All the same here I change (by way of the rhyme mark ye) to a loftier strain — there’s something to be said: for our kindness to the cat; note too in to-day’s paper “Dearly loved by his wife”; and the impulse which leads us — mark you, when no one’s looking — to the window at midnight to smell the bean. Or the resolute refusal of some pimpled dirty little scrub in sandals to sell his soul. There is such a thing — you can’t deny it. What? You can’t descry it? All you can see of yourselves is scraps, orts and fragments? Well then listen to the gramophone affirming. . . .
A hitch occurred here. The records had been mixed. Fox trot, Sweet lavender, Home Sweet Home, Rule Britannia — sweating profusely, Jimmy, who had charge of the music, threw them aside and fitted the right one — was it Bach, Handel, Beethoven, Mozart or nobody famous, but merely a traditional tune? Anyhow, thank heaven, it was somebody speaking after the anonymous bray of the infernal megaphone.
Like quicksilver sliding, filings magnetized, the distracted united. The tune began; the first note meant a second; the second a third. Then down beneath a force was born in opposition; then another. On different levels they diverged. On different levels ourselves went forward; flower gathering some on the surface; others descending to wrestle with the meaning; but all comprehending; all enlisted. The whole population of the mind’s immeasurable profundity came flocking; from the unprotected, the unskinned; and dawn rose; and azure; from chaos and cacophony measure; but not the melody of surface sound alone controlled it; but also the warring battle-plumed warriors straining asunder: To part? No. Compelled from the ends of the horizon; recalled from the edge of appalling crevasses; they crashed; solved; united. And some relaxed their fingers; and others uncrossed their legs.
Was that voice ourselves? Scraps, orts and fragments, are we, also, that? The voice died away.
As waves withdrawing uncover; as mist uplifting reveals; so, raising their eyes (Mrs. Manresa’s were wet; for an instant tears ravaged her powder) they saw, as waters withdrawing leave visible a tramp’s old boot, a man in a clergyman’s collar surreptitiously mounting a soap-box.
“The Rev. G. W. Streatfield,” the reporter licked his pencil and noted “then spoke . . .”
All gazed. What an intolerable constriction, contraction, and reduction to simplified absurdity he was to be sure! Of all incongruous sights a clergyman in the livery of his servitude to the summing up was the most grotesque and entire. He opened his mouth. O Lord, protect and preserve us from words the defilers, from words the impure! What need have we of words to remind us? Must I be Thomas, you Jane?
As if a rook had hopped unseen to a prominent bald branch, he touched his collar and hemmed his preliminary croak. One fact mitigated the horror; his forefinger, raised in the customary manner, was stained with tobacco juice. He wasn’t such a bad fellow; the Rev. G. W. Streatfield; a piece of traditional church furniture; a corner cupboard; or the top beam of a gate, fashioned by generations of village carpenters after some lost-in-the-mists-of-antiquity model.
He looked at the audience; then up at the sky. The whole lot of them, gentles and simples, felt embarrassed, for him, for themselves. There he stood their representative spokesman; their symbol; themselves; a butt, a clod, laughed at by looking-glasses; ignored by the cows, condemned by the clouds which continued their majestic rearrangement of the celestial landscape; an irrelevant forked stake in the flow and majesty of the summer silent world.
His first words (the breeze had risen; the leaves were rustling) were lost. Then he was heard saying: “What.” To that word he added another “Message”; and at last a whole sentence emerged; not comprehensible; say rather audible. “What message,” it seemed he was asking, “was our pageant meant to convey?”
They folded their hands in the traditional manner as if they were seated in church.
“I have been asking myself” — the words were repeated— “what meaning, or message, this pageant was meant to convey?”
If he didn’t know, calling himself Reverend, also M.A., who after all could?
