Section twenty three. He began very cautiously to open his eyes to see whether
a gramophone was really there. But real things, real things were too exciting.
He must be cautious, he would not go mad. First he looked
at the fashion papers on the lower shelf, then gradually at the grandphone with
the green trumpet. Nothing could be more exact, and so, gathering courage,
he looked at the sideboard, the plate of bananas, the engraving of
Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort, at the mantelpiece with the jar of roses.
None of these things moved, all were still, All were real.
She is a woman with a spiteful tongue, said Ruscha. What does mister
Peters do, Septimus asked, Ah, said RuSHA, trying to remember,
she thought missus Filmer had said that he traveled for some company. Just now
he is in Hull, she said, just now. She said that with
her Italian accent, she said that to herself. He shaded his eyes so
that he might see only a little of her face at a time, first
the chin, then the nose, then the forehead, in case it were
deformed or had some terrible mark on it. But no there. She was
perfectly natural, sewing with the pursed lips that women have, the set the
melancholy expression when sewing. But there was nothing terrible about it, he assured
himself, looking a second time a third time at her face, her hands,
for what was frightening or disgusting in her? As she sat there in
broad daylight sewing, Missus Peters had a spiteful tongue. Mister Peters was in
Hull, Why then rage and prophesy? Why flies scourged and outcast? Why
be made to tremble and sob by the clouds? Why seek truths and deliver
messages? When Rieshia sat sticking pins into the front of her dress, and
mister Peters was in Hull, miracles, revelations, agonies, loneliness, falling
through the sea, down down into the flames, all were burnt out.
For he had a sense as he watched Rieshia trimming the straw hat Missus Peters
of a coverlet of flowers. It's too small for Missus Peters, said Septimus,
for the first time for days. He was speaking as he used to
do. Of course, it was absurdly small, she said, But Missus
Peters had chosen it. He took it out of her hands. He said
it was an organ grind as monkey's hat. How it rejoiced her that not
for weeks had they laughed like this together, poking fun privately like married people.
What she meant was that if Missus Filmer had come in, or Missus
Peters or anybody, they would not have understood what she and Septimus were laughing
at. There, she said, pinning a rose to one side of the
hat. Never had she felt so happy, never in her life. But
that was still more ridiculous, Septimus said. Now the poor woman looked like
a pig at affair. Nobody ever made her laugh as Septimus did. What
had she got in her workbox? She had ribbons and beads, tassels,
artificial flowers. She tumbled them out on the table. He began putting odd
collars together, For though he had no fingers, could not even do up
a parcel, he had a wonderful eye, and often he was right,
sometimes absurd, of course, but sometimes wonderfully right. She shall have a
beautiful hat, he murmured, taking up this and that. Risha kneeling by
his side, looking over his shoulder. Now it was finished, that is
to say, the design. She must stitch it together. But she must
be very, very careful, he said, to keep it just as he
had made it. So she sewed. When she sewed, he thought,
she made a sound like a kettle on the hob, bubbling, murmuring,
always busy, her strong, little pointed fingers, pinching and poking, her
needle flashing straight. The sun might go in and out on the tassels on
the wallpaper. But he would wait, he thought, stretching out his feet,
looking at his ringed sock at the end of the sofa. He would
wait in this warm place, the pocket of still air which one comes on
at the edge of a wood, sometimes in the evening, when because of
a fall in the ground or some arrangement of the trees. One must be
scientific above all, scientific. Warmth lingers, and the air buffets the cheek
like the wing of a bird. There, it is, said Riescha,
twirling missus Peter's hat on the tips of her fingers. That'll do for the
moment. Later, her sentence bubbled away, drip drip, drip, like
a contented tap left drying. It was wonderful. Never had he done anything
which made him feel so proud. It was so real, it was so
substantial, Missus Peter's hat. Just look at it, he said, Yes,
it would always make her happy to see that hat. He had become
himself. Then he had laughed, Then they had been alone together. Always
she would like that hat. He told her to try it on. But
I must look so queer, she cried, running over to the glass and
looking first this side, then that. Then she snatched it off again,
for there was a tap at the door. Could it be Sir William Bradshaw,
Had he sent all red? No, it was only the small girl
with the evening paper. What always happened, then happened, what happened every
night of their lives. The small girl sucked her thumb at the door.
Riescha went down on her knees. Recha cooed and kissed. Riesha got a
bag of sweets out of the table drawer. For so it always happened,
first one thing, then another. So she built it up, first one
thing and then another, dancing, skipping round and round the room they went.
