Surviving

by Henry Green

  •

  He was twenty-two, and blind. For three years, now, he had been engulfed in a world peopled with sounds and solids. It had been very dreadful at first. ‘You may never see again – but of course there’s a chance, there always is,’ the doctor had told him. For weeks after that the words ‘you may never see again’ had run through his head, again and again, insensately. But he had come to care less. Blindness had its compensations. He found that everything had a most wonderful ‘feel’. He would walk round his room, made just as it had been at Note that he might not be lonely, to touch and caress everything. The feather pictures of paroquets; his old blackbird doll, tattered remnant of nursery days; his Windsor chair; the table with the cuts on it and the neat hole he had burned one winter evening with a red-hot poker. . . .

  Sounds, too, he loved. Any bird song was revealed to his delicacy of hearing as something really exquisite. Blackbirds especially – though he always rather blamed himself for this, saying that he should prefer the nightingale; for it was not safe to have wide divergencies from popular opinion. Next to a blackbird’s song he put the scream of swifts as they fled past his window. How wild it was, that sound, and free. He used to sit at his window, letting the earth, with all her sounds and scents, come up at him. He gloried in a rainy day, the fragrance and freshness of it were a never-failing joy. Curiously enough, he could not bear the smell of new-mown grass, it appeared sickly and sugary to him.

  His blindness had made him terribly shy. There had been a dreadful day when a little girl, eating peppermints, had been brought to see him. She had said, very distinctly, ‘I don’t like horrid blind boys,’ and the smell of peppermint had half choked him. He had retired still more into himself after that episode. Time passed. He lived in a world of suggestiveness, of delicate, fragile hints of things. Speech he considered harsh and unnecessary. You could say all you wanted by creating atmosphere. His was a delicate exquisite nature. He was right when he thought the world was rough.

  One summer evening at dinner he ate indigestible food deliberately, that he might dream and see once more the world of light he had lost. When at length night fell, the air was still laden with the heat of the day, oppressively. He fell into uneasy slumber, and a dream, strange and erotic, came to him.

  He was seated in the Windsor chair. It had always been hard and uncomfortable. But now the hardness of it seemed to have melted to a soft luxuriousness. The danger of its being so soft never struck him till afterwards. Miraculously he found himself seeing the wall paper of staring roses in watery blue and tired pink on muddy stalks with nameless leaves writhing out at him as he sat. It was not unpleasant. The roses appeared to be real. Coming from them there was a faint, heady perfume. They wreathed themselves around his chair, accommodatingly. He plucked one, to see if it was real. The broken stalk bled out yellow blood onto his hand. The yellow drop of blood immediately grew into a knob of amber, the size of a pigeon’s egg; and he thought it very clever of the blood drop.

  There was a flutter of wings. The paroquet flew out of the frame that encompassed him. It did not seem very surprising, somehow. Gorgeous in geranium lake, deep violet and creamy white, she settled on an arm of the chair, preening herself, majestically. Then the other paroquets came out, perching all round him. They also glowed in every conceivable colour. When they moved, so dazzling was the sheen on their wings, that it seared the eyes. They talked to each other, shrilly.

  The blackbird, torn and tattered, hopped out of the corner which had been his these last three years. He was chuckling happily deep down in his throat. Then he burst into his clear, shrilling pipe, from sheer joy of living. And the little brass figure was jealous. All the years he had stood there, on the mantelpiece, so rigidly admonishing his rigid little dog, he had longed to be able to whistle really well. He had practised silently for ages, and now, at the blackbird’s paean, he began to whistle. But it was rather like a railway train, so he had to give up. He stopped, listening. The blackbird went on, gloriously. The little figure could bear it no longer. ‘Stop’ he said, quite simply, ‘it is too beautiful.’ ‘Yes’ said a paroquet. The blackbird, obliging as ever, stopped and began pecking at the real flowers in the carpet pattern instead.

  ‘Did you ever hear how once I was kissed?’ said the little figure as he stretched his legs. ‘Yes, I was once, years ago, by a hideous little girl, who had been eating peppermint, it was the romance of my life, yes, she kissed me.’ He paused for breath. ‘I’ve always liked you,’ he went on, ‘you’re a good sort, you never clean me, and I like being dirty, yes I . . .’ Here one of the pictures on the wall interrupted in a loud voice. ‘Come and have a walk in me,’ it said. The brass dog yelped angrily, the little figure cried ‘Here I say . . .’ but the idea of walking in a picture was too much for the boy.

  He stepped up and into a picture, finding himself listening to the quarrel merrily progressing after many years’ catalepsy. But the man said ‘Damn you’ and the woman said something worse; so he came hurriedly away. He felt he was on dangerous ground. He walked into the next picture, a street. But it was the least bit out of drawing, and he could not go far in. So he just stood watching the white pigeons for ever circling and settling again; the blue sky; the two dogs for ever fighting over there; the groups of people dressed in blazing colours; the fragile architecture. But the pigeons went on circling in the same way, so did the dogs go on fighting and the figures posing, that he found something sinister in it all. He felt he ought to leave.