“As one of the audience,” he continued (words now put on meaning) “I will offer, very humbly, for I am not a critic” — and he touched the white gate that enclosed his neck with a yellow forefinger— “my interpretation. No, that is too bold a word. The gifted lady . . .” He looked round. La Trobe was invisible. He continued: “Speaking merely as one of the audience, I confess I was puzzled. For what reason, I asked, were we shown these scenes? Briefly, it is true. The means at our disposal this afternoon were limited. Still we were shown different groups. We were shown, unless I mistake, the effort renewed. A few were chosen; the many passed in the background. That surely we were shown. But again, were we not given to understand — am I too presumptuous? Am I treading, like angels, where as a fool I should absent myself? To me at least it was indicated that we are members one of another. Each is part of the whole. Yes, that occurred to me, sitting among you in the audience. Did I not perceive Mr. Hardcastle here” (he pointed) “at one time a Viking? And in Lady Harridan — excuse me, if I get the names wrong — a Canterbury pilgrim? We act different parts; but are the same. That I leave to you. Then again, as the play or pageant proceeded, my attention was distracted. Perhaps that too was part of the producer’s intention? I thought I perceived that nature takes her part. Dare we, I asked myself, limit life to ourselves? May we not hold that there is a spirit that inspires, pervades . . .” (the swallows were sweeping round him. They seemed cognizant of his meaning. Then they swept out of sight.) “I leave that to you. I am not here to explain. That role has not been assigned me. I speak only as one of the audience, one of ourselves. I caught myself too reflected, as it happened in my own mirror . . .” (Laughter) “Scraps, orts and fragments! Surely, we should unite?”
“But” (“but” marked a new paragraph) “I speak also in another capacity. As Treasurer of the Fund. In which capacity” (he consulted a sheet of paper) “I am glad to be able to tell you that a sum of thirty-six pounds ten shillings and eightpence has been raised by this afternoon’s entertainment towards our object: the illumination of our dear old church.”
“Applause,” the reporter reported.
Mr. Streatfield paused. He listened. Did he hear some distant music?
He continued: “But there is still a deficit” (he consulted his paper) “of one hundred and seventy-five pounds odd. So that each of us who has enjoyed this pageant has still an opp . . .” The word was cut in two. A zoom severed it. Twelve aeroplanes in perfect formation like a flight of wild duck came overhead. That was the music. The audience gaped; the audience gazed. Then zoom became drone. The planes had passed.
“. . . portunity,” Mr. Streatfield continued, “to make a contribution.” He signalled. Instantly collecting boxes were in operation. Hidden behind glasses they emerged. Coppers rattled. Silver jingled. But O what a pity — how creepy it made one feel! Here came Albert, the idiot, jingling his collecting box — an aluminium saucepan without a lid. You couldn’t very well deny him, poor fellow. Shillings were dropped. He rattled and sniggered; chattered and jibbered. As Mrs. Parker made her contribution — half a crown as it happened — she appealed to Mr. Streatfield to exorcize this evil, to extend the protection of his cloth.
The good man contemplated the idiot benignly. His faith had room, he indicated, for him too. He too, Mr. Streatfield appeared to be saying, is part of ourselves. But not a part we like to recognize, Mrs. Springett added silently, dropping her sixpence.
Contemplating the idiot, Mr. Streatfield had lost the thread of his discourse. His command over words seemed gone. He twiddled the cross on his watchchain. Then his hand sought his trouser pocket. Surreptitiously he extracted a small silver box. It was plain to all that the natural desire of the natural man was overcoming him. He had no further use for words.
“And now,” he resumed, cuddling the pipe lighter in the palm of his hand, “for the pleasantest part of my duty. To propose a vote of thanks to the gifted lady . . .”
He looked round for an object corresponding to this description. None such was visible. “. . . who wishes it seems to remain anonymous.” He paused. “And so . . .” He paused again.
It was an awkward moment. How to make an end? Whom to thank? Every sound in nature was painfully audible; the swish of the trees; the gulp of a cow; even the skim of the swallows over the grass could be heard. But no one spoke. Whom could they make responsible? Whom could they thank for their entertainment? Was there no one?
Then there was a scuffle behind the bush; a preliminary premonitory scratching. A needle scraped a disc; chuff, chuff chuff; then having found the rut, there was a roll and a flutter which portended God . . . (they all rose to their feet) Save the King.
Standing the audience faced the actors; who also stood with their collecting boxes quiescent, their looking-glasses hidden, and the robes of their various parts hanging stiff.
