'I shall have to go,' said Daniel. 'If I stop here much longer I shall think I have got into an asylum for the alienated.'
'Asylum. Yes. Asylum.'
'I'm not particular,' objected Daniel. 'But I like a little method in people's madness. Even nonsense has its rules.'
'Daniel! You are a deep dog. Dirty and deep, Daniel. Are you not ashamed of being an aphrodisiac? Speak! Cauchemar!'
And so he went on for some time. This strange Belgian
confided in me, on several occasions, that recently he had contracted the habit of making love to his wife. It was a new experience. This had occurred since he had become possessed of a Russian mistress. This girl was well known in the quarter under the title of 'Notre Dame des Wagons-Lits'. She was called Notre Dame des Wagons-Lits because it was reported that during the communist revolution in Russia she had been shunted in a Wagon Lit, in which she was of course escaping, into a siding at a provincial station. The town had just been captured by the Red Army. While marooned in the siding, an entire bolshevik regiment—some said an army corps—had outraged her. She had after this startling experience escaped to Paris, to study art and sit in cafes, pointed out to newcomers as Our Lady of the Sleeping Cars. There more regiments deployed. In spite of her morose ugliness, she continued to be the victim of mass-ravishment. Or so she said; for her celebrated contretemps in Russia there was only one witness, herself. The Belgian regarded himself somewhat in the light of a uniquely honoured general-officer bringing up the rear, but very proud of his blowsy conquest, with her infantile jewish eyes of watery blue, her tremendous sombrero and heirloomish ear-rings of barbaric bric-a-brac.
As to Daniel, well he was tremendously proud of Daniel. He was persuaded that his domestic triangle was of a very chic geometry indeed. Daniel was a cult of his entirely and in more ways than one. It was really he who had succumbed to the 'Nigger'. I always believed, when I knew him better, that his wife was innocent of any interest, even, in Daniel, whom she suffered as a lodger of her husband's, but otherwise would have far preferred as an occasional visitor, rather than as a permanent unpaying pensionnaire. Really it was the husband over whom he had cast the spell and (intellectually) subjugated. Of this the wife was doubtless well aware. For he had an inordinate admiration for Daniel as a poet. This was expressed with even more vehemence than that displayed in showing him off as the conqueror in this connubial field.
'II est un grand poete!' he would thunder, bearded in the French fashion, of stocky flemish build, straddling in front of one. 'Mais oui, mais oui—un tres grand poete!'
On one occasion he stopped, as we were walking up the hill of Saint Michel, and asked me if I knew what Daniel had written—the greatest thing Daniel had ever written? Did I know it? I confessed that I did not. He then glared at me, and I leant against a tree.
'Vous ne le savez pas!' he said, dropping his voice.
He told me that it was in Daniel's latest book of verse. I bowed my head. He fixed me with his eye then and solemnly repeated the following two lines:
Ai-je cru un seul instant Dans la realite du monde!
I still leant against the tree, smoking my pipe. ''Thus I confute it?' my pipe seemed to say to him, in Johnsonian defiance. For he took a step towards me, peering up at me with an alarming steadfastness, as if I had questioned the unreality of the world, and the genius of Daniel, in the same rebellious breath.
'Ai-je cru un seul instant,' he whispered, scarcely trusting the accents of the Muse to his coarse organs of speech, 'dans la realite du monde!'
'C'est bien beau!' I said.
'C'est fou!' he bellowed, the eyes starting out of his head. He dropped his voice again. 'C'est formidable!' he rolled out, in a sullen roar.
We proceeded, in silence, up the street. He stopped once more.
'C'est fou!' he said again.
'En effet!' said I.
'Ai-je cru un seul instant Dans la realite du monde/
said he.
I wagged my head. And we proceeded up the boulevard. But in matters of aesthetic James Joyce and this Belgian man of letters did not see eye to eye. The latter had shrewdly realized that Joyce was a big noise, just beginning in his own corner of this 'unreal' world of ours, and he had, I believe, translated a chapter of Ulysses. He had the gift of tongues, and once had functioned as a guide in his early days in Paris. Joyce had become acquainted with this ex-Gooksman for some propagandist or publicity purposes; because he had written, or was about to write, dope for the Paris newspapers; but whenever they discussed any matter of literature or art they clashed, invariably: and on one occasion, I remember Joyce very severely reciting back at him the ordinances of Aristotle:
'by pity and terror, etc.'
which he had by heart (out of Butcher's translation, for use I suppose on such occasions).
