Seven Tales and Alexander Read online

  It happened that, one evening, as he stood listening to her sing the song, ‘Now doth my heart, imprisoned, burst its bonds for thee,’ something seemed to melt in his breast. In a sort of exaltation, he never ceased gazing at her. Afterwards, he recalled all that had passed with eternal wonder at himself, and his sleep was broken for thinking of her.

  When the time of the first performance approached, he felt he bore a curious, worshipping kind of love towards this girl. He remained quiet and secretive about this, watching only for the first sign of understanding or acknowledgement in her without ever speaking a word.

  At last the playbills were out. The name of the girl was displayed in larger and heavier type than the rest. He would read her name—‘Lucia’—in all the shops as he drove to market.

  William implored Isabel not to attend the first performance of the play. ‘Please don’t be there. Come to the matinée instead. I shall be so terribly nervous,’ he said.

  And since he seemed nervous even at the dress rehearsal, Isabel agreed not to go.

  He arrived early at the theatre. After sorting out his monk’s costume, he sat down on a property-basket and thought, seriously and for the first time, of speaking to the girl. As to what he wanted to say to her, he was not at all clear. He would, he thought, express some kind of appreciation of her wonderful talent. He rehearsed a private and very earnest speech to her. He trembled even as he muttered aloud some rigmarole of stumbling flattery. He made a fool of himself even in the privacy of the dressing-room. But he did not care. If he had no illusions as to the loveliness and talent of the girl, he thought, he need have none about the wisdom of speaking.

  Presently the rest of the actors arrived and began to dress. The thought of the girl never left him. He took up a pair of black flesh-tights and drew them on, and tied them about his fat belly.

  Soon, completely garbed, he left the room. He must be made up; his wig must be found. Then, as he shuffled past the wings, he came upon two figures conversing in low tones. One was a woman; her perfume reached him with overpowering sweetness. Trying to discover who they were, he tripped over his long brown habit as he passed, and the low, bee-like voice of the young actress called out after him:

  ‘I say, Brother Bono, don’t be in a hurry. Let’s look at you.’

  In his confusion he felt foolish and a little mean, as if discovered in some disgraceful act. When the girl turned him about he wanted to protest, but he only gazed intently at the magnificent dress of green silk with edges of silvery, glistening sequins reaching to her ankles and the pure white fan in her hands. Of that earnest and flattering speech he had composed in the dressing-room he could remember nothing. He did not smile in return in response to a compliment paid him by the Duke, her companion, and he was relieved when Lucia declared at last:

  ‘Yes, you make a splendid monk. Now go along and let them make you up.’

  So he shuffled away. ‘If only they had made me the Duke,’ he could not help thinking, and his mind grew wretched with wild conjecture.

  Painted up and wearing a wig which made his head look like a yellow bladder with a fringe of horsehair he made a more excellent monk than he himself had ever dreamed. When he wrapped his arms in his sleeves and stared lugubriously at himself in the glass, he saw a squat, humbugging lay brother, and the sight hurt him. So he closed his eyes and tried to forget himself and the foolish way he had spied on the young girl.

  He remained like this until the play began. Then, amid much noise of orchestra and singing, of actors and actresses whispering in the passages and rustling their strange costumes, he shuffled to the wings to watch the girl act. She acted magnificently, singing as sweetly as a May-thrush after rain. The house clamoured for her. When she bowed and smiled at the end of the act his whole frame softened in a sort of proud, lovable admiration of her.

  During the interval he had an inspiration. He would take her a cup of coffee and, as she drank it, speak his thoughts upon her acting and her singing. He seized a cup and ran hither and thither with it in his hands, spilling the coffee on his habit, his shoes, his hands, on chairs and property-baskets. But she had vanished and he dare not ask for her. At last, when the remaining half of the coffee had grown cold, he put it under a chair and crept away.

  It became rapidly more and more agonising to wait for the last act—that scene in which he visited the girl in prison, wept at that touching despair she conveyed so admirably in the song, ‘Now doth my heart, imprisoned, burst its bonds for thee,’ and then, drying his tears on his sleeve, made his light-hearted jokes about the outer world and gave her the keys to escape. He sat morose and introspective. Now, frequently, he wished the play were over.