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us
God save the King
The notes died away.
Was that the end? The actors were reluctant to go. They lingered; they mingled. There was Budge the policeman talking to old Queen Bess. And the Age of Reason hobnobbed with the foreparts of the donkey. And Mrs. Hardcastle patted out the folds of her crinoline. And little England, still a child, sucked a peppermint drop out of a bag. Each still acted the unacted part conferred on them by their clothes. Beauty was on them. Beauty revealed them. Was it the light that did it? — the tender, the fading, the uninquisitive but searching light of evening that reveals depths in water and makes even the red brick bungalow radiant?
“Look,” the audience whispered, “O look, look, look.—” And once more they applauded; and the actors joined hands and bowed.
Old Mrs. Lynn Jones, fumbling for her bag, sighed, “What a pity — must they change?”
But it was time to pack up and be off.
“Home, gentlemen; home ladies; it’s time to pack up and be off,” the reporter whistled, snapping the band round his notebook. And Mrs. Parker was stooping.
“I’m afraid I’ve dropped my glove. I’m so sorry to trouble you. Down there, between the seats. . . .”
The gramophone was affirming in tones there was no denying, triumphant yet valedictory: Dispersed are we; who have come together. But, the gramophone asserted, let us retain whatever made that harmony.
O let us, the audience echoed (stooping, peering, fumbling), keep together. For there is joy, sweet joy, in company.
Dispersed are we, the gramophone repeated.
And the audience turning saw the flaming windows, each daubed with golden sun; and murmured: “Home, gentlemen; sweet. . .” yet delayed a moment, seeing through the golden glory perhaps a crack in the boiler; perhaps a hole in the carpet; and hearing, perhaps, the daily drop of the daily bill.
Dispersed are we, the gramophone informed them. And dismissed them. So, straightening themselves for the last time, each grasping, it might be a hat, or a stick or a pair of suede gloves, for the last time they applauded Budge and Queen Bess; the trees; the white road; Bolney Minster; and the Folly. One hailed another, and they dispersed, across lawns, down paths, past the house to the gravel-strewn crescent, where cars, push bikes and cycles were crowded together.
Friends hailed each other in passing.
“I do think,” someone was saying, “Miss Whatshername should have come forward and not left it to the rector . . . After all, she wrote it. . . . I thought it brilliantly clever . . . O my dear, I thought it utter bosh. Did you understand the meaning? Well, he said she meant we all act all parts. . . . He said, too, if I caught his meaning, Nature takes part. . . . Then there was the idiot. . . . Also, why leave out the Army, as my husband was saying, if it’s history? And if one spirit animates the whole, what about the aeroplanes? . . . Ah, but you’re being too exacting. After all, remember, it was only a village play. . . . For my part, I think they should have passed a vote of thanks to the owners. When we had our pageant, the grass didn’t recover till autumn . . . Then we had tents. . . . That’s the man, Cobbet of Cobbs Corner, who wins all the prizes at all the shows. I don’t myself admire prize flowers, nor yet prize dogs . . .”
Dispersed are we, the gramophone triumphed, yet lamented, Dispersed are we. . . .
“But you must remember,” the old cronies chatted, “they had to do it on the cheap. You can’t get people, at this time o’ year, to rehearse. There’s the hay, let alone the movies. . . . What we need is a centre. Something to bring us all together . . . The Brookes have gone to Italy, in spite of everything. Rather rash? . . . If the worst should come — let’s hope it won’t — they’d hire an aeroplane, so they said. . . . What amused me was old Streatfield, feeling for his pouch. I like a man to be natural, not always on a perch . . . Then those voices from the bushes. . . . Oracles? You’re referring to the Greeks? Were the oracles, if I’m not being irreverent, a foretaste of our own religion? Which is what? . . . Crepe soles? That’s so sensible . . . They last much longer and protect the feet. . . . But I was saying: can the Christian faith adapt itself? In times like these . . . At Larting no one goes to church . . . There’s the dogs, there’s the pictures. . . . It’s odd that science, so they tell me, is making things (so to speak) more spiritual . . . The very latest notion, so I’m told is, nothing’s solid . . . There, you can get a glimpse of the church through the trees. . . .
