The Garden of Survival
Page 8
VIII
THIS, then, was somewhat my state of mind, when, after our late tea onthe verandah, I strolled out on to the lawn to enjoy my pipe in thequiet of the garden paths. I felt dissatisfied and disappointed, yetknew not entirely perhaps, the reason. I wished to be alone, but washungry for companionship as well. Mother saw me go and watchedattentively, but said no word, merely following me a moment with hereyes above the edge of the Times she read, as of old, during the hoursbetween tea and dinner. The Spectator, her worldly Bible, lay ready toher hand when the Times should have been finished. They were,respectively, as always, her dictionary of opinion, and hermedicine-chest. Before I had gone a dozen yards, her head disappearedbehind the printed sheet again. The roses flowed between us.
I felt her following glance, as I felt also its withdrawal. Then Iforgot her.... A touch of melancholy stole on me, as the garden took mein its charge. For a garden is a ghostly place, and an old-world garden,above all, leads thought backwards among vanished memories rather thanforward among constructive hopes and joys.
I yielded, in any case, a little to this subtle pressure from the past,and I must have strolled among the lilac and laburnums for a longer timethan I knew, since the gardener who had been trimming the flower-bedswith a hand lawn-mower was gone, and dusk already veiled the cedars,when I found myself leaning against the wooden gate that opened into theless formal part beyond the larches.
The house was not visible from where I stood. I smelt the May, thelilac, the heavy perfume everywhere of the opening year; it rose aboutme in waves, as though full-bosomed summer lay breathing her greatpromises close at hand, while spring, still lingering, with bright eyesof dew,' watched over her. Then, suddenly, behind these richer scents, Icaught a sweeter, wilder tang than anything they contained, and turning,saw that the pines were closer than I knew. A waft of something purer,fresher, reached my nostrils on a little noiseless wind, as, leaningacross the gate, I turned my back upon the cultivated grounds and gazedinto a region of more natural, tangled growth.
The change was sudden. It was exquisite, sharp and unexpected, too, aswith a little touch of wonder. There was surprise in it. For the garden,you will remember, melts here insensibly into a stretch of scatteredpines, where heather and bracken cover wide reaches of unreclaimed anduseless land. Irregular trails of whitish sand gleamed faintly beforethe shadows swallowed them, and in the open patches I saw youngsilver-birches that made me think of running children arrested inmid-play. They stood outlined very tenderly against the sky; theirslender forms still quivered; their feathery hair fell earthwards asthey drew themselves together, bending their wayward little heads beforethe approaching night. Behind them, framed by the darker pines into aglowing frieze, the west still burned with the last fires of the sunset;I could see the heather, rising and falling like a tumbled sea againstthe horizon, where the dim heave of distant moorland broke theafterglow.
And the dusk now held this region in its magic. So strange, indeed, wasthe contrast between the ebony shadows and the pools and streaks ofamberish light, that I looked about me for a moment, almost sharply.There was a touch of the unearthly in this loveliness that bewilderedsight a little. Extraordinarily still the world was, yet there seemedactivity close upon my footsteps, an activity more than of inanimateNature, yet less than of human beings. With solidarity it had nothing todo, though it sought material expression. It was very near. And I wasstartled, I recognized the narrow frontier between fear and wonder. Andthen I crossed it.
For something stopped me dead. I paused and stared. My heart began tobeat more rapidly. Then, ashamed of my moment's hesitation, I was aboutto move forward through the gate, when again I halted. I listened, andcaught my breath. I fancied the stillness became articulate, the shadowsstirred, the silence was about to break.
I remember trying to think; I wanted to relieve the singular tension byfinding words, if only inner words,--when, out of the stillness, out ofthe silence, out of the shadows--something happened. Some faculty ofjudgment, some attitude in which I normally clothed myself, wereabruptly stripped away. I was left bare and sensitive. I could almosthave believed that my body had dropped aside, that I stood there naked,unprotected, a form-less spirit, stirred and lifted by the passingbreeze.
And then it came. As with a sword-thrust of blinding sweetness, I waslaid open. Yet so instant, and of such swiftness, was the stroke, that Ican only describe it by saying that, while pierced and wounded, I wasalso healed again.
