he flung himself into a chair and lay with hanging
arms and sprawling legs, dazed and disillusioned. Life for him
was empty and juiceless as a sucked orange. Towards evening
he slunk out and bought The Monkey Bridge ......
The Monkey Bridge had hung on the wall of his sitting room
for a fortnight. For a fortnight its pure and lively colour and the
suavity and sureness of its drawing called to him in vain, for
whenever he seemed on the point of savouring to the full the
wonder and the beauty of it, the memory of the Kelim rug
surged up and enveloped him like a sheet of flame. It seemed to
him now, as he studied it in his mind's eye, to summarize all the
richness, the mystery, the cruelty, the barbaric splendour of the
East. Now it appeared to him as the pelt of a conventionalized
green-glancing puma, now its bold patterns were the dark hiero-
glyphics on an ancient and half-comprehended palimpsest. He
felt that in losing it he had lost everything, or rather, the cipher
without which everything was meaningless.
At the end of that fortnight he met the friend who had
recommended the rug-shop. 'I want you to dine with me tomor-
row,' said the friend: 'I have a new rug to show you.'
'A rug?' shrieked Russell. 'Red, white and black? A Kelim
rug?'
'How the devil do you know that?' asked the friend.
Then it was he, his friend, who had snatched the precious rug
from his grasp, who had withered up his life in a single afternoon.
Russell accepted the invitation and duly presented himself on
the following evening. In reply to his frantic enquiries after the
rug his friend led him into the drawing room. At the door, Rus-
sell braced himself for the plunge, the awful gulp of remorse,
torture, and misery.
One glance was enough. The rug was nothing. A charming
thing, indeed a beautiful thing, but a beautiful thing among a
134 THE PUPPET SHOW
hundred others: nothing at all to compare with the miracle into
which his excited imagination had transformed it.
On his return to his rooms Russell switched on the light.
Opposite him hung The Monfyy Bridge, beautiful beyond all
comparison with the rug. He took it down tenderly from the
wall, laid it on the table, and bent ardently over it like a lover.
FABLES
NINE FABLES
The Snowflake
THE POET AKHMED LIVED IN A TOWN SET
in a green oasis in the thirsty desert, where he inhabited a
tower high above the lowly roofs of the town: and, similarly, his
mind dwelt upon the calm summits of Imagination above the
paltry bickerings of the townsfolk. Now one morning in the
winter, as Akhmed sat on his tower in meditation upon the In-
finite, a sudden sharp wind fluttered the hair of his forehead and
out of the wind there dropped a petal of cherry-blossom and lit
on the parapet beside him; but when he looked more closely he
saw that it was not a petal but a snowflake. And he was very
much surprised, because snow never fell in that country. And he
remained all day entranced before the delicate perfection of the
thing. And when the women called him to dinner, he called
back: — 'Go away. I want no dinner, for I have found the Eter-
nal Verity which is more than breakfast, dinner, or tea.' And
when the next day dawned, Akhmed was still in contemplation
upon his tower. And the news spread like smoke through the
town that Akhmed the poet had found the Eternal Verity: con-
sequently the town pundits called to congratulate him. And when
they came out, puffing and blowing, into the keen, pure air on
the top of the tower, they found Akhmed sitting there, gazing at
the snowflake. But as soon as they set eyes on the flake, they
began to argue about the beauty of it. 'Its beauty,' said one, 'is
entirely scientific, for it consists in the rigidly mechanical process
whereby vapour, under given conditions, is transformed into the
substance called snow'.
138 THE PUPPET SHOW
'On the contrary,' said another, 'the scientific aspect of the
thing has nothing to do with its beauty. The beauty lies in the
form, the exquisitely balanced filigree, which constitutes the
flake.' Another would have it that the beauty lay rather in the
whole episode than in the snowflake itself — the dramatic arrival
of the flake, fallen out of the void as a drop of wisdom out of the
eternal Mind into the mind of man. A fourth laughed aloud at
all these ideas. 'Its beauty,' he said, 'lies in none of those fancy
notions, but purely and simply in its utility : for, as is well-known,
if a sufficient quantity of these flakes be brought together, excel-
lent ice-creams can be made at a trifling expense/
But hearing all these theories springing up around him,
Akhmed too was seduced into the argument, and soon he was
labouring to give reasons for the miracle of the snowflake. And
the whole lot of them wrangled together so that the townspeople
in all the streets stood still and gazed up in wonder, thinking
that a menagerie had got loose upon the tower. 'But,' shouted
the voice of Akhmed above the hubbub, 'you have only to look
at the thing ....,' and he and the rest turned to do so. But
when they looked, there was nothing to look at, for the snowflake
had melted half-an-hour ago in that hot and fetid outpouring of
vain breath.