He took the paper. Surrey was all out, he read, there
was a heat wave. Riesha repeated, Surrey was all out. There was
a heat wave, making it part of the game. She was playing with
Missus Filmer's grandchild, both of them laughing, chattering at the same time at
their game. He was very tired, he was very happy. He would
sleep. He shut his eyes, but directly he saw nothing. The sounds
of the game became fainter and stranger, and sounded like the cries of people
seeking and not finding, and passing further and further away. They had lost
him. He started up in terror. What did he see? The plate
of bananas on the sideboard. Nobody was there. Risha had taken the child
to its mother. It was bedtime. That was it. To be alone
forever? That was the doom pronounced in Milan when he came into the room
and saw them cutting out buckram shapes with their scissors. To be alone forever.
He was alone with the sideboard and the bananas. He was alone,
exposed on this black eminence stretched out, But not on a hilltop, not
on a crag, on Missus Filmer's sitting room sofa. As for the visions,
the faces, the voices of the dead, where were they? There
was a screen in front of him with black bullrushes and blue swallows. Where
he had once seen mountains, where he had seen faces, where he had
seen beauty. There was a screen, Evans, he cried, There was
no answer. A mouse had squeaked, or a curtain rustled. Those were
the voices of the dead. The screen, the coal scuttle, the sideboard
to him. Let him then face the screen, the coal scuttle, and
the sideboard. But Risha burst into the room, chattering some letter had come.
Everybody's plans were changed. Missus Filmore would not be able to go to
Brighton after all. There was no time to let Missus Williams know. And
really, Resha thought it very, very annoying. When she caught sight of
the hat and thought perhaps she might just make a little her voice died out
in contented melody. Ah damn, she cried, It was a joke of
theirs, her swearing the needle had broken hat child Brighton needle. She built
it up, first one thing, then another. She built it up,
sewing. She wanted him to say whether by moving the rose she had improved
the hat. She sat on the end of the sofa. They were perfectly
happy now, she said, suddenly, putting the hat down, for she
could say anything to him now she could say whatever came into her head.
That was almost the first thing she had felt about him that night in the
cab when he had come in with his English friends. He had come in
rather shyly, looking round him, and his hat had fallen when he hung
it up. That she could remember, she knew he was English, though
not one of the large englishmen her sister admired for he was always thin,
but he had a beautiful fresh color, and with his big nose, his
bright eyes, his way of sitting a little hunched made her think she had
often told him of a young hawk. That first evening she saw him when
they were playing dominoes, and he had come in of a young hawk.
But with her he was always very gentle. She had never seen him wild
or drunk, only suffering sometimes through this terrible war. But even so when
she came in he would put it all away, anything in the whole world,
any little bother with her work, Anything that struck her to say,
she would tell him, and he understood at once. Her own family even
were not the same. Being older than she was, and being so clever,
how serious he was wanting her to reach Shakespeare before she could even read
a child's story in English. Being so much more experienced, he could help
her, and she too could help him. But to this hat now,
and then it was getting late, Sir William Bradshaw. She held her hands
to her head, waiting for him to say did he like the hat or
not? And as she sat there waiting, looking down, he could feel
her mind like a bird falling from branch to branch, and always alighting quite
rightly. He could follow her mind as she sat there in one of those
loose lax poses that came to her naturally. And if he should say anything
at once, she smiled, like a bird alighting with all its claws firm
upon the bough. But he remembered. Bradshaw said, the people we are
most fond of are not good for us when we are ill. Bradshaw said
he must be taught to rest. Bradshaw said, they must be separated,
must must? Why must? What power had Bradshaw over him? What right
has Bradshaw to say must to me? He demanded. It is because you
talked of killing yourself, said Rischa mercifully. She could now say anything to
Septimus, so he was in their power. Homes and Bradshaw were on him.
The brute with the red nostrils was snuffing into every secret place. Must
it could say? Where were his papers, the things he had written?
She brought him his papers, the things he had written, things she had
written for him. She tumbled them out on to the sofa. They looked
at them together, diagrams, designs, little men and women brandishing sticks for
arms, with wings were they on their backs. Circles traced round shillings and
sixpences, the suns and stars, zigzagging precipices with mountaineers ascending, roped together
exactly like knives and forks, sea pieces with little faces laughing out of what
might perhaps be waves, the map of the world. Burn them, he
cried. Now, for his writings, how the Dead sing behind rhododendron bushes,
odes to time, conversations with Shakespeare, Evans, Evans, Evans,
his messages from the Dead, do not cut down trees, tell the Prime
Minister universal love, the meaning of the world. Burn them, he cried.
But Risha laid her hands on them. Some were very beautiful. She
thought she would tie them up, for she had no envelope with a piece
of silk. Even if they took him, she said, she would go
with him. They could not separate them against their wills, she said.
End of Section twenty three, read by Hannah Drma, tenth of October twenty
twenty one.