2 Quoted in Frances Spalding, Stevie Smith: A Critical Biography (London: Faber & Faber, 1988), p. 131.
3 Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth (London: Victor Gollancz, 1993), quoted in Ali Smith, “The Woman from the Big House: The Autobiographical Writings of Naomi Mitchison,” (1987) introduction to Naomi Mitchison, Small Talk … Memories of an Edwardian Childhood (1973) (Glasgow: Kennedy & Boyd (2009), p. vii.
4 Mitchison, Small Talk, p. 50.
5 Ibid., p. 33.
6 Gill Plain, Women’s Fiction of the Second World War: Gender, Power and Resistance (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996), p. 154.
7 Smith, “Woman from the Big House,” p. vii.
8 The terms “intermodern” and “intermodernist” have been suggested in relation to Mitchison and contemporaries; see Further Reading for critical studies by Hubble, Lassner, Montefiore, Maslen (see note 1), and Mackay and Stonebridge.
9 Neal Ascherson, “Naomi Mitchison—a Queen, a Saint and a Shaman,” Guardian, 17 Jan. 1999.
10 Robert Kirk, The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies, ed. Andrew Lang, with introduction by Marina Warner (New York: New York Review of Books, 2007).
11 Ibid., p. 51.
12 NM, Beyond This Limit: Selected Shorter Fiction of Naomi Mitchison, ed. Isobel Murray (Edinburgh: Association of Scottish Literary Studies, 1986), pp. 1–83.
13 John Simkin, Spanish Civil War (Spartacus Educational, 2012, http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wmitchison.htm, accessed 14 June 2013).
14 NM, Letter to Laura Riding, 1 March 1937 (http://www.ntu.ac.uk/laura_riding/scholars/119214gp.html, accessed 14 June 2013).
15 The picture is in the National Galleries of Scotland.
THE FOURTH PIG
Sometimes the Wolf is quiet. He is not molesting us. It may be that he is away ravaging in far places which we cannot picture, and do not care about, or it may be that he lies up in his den, sated for the time, with half-slumberous, blood-weighted eyes, the torn flesh hot in his belly provoking miasmic evil which will turn, as he grows cold and hungry again, into some new cunning which may, after all, not be capable of frustration by the meek. For we never know. Sometimes the Wolf is stupid and can be frightened away. We may even say to ourselves that we have killed him. But more often, although we try not to think about this, the Wolf is too much for us; he refuses to be hoodwinked by the gentle or subtle. And, in the end, it is he who has the teeth and claws, the strength and the will to evil. And thus it comes, many times, that his slavering jaws crush down through broken arteries of shrieking innocents, death to the weak lamb, the merry rabbits, the jolly pigs, death to Mother Henny-penny with her downy chicks just hatched, death to Father Cocky-locky with his noble songs to the dawn, death sooner or later to Fox the inventor and story-teller, the intelligent one who yet cannot escape always. So they die in jerking agony under the sun, and the Wolf gulps them into his belly, and his juices dissolve their once lively and sentient flesh.
Sometimes the Wolf is quiet. But now the Wolf is loose and ranging and we are aware of him. We have seen in parts of our forest this Spring, how the soft leaves and air-dancing flowers have been crushed to bleeding sap, and among their green deaths come pain signs of fur and feather, of dreadful surprise and hopeless struggle. The Wolf, the Wolf has been there.
He may be hiding behind this tree or that tree. He may be disguised as kindly sheep or helpful horse. He may not be on us yet. It is possible that we shall have a breathing space. But we do not know how to use it. We cannot prepare because the Wolf never attacks the same way twice. Or he may now, at this instant, be about to spring from behind what we thought was safe and familiar. It is terrible for us to know—and not to know.
I have a pain in my head because I am trying to think about the Wolf, and the Wolf is not there to be thought about. And if he were there I could not think—I could only run, squealing. The thought of the Wolf is more than a pig’s brain can hold, more than a pig’s trembling, round body can be strong against. If only I could be told from which direction the Wolf would come and in what shape. We dare not be merry any longer because we are listening for the Wolf. It is too much for us. There—yes, over there—is that my friend whom I know or is it the Wolf disguised? It seems to be my friend, but I dare not trust him to come near because he might be the Wolf. Because I am not sure that he or he or he may not be the Wolf in disguise, I approach fiercely and suspiciously. One movement that reminds me of what I believe the Wolf is like, and I have struck out, I have knocked down, I have injured or killed my friend. And ah then, can I be sure that the Wolf is not in me, that I am not myself the Wolf’s finally clever and successful disguise?