  He stepped into a Boucher Love Affair, quite a good reproduction in its way, but what the two were saying was a little too intimate, and, like a true gentleman, he left – besides that sort of thing was dangerous. From the Boucher picture he turned to a drawing of his own, painted by him just before he went blind. How proud he had been of it, then. How pleased he had been with everyone’s praises of it when he could see it no more. How hollow it had been, that praise, he had never realised till now. It was a portrait, just a head and shoulders. He had gloried in the evil look he had put into the face, and the eyes. And now it was saying, vacuously, ‘I am empty nothing, empty nothing, empty nothing, empty nothing . . . nothing.’ Just then he glanced into the mirror, that had been so useless for so long. There was there a face he knew not, with empty eyelids rimmed in red. A flabby white skin, black beard and wild hair. It was his own face reflected in the glass, and he did not realise it till afterwards.

  At the sight of that face, he gave one strangled cry, to convention. In the room there was a hush. Then they all began to laugh. The paroquets screeched their amusement; the little brass figure shrieked his laughter; and the little dog wagged his tail sardonically. Harsh words dropped from the quarrel; sickly intimacies floated down from the Boucher; fatuous reiterations fell out of the drawing. It was Bedlam. The air was stifling. The perfume choked him with its thick rich quality. How they loved to hurt others, these things. ‘Oh, ha, ha, ha . . . . . . ha, ha . . . . . . ha, ha, ha, ha.’

  He cried out: ‘I hate you all, I loathe you, you aren’t nice, oh bother you all.’

  And the paroquets screamed with fury and flew at his eyes, and the roses came off the chair, wreathed their stalks round his neck amorously, and began to strangle him. He died slowly – in his dream.

  •

  Three weeks later he was seated by his window, listening to, and enjoying the rain which was pouring down so gently and steadily. There was hardly a sound save for the persistent swashing of the rain, and the birds were silent. He had not recovered from the effects of his dream yet. For days his old nurse had had her hands full, so ‘nervy’ and ‘captious’ had he been. He had lost faith in himself and in all mankind. Sympathy and kindness seemed to be qualities so rare as to be non-existent. He had suffered acutely and was suffering now, sitting by his open window.

  Then a blackbird began to sing, and his song dissolved all the troubles in the world, instantly. He listened, raptly, to the story that never was the same. He lost all sense of personality, he
was just a pair of ears and a brain, absorbent as a sponge. But it was not to be for long. A butcher boy started whistling, and the blackbird, of course, flew away out of hearing of such cacophony.

  Raspingly, piercingly the butcher boy whistled, and it was agony to the boy in the window. But it served one great purpose, that whistling. It woke him out of the passive timidity that had enveloped him ever since he went blind.

  He was exasperated into a desperate striving after the beautiful. His world was so very small, it did not go beyond the confines of his room. And his room had failed him. He had lost all confidence after the dream. The world was now trying to take away his music, to roughen, to cynicise him with its constant irritations. And he, with his infinite romanticism, resisted it, passionately. He was forced into some sort of definite action, for in inaction he knew there was despair. So he determined that he would teach himself to whistle, whistle that he might talk with his birds, and that he might express all that was in him unexpressed, all the longings, the doubts, the fears.

  He began practising. Though he had had endless and constantly changing ideals in his life, this one hit him very hard, absorbing all his energies and concentration. For hours together he would try trills and shakes: soft little cadences of sound which he repeated again and again till the very air grew lazy and hung dead and listless round the room. Yet there was a peculiar wistful quality about his whistling, which from the first drew the attention, and, after six months’ hard work, with nine or ten hours a day of practice, it became really remarkable. There was a power in it, yet a kind of fairy lightness, also. Each note was beautifully clear and distinct, and soon he learnt to soar higher and higher up the notes till at each one it seemed impossible for there ever to be a higher, yet there it always was, silverly perfect.

  At first this practising had been very trying, to everyone near him. Nanny, the eternally impatient, naturally had protested immediately and continuously. Still it came as a big surprise and mortification when the room protested. But the boy had grown, mentally, and the room did not succeed in frightening him into silence. It was in a dream, of course. Again he was seated in the Windsor chair, as suspiciously soft as before. Again everything came out at him, and there was a great silence. Then they all said together, ‘We have had enough of it, it really is too terrible this whistling of yours.’ And the little brass figure cried ‘Why don’t you whistle like me?’ And he let off a blast like a steam siren. ‘Shut up,’ said one of the paroquets, ‘he ought to learn from us,’ and she, in her turn, let off a screech. The roses, tightening round his throat, said, ‘Do you see?’ tighter, ‘Do you see?’ tighter, ‘Do you see?’ tighter still. But the boy sprang up out of the chair. ‘No I don’t,’ he shouted. ‘Blast you,’ and then he woke up on the u in you.

  At length, in a year’s time, what with his concentration and his soleness of purpose, he had attained to as near perfection as possible. For it was the whistling of a caged bird, exquisite in its way, but just lacking that glorious, confident freedom that lies at the bottom of all bird songs. It was very wonderful though for all that.