This singularly enraged our sturdy Belgian journalist. The mere name of Aristotle was quite sufficient to upset him for an entire evening. He would burst out from time to time until we left in the small hours: ' Vous et votre Aristote, James Joyce! You and your Aristotle I'
But Joyce stood his groi^pd, or Aristotle's. His manner was cold and distant. His superiority tried the patience of the emancipated cicerone.
'Moi—je m'en fou d'Aristote!' he vociferated. 'What do I care for Aristotle? What has Aristotle got to do with the life going on in the street outside here—tell me that!'
'Why should he have nothing to do with it?' responded Joyce, with the quiet superiority that distinguished him, in his staid, copybook French.
'Why should he? What has he! To hell with Aristotle! All you English are the same! There you sit, the three of you. Aristotle means nothing to you, you talk about that sort of thing. Even the best of you. Yes even you, Wyndham Lewis— you are quite capable of talking to me about Aristotle!'
'No I am not!' I cried immediately. 'There I must defend myself! I should never dream of doing such a thing!'
• CHAPTER IX
Cantleman's Spring-mate
Cantleman walked in the strenuous fields, steam rising from them as though from an exertion, dissecting the daisies specked in the small-wood, the primroses on the banks, the marshy lakes, and all God's creatures. The heat of a heavy premature Summer was cooking the little narrow belt of earth-air, causing everything innocently to burst its skins, bask abjectly and profoundly. Everything was enchanged with itself, and with everything else. The horses considered the mares immensely appetising masses of quivering shiny flesh; was there not something of 'je ne sais quoi' about a mare, that no other beast's better half possessed? The birds with their little gnarled feet, and beaks made for fishing wom^ out of the mould, or the river, would have considered Shelley's references to the skylark —or any other poet's paeans to their species—as lamentably inadequate to describe the beauty of birds! The female bird, for her particular part, reflected that, in spite of the ineptitude of her sweetheart's latest song, which he insisted on deafening her with, never seemed to tire of, and was so persuaded that she liked as much as he did himself, and although outwardly she remained critical and vicious: that all the same and nevertheless, chock, chock, peep, peep, he was a fluffy object from which certain satisfaction could be derived? And both the male and the female reflected together as they stood a foot or so apart looking at each other with one eye, and at the landscape with the other, that of all nourishment the red earth-worm was the juiciest and sweetest! The sow, as she watched her hog, with his splenetic energy, and guttural articulation, a sound between content and complaint, not noticing the untidy habits of both of them, gave a sharp grunt of sex-hunger, and jerked rapidly
* Cantleman's Spring Mate and War Baby which follows it were not included in the original edition of Blasting and Bombardiering towards Him. The only jarring note in this vast mutual admiration society was the fact that many of its members showed their fondness for their neighbour in an embarrassing way: that is they killed and ate them. But the weaker were so used to dying violent deaths and being eaten tha
t they worried very little about it.—The West was gushing up a harmless volcano of fire, obviously intended as an immense dreamy nightcap.
