Sleep Has His House

by Anna Kavan

  A rough-grained worker’s hand with black broken thumbnail grasping a rope; complementing it, under a glum sky, a bell swung at a steep angle, clapper outlined on sky. A small brass handbell on top of a pile of books, horn-rimmed spectacles and a fountain-pen alongside. The clock-face again. The hands are now rigidly rectangled at nine o’clock. A solitary electric bulb, very isolated and frangible, dangling from white ceiling under a cheap white saucer shade at the end of a dark cord on which two flies have settled.

  B looks carefully and seriously at these pictures for quite a long time, leaning her elbows on the round table. She seems to be trying to make up her mind whether she likes what she sees. In the end she apparently makes a negative decision because she turns away from the pages and her eyes slowly defocus.

  The uncompromising black-and-white of the dream reproduction now blurs and comes to a minimal pictorial distinctness. The whole quality of apperception is emotional rather than visual from now on. Everything appears slightly out of focus, as if seen through half-closed eyes: not exactly distorted, but sufficiently out of focus to produce a feeling of great remoteness and unreality.

  First a series of calm sensuous impressions; all of a sort to link up with the ideas of warmth, sunshine, security, love; in the background a tranquil rocking, a lullaby, without any threat of discontinuance. The right feeling could be represented here by a deep-South crooning of the “Do you want the moon to play with and the stars to run away with” variety, provided that the actual black mammy association could be kept out of it.

  Gradually materializing pointillist stipple of sunlight sifted through green leaves. Transparencies of huge criss-crossed emerald-green leaves of the sort used by natives as wrappings: frayed fringes of such leaves. Very idealized mild round male oriental face smiling its benign smile; his arms, hands, yellow fingers; his clever fingers drawing birds, flowers, fishes, leaves, on thin rice paper under moving shadows of leaves. Smiling, he lets the pictures drift away on the breeze; one by one they drift off and become real; the birds open their red beaks to chirp as they flutter away; the leaves attach themselves to a bush, the flowers distribute among them their purple and orange wings; the fish float for a moment on the stream’s surface before they swerve into the water and disappear. The sun, the sure fountain of warmth and comfort, the man. The smiling yellow face of the sun-man, yellow fingers benevolently juggling the world.

  Again the generalized sense-impression of friendly security with its background of peaceful rocking, wordless crooning, augmented this time by the reinforcement of some exclusive and unique support.

  A woman with chrysanthemum-curly hair—it is A, of course—approaches from a distance and comes nearer and nearer; slowly and steadily approaches until she stands so close that everything else is shut out. Quietly bending her face neither mournful nor gay, she takes B’s hand and walks away with her down a narrow path; receding with her along the private, blind, quiet, inviolate path), the backward-reaching, down-reaching tunnel, as if into the crater of an extinct volcano.

  AT school the spell I had learnt in my parents’ house was no longer sufficient: I had to discover another and stronger magic. At school there was only the day world which I refused to accept and which would not accept me either. I had to find some private place where I could be at home.

  ABIG COUNTRY estate in the finest old-world tradition. Undulating parkland with plantations of great trees here and there. The trees are all perfect specimens, scientifically nourished and trimmed, there isn’t a dead twig or a superfluous branch to be seen. It’s the same wherever you look. Everything has been planned, protected and cared for down to the last detail. And you can see at a glance that this has been so for hundreds of years. The lawns which surround the mansion on the hill have been shaved by skilful scythes to the smoothest velvety pile. Huge clusters of grapes hang in the vinery, peaches and nectarines ripen on sunny walls. The flower gardens are awash with colour and scent. In the walled kitchen garden the fat earth overflows like a vegetable cornucopia. Strutting pigeons display their fans on the roofs of stables where splendid blood horses are housed. Sleek hounds drowse at their kennel doors. In sun-speckled shady groves deer daintily roam the preserves they share with the handsome gamebirds. As if suspended in amber, fish hang in the clear streams. Swans steer their stately and immaculate courses upon a lake that with no less exactitude mirrors the passing clouds. Here are no savage rocks, no jungles, no glaciers, no treacherous tropical lagoons, no fantastics of the animal, vegetable or mineral world to startle or cause amazement Here all is temperate and harmonious; enclosed, perfect, prearranged, controlled and known.

