Barry Pain

“ Maurice laughed. “Ah, Marjorie, you and I will be one, and you are more beautiful, and clever, and better than any one in the world. That is how I shall have a right to come into my own beautiful house. We will trouble ourselves with no theories about anything. We will not get excited about anything; an excited man always has been, or will be, dull. We will make life one long, gentle enjoyment.” ”

“ THE ENTERTAINMENTS OF KAPNIDES. ON quiet days, when no wind blows, my canoe is particularly restful. It has perfect sympathy with the weather. It creeps down slowly to King’s, leans itself against the bank, and thinks. Then, later in the afternoon, it bears the organ humming in the chapel—a faint, sweet sound which produces religious exaltation; and it becomes necessary to wrestle with the canoe, because it desires to fly away and be at rest. It is owing to this rhythmic alternation of laziness and spirituality in the boat that I have given it the name which is blazoned on its bows—Zeitgeist. ”

“ One bird called to another; every now and then there was a flutter among the leaves, or the quick rustle of some small live thing in the tall grasses and brushwood below, and a scented wind kept singing of a land of rest where the good winds go when they die. From far away one could hear the low roar of a lion, as he stood by the margin of the distant morass, looking over stretches of sand and spaces of still water to the line of grey hills that seemed to be the end of the world. ”

“ You think that you exist; that everything is real. How do you know that it is so? When you dream, you imagine that the dream is quite real; but you wake up and find that you are wrong. Now suppose the something one day had a thought, that went through a million optical delusions, a billion ghosts, and a trillion dreams——”
“It’s not a bit of good,” interpolated Mary. “I can’t imagine numbers like that.”
“That thought might ultimately take the form of this world, of which I, Thomas, the beetle, am a considerable part. There is nothing impossible about that. ”

“ I am afraid that dead beetle lied.”
“Maurice,” said Marjorie suddenly, “sometimes a thought flashes across my mind that in a minute I may be dead. I don’t know even what life and death mean; yet I have to live and die. There are stars above me, but I do not know why they are there. There are beasts, and birds, and insects everywhere, and I do not know how important they are. ”

“ Her half-sister, Julia, had the opposite knack of hating nearly everybody. Julia was old and unmarried, and had a wonderful tongue; she dressed perfectly, had snowy hair, a kind face, a sweet smile, gentle ways, and a perfectly venomous disposition. Marjorie did not like her Aunt Julia. She did not like Miss Matthieson much better—a sentimental woman. Miss Dean was too chilly a person to like exactly; Marjorie respected her sometimes. But she did like Maurice, and she liked the music that he was playing now. ”

“ There was silence.
“I want to know if beetles are as good as men. Are they? Are they better than men? Are there better things than we ever think of doing, which we might do if it was only possible to think of them? Do tell me. I won’t tell anybody, except Maurice and mamma, if she asks me, but she won’t. You might tell me—it’s quite safe.”
There was only silence; but then it has been proved already that silence is a beetle’s method of speech. Perhaps the spirit of Thomas was there and answered her; perhaps it was elsewhere; perhaps Thomas never had a spirit. ”

“ As a boy I was so brave and bright that every one loved me; in my manhood my courage appals me. I feel that one day it will carry me too far.
As I climbed hand-over-hand up the side of the Zeitgeist at the Silver Street Docks, an old, old sailor stepped up to me. “Young stranger,” he said, “you will not attempt to make King’s Bridge on such a day as this? It would be madness. The boldest of us dare not.” ”

“ In his dream he had been equal to the occasion—taken the plunge, rescued the girl, and been welcomed with praise and honour, and he had walked back through the streets of Athens feeling more happy than a god. Suddenly he awoke and recalled the facts. The girl whom he had loved [110] was dead—dead through his own cowardice. It was such loathly cowardice that he shuddered to think of it. All men would hate him, and yet their hatred would be nothing to his own hatred for himself. ”

“ Zeus still stuck to the old-fashioned plan of punishing by deprivation. There was only one thing left to take away—the man’s belief in the gods. So he took that.
Suddenly number one hundred and three arose. There was a chill smile on his face, and he walked out into the courtyard, and looked at the rising sun. “I was mistaken,” he said. “There are no gods. All is as it chances. Good is chance and bad is chance. Nothing matters any more. I would die if I thought anything mattered. There are no more values. ”