The Driest & the <Poet
A POET AND A PRIEST ONCE FELL INTO
conversation. 'There are certain statements in your sacred
books/ said the poet, 'which I am unable to believe. For instance,
your god, so I read, was born of a rock. He produced a supply of
water by striking the rock with an arrow and concluded an
alliance with the sun.'
The priest was eloquent and the poet patient, nor was his
mind encumbered with scientific knowledge: so that at the end
of eight hours and forty five minutes he was easily convinced on
all points.
Some days later it chanced that they met again and the priest
hailed the poet as concert.
'Good-morning,' answered the poet: 'but why convert?
'Why?' the priest replied, 'did you not assure me last Thurs-
day that I had removed all those doubts of yours?'
'I did,' said the poet. 'But you are wrong in concluding that
I propose to change my religion merely because you entertained
me on Thursday by explaining certain peculiar physical facts
connected with yours.'
'The Inquisitive £Man
THERE IS A CERTAIN PLANET (ABOUT
three-quarters of the distance down the Milky Way and
the first to the left after that) which is tastefully laid out with
gardens and fountains, hills and forests. And somewhere near the
middle of it stands a building with a pillared porch and a green
front door with a large brass bell-pull at the side of it. And every-
one is very happy on the planet, for living is cheap and the weather
is good and there is nothing whatever to worry about. So that folk
spend their time in a wise enjoyment of the blessings about them.
But there lived on that planet a certain man who turned up
his nose at the blessings and spent all his days pealing that front
door bell. But no one ever answered the bell so that he got prec-
ious little satisfaction out of this occupation. And occasionally
people would interrupt him and say: 'No one has ever come out
of that door nor has anyone ever got in. Why bother?' Or, 'There
is nothing inside, so why not leave it and come for a picnic?' or
again, 'The building was built, like the fountains and terraces,
purely for decoration. Look at it, therefore, and enjoy it, but don't,
for goodness* sake, worry yourself about it.' But he took no no-
tice of these wise remarks, but continued to peal and peal the bell
with short intervals for meals and sleep.
At last, when he had been continuing this mode of existence
for about seventy years, a sage approached him and said: 'Why
not go round to the back?' And the man, having stared at the
sage in amazement, replied: 'By gad, Sir, I will.' And he did.
And at the back he found another door, precisely like the front door,
and over it was written: 'THIS WAY FOR PARADISE,'
and the key was in the door. Then the man, with a great leap of
FABLES I 4 1
the heart, turned the key and flung open the door. And when
the door was open he discovered that it was actually that on the
other side of which he had spent his life in waiting, for the building
was no house but merely a sort of ornamental wall. And so, a
little mortified, he prepared to join the others. But unfortunately
he was now eighty-seven years of age which happened to be his
allotted span. So he died that evening, before having had the op-
portunity of enjoying himself at all.
IV.
Sternity & Infinity
AMONG THE PUBLIC-MEN OF A CERTAIN
pleasant town there were two philosophers, whose job it
was to do a little tidying-up in the mental department just as the
sanitary authorities did for the thoroughfares and drains. And one
of them superintended the Time Section and the other the Space
Section. And in the course of their labours, both of them very
soon, as was inevitable, bumped up against Eternity and Infinity.
Being a little upset by this, they held a conference and decided
that the thing must be properly investigated and explained,
'because,' they said, 'if it turns out that mankind has no share in
either of these spheres, then what's the good of anything? We
might as well, in that case, shut up shop and commit suicide.' So
they agreed together to investigate each his proper branch.