“Mr. Umphelby! How nice to see you! Do come and dine . . . No, alas, we’re going back to town. The House is sitting . . . I was telling them, the Brookes have gone to Italy. They’ve seen the volcano. Most impressive, so they say — they were lucky — in eruption. I agree — things look worse than ever on the continent. And what’s the channel, come to think of it, if they mean to invade us? The aeroplanes, I didn’t like to say it, made one think. . . . No, I thought it much too scrappy. Take the idiot. Did she mean, so to speak, something hidden, the unconscious as they call it? But why always drag in sex. . . . It’s true, there’s a sense in which we all, I admit, are savages still. Those women with red nails. And dressing up — what’s that? The old savage, I suppose. . . . That’s the bell. Ding dong. Ding . . . Rather a cracked old bell . . . And the mirrors! Reflecting us . . . I called that cruel. One feels such a fool, caught unprotected . . . There’s Mr. Streatfield, going, I suppose to take the evening service. He’ll have to hurry, or he won’t have time to change. . . . He said she meant we all act. Yes, but whose play? Ah, that’s the question! And if we’re left asking questions, isn’t it a failure, as a play? I must say I like to feel sure if I go to the theatre, that I’ve grasped the meaning . . . Or was that, perhaps, what she meant? . . . Ding dong. Ding . . . that if we don’t jump to conclusions, if you think, and I think, perhaps one day, thinking differently, we shall think the same?
“There’s dear old Mr. Carfax . . . Can’t we give you a lift, if you don’t mind playing bodkin? We were asking questions, Mr. Carfax, about the play. The looking-glasses now — did they mean the reflection is the dream; and the tune — was it Bach, Handel, or no one in particular — is the truth? Or was it t’other way about?
“Bless my soul, what a dither! Nobody seems to know one car from another. That’s why I have a mascot, a monkey . . . But I can’t see it . . . While we’re waiting, tell me, did you feel when the shower fell, someone wept for us all? There’s a poem, Tears tears tears, it begins. And goes on O then the unloosened ocean . . . but I can’t remember the rest.
“Then when Mr. Streatfield said: One spirit animates the whole — the aeroplanes interrupted. That’s the worst of playing out of doors. . . . Unless of course she meant that very thing . . . Dear me, the parking arrangements are not what you might call adequate . . . I shouldn’t have expected either so many Hispano-Suizas . . . That’s a Rolls . . . That’s a Bentley . . . That’s the new type of Ford. . . . To return to the meaning — Are machines the devil, or do they introduce a discord . . . Ding dong, ding . . . by means of which we reach the final . . . Ding dong. . . .
Here’s the car with the monkey . . . Hop in . . . And good-bye, Mrs. Parker . . . Ring us up. Next time we’re down don’t forget . . . Next time . . . Next time . . .”
The wheels scrurred on the gravel. The cars drove off.
The gramophone gurgled Unity — Dispersity. It gurgled Un . . dis . . . And ceased.
The little company who had come together at luncheon were left standing on the terrace. The pilgrims had bruised a lane on the grass. Also, the lawn would need a deal of clearing up. Tomorrow the telephone would ring: “Did I leave my handbag? . . . A pair of spectacles in a red leather case? . . . A little old brooch of no value to anyone but me?” Tomorrow the telephone would ring. Now Mr. Oliver said: “Dear lady,” and, taking Mrs. Manresa’s gloved hand in his, pressed it, as if to say: “You have given me what you now take from me.” He would have liked to hold on for a moment longer to the emeralds and rubies dug up, so people said, by thin Ralph Manresa in his ragamuffin days. But alas, sunset light was unsympathetic to her make-up; plated it looked, not deeply interfused. And he dropped her hand; and she gave him an arch roguish twinkle, as if to say — but the end of that sentence was cut short. For she turned, and Giles stepped forward; and the light breeze which the meteorologist had foretold fluttered her skirts; and she went, like a goddess, buoyant, abundant, with flower-chained captives following in her wake.
Complete Works of Virginia Woolf Page 255