Cantleman in the midst of his cogitation on surrounding life, surprised his faithless and unfriendly brain in the act of turning over an object which humiliated his mediation. He found that he was wondering whether at his return through the village lying between him and the Camp, he would see the girl he had passed there three hours before. At that time he had not begun his philosophizing, and without interference from conscience, he had noticed the redness of her cheeks, the animal fulness of the child-bearing hips, with an eye as innocent as the bird or the beast. He laughed without shame or pleasure, lit his pipe and turned back towards the village.—His fieldboots were covered with dust: his head was wet with perspiration and he carried his cap, in an unmilitary fashion, in his hand. In a week he was leaving for the Front, for the first time. So his thoughts and sensations all had as a philosophic background, the prospect of death. The Infantry, and his commission, implied death or mutilation unless he were very lucky. He had not a high opinion of his luck. He was pretty miserable at the thought, in a deliberate, unemotional way. But as he realised this he again laughed, a similar sound to that that the girl had caused.—For what was he unhappy about? He wanted to remain amongst his fellow insects and beasts, which were so beautiful, did he then: Well well! On the other hand, who was it that told him to do anything else? After all, supposing the values they attached to each other of 'beautiful', 'interesting', 'divine', were unjustified in many cases on cooler observation;—nevertheless birds were more beautiful than pigs: and if pigs were absurd and ugly, rather than handsome, and possibly chivalrous, as they imagine themselves; then equally the odour of the violet was pleasant, and there was nothing offensive about most trees. The newspapers were the things that stank most on earth, and human beings anywhere were the most ugly and offensive of the brutes because of the confusion caused by their consciousness. Had it not been for that unmaterial gift that some bungling or wild hand had bestowed, our sisters and brothers would be no worse than dogs and sheep. That they could not reconcile their little meagre streams of sublimity with the needs of animal life should not be railed at. Well then, should not the sad amalgam, all it did, all it willed, all it demanded, be thrown over, for the fake and confusion that it was, and should not such as possessed a greater quantity of that wine of reason, retire, metaphorically, to the wilderness, and sit forever in a formal and gentle elation, refusing to be disturbed?—Should such allow himself to be disturbed by the quarrels of Jews, the desperate perplexities, resulting |in desperate dice throws, of politicians, the crack-jaw and unreasoning tumult?
On the other hand, Cantleman had a more human, as well as a little more divine understanding, than those usually on his left and right, and he had had, not so long ago, conspicuous hopes that such a conjecture might produce the human entirely, if that there were to be brought off. His present occupation, the trampling boots upon his feet, the belt that crossed his back and breast was his sacrifice, his compliment to the animal.
He then began dissecting his laugh, comparing it to the pig's grunt and the bird's cough. He laughed again several times in order to listen to it.
At the village he met the girl, this time with a second girl. He stared at her 'in such a funny way' that she laughed. He once more laughed the same sound as before, and bid her good evening. She immediately became civil. Enquiries about the village, and the best way back to the camp across the marsh, put in as nimble and at the same time rustic a form as he could contrive, lay the first tentative brick of what might become the dwelling of a friend, a sweetheart, a ghost, anything in the absurd world! He asked her to come and show him a short cut she had indicated.
'I couldn't. My mother's waiting for me/' In a rush of expostulation and semi-affected alarm. However, she concluded in a minute or two, that she could.
He wished that she had been some Anne Garland, the lady whose lips were always flying open like a door with a defective latch. He had made Anne's acquaintance under distressing circumstances.
On his arrival at Gideon brook, the mighty brand-new camp on the edge of the marsh, he found that his colleague in charge of the advance party had got him a bed-space in a room with four officers of another regiment. It had seemed impossible that there were any duller men than those in the mess of his particular battalion: but it was a dullness he had become accustomed to.
He saw his four new companions with a sinking of the heart, and steady gnawing anger at such concentrations of furious foolishness.
Cantleman did not know their names, and he disliked them in order as follows:
A. he hated because he found him a sturdy shortish young man with a bull-like stoop and energetic rush in his walk, with flat feet spread out to left and right, and slightly bowed legs. This physique was enhanced by his leggings: and not improved, though hidden, in his slacks. He had a swarthy and vivacious face, with a sort of cunning, and insolence painted on it. His cheeks had a broad carmine flush on general sallowness. The mind painted on this face for the perusal of whoever had the art of such lettering, was as vulgar stud, in Cantleman's judgement, as could be found. To see this face constantly was like hearing perpetually a cheap and foolish music.
B. he disliked, because, being lean and fresh-coloured, with glasses, he stank, to Cantleman's nose, of Jack London, Summer Numbers magazines, had flabby Suburban Tennis, flabby clerkship in inert, though still prosperous city offices. He brought a demoralizing dullness into the room with him, with a brisk punctiliousness, several inches higher from the ground than A.
C. he resented for the sullen stupidity with which he moved about, the fat having settled at the bottom of his cheeks, and pulled the corners of his mouth down, from sheer stagnation. His accent dragged the listener through the larger of slums of Scotland, harrowing him with the bestial cheerfulness of morose religion and poverty. The man was certainly, from every point of view, education, character, intelligence, far less suited to hold a commission than most privates in his platoon.—Alas that the stock of gentlemen even, was so limited.