  A man wearing the uniform of major in one of the better-dressed modem armies steps briskly into the dream foreground, accompanied by an orderly. He has a small dark pointed beard and carries the words Liaison Officer in gold on each shoulder. With stiff one-two military precision the following motions are carried out:

  Major removes cap, holds it at rigid arm’s length. Orderly takes cap with his left hand: with right hand places halo attached to long trailing flex on major’s head: plugs in to point on floor. Halo lights up. Orderly hands dark leather-bound book to major; salutes; marches off. Major opens book (the word Parables momentarily legible on the spine); in crisp uninflected voice, as if reading orders for the day, reads:

  Of course the first essential for a domain of this sort is privacy. It would lose its charm straight away if every Tom, Dick and Harry were allowed to come in and carve his initials on the tree-trunks and litter the grass with cigarette packets and paper bags and all sorts of refuse. There’s no getting away from the fact that the general public must be excluded if things are to be kept as they should be.

  Certainly it’s disappointing from the angle of sightseers who may have come from the city in some hot dusty overcrowded motor-coach, to find such an inviting spot hedged round with NO TRESPASSING notices. One can see the point of view of such people and sympathize with their feelings as they peer through the fence at the cool tempting glades and flowery dells on the other side. What a perfect place for our picnic, they are doubtless saying to one another. And doubtless they feel indignant at the idea of an individual landowner having the exclusive right to enjoy this delightful spot.

  But one must look at the other side of the picture as well. Isn’t there something to be said for the owner whose whole life is bound up with the property and devoted to maintaining it? Surely he earns the right to his privacy. Especially as he is almost certain to be one of those extremely sensitive people, of an entirely different order from the ordinary run of humans, and totally unfitted to live at close quarters with them. Deprive him of his seclusion and you deprive him of everything: perhaps even of life itself; for it’s more than doubtful whether his delicate organism would survive such a shock. I don’t mean to imply by this that our landowners as a class are particularly asthenic or that their hold on life is specially weak. On the contrary, we have all heard instances of these gentry displaying astonishing fortitude in defence of the things which they consider valuable. They will go to the most extravagant lengths in such circumstances; whether it’s on behalf of an ideal or something concrete. But without these value objects—and being private is certainly one of the most important of them—they seem to lose interest in the world and to retreat from it accordingly. It’s as if they presented their terms to life, and, the terms being rejected, quietly and proudly withdrew from the scene, preferring non-participation to compromise. Not good enough for me, you can imagine some old squire saying with a half-humorous, half-sardonic inflexion, in face of an ultimatum. And then he will take his departure without any fuss at all, unobtrusively abandoning the stage. For how can he, for so long the sole proprietor of a vast demesne, lower himself to associate with the public in an existence of base competition? No, you can’t expect the descendant of a proud race, with centuries of tradition behind him, to tolerate the desecration of vulgarians; and you can’t blame him either if, before making his e
xit, he secretly destroys his dearest possessions rather than have them fall into the hands of the mob.

  The trend nowadays is towards more and more collectivism. Of course nobody denies that the good things of the world should be equally accessible to all, and that the owning of property by individuals is in theory deplorable. But it seems to me that careful consideration should be given to the case of the landowners who, far more often than not, are hardworking, abstemious men of high moral principles. Taking a broad view, is it really the best policy to eject them summarily from the positions which they alone are qualified to fill? Qualified, what’s more, not only by personal training but by all sorts of hereditary influences, the value and power of which are not yet fully understood. Admittedly, from the collective standpoint, an estate, no matter how perfectly run, is ideologically valueless unless it is accessible to the community. On the other hand, if such an estate is delivered over lock-stock-and-barrel to incompetent and inexperienced managers, it will soon become factually valueless too. Would it not be possible to evolve some system under which the status quo could be maintained—perhaps until the death of the present proprietors—meanwhile raising the educational standard so that the general public will be fitted both to administer the estates efficiently and to appreciate them to the greatest advantage?

