Why this one? Or that? How chosen?
Inexorable self, carried like the superfluous and tiresome piece of luggage which it is impossible to lose; franked with the customs’ stamp of every frontier, retrieved exasperatingly from the disaster where everything else is lost, companion of the dislocation of cancelled sailings and missed connections, witness of every catastrophe, survivor of all voyages and situations… I
FEELING more confidence in myself I was able to feel almost at home. At the university I met for the first time people who seemed to be of my own sort because their interests were like mine. These people could not be tigers, surely? They smiled at me, they wanted me for a friend; how could they be on the enemy side? I almost trusted them. But a barrier always stood between us, preventing friendship. I didn’t know what this barrier was. Sometimes I thought my mother’s shadow divided me from everything that went on in sunshine. I had only learnt how to be friends with shadows; it might be too late to learn the way of friendship in the sun.
Later I was thankful the barrier had not fallen. I found out that these people were not what they appeared; they were different from myself although they spoke a similar language. They were traitors who had betrayed their dark and magical origin for a cheap citizenship of the day. When I discovered this my confidence vanished, I felt afraid and ashamed. It was a terrible disappointment, a dreadful humiliation. When I saw how nearly I had been tricked into an alliance with traitors, I hid myself away in my secret room where no treacherous sight or sound could deceive me again.
HOW the summer country is with flowers. The simple country flowers, pure coloured and innocent, fill the air with their sweet freshness that is like a message telling everybody to be happy and good. Whether you go up on to the hills or down to the plain the fragrant message breathes all around you. Between the thymy aromatic cushions on the hillside, peals of harebells are soundlessly chiming. Under the burning green of the young beeches, bluebells spread a coolly translucent tide, and the wood anemones hold up their airy cups on stems as frail as the antennæ of moths. In the disused chalkpit at the foot of the hill the last primroses are lost in the long grass, together with wild white violets, themselves the colour of chalk. A small confetti of many-coloured stars trims the deserted track leading to the marshy fields where the plovers nest and fritillaries and king-cups stand up among the reeds. Milkmaids and cowslips share the meadows with daisies and buttercups; in the lanes, the hedges are spangled with dog-roses slowly turning pale in the sun.
As if to make sure that no one misses the goodwill that the flowers are everywhere distilling into the air, the birds have taken over responsibility for making their message vocal. Surely nobody could be impervious to the gay fountains of song that hundreds of invisible larks are spraying towards the sky? To say nothing about the music which comes from the thrush ambushed in lilacs, or the unearthly treble thread of the willow-wren.
The flowers and the birds between them, helped by the sun and the pleasant light breeze, have made a natural paradise which it is impossible to imagine as being invaded by anything evil or cruel or frightening or even sad. And to crown all this it must be a fête day as well. The low grey tower of the church, so old that it seems to have sunk into itself under the weight of the centuries, is now enlivened by the gaudy brightness of flags. Flags are fluttering over the vicarage and the manor and the school and the post office and out of the cottage windows.
The inn at the foot of the hill has other decorations besides the large flag the shadow of which dances over the grass outside. Wreaths and garlands of flowers, as well as fresh branches and coloured streamers, are fastened above and around the two open doors and the porch and the squat bow windows. Some agile person has even climbed up the pole of the inn sign and fastened a great loose bundle of honeysuckle to the iron scrolls supporting the board upon which a nameless rural artist has painted the likeness of some heraldic beast. The inn itself is a long low mellow building that seems to smile. And it’s quite right that it should have this smiling look because it’s the centre of all the gaiety, the headquarters, so to speak, of the message which the flowers and the birds have been spreading so diligently ever since the sun rose on this happy morning. Inside, a lively bustle of preparation is going on. Just now the doors set invitingly open don’t reveal much except high-backed settles and white sanded floors: but from time to time one catches a glimpse in the background of a figure hurrying past with a tray of good things, hams, cheeses, fruit, or a basket of crusty loaves hot from the oven, indications of the feast to be served later in the day.
At present all the activity centres out of doors, where a sort of impromptu pageant seems to be going on. Under the chestnut tree on the green a number of benches and tables have been set out, and here people are sitting with tankards of cider and ale, an audience for the panting, beaming maypole dancers with their whirling smocks and ribbons, and for the group of children who are singing a folksong in reedily cheerful disunison.
The black-coated clergyman, like an approving sheepdog, smiles at the innocent antics. And a party of local gentry also looks on from the platform festooned with meadowsweet and with white, pink and scarlet may.
To the left of the platform, among other young people, a girl in green shoes is holding a great dog on a leash plaited with vivid cords. It looks as if she and her companions, with whom she is laughing and talking, will have some part to play later on. They stand there together with faces of excited expectancy; and the dog seems to share their pleasure, as he flourishes his whiplike tail and prances in anticipation.
The children’s chorus falters unevenly to a close. Flushed and gasping, with a jingling of little bells at their ankles and wrists, the dancers laughingly troop away from the pole around which their variegated ribbons are left tightly twined. The audience claps, mugs are banged on the tables, a waitress in a check apron comes out carrying in both hands a huge foaming jug, the clergyman hurries here and there with directions and praise. For a minute or two the green is in confusion, before what must surely be the turn of the girl with the dog and her friends.
But she, all at once, at this critical moment becomes distrait. Her eyes wander. She is not looking any more at what’s taking place, but at something everyone else is too preoccupied to observe, a woman in black who is slowly coming towards the inn from the direction of the churchyard. Slowly but steadily the stranger comes on, unnoticed, and taking no notice of anything. She does not look right or left and her face is not seen. She walks as if meditating, with bowed head, and with hands loosely linked at the ends of her long black sleeves. In the sun a sapphire flashes blue on her finger: it is the only colour she wears anywhere about her. She slowly passes the green, making for the road that leads upwards into the hills
followed at a little distance by B, who lets the dog’s lead fall and, unobserved by her companions, slips away through the crowd, in the wake of that dark and impassive form.
Come, they said, the co-operators, the false ones. Come and sit with us tonight, we are having a friendly discussion (to fit the universe into pigeon-holes), quite informal of course, and a nice warm kiss, at sunrise, to finish the party. There will be a place waiting for you. And this sweet brew which contains soothing syrup is something to warm the cockles and to make you cosy. Let’s be cosy together. Draw the curtains. Make up the fire. Don’t look out of the window. Why do you want to look out? It’s dark and cold out there, so let’s settle down to be comfy and to discuss the shadow of Emerson’s Man.