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(Five young gentlemen are having no
end of an argument in a big, shadowy drawing-room.
They are tremendously at their ease, One is playing with the ears
and kissing the top of the
head of a blue Persian cat, two are sitting on the floor hugging
their knees, the fourth sprawls
on a sofa, one leg doubled under him, cutting a French book with
a jade paper-knife, and the
fifth droops over the gleaming grand piano. Marigold is curled up
in a black chair. Now and
again she murmurs “How true that is” or “Do you
really think so?” Isobel sits on the arm of
her chair, smiling faintly.)
4th Gentleman: But look here, all I wanted to say is that the
lack of prudery in France merely
seems to me to prove that the French do believe that man is au fond
a rational animal.
You don’t dispute that, do you? I mean-well-damn it all! their
literature’s based on it.
Isn’t it?
2nd Gent. : And that, according to you, explains why they seek their
inspiration, their very
inspiration, in realism. Does it?
4th Gent. (superbly) : Of course it does. Absolutely. How else are
you going to explain it?
1st Gent. : Then a nation that’s “got prudery,’’
as the Americans would say, is a nation that
believes man is not a rational animal?
5th Gent. (very bitterly) : There are things, say the English, which
are not to be talked about.
Fermez la porte, s’il vous plait.
3rd Gent. (greatly excited) : But look here - half a minute - don’t
go too fast; this is damned
interesting. Now we really are getting at something. If what you
say is true, then
prudery is a step towards real art - what? For what do we mean by
prudery? Prudery is
false shame, the negative to real shame; which again is, as it were,
the negative to
reverence. Reverence being the positive quality, the thing that
great art’s got to have
what?’
5th Gent. (extremely bitterly) : I heard a good bit of Bowery slang
the other day. (With a
strong Yankee drawl) : Put sand on your boots, kid; you’re
sliding.
4th Gent. : Oh. shut up. If you don’t want to talk, go and
play croquet. Yes, that’s what I was
more or less driving at.
2nd Gent. : And that, according to you, explains why the English
seek their inspiration, their
very inspiration, in idealism, does it?
4th Gent: Precisely. And also why the English must of necessity
beat the French at this art
game all the time.
1st Gent. : Therefore it’s all a question of values - a sense
of moralities. . . .
3rd Gent. : And puts the stopper finally and irrevocably on old
man Kant - what?
(They burst out laughing. Under cover of their laughter Marigold
(lays her hand in Isobel’s
lap): “Shall we slip away?” Isobel smiles assent.)
(In the hall.)
Marigold (puts her arms round Isobel and lays her head against Isobel’s
shoulder) : Oh, I
couldn’t have stood that for another moment ; could you? Aren’t
men extraordinary?
Don’t they ever grow out of that kind of thing? No; never.
They have an insatiable
hunger for hunting after something that nine out of ten women would
have captured
without troubling to lift a finger. Too absurd! They remind me of
those big woolly
dogs who love to pretend to lose and pursue and bark after and chase
and root out the
bone you’ve thrown under their very noses. What on earth makes
them do it? Vanity,
my dear, and the masculine delight in showing off. Can’t you
see them in about an
hour’s time thumping their tails and licking their chops and
saying more or less aloud
: “Well, we had a pretty stiff argument !” Bother them!
Let’s forget them. Look at the
heavenly afternoon that we’re wasting. Won’t you come
out for a little walk with me?
I don’t seem to have had you to myself a moment yet. And there
are so many things I
want to ask you.
(Isobel smiles.)
Marigold : I’ll just run up and put on a hat, and you must,
too, darling. The sun is so strong,
and you are not to get any more freckles an your nose, you bad child!
The freckles
that you have got are very charming - very sweet; but you can have
too many, don’t
you think? And I never can see why one should look like a milkmaid
simply because
one lives in the country; can you? I’ve got some lovely cream;
I’ll give you a little to
put on to-night.
(They separate. Marigold goes up to her room, powders her face,
smears a little rouge on her
lips and a little black on each eyelid; puts on a string of big
green beads and takes them off
again; puts on a string of huge yellow beads and takes them off
again; puts on a string of
carved stones and lets them lie. Pins on an immense straw hat that
looks to have been pelted
with its little bunches of cherries, and ties it under her chin
with some wide tulle. Says to the
person in the glass: “Emma, Lady Hamilton,” and then
bends her head forward and shoots
out her under-lip a little, and murmurs: “Mrs. Siddons.”
The person in the glass agrees. Roots
in a drawer full of dead white gloves, and drifts downstairs.)
(On the road to the village.)
Marigold: Oh, the relief to be out in the sun and among simple
ardent things like fields and
trees and cattle. But you’re not very fond of the country,
are you? My dear, why
should you be? You feel more yourself in cafes and restaurants and
among crowds of
people, and I feel more at home in wet woods and dim fields or walking
by the sea.
