Gilbert looked at her. Fortunately for him he simply could not understand it. He could not understand her terror — her almost criminal terror, that would drive her to unknown lengths and horrors.
“Well, you needn’t go back,” he said.
“No, I don’t think I can.”
“But we shall have no money.”
“Ah, I don’t mind about money. I don’t care. I’d rather live in a cave than in one of those houses. Yet I loved my house. It was called Marvell. It was so sunny, and I loved the garden. I loved making it all myself. — But the terrors, the horrors I’ve felt in that house are indescribable. — I don’t want to live like that. I don’t want to live like the middle classes. I’d rather live in a cave. If we have no money, let’s find a cave and live there.”
“We can’t,” said Gilbert.
“Why not. People used to. Why are you so damned civilised. I should love it.”
“No you wouldn’t,” he said.
“How do you know? I should love it. Anything to get out of that horror.”
“You might negatively love it: but you wouldn’t positively. No, if we’ve got to live, we’ve got to be moderately comfortable, moderately decent.”
“What an old stager you are! What a conventional civilised creature! Ha, I could fling it all away. I could live in a cave.”
“I couldn’t — not in this climate,” said Gilbert.
“Why not? It could have a door. — But oh, if we do go right away together, let us be like tramps. I feel such an outcast, such an outcast. And oh, how I hate them for making me feel it. I hate them. They like to make you feel a pariah.”
“Then why give in to their likings. They’ll never make me feel a pariah,” said Gilbert.
“You wait. Wait till you’ve been as I have been — all of them loving you and admiring you, and you knowing what they’d do to you if they found out.”
“What would they do?”
“What wouldn’t they! — And they were so nice on the other hand. His parents — they are such dear old people, in England. I love them really. I do hope they’ll never know, it would break their hearts.”
“Pah,” said Gilbert. “Nice people have the toughest hearts as a rule.”
“Why? Why do you say that? — But it is all so horrible! The awful things I’ve done — how I’ve lied. It has nearly sent me mad. I am a bit mad.”
“Well, then make an end of it. Break it clean off — and we’ll go right away together.”
He was holding her hand between his.
“Ah, it would be lovely!” she sighed. “It would be lovely. — Let us go right away — let us disappear. And never, never let us have a house and live among people again — never, never. Never let us be among people as if we were one of them — never. I couldn’t bear it all over again.”
“Don’t bother about them — they don’t matter,” said he soothingly, kissing her soft fingers.
“Ah but they do. How they matter when one is penned in among them. Think of it, I’ve been married and penned in with them for twelve years. And it’s four years since Eberhard. He showed me one could be free. But he didn’t take me away — he didn’t take me away. And how I waited — ah God, how I waited for him. — And then I really believed that one shouldn’t wait for one man. That is the mistake. I believe he is right there. One should love all men: all men are loveable somewhere.”
“But why love all men? You are only one person. You aren’t a universal. You’re just a specific unit.”
“Why aren’t I universal? I’ve got two hands and two feet, like all women. And I do understand something in every man I meet — I do. And in nice men I understand such a lot that I feel forced to love them — I feel forced.”
“Oh Good God!” he said. “Do you love for what you can understand?”
“Yes!” she cried. “Why not?”
“I usually hate what I understand. If I love it must be something I can’t understand.”
“Well,” she said, “and there’s something in everybody. In every man there’s something I can understand — sometimes so deeply. And that makes me love him. And there’s something I can’t understand. And that makes me go on loving him till I do understand it.”
“My sacred God!” exclaimed Gilbert irreverently. “Your love is a blooming understood affair. I’d rather have mathematics.”
“It is something like mathematics — except that it’s life. Something to know in every man — and something to solve. One can do an awful lot for a man through love.”
“You might as well call youself Panacea — ,” he said sarcastically.
“Well — why not? I am something of a Panacea — I know I am. And I know love is the only panacea — and where we make a mistake is that we don’t use it or let it be used.”