  One night, after he had been whistling more sublimely than ever, the dream came to him. The roses curled round him, timorously. The paroquets came out, silently. Only the doll blackbird was at all sure of himself. There was a hush, and then they all whispered, in unison: ‘We are sorry.’ ‘Damn you,’ he shouted, and the doll broke into a song gloriously telling of triumph, for he loved the man.

  As he woke up a blackbird was welcoming the dawn. He was a man, now.

  THE WYNDHAM FAMILY

  (Unpublished, c. 1923)

  ⎯

  Green regularly visited Petworth House, home of the Wyndham family, during the school holidays. The characters in this play are based very specifically on Green’s uncles and aunts. The Christian names of all the characters are unchanged; ‘MVY’ is Maud Yorke (née Wyndham), Green’s mother.

  ⎯

  (It is after dinner one evening in June and the Wyndham family, male and female, are all by some strange chance sitting together in the White Library. The windvane has been pointing N then S then N again at regular intervals and so on for some time, but though all have been watching it Violet is the first to speak.)

  VIOLET

  Charles do look at the windvane.

  CHARLES

  (Trying to be facetious.)

  Bless my soul.

  MVY

  Charles dear, isn’t that very extraordinary.

  CHARLES

  I have never known the wind like that before.

  EDWARD

  How very interesting.

  (Charles gets up and goes to the window, followed by Hughie and Edward. Humphrey picks up The Times and begins to read the leading article. Looking out of the windows the others see the head of what is obviously a giant, for while his chin is on the ground a lock of hair rests heavily on the monument. There is a rapt expression on his face and he appears to be watching the White Library. Charles turns purple and goes back to his chair. Hughie after putting on pince nez comes back.)

  HUGHIE

  Ha.

  (Edward stands looking still.)

  CHARLES

  (Looking at the tip of his cigar.)

  God damn.

  MVY

  (After she has seen it.)

  Edward am I drunk or what?

  MAGGIE

  My dear, it is a giant.

  EDWARD

  Well, well.

  CHARLES

  (Ringing the bell.)

  God damn.

  HUGHIE

  Ha.

  MVY

  My dear Charles, how very exciting.

  (Wickham comes in.)

  CHARLES

  Wickham, if you go to the window you will see a giant by the monument. Send out to tell him to go away at once or I will have the police on him.

  MAGGIE

  It is not Sunday.

  WICKHAM

  (Having looked.)

  Very good my lord.

  (Goes out.)

  CHARLES

  I can’t understand what the fellow wants. Trust his damned impertinence.

  (He rings again. Tiny comes in.)

  TINY

  My dear Maud this is very interesting. Apparently he has taken up his position by the monument and cannot be dislodged.

  EDWARD

  I never remember seeing a giant before.

  (Alfred comes in.)

  CHARLES

  Alfred go and find Ball and tell him to take the hounds away at once, anywhere away from the Park.

  TINY

  Above all we must keep calm.

  MVY

  What would the parent have said?

  CHARLES

  (Labouring under a sense of injustice.)

  He would have been very angry and I don’t think anyone in the kingdom would have denied him the right to be.

  MAGGIE

  Edward is he advancing?

  EDWARD

  My dear Margaret he is stationary.

  MVY

  He seems to be in an attitude of observation.

  TINY

  My dear do not let us act hastily, let us review the situation coldly.

  HUMPHREY

  I am very glad that Mother is not here.

  EDWARD

  It is a very good thing.

  MVY

  Charles, what are we going to do?

  CHARLES

  I think the women had better go right away where Simmonds has gone with the hounds.

  MVY

  Oh come, I am not going to miss all the fun.

  (Then outside down the hill come deer galloping and when in a line they have swept down it as if drawn by something they turn right-handed and gallop on and into the lake all except one which has tripped and lies with a broken leg at the foot of the hill. All the others have vanished in the lake.)

  EDWARD

  Charles the deer have galloped into the lake.

  CH
ARLES

  God damn.

  HUMPHREY

  I observe that the wings of his nostrils dilate and contract at regular intervals which correspond to the movements of the windvane.

  HUGHIE

  He is breathing.

  CHARLES

  If Wickham has no success I think I shall go and have a talk with him.

  TINY

  Would he be amenable to reason?

  MAGGIE

  Oh dear, do nothing so rash.

  MVY

  If Charles goes, we must all go. The family must stick together and die with their boots on.

  EDWARD

  There is Wickham.

  (And indeed Wickham is setting out in swallow tails and a dark-grey tweed cap. Suddenly however, as if picked up by an invisible hand, he rushes on and disappears in the lake.)

  EDWARD

  Well, well.

  HUMPHREY

  Charles, Wickham has been precipitated into the lake.

  CHARLES

  Wickham was a good servant.

  MVY

  This inaction is getting on my nerves. Why can’t we do something?

  (Charles jumps up and goes to the window which he raises and goes through. Standing on the terrace he waves at the distance.)

  CHARLES

  (Crying.)

  Go away, damn your impertinence, go away, it is not Sunday.