D. reproduced the characteristics of the other three, in different quantities: his only personal contribution being a senile sing-song voice from the North, and a blond beam, or partially toothless grin, for a face.
When ten days before, Cantleman had been dropped into their midst, they had all looked up, (for it was always all, they having the inseparability of their kind), with friendly welcome, as brother officers should. He avoided their eyes, and sat amongst them for a few days, reading The Trumpet-Major, belonging to B. He had even seemed to snatch Hardy away, as though B. had no business to possess such books. Then they avoided his eyes as though an animal disguised as an officer and gentleman had got into their room for whom, therein, The Trumpet-Major and nothing else exercised fascination. He came among them suddenly, and not appearing to see them, settled down into a morbid intercourse with a romantic abstraction. The Trumpet-Major, it is true, was a soldier, that is why he was there. But he was an imaginary one, and imbedded in the passionate affairs of the village of a mock-country, and distant time. Cantleman bit the flesh at the side of his thumb, as he surveyed the Yeomanry Cavalry revelling in the absent farmer's house, and the infantile Fames Hercules with the boastfulness of the Red explaining to his military companions the condescensions of his infatuation. Anne Garland stood in the moonlight, and Loveday hesitated to reveal his rival, weighing a rough chivalry against self interest.
Cantleman eventually decamped with The Trumpet-Major, taking him across to Havre, and B. never saw his book again. Cantleman had also tried to take a book away from A. (a book incompatible with A.'s vulgar physique). But A. had snatched it back, and mounted guard surlily and cunningly over it.
In his present rustic encounter, then, he was influenced in his feelings towards the first shepherdess by memories of Wessex heroines, and the something more that being the daughter of a landscape painter would give
. Anne imbued with the delicacy of the Mill, filled his mind to the injury of this crude marsh-plant. But he had his programme. Since he was forced back, by his logic and body, among the madness of natural things, he would live up to his part.
The young woman had, or had given herself, the unlikely name of Stella. In the narrow road where they got away from the village, Cantleman put his arm round Stella's waist and immediately experienced all the sensations that he had been divining in the creatures around him; the horse, the bird, the pig. The way in which Stella's hips stood out, the solid blood-heated expanse on which his hand lay, had the amplitude and flatness of a mare. Her lips had at once no practical significance, but only the aesthetic blandishments of a bull-like flower. With the gesture of a fabulous Faust he drew her against him, and kissed her with a crafty gentleness.
Cantleman turned up that evening in his quarters in a state of baffling good-humour. He took up The Trumpet-Major and was soon surrounded by the breathing and scratching of his room-mates, reading and writing. He chuckled somewhere where Hardy was funny. At this human noise the others fixed their eyes on him in sour alarm. He gave another, this time gratuitous, chuckle. They returned with disgust at his habits, his peculiarity, to what he considered their maid-servant's fiction and correspondence. Oh Christ, what abysms! Oh Christ, what abysms! Cantleman shook noisily in the wicker chair like a dog or a fly-blown old gentleman.
Once more on the following evening he was out in the fields, and once more his thoughts were engaged in recapitulations.— The miraculous camouflage of Nature did not deceive this observer. He saw everywhere the gun-pits and the 'nests of death'. Each puff of green leaves he knew was in some way as harmful as the burst of a shell. Decay and ruins, it is true, were soon covered up, but there was yet that parallel, and the sight of things smashed and corrupted. In the factory town ten miles away to the right, whose smoke could be seen, life was just as dangerous for the poor, and as uncomfortable, as for the soldier in his trench. The hypocrisy of Nature and the hypocrisy of War were the same. The only safety in life was for the man with the soft job. But that fellow was not conforming to life's conditions. He was life's paid man, and had the mark of the sneak. He was making too much of life, and too much out of it. He, Cantleman, did not want to owe anything to life, or enter into league or understanding with her. The thing was either to go out of existence: or, failing that, remain in it unreconciled, indifferent to Nature's threat, consorting openly with her enemies, making war within her war upon her servants. In short, the spectacle of the handsome English spring produced nothing but ideas of defiance in Cantleman's mind.
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