“ I did not love you once as well as I love you now. I was half jealous because you seemed to like Euterpe better than you liked me, and because you were so beautiful. But I do love you now—I love you more than I can say. Oh, forgive me, Erato!”
Erato kissed her on the lips, and Terpsichore went back to her place, crying a little, for no particular reason, and hoping that no one noticed it, after the manner of maidens.
Suddenly Urania spoke, with a deep thrill in her voice. This was her story:—
There was once a man who was very careful. ”

“ Marjorie looked at it more closely, turning it over with the end of a penholder.
“Do you remember saying just now,” said Maurice, “that things which were different in one way were generally different in another? Beetles are different from us; they can’t do the same things; we despise them; they haven’t as good a time. Perhaps they can do things we don’t know anything about; perhaps they despise us; perhaps they are going to have a better time in some other world. What are all the stars for?” ”

“ There are none in any language that will tell you. I want names for things of which you know nothing—things which with men and women of your world do not exist. I should feel no shame in speaking to you of it, for there is no shame in our love. Your love is full of shame. ”

“ No, Erato, to these young men love is a disturbing influence; they avoid the maidens, and care only for a surer knowledge of Greek accentuation. When they have all gone to bed, you shall tell your story; great personages in history have fallen in love; I myself have no prejudice against it. But you may choose which of us shall tell the next story.”
Erato sighed, and glanced round the room. When her eyes fell on Euterpe her face brightened. And truly Euterpe was good to see: she had a wonderful grace of body, and fresh gladness in her eyes ”

“ Most certainly not!” said Clio at once. “You must remember, Erato, that this is not the Greek civilisation. The English have got beyond that: they have advanced; they sweep through the deep while the stormy winds do blow, and hearts of oak are their men, and they’d take a cup o’ kindness yet on the place where the old hoss died. I make these last remarks on the authority of their own favourite songs, of which I have made a special study for my book on National Misfortunes. I assure you, Erato, that any University paper which printed your story would be ruined.” ”

“ And, of course, being alone, you can’t. And so you get sorrowful. It’s queer, because there’s nothing about love in all that—the music, and quiet, and darkness—to make one think about it; but one always does—at least I do.”
“My dear Erato!” remonstrated Clio.
“Well, I do. Euterpe shall sing to us now. I don’t mind a song that can be sung in a drawing-room—it’s the drawing-room song that I hate. But Euterpe knows all about it, and she sings beautifully, and she’s very pretty—and yet she’s shy.” ”

“ You may take my word for it that a Canadian canoe knows a thing or two.
I wish I could paint the song of the birds and set the beauty of the trees to music. But there is a prejudice against it. Music is masculine, Art is feminine, and Poetry is their child. The baby Poetry will play with any one; but its parents observe the division of sexes. That is why Nature is so decent and pleasant. ”

“ All the Muses drank nectar except Melpomene. She had a look of intense gloom, and she drank blood-and-seltzer from a very large tumbler with a very bad curse cut in Greek characters on the margin of it. Before Cupid handed her glass to Erato, he just touched it with his own lips. Then he sat down by Erato’s side, playing with her long hair. “Erato,” he said, “I would like to wrap your beautiful dark hair all around me, and go to sleep. There’s a faint scent of those yellow roses about it, and it’s awfully soft and warm. I love you, Erato.”
“You ought to love all of us,” said Clio reprovingly. ”

“ We climbed up on to the table in front of the window. ‘Now then,’ he said, ‘you must keep hold of my fore-leg, or you’ll fall.’ We didn’t fly or walk; we floated out of the window, and then upwards, going very quickly and steadily, as if a wind were blowing us. As we were floating up, the beetle’s head changed till it became just like Aunt Julia’s. ‘Marjorie’s an unnatural child,’ it said in Aunt Julia’s voice. ‘She doesn’t care for dolls—doesn’t care for anything except music and Maurice.’”
Maurice had an unworthy and needless impression that the girl was making some of this up. ”