My three brothers live in the brick house now, and they are all afraid, even Three who was too clever for the Wolf once. But how can he tell to what hugeness and terror the Wolf may not have grown now? The brick house has been reinforced with steel and concrete, so that windows and chimneys are blocked up, and the door itself is double-barred. They cannot see the sunlight or smell the flowers, but Three has installed a lighting and heating plant in the cellar. He pretends it is better like that. Yet even so, might not Wolf have so practised his huffing and puffing that even this may not be strong enough to stand against him?
I cannot remember how it was in the time of One, in the innocence of the world before thought came and memory and foresight, and knowledge of the Wolf. Nor do I remember the time of Two when one’s house had indeed to be of stronger stuff than the original hay, but yet after the building of it there was dancing and singing, Maypoles and Feast-days and the village green at evening. But I can remember a little the time of Three who thought he knew everything and could destroy the Wolf, although by then it should have been apparent that this is beyond our power. Oh, he was clever, was Three! He could make things and alter things; he laughed at the others and told them of the inevitability of the Wolf coming, but proclaimed also that he had a sanctuary.
And so indeed it was for a time, but now he too is afraid and there is no more playing and dancing for the others. And I am full grown now, I am Four, without shelter and without hope. I can sing the song still, the brave song of the pigs, crying out we are not afraid, we have this and that and the other, and we will die waving the Pig banner, and perhaps after we are dead there will be something, the shadow of the rustling of bright straw, the shadow of the taste of crunched acorns, the silver shadow of the way back to the old sty. Something, if only we knew what it was. The song says all that, and I can sing it. I can sing it still, in the time that is left.
It may be better not to be afraid, and it may be that One and Two were truly not afraid. In the time before knowledge, in the time of dancing, none wasted thought or life in being afraid—not until the Wolf was on them, not till his teeth broke sucking into their neck-veins and the song broke into screechings. Three was afraid, but yet he thought he had the cure for fear; he thought the time would come when no pig need fear the Wolf. But I—I know I am afraid, and afraid almost all the time, even when I am singing the song; the noise of ourselves singing it doesn’t keep the fear out of the back of my head any longer. I can smell the Wolf’s breath above all the sweet smells of Spring and the rich smells of Autumn. I can hear the padding of the Wolf’s feet a very long way off in the forest, coming nearer. And I know there is no way of stopping him. Even if I could help being afraid. But I cannot help it. I am afraid now.
OMEN OF THE ENEMY
(On Friday July 12th 1935 a cormorant, usual disguise of the Evil One, alighted once again on the cross of St. Paul’s)
Sitting once, his webbed feet furled on the flange of the cross,
His black flappers furled on the gold, the fairy bird,
The Enemy, surveys London. It is his. And the cross either
Of Paul or Jesus, having failed, must as defeat bear him.
What do you want, Bird? Bombs on London? O.K. by us.
Bombs on Berlin, Paris, where you will, the fool Swiss dove.
We’ve done our best for you. Now what more? Famine?—
Whose other names yet thin the brats: bread, marg and tea fed, nervy.
Pestilence, then? Here’s measles, dip., t.b.,
Nibbling the curve of the death-rate, rickets for a bad future.
Is this what you ask, Bird? Adequate incense? We offer our all!
Sitting twice, his cold feet tight on the bright cross,
His hard flappers erect from the gold, the fairy bird,
The Enemy, croaks at London. Is it his when the cross fails?
Must then all worship? Or who stand out, face, judge break ranks?
Which of us not condemning our innocents to the maw of the cormorant,
Which of us will insist, against beak-thrusts in guts, against gold?
Who of us will stand, in London, will not bow down?
For the third time the Bird hovers, the cross waits.
Break down the cross if the Bird perches there, break down
All towers, castles, spires, pylons. Break even,
Oh, break Wren’s London lest the webbed feet perch there,
And we, the third time, worship.
FROGS AND PANTHERS
The God Dionysos Bacchos sauntered, flame or wave shod, the delicately tawny kid-skins dangling, a short shoulder cloak, to the level of his ungirdled slim hips. Myrtle and vine buds were the lightest garland. His lyre was of Olympian gold, which is by divine law used only for ornament and in the service of the arts and sciences, and is therefore, unlike mortal gold, not corrupting, and unlike fairy gold, not heart-breaking. He held this lightly in his left hand; his right held the plectrum, ready for inspiration. The main part of the luggage, however, was bundled up in a striped blanket and carried on the end of a pole, by his slave Xanthias, the red-head, whose barbarian legs slouched across a small and unconcerned Greek donkey, which may indeed have been itself an Immortal in a small way. Dionysos and Xanthias were in the middle of a conversation. Lord Dionysos shrugged the kid-skins with one shoulder, and half turned his head to answer.
“I don’t think you’ll like it at all, you tiresome boy,” he said rather crossly, “but of course, if you insist—”
Xanthias shook back his red head and stretched his arms out. “Free!” he said. “Free!”