Accordingly, the Space gentlemen, with the help of a foot-rule,
an aeroplane, and a powerful telescope, proceeded forthwith to
the extreme bound of space, where he found himself on the brink
of a blind precipice. But fortunately he had brought with him
some string and a grappling-iron; so he lowered the grappling-
iron into the abyss and fished about. And after a while he reeled
up the iron and found in it a large smooth pebble. And imme-
diately he fell into a great despair, for this conclusively proved
that Infinity was closed to mankind, since otherwise the stone
would have been a worked stone or else a brick baked by the
hand of man.
Similarly the Time gentleman, by the deft manipulation of a
slide-rule, one or two logarithms, and an Ingersoll watch, trans-
ported himself in no time to the brink of Eternity, and beneath
his feet the boundless Ocean of Eternity rolled embarrassingly
FABLES 143
to and fro. But by a happy coincidence he too had string in his
pocket and a grappling-iron and with them he quickly made the
same desolating discovery as his Space colleague. And so they
returned home disconsolate with their pebbles, and each put his
pebble on his bedroom-mantelpiece, for what else can one do
with a pebble?
Now, when they had talked things over, it became clear that
suicide was the only thing for it, and they shut themselves up for
a fortnight in order to discover the best method of committing
suicide. But when they emerged from this retirement, they found
that a great many letters had accumulated on the hall-table, and
as they tore open one after another they learned that the Coun-
tess of Hydeseek, Lady Lamprey, Mrs. Fitzwilmington Smith
and many another, requested the pleasure of their company at all
manner of delightful entertainments. Then the Space fellow,
after a moment's reflection, remarked: — 'This is very tempting,
you know. The cellar of Lord Hydeseek is world-famous: I shall
never forget his Chateau Yquem. Lady Lamprey too has a
damned good chef.'
'To be sure,' replied the Time -fellow, 'and, taking it all
round, the present time, especially now that the season has begun,
has much to recommend it. Let us therefore, laying aside for the
moment this suicide problem, have much pleasure in accepting
these kind invitations.'
And, in the highest spirits, both ran off to dress. But when
they gained their bedrooms, each found that the pebble on his
mantelpiece had sprouted, and from it bloomed a lily whose
colour and perfume enchanted all the room.
r.
The Song of the 'Bird
THERE WAS ONCE A MAN— THOSE THAT
knew him said that he was a prophet or a madman or one
of these poets — who was haunted by the sweet singing of a bird
and spent his days in pursuit of it. And he came to a door in
which stood a man who said: 'Yes, the bird is here, I caught her
last Friday and have her indoors in a cage. Come and have a look.'
And he took him indoors into a small room, and there, in a wire
cage, was the bird, hopping to and fro. But when the Seeker
came near to have a look at her, the cage fell to pieces before his
eyes and became a mere tangle of wire. But the singing filled the
room: and, scanning the room for the bird, the Seeker found her
perched upon the curtain-pole. But the man of the house was
furious and insisted against all evidence that the cage was still in-
tact and the bird in it. Then the Seeker climbed on to a table to
catch the bird, but no sooner did he reach out his hand than the
room and all the party-walls of the house dissolved surprisingly
into dust. And when he had finished sneezing, he heard the bird's
song louder still and sweeter in the empty shell of the house.
And when again it seemed that he had caught her, something
occurred, and he was dazzled by strong sunshine, and wind and
the waving trees were about him, for the house had dissolved as
the room had done.
And he ran over the country without cap or Burberry, follow-
ing the song that sweetened the evenings and the mornings.
Now the people who saw him were amused and repeated with
a shrug that he was undoubtedly one of these poets. Others told
him that the singing was in his own head, 'and therefore,' they
said, 'why worry?' Others again advised a mild aperient. But he
packed a bag and pursued his quest, regardless. And after buying
FABLES 145
many tickets, he came close upon the bird singing iij a myrrh-
bush in the far East. But as he stretched out his hand to take her,
the whole world went up in a puff of fire and the Seeker floun-
dered up and down among constellations and the hot tails of
comets, like a man struggling in deep water: and the universe re-
volved about him with the whirring of a great machine. But above
the whirring,and governing it, the singing soared clear and sweet.