Neither is more right or higher than the other. If’s just
a question of one’s own
individual psychology ; don’t you agree? And, curiously enough,
about ten years ago I
had just the same feelings that you have - the same burning curiosity
about life, the
same desire to experience everything, no matter what, even to throw
myself away
rather than be out of anything. I think that all women of personality
are bound to go
through that phase - for it is a phase, Isobel, at any rate for
women of real personality.
And I am sure the moment will come to you as it did to me when you
won’t be able to
understand what on earth you saw in that kind of life . . . when
the things of the spirit
. . . when one is so infinitely content to have Shelley for a friend
rather than . . You
know what I mean?
(Isobel smiles.)
Marigold: Of course, I don’t know at all what your life
is. It may be tremendously rich; I
have an idea that it is. Curious, isn’t it, how little we
do know of each other. Do you
know me at all? How hard it is to break the ice and melt towards
each other as one
does so long to melt - doesn’t one? Why are we so shy of each
other? Have you real
intimate women friends? I am sure you haven’t. And is it for
the same reason that I
haven’t either? One simply can’t get over this feeling
of distrust, and Heaven knows
one has cause enough to feel it. Women are such traitors to one
another, aren’t they?
One can feel that one is everything to another woman, her dearest
friend - her closest
- and the most commonplace little man has only to come along and
lift a finger for
her to betray you, to let you down ! It’s very strange and
awfully distressing, too -
don’t you feel? For, after all, Isobel, one does not always
want to have one’s hand
held by a man, does one? And women might be so wonderful together.
. . . I often
feel I could appreciate a woman far better than any man could-understand
her so
exquisitely - sympathise so perfectly. But where is the woman who
wants my
friendship? Who will confide in me? . . . Let us stand for a minute
under this lovely
tree. It might be ,the one that Blake saw the angels in.
(Isobel looks up into the branches, and smiles.)
Marigold: Perhaps you and - I are going to be great friends -
what do you feel? Sometimes I
think you like me - sometimes I am not so sure. Strange little secret
person! Do you
think that anything you could tell me about your life and your experience
could shock
me? You would not, my dear. I bum to know and sympathise and understand.
I feel so
strangely that we two are very alike in a way. At any rate, we will
have courage,
Isobel, and that is very rare. Perhaps we even want the same things.
What do you
really want to happen, Isobel? What do you want from life?
(Isobel shakes her head, and smiles.)
Marigold : Yes, you do; but you still shrink a little. You are
still a little bit wild with me. Ah,
my dear, you have no need to be. Trust me - you really may! It’s
getting late; we must
rush back for tea. It’s been lovely - lovely, this talk; hasn’t
it? Cleared the air so, and
made everything so simple and ardent. The heavenly sky full of little
Poussin cherubs.
Isobel, dearest!
(They arrive.)
Maid : I’ve just taken in the tea, m’m.
Marigold (pressing Isobel’s hand) : Run and take off your
shoes. I must go and feed the
famishing horde.
(In the dining-room one young gentleman hovers over the table;
one wasp over the jam-pot.)
Marigold (holding back a curtain with one hand: a portrait by Manet,
she decides): Where are
the others?
Young Gentleman: The others have all gone for a walk ; they followed
you over the fields.
Marigold : Oh, we missed them ! Isobel will be down in a moment;
she’s just changing her
shoes. Do you like her? Very attractive, don’t you think?
Young Gentleman: Well - I find it rather a trial, don’t you
know, to keep at that level.
Marigold (looks at him a long moment too sweetly for words): Do
you, really? That comforts
me. I had thought it must have been my fault. (In confidence.) We
have had the most
“intense” talk you can imagine. I tried to listen with
my mind, but all the while I have
been feeling my soul, like one of those little air balloons at the
end of a string,
tugging and pulling to be off . . . simply to float away into the
blue and bob against
nothing. (Unties her hat strings, throws her hat away, and runs
her flashing fingers
through her hair.) I feel quite worn out. No; I shall not ask Isobel
again in the
summer; Isobel is a winter friend. One can sit down and tackle her
then with even a
kind of appropriate enthusiasm as one wades through a suet pudding!
I’m very
wicked to talk like this. . . . But you know I never feel that her
seriousness is quite
sincere - do you? I often feel that if a man were to absolutely
ignore it and were to
approach her really cleverly . . .
(Isobel enters.)
Marigold: Ah, here you are, dearest. Sit by me. Lovely you look
in that black scarf ; doesn’t
she?
Young Gentleman (with his mouth full of scone): Lovely.
(Isobel looks at her tea, and smiles.)
KATHERINE MANSFIELD |