“A damned patent medicine that poisons more than it cures.”
“Don’t you believe in love?” she cried, snatching away her hand.
“Not in general love.”
“What in then?”
“In particular love I may believe.”
“Oh may you!” she mocked. “And what do you mean by particular love? Just keeping one person all for yourself! Ah, I know the horrors of that. It is all based on jealousy. I think the noblest thing is to overcome jealousy.”
“I don’t,” said Gilbert. “Jealousy is as natural as love or laughter. You might as well overcome everything and have done with it all straight off.”
“No! No!” she said. “Jealousy is mean and horrible — and marriage is vile and possessive. I do believe in love: in all love. And I believe one should love as much as ever one can. I do. Eberhard taught me a great deal. He was wonderful!”
“Do you believe you can be here and in Boston at one and the same time?” asked Gilbert.
“In a way, I am.”
“In a way! In a way! Damn your ways. Damn your spirit. You may be here and in Boston in the spirit, all at once. But I can’t do with spirit. Can your body be here and in Boston at one and the same minute? Can it?”
“No — that’s its limitation.”
“Ah! Then I’m all for limitation.”
“You would be: like the rest of men.”
“All excepting the wonderful Eberhard! — You can’t be here and in America, physically, at once. Limitation or not, you’ve got to abide by it. And it’s the same with physical love. You can’t be physically in love with more than one man at the same time. It can’t be done. You can be spiritually in love with everybody at once, and take all men under your skirts in the same instant, like a Watts picture. But that’s not physical. That’s merely spiritual. And there’s a difference.”
“There isn’t a difference unless we make it.”
“Can you be physically in Boston and Detsch at the same moment? Can you physically take two men at once? If there is physical love, it is exclusive. It is exclusive. It’s only spiritual love that is all-embracing. And I’m off spiritual love. I don’t want it. It stinks. I want exclusive physical love. — There may be aberrations. But the real fact in physical love is the exclusiveness: once the love is really there.”
“But I thought I loved Everard — ”
“Thought! Thought! You’ve thought too much. I should leave off thinking, if I were you.”
“Yes, you’re just like all men. You’d like me to.”
But at this point a brutal interruption.
Ah, gentle reader, however you may disapprove of Johanna and Mr Noon, be a little gentle with them, they have known so many brutal interruptions.
A fellow in a blue uniform and a peaked cap and carrying a gun, creeping forward with the loathsome exultant officious- ness of all police or soldier individuals on duty, and of German specimens in particular.
“Was machen Sie hier?”
Imagine the foul sound of the German officious insolence the lump of a police-soldier put in these words, as he looked down his nose at the offending couple. They had jumped to their feet seeing him creep o
n them.
“What are you doing here?” said the sergeant.
“What are we doing here!” said Johanna, her pride of birth and authority springing like flame to her eyes. “And who are you, to come asking. What do you want?”
Gilbert was staggered by the sudden authoritative fury with which Johanna towered and flared at the lump of a sergeant. But he, in all the majesty of his duty, was not to be abashed.
“Ja, was machen Sie hier!” he repeated with calm insolence. “You know these are the fortifications.” He spoke as if he had two culprits in his power.
“Fortifications! What fortifications indeed.” cried Johanna. “We walked here two minutes from the high-road.”
“You are two foreigners. I have heard you for the last quarter of an hour.”
“What a beast!”
“Foreigners! Take care what you say. I am German, and my father is Baron von Hebenitz — ”
“And the gentleman — ?” sneered the sergeant, a cunning, solid lump of a fellow.
“The gentleman is English,” said Johanna.
“So! — Have you any papers?” — he turned now to Gilbert.
But Gilbert was looking with such a pale face and such dark round eyes that he did not understand.
“He wants to know if you have any papers,” said Johanna.
“Papers — ” said Gilbert, feeling in the pocket of his new suit. “No — I’ve only this — ” and he took out a letter addressed to a friend of his in the Rhine province.