Without hint or warning, Beauty swept me with a pain and happiness wellnigh intolerable. It drenched me and was gone. No lightning flash couldhave equalled the swiftness of its amazing passage; something tore inme; the emotion was enveloping but very tender; it was both terrible yetdear. Would to God I might crystallize it for you in those few mightywords which should waken in yourself--in every one!--the wonder and thejoy. It contained, I felt, both the worship that belongs to awe and thetenderness of infinite love which welcomes tears. Some power that wasnot of this world, yet that used the details of this world to manifest,had visited me.
No element of surprise lay in it even. It was too swift for anything butjoy, which of all emotions is the most instantaneous: I had been empty,I was filled. Beauty that bathes the stars and drowns the very universehad stolen out of this wild morsel of wasted and uncared-for Englishgarden, and dropped its transforming magic into--me. At the very moment,moreover, when I had been ready to deny it altogether. I saw myinsignificance, yet, such was the splendour it had wakened in me, knewmy right as well. It could be ever thus; some attitude in myself aloneprevented....
And--somebody was pleased.
This personal ingredient lay secure in the joy that assuredly remainedwhen the first brief intolerable ecstasy had passed. The link I desiredto recognize was proved, not merely strengthened. Beauty had cleft meopen, and a message, if you will, had been delivered. This personal hintpersisted; I was almost aware of conscious and intelligent direction.For to you I will make the incredible confession, that I dare phrase theexperience in another fashion, equally true: In that flashing instant Istood naked and shelterless to the gaze of some one who had looked uponme. I was aware of sight; of eyes in which "burning memory lights lovehome." These eyes, this sight had gazed at me, then turned away. For inthat blinding sweetness there was light, as with the immediatewithdrawal again there was instant darkness. I was first visible, thenconcealed. I was clothed again and covered.
And the thick darkness that followed made it appear as though night, inone brief second, had taken the place of dusk.
Trembling, I leaned across the wooden gate and waited while the darknesssettled closer. I can swear, moreover, that it was neither dream, norhope, nor any hungry fantasy in me that then recognized a furthermarvel--I was no longer now alone.
A presence faced me, standing breast-high in the bracken. The garden hadbeen empty; somebody now walked there with me.
It was, as I mentioned, the still hour between the twilight and thelong, cool dark of early summer. The little breeze passed whisperingthrough the pines. I smelt the pungent perfume of dry heather, sand, andbracken. The horizon, low down between the trunks, shone gold andcrimson still, but fading rapidly. I stood there for a long timetrembling; I was a part of it; I felt that I was shining, as though myinner joy irradiated the world about me. Nothing in all my life has beenso real, so positive. I was assuredly not alone....
The first sharp magic, the flash that pierced and burned, had gone itsway, but Beauty still stood so perilously near, so personal, that anymoment, I felt, it must take tangible form, betray itself in visiblemovement of some sort, break possibly into audible sound of actualspeech. It would not have surprised me--more, it would have been naturalalmost--had I felt a touch upon my hands and lips, or caught the murmurof spoken words against my ear.
Yet from such direct revelation I shrank involuntarily and by instinct.I could not have borne it then. I had the feeling that it must mar anddefile a wonder already great enough; there would have lain
in it, too,a betrayal of the commonplace, as of something which I could notpossibly hold for true. I must have distrusted my own senses even, forthe beauty that cleft me open dealt directly with the soul alone,leaving the senses wholly disengaged. The Presence was not answerable toany lesser recognition.
Thus I shrank and turned away, facing the familiar garden and the "wetbird-haunted English lawn," a spiritual tenderness in me still dreadingthat I might see or hear or feel, destroying thus the reality of myexperience. Yet there was, thank God, no speech, no touch, no movement,other than the shiver of the birches, the breath of air against mycheek, the droop and bending of the nearer pine boughs. There was noaudible or visible expression; I saw no figure breast-high in thebracken. Yet sound there was, a moment later. For, as I turned away, abird upon a larch twig overhead burst into sudden and exultant song.