  The problem, at any rate, seems worthy of study. To my mind, a very real danger exists of irreplaceable treasures being lost to the community through the thoughtless vandalism of uninstructed persons, if all these great places are suddenly thrown open indiscriminately.

  What happens when a crowd of holiday makers bursts into such a property? They will uproot plants and damage trees which have taken many decades to reach maturity; they will leave gates open, allowing valuable animals to stray and to ruin the gardens; inside the house no object will be secure. In an hour or so the work of generations of skilled craftsmen will be destroyed.

  Don’t think that I’m attacking the common people or condemning their high spirits. All I want is to make sure that they don’t lose sources of future pleasure through receiving them prematurely before they have had opportunities of learning to appreciate their true worth. That’s why I’m entering this plea on behalf of the old landowners.

  There has been a tendency lately to speak of these men as dissolute degenerates, given to all sorts of perversions. Let me assure you that in my experience this is by no means the case. In the course of events I have come in contact with a number of them, and they have all been individuals of integrity and moderation, one or two even fanatically ascetic in their personal lives, although naturally their outlook is entirely different from ours. I don’t want to appear as a partisan of the landowning class. Indeed, I am aware that I have already pressed their claims beyond the limits of personal prudence. But I would be dishonest to myself if I were to refrain from making a final appeal for serious consideration of the whole difficult problem.

  While the Liaison Officer is reading the last few sentences a bell starts to ring, at first distantly, becoming louder and more insistent as the dream grows correspondingly more transparent. Finally he is seen closing his book, preparing to remove his halo, laughing spectrally for an instant, before he dissolves altogether with the disrupted dream.

  NOW I understood why I had to prevent the day world from getting real. I saw that my instinct about this was a true one. As my eyes grew more discerning, I recognized my enemy’s face and I was afraid, seeing there a danger that one day might destroy me.

  Because of my fear that the daytime world would become real, I had to establish reality in another place.

  TRUTH, it’s everything. The man who said, What is truth? certainly touched on a big subject. The truth of the matter is that there’s far too much truth in the world. The world, from whichever point you observe it, is altogether too full of truth. It isn’t easy to recognize this truth in the first place, but it’s impossible ever to ignore it once it’s been grasped.

  Every single possibility or impossibility is true somewhere to someone at some time. It’s true that the earth is as round as an orange and as flat as a pancake. It’s true that the wicked island goddess Rangda is a good goddess when she takes off her mask. Black magic on top, white magic underneath. That proves that black’s white, doesn’t it?

  It’s true that the idea of America is a bright and shining thing in the mind. It’s true that the idea of America is a crude and brutal land inhabited by adolescents and gangsters.

  Defeatism’s true; war’s true. So’s idealism and the hope of a better society. You pay your money and you take your choice. Civilization’s gone down the drain. Utopia’s just round the comer.

  It’s true that civilization marches on: atomic energy plus universal war. The Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah; H.M.V. recording. That’s a truth, although universal war. There’s the truth that you go to bed with and the truth that wakes you up at three o’clock in the morning when the tigers are jumping up and down on the roof and eternity is flapping at the earth like somebody shaking a rug. There’s the truth of loving and hating, being an extrovert and an introvert, a success and a failure, travelling all over the world, living your whole life in one place, having security, accepting all risks. Then there’s the truth that you find with the dirty glasses stacked in the sink. That’s a different sort of truth.

  Books continue to be written in one truth and read in another. The radio announces various kinds of truth to suit every listener. Atomic warfare is true and so is the Sermon on the Mount. Truth is everywhere, in everything, all the time. That’s why it’s true. It’s true that all this is obvious and has been said often before. That truth’s as true as any other truth too.