The soldier or police individual, whatever he was, took the letter and scrutinised the address.
“It is forbidden to enter the fortifications,” he said, looking up with his impertinent officiousness. “You saw the notice. And since you are foreigners — ”
“Do you know that I am no foreigner!” cried Johanna in a flame of fury — the sergeant almost cowered — almost. His sacred duty saved him. “Have I not said my father is the Baron von Hebenitz. Do you know the Baron von Hebenitz? Have you never heard of him?”
She lapsed now into jeering sarcasm.
“Yes, I have heard of him,” said the creature. — ”And the Herre is Englishman?”
“Yes — and what does it matter!” She proceeded to swallow some of her fury. — ”Cannot one sit and talk. What harm does it do?”
She was breaking into a flirtatious, cajoling laugh, after having been white at the nose with fury.
“Yes — how does one know,” said the sergeant. “I have my orders to arrest anyone within the fortifications.”
“Oh, how stupid!” said Johanna. “We didn’t know at all that we were in any fortifications — ”
“There is the sign-board — ”
“Ach, why don’t you paint it orange and violet, so that one could see it!” — She was smiling a little tenderly at him. He was not really such a bad-looking young fellow, apart from his dummified duty.
“Ja, that is not my affair — ” he said. “It is my duty to arrest you both — ”
“Oh yea!” cried Johanna. “And we are still so young. — But it is absurd — we have done nothing but walk six yards and sit down and talk. — You can refer to my father — and to Captain von Daumling — they will give you guarantees.” She was rather frightened.
“Yes,” said the sergeant. “Your address?”
And he drew forth a paper and pencil, and wrote Johanna’s address.
“And the address of the gentleman?”
This also he wrote down.
“And inquiries will be made from the Herr Baron,” he said — rather mollified, and a little pleasanter, but still duty- bound like a brass-bound time-piece.
Johanna and Gilbert took themselves off, whilst the dutiful soldier followed them down the little path.
Once free in the high-road Johanna began to exclaim:
“What fools! What fools we are! Of course I ought to have known. Now there’ll be a hell of a fuss, and they will go to Papa.”
“But there is nothing to make a fuss about,” said Gilbert. His English innocence still seemed to him unassailable. Alas, he has learnt better — or worse.
“Ha — you know what fussers they are, with their damned fortifications. Why do they leave them open to the public! Why don’t they put some notice! Oh what a curse! — You will have to meet Papa.”
To Gilbert it all seemed rather a mountainous mole-hill. But he had a’ creepy feeling down his spine that anything uncomfortable might happen in this beasdy Detsch. The grating sound of officious, aggressive militarism was getting on his nerves and making him feel almost guilty of something — perhaps of being a mere civilian. He began to look behind him, as if he really were going to be arrested. He was half afraid to go to his room for fear it might be under military seal. He felt suspect, and whoever feels suspect feels infect, as if he were infected with some mysterious indefinable disease.
However, his room was all quiet. Johanna called for him in the afternoon to take him to call on her mother and father. Very stiff, badly at a disadvantage, he climbed the stairs.
The Baron and Baroness were both in the drawing-room.
“Oh, you are so seelly, to go there,” said the Baroness, in her fragmentary English.
The Baron bowed stiffly, military fashion, and shook hands. Gilbert never had a bow in him. And as for kissing the Baroness’ hand — you might as well have asked him to kiss her toe and have done with it. Hence a little added stiffness in the Baron’s salute.
“Sie sprechen Deutsch — oder franzozisch? — Vous parlez franqais?”
“Oui,” said Gilbert, monosyllabic.
The Baron put him down as an ill-mannered lout with no breeding. Gilbert, tongue-tied, and everything-else-tied, felt that these grating German good manners were apish showing- off. But alas, he was at a disadvantage.
The Baroness called him to take his tea, to ask if he would have meelk. He said he wouldn’t, and went with his cup to the window. There the Baron, who scorned tea, joined him.
“Vous fumez?” said the little gentleman, offering a cigarette- case.