“Come, come,” said Lord Dionysos, “why do you fuss so, Xanthias? You don’t mind taking a beating from me now and again, do you?”
“Not me,” said Xanthias, “you don’t hit hard enough. But there’s some I’ve seen—”
“Some you’ve seen! You just trot round seeing things. And they blame it on me. You don’t mind calling me Master when there’s anyone about, do you? No, I thought not. You don’t mind carrying the luggage. After all, if I carried it, I’d strain myself.”
“And what about me?”
“Well, you don’t, do you? … Besides, you’ve got the donkey to ride.”
“Rotten little weasel of a donkey!”
“Well, I don’t mind riding it. I’m not proud. I don’t want to walk.”
“Nor do I. Not with the luggage. The luggage and the donkey, they go together, sir, and always did. Though why you couldn’t have got a mule while you were at it …”
“Well, I didn’t. And I let you grumble all day. And I ask your advice.”
“You don’t take it.”
“Who would? Besides, I’m an Immortal. I don’t need advice. I just ask it for company’s sake.”
“I like that! Don’t you remember last time you went to Hades—”
“Come, come, Xanthias, need we quibble? You were just the person to deal with those low types. I almost fainted from the odour. Now, don’t go grinning at me that nasty way, Xanthias, you know it’s every word of it true and you know I’m a good master to you. What more do you want?”
“I don’t want to go on being a slave all my days, Lord Dionysos.”
“Why the deuce not? My dear Xanthias, you aren’t my equal, are you?”
“I can carry burdens that you can’t.”
“Tut! What’s that to do with it? I’m an Athenian and you’re a barbarian.”
“I’ve heard you’d been seen in my parts at one time, Lord Dionysos.”
“Nonsense, Xanthias! Besides, if by any chance I did visit you, that was for fun, not because I belonged there. No, no, my dear boy you’re what Aristotle—jolly old Aristotle my dear old priceless pal—wonder what’s come to him?—took up with Alexander, another of you barbarians; ah well, one can’t always keep track … what was I saying, Xanthias? Ah yes, Aristotle called people like you natural slaves.”
“If you’re going in for quotations, Lord Dionysos, there was someone before Aristotle who said slavery takes away half a man’s manhood. That’s the way I feel.”
“What utter bilge, Xanthias. Taking away your manhood indeed! Don’t you remember those girls at Lady Persephone’s? You accounted for twice as many as I did.”
“It’s not that. And you know it. But you’ve shown me a way out. And I’m going to take it. I won’t belong ever any more to you nor to any man—”
“Oh! God, please.”
“And I won’t live my life so that anyone’s got the right to take it up and twist it or throw it away! I won’t have people looking at me as if I was dirt!”
“Well, Xanthias, it’s in your own hands. Now, put down that bundle (which is certainly too heavy for the donkey, if not for you) and listen to me. You see that river full of frogs just in front of us. That’s Anti-Styx. Instead of making you forget backwards it makes you remember forwards, and if you want to go into the time of the world when there’s no more slavery, well, you can.”
“You wouldn’t think twice about it if you were me, would you, sir?”
“If I were really you, I probably shouldn’t. But I’m not. Are you asking my advice, Xanthias? In spite of my being your master?”
“Well, you’re a God. Most folks ask their advice before an enterprise, and as you offer it free … You’ve always been decent to me in your way, that I will say, sir. Shared your dinner with me when there was trouble, and not worked me when I was sick. Now I, not being a God, can’t see beyond those frogs. Except that I shall be free.”
“Free, Xanthias, and I shall give you the gift of tongues into the bargain, because I don’t quite know where we shall land up. I doubt if Hellas would be so pleasant as it has been up to now.”
“Let’s go somewhere prosperous, where there’s plenty of good food and pretty girls, and singing, and lights and laughter at nights, and folk not afraid of wars!”
“I’m not sure that I can exactly manage that, Xanthias. You’d have to go a long way further on, I’m afraid. But if you’re looking for prosperity and as much security as there is, we’d better trot off to England. Only I’m not sure how much of all those nice things you’re going to get. After all, each of us is to go back to his own station in life.”
“But I free!”
“And a citizen. That can be arranged. Well, Xanthias, you’ll be set down in England with a few obols in your pocket—or whatever ridiculous coinage they aspire to. And no one is going to assert mastery over your body. No one is going to kill you or maim you or enslave you.”
“That’s all I ask!”
“But what about your dinner?”
“Freemen—citizens—are generous to each other.”
“Well … I hope you’ll find it so. Naturally, they could afford to be when they were a special class and not too many in it. But—yes, Xanthias?”