“ Sometimes he made good resolutions and tried to lead a fine life; then the gods dug one another in the ribs, and rolled about Olympus gasping with laughter. They knew very well that they had taken unusual pains about that man’s physical composition; they had afflicted him with several hereditary taints; they knew that he might make enough good resolutions to pave the whole of—well, Westminster Abbey, and that it was a physical impossibility that he should keep any of them. “Let this man,” one of the gods had said to Zeus, shortly before the failure was born, “be cowardly, sensual, and brutal.” ”

“ A curtain at the side of the room was flung aside, and in came a little winged boy, with laughing eyes, naked but for the quiver that hung from the shoulders. He does a good deal for the Muses, but not in a menial way. They all smiled when he came in. He stood by the side of Erato, who evidently petted him a good deal, drawing one strand of her dark hair through his little rosy fingers—but he was looking at Clio.
“Cupid,” said the grave Muse, “we would stay here: let the wind blow our cloud no farther.” He nodded his head, turned to go, and then lingered, still playing with Erato’s hair. ”

“ It was all nonsense, you know, and yet it was the realest dream I ever had in my life.”
“Stop a minute. You had some coffee in the drawing-room, and that kept you awake for a long time, you turned about from side to side, and thought about the beetle. Your bedroom seemed hot and stifling.”
“Yes, that’s all true—how did you know, Maurice?—but it has not got anything to do with it.”
“Marjorie, if you’d never had that coffee, you’d have never had that dream. Now, then, let’s hear it. I’ll try to keep awake, but walking always makes me sleepy.” ”

“ And she called to the young man, saying, “’Enry, cummere. ’Ere’s a boat.”
Then they staggered slowly away, and took my exaltation with them. Just as I was getting a little better, the wind set in the wrong direction, and I heard her say some of it over again.
There is magic in the words. They set a man thinking of his past, his bills, and things which he has done and wishes he had left undone. All at once it seems as if it were going to rain. The wind turns colder. The cushions of the canoe change to brickbats. ”

“ When the light dies behind the stained windows, and the music speaks, and through the open doors you can smell the syringa-bushes, then—for some reason that I know not—it is more easy to think oneself a sinner and to wish one were not. ”

“ Then he delivered himself upon this wise:
“It is well known that much exercise and weariness consume the spirits and substance, refrigerate the body; and such humours which nature would have otherwise concocted and expelled, it stirs up and makes them rage; which, being so enraged, diversely affect and trouble the body and mind.” ”

“ Marjorie, if the good people hadn’t been good, I should have liked goodness.’”
“But who were Mary and the Dear Friend?” asked Maurice.
“I don’t know any more than you do. I don’t think he liked the Dear Friend very much; sometimes he seemed to hate Mary, and sometimes he seemed to love her and pity her. Now do you know what he told me? He said positively that all beetles believed that they had souls which never died, and that the sun, and stars, and everything were made for them alone. They believed that men, and other animals, had no souls at all. ”

“ That sort of thing couldn’t possibly make anybody love anybody, you know. It’s rather queer,” she continued meditatively, “but one goes out at night all alone, and it’s quiet, and a lot of little stars show you how big the darkness is. You’re thinking just about ordinary things; and without any reason there comes into your head a bit of one of the Nocturnes—Chopin’s, the eleventh, I think—and straightway you feel as if you’ll die unless you kiss somebody you’re awfully fond of. ”

“ I can only speak to you as a woman to a man, but I do not look at you as a woman would. She would see only a poor little schoolmaster, not very beautiful, rather sleepy-headed, in a dress-suit much too tight for him. I too can see that. But I see also a life that long ago came out into the darkness hand-in-hand with mine. ”

“ I do not think Clio can have noticed what had happened, for she said briskly:
“And now, Erato, we will have your story. The young men in Cambridge must be all in bed and asleep, so it won’t hurt them. You must not spoil it by leaving anything out. Let it be the story of you and the shepherd, you know—and don’t——”
“Clio, Clio,” said Euterpe quickly, “can’t you see that Erato is ill? Please go on quickly, and let Calliope tell her story. When that is finished, Erato will be all right again. She has been worrying herself.” ”