The Seeker, being by this time on his mettle, followed the
bird for some thousands of years. But when, at the end of Time
and Space, his fingers closed over her, the singing surged up in a
huge irresistible tide, and himself and the bird and the whole of
creation lost form and melted serenely into the song.
VI.
The Meaning of Life
FLOURISHED ONCE A CERTAIN
J_ people who found that the enjoyment of life was much
hampered by the problem of its meaning. They therefore re-
solved to appoint a Royal Commission who, by filtering and
analysing all knowledge, should explain the Meaning of Life, so
that the matter should be cleared up once for all and everyone
should be able to give himself up to unclouded enjoyment.
The Royal Commission got to work with great earnestness of
purpose, and they sat and sat. And time went by, and they wore
out chair after chair, and trousers after trousers, and spectacles
after spectacles, and member after member of the Commission.
But the Government, after some unavoidable delay, continued
to supply new chairs for broken chairs, new trousers for worn
trousers, new spectacles for cracked spectacles, and new members
of the Commission for dead members of the Commission.
And every hundred years or so, the Prime Minister of the
moment would look in and ask: — 'Well, Gentlemen, and how
goes it?' And the Royal Commission would rise deferentially
from their chairs and reply: — 'First rate, thank you, Sir.' And
they continued, year in and year out, comparing, filtering, ana-
lysing, condensing, crystalising, plucking away petal after petal
from about the golden heart of knowledge. But still the problem
of the Meaning of Life weighed upon the people and they could
not give themselves up to any enjoyment, knowing that the
problem was yet unsolved.
But one day, about ten thousand years after the Commission
had begun to sit, the news went out that the problem had been
solved, and forthwith the whole nation broke into a dance of
FABLES 147
glee. But when they had danced for about a week, the Chair-
man of ,the Royal Commission stepped among them and re-
marked:— 'You would perhaps like to know the answer.' And
the people immediately stopped dancing and replied: — 'To be
sure. Of course. Most certainly.' So a day was appointed on
which the Chairman should announce the solution to the people.
And when the day arrived, the people assembled in the mar-
ket place and the Chairman, followed by all the extant members
of the Commission, came solemnly into the midst. And the
Chairman said: —
'Ladies and Gentlemen: during the ten thousand years in
which we have sat upon this question, we successfully accumu-
lated every particle of knowledge, printed and unprinted. We
then proceeded as it were to boil it all up together. And when it
was boiling we skimmed offthe inessential scum, and then boiled
again and skimmed again until at length, after innumerable
boilings and skimmings, there remained but one quintessential
drop, the very symbol and ichor of all knowledge. Here, Ladies
and Gentlemen,' he cried, 'is the symbol of Life's Meaning,'
and he held up before them a tiny plant flowering in a pot.
'This,' he said, 'is the Vericona Officinalis or Common Speed-
well. Those who wish to understand the Meaning of Life have
only to contemplate this little plant.'
Now there were a few local poets in the crowd, and these
clapped their hands and exclaimed: — 'Precisely. What have we
always said?' But as for the rest of the people, their faces became
like the faces of hungry folk who have been served with a rotten
egg: and they grumbled aloud.
And the Chairman, seeing that they were dissatisfied, said to
them: — 'If anyone is not content with this information, it is open
to him to consult the report of the Commission which is now to
be had in one hundred and twenty thousand parts, price sixpence
a part, or at the reduced rate of £2,750 the set. But I under-
stood that the Commission was appointed precisely with the
object of sparing people this labour.'
148 THE PUPPET SHOW
But the people continued to grumble and growl : and they
said: — 'We have been badly, very badly, had.' And they turned
up their noses and resolved unanimously to continue to be
weighed down by the problem of Life's Meaning.
VIL
The Showman & the ^Marionettes
THE AUDIENCE WAS WAITING AND
Mr. Jarvey stood ready. On the stroke of the clock he
pulled up the little curtain.
It was indeed a wonderful show. Mr. Jarvey gave them play
after play, plays of every kind, comic, romantic, tragic, heroic,
and in each the little marionettes moved and spoke with a con-
viction and a realism which kept the audience spell-bound. They
were shown the drama of a little nation suddenly attacked by a
powerful foe: its struggles, its loyalty, its heroic sacrifices, and
its final victory: and in the closing scene, when the triumphal
procession marched into the square in front of the tiny cathedral
and the crowd with upstretched arms burst into a paean of thanks-
giving, it was almost impossible not to believe that it was really
praising and blessing Mr. Jarvey himself, as he bent, vast and
beneficent, over the little box and worked the strings.
