Poor impassioned Catharine had already wearied him with her unsophisticated emotion. She had irritated him, too, by queer fits of deep depression in which she had returned to her childish scruples, and incidentally she had made the situation more strained by constant references to Roger Lamb.
When the four of them moved on together towards the town, it appeared inevitable that Karmakoff and the dancer should outstrip the others — vehemently and passionately absorbed, as it seemed, in what they had to say to one another.
‘One day you’ll be coming to Moscow,’ Ivan remarked, among other things. ‘Our people ought to have you. You’re precisely what they must have. They’ll give you authority over our whole art movement, which owes so much to your genius already.’
‘There’s nothing left now in the world except art,’ sighed Elise.
‘And the only way to get anything beautiful,’ added Karmakoff, ‘is to put an end to the economic struggle.’
‘Can that really be done?’
‘It can be tried.’
‘By force?’
‘Why not?’
‘But force only breeds force.’
‘Words! my dear lady. It’s force when you prune a tree, but what that produces is fruit.’
‘It does me good to talk to you. I don’t know why.’
‘I have waited long to make your acquaintance. We were destined to meet, sooner or later.’
‘You’ve seen my work?’
‘I’ve seen you nine times this season.’
‘Do you like me better when I’m Greek or when I’m Christian?’
‘You are never wholly either. You are a woman Dionysus.’
‘When a woman Dionysus really does appear it will bring all our misery to an end.’
‘By bewitching us into thinking it isn’t misery?’
‘By undermining misery with tragedy.’
‘Ah! you separate those two; so do I. That’s where Cathy and I quarrel. She enjoys the sentiment of misery and loathes its boredom. I am never miserable.’
‘What are you, Ivan Karmakoff?’
‘I am never happy. I know that. And I am never unhappy. I am a person who works and plays.’
‘Is our dear Catharine part of the play?’
‘You know the answer to that, or you wouldn’t ask it! Catharine and I belong to two different worlds.’
‘And we belong to the same world?’
‘You will always be a symbol to me; of what I live for.’
‘And that is?’
‘To bring a little order into chaos.’
‘I am the most chaotic person in creation.’
‘You are the greatest artist in America.’
‘What’s the use of being that if no one understands me?’
‘Doesn’t Storm understand you?’
‘I’m afraid my Richard lives in the same world as your Catharine. Poor darlings! They are both children.’
‘Where and when have you and I talked like this before?’
‘In Nineveh probably, or in Carthage.’
‘Do you believe that kind of thing?’
‘I didn’t — an hour ago.’
‘Don’t bring me into your play, my friend. I belong to your work.’
‘You belong to the object of my work.’
‘Where did you get those woman’s eyes from? I shall think of them when I dance next week.’
‘Neither of us is pure woman or pure man. That’s why we understand each other.’
‘What are we?’
‘We’re messengers of the forgotten gods.’
‘We ought to give the password, then — the secret sign.’
‘We’ve given that already.’
‘Have we? Without knowing it?’
‘We are messengers. We know nothing.’
‘I thought when I first saw you just now, that you were the most brutal materialist I’d ever met.’
‘I thought you were the most unhappy woman I’d ever met.’
‘Now we have been flung together we must say everything.’
‘And prove our kinship?’
‘And make the sign of the meeting of messengers.’
‘And leave our play for a day and a night?’
‘How can we do that, Ivan Karmakoff?’
‘Dare you, if I dare? An interlude, a resting place.’
‘I thought you were the most cynical realist I’d ever seen.’
‘I thought your mouth had the look of a thing hunted by dogs; a torn mouth, a bleeding mouth, a mouth of suffering.’
‘Did you try to imagine what it would be like to heal that hurt?’
‘I imagined nothing. I knew that I had been sent for that.’
‘Because of our both being messengers?’
‘Because of our purpose. Because of the clearing up of chaos.’
‘What nonsense we’ve been talking, Ivan Karmakoff! These seagulls must think us the biggest prigs they’ve ever listened to.’
‘We have to get used to being thought prigs — by seagulls. The wild geese up there would understand us.’
‘No doubt they would! But I’m afraid our dear pair of tame geese back there wouldn’t! To come to a practical question. How are we to manage? How are we to see a little more of each other?’
‘Your new programme doesn’t begin until next week, does it?’
‘No, my friend. It doesn’t.’
‘When has Richard to go back?’
‘Tomorrow. But oh, dear me! let’s have none of this manoeuvring, you green-eyed savage! I’m not married to Richard and you’re not married to Catharine. Let’s go straight to our hotels, get my things and your things and take the train back to New York.’
‘And leave letters explaining everything?’
‘And leave letters explaining nothing! What’s the use of living in a modern city if you cannot live in a modern way? We’ll treat it simply as a joke. We’ll write humorously. It is a joke, you know. Why shouldn’t we go back to New York together? Richard has been telegraphing his wife that he was with you and Catharine. Well! He will be with Catharine!’
‘And he’ll go back with her to Nelly?’
‘Oh you know the lady too? I’ve just met her. She’s as pretty as a picture. But oh dear me! how English the poor dear is!’
‘I don’t think our gods have given us any message to the English.’
‘They’ve warned us to run away from them. And that’s what we’ll do.’
They both turned round at that, and surveyed the long line of sand and spindrift that lay behind them white and chilly, lit up by the November sun.
A darkly outlined breakwater, about a mile away, broke the line of their vision. Their companions had evidently not yet arrived at that point. The two reckless ones had walked so quickly during their strange dialogue that they were already out of reach of pursuit.
‘You’re sure you won’t worry about Catharine?’ remarked Elise as they made their way up from the sands to the board-walk above.
‘Not if you don’t worry about Storm,’ retorted Karmakoff.
They exchanged a glance of intimate understanding and allowed their eyes, which certainly had a queer resemblance in colour and expression, to meet and hold each other’s gaze.
‘The world would say we were following a funny road to our purpose,’ murmured the woman, as they threaded their way through the crowd.
‘You’re thinking of what I said about reducing chaos,’ responded the man. ‘But it’s only when you’ve got that ingredient in your own veins and are using it with your brain that you can do anything. To bottle up chaos doesn’t help. It has to be ridden on and bitted and bridled. Most people’s minds are burial grounds of that kind of thing, sprinkled with dead flowers. We’re not leaving our friends for the sake of pleasure. We’re leaving them for the sake of our work. We need one another at this juncture, Elise. Perhaps, later, it will be different!’