“Merci,” said Gilbert, taking a cigarette and getting most hopelessly entangled with it and his tea-cup. The Baron gave him a match, and with tea-cup shivering nervously in his left hand our young friend lit his cigarette.
“Vous etes longtemps en Allemagne?” asked the Baron.
Poor Gilbert stumbled with his French. The two men eyed one another. The Baron was rather elegant and comme il faut, with his hair and his moustaches on end. He was small, but carried himself as if he were big. His manners had that precise assertiveness of a German who is sure of himself and feels himself slightly superior. These manners always petrified Gilbert into rigidity. Only his eye remained clear and candid. He looked at the Baron with this curious indomitable candour, and the Baron glanced back at him rather fierily and irritably. So, like two very strange dogs, they stood in the window and eyed one another, and Gilbert stuttered hopeless French. He sounded a hopeless fool: he behaved like an unmitigated clown: only the insuperable candid stillness of his dark-blue eye saved him at all. But the Baron was impatient.
“Vous etes a Munich, ma fille m’a dit. La Baviere vous plait?”
“Oui! Oui! Beaucoup. Et la peuple est tres interessante.”
“Le peuple — oui,” said the Baron.
And that put the stopper on it. Our friend stood corrected, and not another sound would come out of him. — Oh these weary dreary banalities in a foreign language!
Johanna came to the rescue, and ended the ridiculous interview as soon as possible. And now Gilbert was carted off to interview dear Rudolf. He felt like an image of the Virgin being wheeled round.
Rudolf was in undress uniform, smoking a cigarette — a fresh-faced, ingenuous fellow gone somewhat bald in front, prematurely, and, thank goodness, wearing his moustaches quite short and unassuming. Altogether he was unassuming. Johanna, in her bright flirtatious way — gentle reader, do forgive words like flirtatious, they are so apt — told the
story with laughter, and once more the ceillades, or fusillade of glances went on between the two gentlemen. Rudolf had large blue eyes — really rather nice. But he eyed his supplanter and said nothing. It seemed to Gilbert that neither himself nor Rudolf said one single word during the interview. Probably that was an illusion. But certain it was that Johanna was almost ignored, whilst the two males exchanged this series of looks.
Now Gilbert had this one saving advantage. He went so stiff and absent in wrong company that he seemed an absolute imbecile. No one can blame the Baron for calling him, when affairs grew hot, later on, an ungebildeter Simpel, a gewohnlicher Lump: very nasty things to be called: uneducated simpleton, and common lout. Common lout is especially nasty; yet it was not, from one point of view, unapt. And still, though in every other bit of him the young gentleman became a semi- imbecile, still, in the middle of his eye remained a certain impregnable self-possession, candour, and naturalness. Now the Baron had long lost his own candour and naturalness, therefore when he saw it so quiet in the middle of Gilbert’s dark-blue eye, like the evening star showing on a stormy sky, he was unsettled, he felt he must call names. And poor Rudolf had so absolutely lost his self-possession, that he saw in Gilbert a strange menace: this thin, this silent individual, this raven of woe, as the poem later on put it.
Well, the raven of woe said Guten Abend to the blue-eyed, bald-fronted young captain, and took his departure. A solitary and hopping raven, he went through the Frenchy, raspingly- Germanised streets of the city till he found a restaurant where he could go in and eat. And even then, when at the end of the meal the waiter said Fruit ou fromage? — he only answered with a troubled stare.
“Fruit ou fromage?” repeated the waiter, raising his voice.
A troubled, anxious stare from friend Gilbert.
“Obst oder Kase?” snapped the waiter.
A look of greater bewilderment.
“Obst oder Kase? Fruit ou fromage? Obst oder Kase?” shouted the waiter in exasperation.
Two consternated blue eyes and a slightly open, pouting mouth, and a brow of agony, for answer.
“Imbecile!” muttered the waiter, and flounced away.
Gilbert understood this.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated) Page 287