Then there was the tragedy of the two little lovers separated
by a cruel fate and united only in death: and when in their
longing and despair they offered anguished prayers to Heaven, it
seemed for all the world as if they were beseeching and imploring
Mr. Jarvey himself, who leaned like an impassive and cruel
providence above them, guiding them relentlessly towards their
tragic denouement.
When the plays were all finished, the audience crowded round
the showman and his box. *I congratulate you, Mr- Jarvey,* said
a lady in the front of the crowd. *A wonderful show indeed. It
is almost impossible to realise that wood, paint, and a little tinsel
can be made to express so much.' Mr. Jarvey bowed. 'I am de-
lighted to hear, Madam, that you like the plays* But I ought to
150 THE PUPPET SHOW
confess, lest I accept credit where no credit is due, that there is
no wood or paint in the business.'
'Indeed,' said the lady: 'then papier-mache" perhaps?'
'No, Madam,' replied Mr. jarvey. 'Merely ordinary flesh
and blood.'
'Flesh and blood?' screamed the lady. 'Do you mean to tell
me that all those little people were alive?'
'Every one, Madam.'
'And that they bled real blood and died real deaths?'
Mr. Jarvey drew aside the curtain and showed a little corpse
still lying on the stage. It had perceptibly changed since the
curtain had fallen: the little face had grown green and waxen,
the little limbs had stiffened.
'But how horrible, how terrible!' cried the lady. 'To think
that we have sat here and applauded real massacres, real agonies,
the breaking of real hearts! Mr. Jarvey, you are a monster.'
'But remember, Madam,' answered the showman, 'that I my-
self made the marionettes.'
'Perhaps. But that is no reason why you should torture them.
Why, by simply pulling a string you could have restored that
poor little woman's lover to her arms. With that stick of yours
you could have swept those invaders off the stage and rescued
the three heroes who died to save their country.'
'But remember again, Madam,' said the showman, 'that not
only did I make the marionettes but I also wrote the plays they
act and taught them the parts they play. When they are per-
plexed, it is I who am perplexed. When they weep, I weep.
When they die in a great cause, some of me dies in a great cause,
and some of me, too, is the cause for which they die.'
'I don't understand you, Mr. Jarvey,' answered the lady. 'At
any rate it was easy to see that this was no play-acting. The poor
little things were in deadly earnest.'
'And so am I,' replied Mr. Jarvey with tears in his eyes, as the
lady vanished into the crowd.
nn.
The Poets & the Housewife
ONCE UPON A TIME, ON A SUMMER'S DAY,
two poets, having shut up shop, went out into the country
to collect copy, for their stock of this commodity was exhausted.
And they were careful to dress themselves carelessly: and one
put on a black collar and black-and-white checked trousers, and
the other a cravat of rageing scarlet, 'for,' they thought (though
they did not say so) 'we must dress the part.' And their hats were
wide and reckless and the hair beneath their hats was like the
thatch upon a broad-eaved barn.
And as they journeyed, poking about with their walking-
sticks after the precious substance of their quest, there gathered
over their heads the devil of a storm.
And at the proper moment the storm burst and the rain came
down and the poets left off seeking for copy and huddled under
a hawthorn tree. And they appeared as two proud exotic birds,
lighted down from the Lord knows where.
And there was a lodge near the hawthorn-tree, and the lodge-
keeper's wife looked out and, seeing the two, she exclaimed: —
'Lord, look what the wet brings out!' And the rain increased
fearfully.
And after a while she looked out again and the poets were
changed, for their bloom was impaired, the rain had clotted their
hair, and the scarlet cravat of the one had become crimson from
saturation. And rain dripped from all their extremities.
And the lodgekeeper's wife was grieved for them and called
out: — * Young men, will you not come in? Why play the heron
who stands lugubrious with his feet in cold water when it is open
to you to become as sparrows twittering with gladness beneath
the eaves?'