  The artist paints his picture to suit himself or his client. The artist. Yes, well, let’s have a look at him now.

  The artist. Traditional with beard, corduroys, big black hat, bohemian scarf. Or, if you prefer it that way, elegantly turned out in a thirty-guinea suit tailored by Simpson, Simpson, Simpson & Simpson of Savile Row. Anyhow, the artist. As a young man. Full of enthusiasm and theories and alcohol and amours. As an old man. Successful, and respectfully badgered by publishers for autobiography: or nondescript and obscure. Or forty and frustrated and amused-not-so-amused-by-it-all. The artist, anyway.

  He turns his back upon Fitzroy Square and walks south down Charlotte Street with his slouching or affected, or jaunty or casual, or alert or pompous, or resigned or aggressive, or indifferent or weary step. Past the art dealers and the window full of rubber devices; past the delicatessen and the tobacconists and the sensational news placards (if not cricket results must be death and destruction tall on the placards); past the cheap restaurants, past the dirty curly-haired kids playing hopscotch. Past the dead tower (dead as all the dead days, Oxford or else Montmartre; dead ones, you who were with us in the ships at Mylæ, who had amaranth breath, who had death in the veins, dead living before the world died; dying now no longer); past the fabricators of steel candelabra.

  Into Geo. Rowney & Co’s. Or Winsor & Newton Ltd., Rathbone Place. It’s really quite immaterial which because he can get any material that he wants in the way of material at either of them. Unless of course he prefers the products of M. Lefranc, in which case he may have to walk a little bit farther or maybe not if the truth were known.

  As a matter of fact it isn’t anything in the paint line that he’s after just now. Not water colour or oil, artist’s or student’s or decorator’s, in any language whatever; so it’s simply a waste of breath to offer him deep ultramarine, outremer fonce, oltremare scuro, ultramar obscuro, etc.

  What interests him today is a good large sheet of Whatman paper with a fairly rough surface and not tinted any colour at all: which he fastens upon the skyline with four drawing pins, punaises or thumbtacks, according to the country he’s in at the moment: and proceeds to apply a fast wash which runs down in a double-toothed dragon’s back of black trees ridging steep foot-hills, iron-black mountains behind, down to the bottomles
s cañon of black-green water. A sombre landscape eventuates, worked out in blacks and greys and the very gloomiest shades of viridian. A scowling sky, ominous mountains, water cold, still and solid-looking as ice, trackless fir forests, the fine spray from the gigantic waterfalls fuming slowly like ectoplasm. No sign of life, no living creature visible anywhere. Only the forbidding and desolate silence, deathliness, of this mountainous far-off region. Till suddenly bursting from the high crags, soaring and planing above the highest pinnacles, two great birds, eagles most probably, swoop together into an extraordinary and desperate aerial encounter; plunging down headlong together, and all the time reciprocally involved, diving through a thousand feet of pure frozen emptiness, righting themselves, it seems miraculously, at the very last moment before crashing into the water, to glide interlocked over the surface, without effort, without the faintest perceptible winging, at the culmination of their appalling love flight.

  With a dégagé flip of the palette knife the paper’s off and making way for a clean sheet. This time the artist has changed his style. No more romantic gloom, no more melodramatics. This time it’s a street scene that’s delineated; or rather, a part of a street scene, a shop window, a toy shop window to be precise, with a Noah’s ark in the middle. Up the gangway the animals troop, there isn’t an odd one among them, everything’s in perfect order, not a single mistake, no two of the same sex, not even the earthworms, though heaven knows one might easily make a slip. Last of all Mr. and Mrs. Noah shoulder to shoulder and carrying between them a pair of huge indescent shells stuck together like jujubes. In they go, the doors slam, Gabriel sounds his horn, the lady evangelist with gold voice and armour-plated bosom breaks a bottle of champagne over the bows to complete the launching. Don’t deplore the extravagance, friends. Replenishing the earth is no picnic, and it wasn’t the best champagne anyway.