“What I mean to say is, Lord Dionysos, free men and citizens aren’t at it all the time suspecting each other, wanting to do each other down. And I’ll be able to make myself a place. A life—my own life … You see, sir, I’ve watched the guests at parties and that. They’re wanting to score off each other, get each other’s sweethearts p’raps. But when one’s down the others’ll give him a hand up. They—feel together, being citizens. Whereas a slave like me with no rights, when he’s down there’s no one to st
and by. They laugh and give him a kick in the ribs! And the others—them that are slaves too—just because of that they don’t stand by. We can’t even call our pity or our courage our own. I tell you, sir, I’ve done that myself, seen a chap I knew laid out—no fault of his own—and never lifted a finger to help him!”
“Why not, Xanthias?”
“Afraid. Didn’t know what the masters mightn’t do to me for interfering. Dirty swine of a coward I was. And—that’s what I meant—about manhood …”
“Tut tut, Xanthias, you needn’t cry about it! Calm yourself, my dear boy, perhaps you’ll find everything lovely the other side of Anti-Styx. Or perhaps you won’t … Perhaps I won’t either.”
“Oh sir, whatever are you going to do without me? You’ll never manage!”
“I think I shall manage, Xanthias; yes, I think I shall be quite comfortable. It will still be easier, even in slaveless times, for a person in my station of life to purchase service for himself.”
“I don’t like leaving you. Truth, I don’t. You’ll go getting into some mess. And who’s to carry the luggage?”
“But you’re going to be free, Xanthias.”
“It’s not what I’ve been accustomed to.”
“Well, we needn’t cross that rather unpleasant looking river. Frogs can always be ignored by the sensible person.”
“But I will cross! Blast you, were you trying to stop me when I was all but free!”
“If you swear at me, Xanthias, I shall beat you here and now, just to show you. And you know I can hurt if I choose to exert myself … and use the vines and the panthers … No, don’t look at me like that: one would think I were Medusa in person. There, boy, you’ll be free in a minute and no one shall beat you. They’ll only do—other things.”
Brekekekex, exploit, exploit! The frogs are beginning, bulbously staring at the two climbing down the slippery bank, with a delicately godlike squeal or a proletarian grunt. Knowing there are always thistles, they have turned the donkey loose. A boat awaits. It slithers and wobbles over a heave of frogs. Brekekekex, you mutts, you mutts! Grey elephants of mist approach, circumscribe. Does the boat move still? Both banks are lost. With an injunction not to pawn, Lord Dionysos slips a ring over to Xanthias. Call me and I will come. Old companionship even of whip and chain. Brekekekex, the whip, the whip! Xanthias however accepts, feels warm, peers past mist elephants, ready and eager for all, planning new life. Dionysos Bacchos, being God, is less tense. Brekekekex, too late, too late! Now elephants part and drift trailing formlessly back to entrap new voyagers. But still the prow cuts the dangerous dark glassy waters of Anti-Styx. It seems that Xanthias is remembering forward, through the long causeless lapse of lives of other red-heads. He scowls and shifts, uneasy. There has been first for centuries slavery, the thing he knows with his own body, not changing much. Worst with Rome, then sometimes better. The slave is the soil’s. The soil, once no man’s, goes to kings, to barons. Runnymede not for red-heads. Brekekekex, no luck, no luck! Dead by war, plague, overwork. Churches demand souls, sometimes give help, sometimes sit back owning. With prosperity, new worlds, new markets, all shifting rise, the serfs also. Leaving the land—for what? Xanthias, as the bank nears, clenches fists, sweating. The God too seems saddened. Brekekekex, alas, for arts! The red-heads to the factories, to the looms, the mines, the foundries, mills not of God but man. The grovelling dark increase of the herded red-heads when babes are needed to tend machines. Each for himself, alcohol sole remedy. Ah Iacchos, the vines once trailing from the Acropolis … Brekekekex, the drink, the drink! Pubs and chapels. Xanthias looks despairingly at his master, gets no help. The stunted red-heads swarm boxed by day to work as hands for not even a known owner, by night to breed in slums. Xanthias knows all. Slack at the thwart, the frogs gobble at him. But ah here, hold up and wait, for the next memory floats up. The red-heads begin to stand together, to stand by one another. They begin to learn not to be afraid. Almost at once the machines wilt, lose grip a little. The masters come together too. All hardens. Talk in the air, thought. Brekekekex, class war, class war! Now the far bank nears, shallows slope up under the boat’s keel, frogs oar away with surface flipping of wet toes. Heavy and dizzy with knowledge, hand to forehead, Xanthias steps from the boat, free. With a thin, fleeting smile, Lord Dionysos follows. The boat drifts back from their heels as though on a ferry rope. The final chorus of the frogs seeps up faintly from depths. Brekekekex, no use, no use …
The Fourth Pig Page 3