152 THE PUPPET SHOW
But they bowed politely and replied: — 'Thanks awfully,
ma'am, but we are poets and we like it.'
And the lodgekeeper's wife was riled and sneered at them?
remarking: — 'They have certainly had a drop too much.' But
they, smiling deprecatingly upon her, responded: — 'Madam, you
are pleased to be dry.' 'And you,' quoth she, 'are pleased to be
wet/ And she slammed-to the window, casting up her eyes and
enquiring rhetorically, 'Did you ever?' and {What next?'
And the rain came down like hell, leaping a foot high and
sousing all things.
And after another while the lodgekeeper's wife looked out
again, and the two had gathered closer about the trunk of the
hawthorn-tree, and they were as two old crows, for their shoul-
ders were up and their beaks were down and they were unbe-
lievably dishevelled.
And she shouted to them again, for she was a charitable
woman, saying: — 'O miserable gentlemen, in the name of civi-
lization and commonsense, come inside.'
But they dared not turn their faces to her, lest the water
should run down their necks: so, revolving themselves all of a
piece, they replied: — 'Renewed thanks, ma'am, but we are very
well, for we are acquiring copy.' And they cowered under
the deluge with great earnestness of purpose.
But the lodgeikeeper's wife di(J not understand the word copy,
so that she was amazed beyond measure and the power of com-
ment was taken from her.
And the storm, having stormed itself out, abated : and the
place was bathed in delicious smells of breathing leaves, and the
warm sweetness of hawthorn perfumed the air.
And the lodgekeeper's wife looked out from the window a
fourth and last time, and the poets were in the act of departure.
And the tragedy of their appearance was beyond all computing.
For the scarlet from the cravat of the one had run down into the
bosom of his shirt, so that he was as it were a robin-redbreast.
And both were soaked to the uttermost.
FABLES 153
And when those poets were returned home, the one found
that he had lost a shirt and the other that he had gained a cold.
Therefore the one went out and bought a new shirt at seven and
six and dear at that, and the other got himself a shilling bottle of
Ammoniated Quinine which was tolerably cheap considering.
And the one wrote an ode called ^Midsummer Storm for which
he obtained five guineas, so that (deducting fourpence for stamps
and seven and six for the shirt) his net profit was four pounds
seventeen and twopence.
But the other could only manage a one-guinea sonnet called
Rain among Leaves, so that (deducting fourpence for stamps and
a shilling for the Quinine) his net profit was nineteen and eight-
pence.
Thus the two acquired great store of copy (more, indeed, than
they bargained for) and the sum of five pounds sixteen shillings
and tenpence thrown in.
But the wife of the lodgekeeper knew nothing of all this, so
that she still believes, like many another ill-informed person, that
poets are nothing more than unpractical dreamers.
IX.
The tpoet & the ^Mandrill
IN A CAGE OUTSIDE THE MONKEY HOUSE
at the Zoo there lives the Mandrill, a beast most hideous
before, having great protruding fangs and a sour, dishonest coun-
tenance: but behind he is lovely as the dawn, a wonder of rose
and violet.
And one day there stood before the cage many ladies wearing
stays: and there were gentlemen in silk hats, the shoulders of
whose coats were padded lest they should appear as the Lord had
made them. And the mandrill went to and fro in his cage, and
he was very hideous: and anon he turned about, and at once he
was very beautiful.
And those that looked at him exclaimed at his ugliness, but of
his beauty they said not a word, for, one and all, they were proper
persons.
And there came into their midst a poet. And it so happened
when the mandrill turned himself backside foremost that tha
poet's heart leapt within him, and with a loud voice he praised
the beauty of those colours, saying, 'Goodness, but how exquisite,
to be sure.'
Then all the people gathered about the cage looked wanly upon
one another as folk having a secret sorrow: and they all departed
in different directions, and the poet and the mandrill were alone.
But the poet, on returning home, wrote a poem in praise of
colour, lovely and radiant as a Mexican fire-opal. And the folk
who had stood before the cage read the poem and were amazed:
but they never knew the source of the inspiration of that poem
nor that the poet was he who had grieved them at the Zoo.
Printed at The Golden Cockerel Press
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