  Then his cue came. Although he had stood in readiness for half an hour, he was taken by surprise. He tumbled on to the stage more like a clown than a monk, and was greeted by a burst of irrelevant laughter, which, dying down, made silence for the ecstasy of longing and beatitude which seized the girl as she began to sing. His mouth dropped open. Suddenly the unexpected strength of her utterance, and at the same time its dulcet tenderness, affected him so much that, in reality and without warning, he burst into tears. His self-control vanished. Through his tears the audience appeared a bluish bank of mist. The girl herself floated about him like some extraordinary pale green ghost.

  He stumbled forward, drying his tears in readiness to give her the keys. The audience was much moved.

  ‘Who are you?’ shrieked the girl in tones of most admirable terror.

  She shrank away; but presently she came so near that he breathed her perfumes, saw the shining ivory blackness of her painted brows and the shadowiness between her half-covered breasts. Suddenly these things seemed to reduce him to the depths of an imbecile hopelessness. He began to stammer. He had a frog in his throat. His tongue was like glass-paper. And then, worst of all, he forgot the lines he could once repeat so well. His mind became no more than an empty eggshell. He began, his eyes large and doleful, to stare this way and that and fumble with the cord of his habit. The irrelevant laughter which had first greeted him began to run in tiny ripples about the audience again. The girl herself was staring at him with indignant eyes. Whispers came from the prompter. Then, when everything seemed quite lost and hopeless, the unfortunate man invented some lines.

  They, too, were hopeless.

  The young actress was infuriated. He knew from the repeated glances of scorn she gave him and from her cruel, pinching embrace in return for the keys that he had offended her irrevocably.

  He fled to the dressing-room. Hiding his fat face in his greasy hands, he called himself a fool, a hopeless, idiotic failure. Repelled by a strong aroma of cocoa-butter, he raised his face from his hands, and, looking up, he saw for a second time the crass, humbugging face of the monk staring sheepishly back at him, and he sickened in disgust for himself.

  Presently, utterly humble, he began to have some notion of apologising to the girl. He went out to seek her.

  It happened that she was just then returning from the stage. The play was over and the players, much relieved, were shouting and laughing to each other. The centre of everything was the young actress, who was surrounded with many triumphant baskets of cream, red, mauve and yellow blossoms and boxes knotted with ribbons. She was screaming with happiness. As he saw her his heart shrank like a pea in winter and the hopeless folly of trying to speak with her overcame him. And he crept away.

  Taking off his monk’s garb, which he now hated, he dressed himself, and, without seeing her again, drove home. Persistently and unmercifully he maligned and reproached himself. At the thought of the two remaining performances of the play he was nauseated and felt he could never face them. His acting was hopeless; he himself was hopeless.

  There were lights at the farm. Isabel had waited up for him.

  ‘William!’ she cried, and she embraced him joyfully.

  Suddenly the four girls, unable to sleep for excitement, tumbled downstairs and embraced him also. He gazed at the
m sorrowfully, without a word.

  Thinking he must be acting, they all cried out: ‘Oh! just like a monk. Oh! isn’t it just like a monk?’

  He merely kept on looking at them in the same way.

  ‘And how was it?’ they all suddenly wanted to know. ‘Did it go off well? Did they applaud you? Was it good?’

  ‘Yes, it was very good.’

  ‘And you? Were you a success?’ they clamoured.

  ‘Yes,’ he murmured.

  Only by lying could he defend and soothe himself. Something thick and warm fell about his heart if he lied.

  Suddenly the four girls took hands with their mother and began to dance about him, their frowsy nightgowns flying out like crinolines.

  ‘Good old Daddy! Bravo!’ they shouted. ‘Daddy’s done it! We knew you would—we knew you would!’

  All at once they ceased dancing and began to applaud him furiously. He did not know what to do. He felt the smart of tears on his face and could not look at the children.

  Then, suddenly, not knowing how else to cover his confusion, he began to bow, gravely and with a trace of weariness, as he had often done at Christmas-time, smiling in a strained way as if indeed he had been some real jeune premier, very bored and very successful, at the height of his triumph.

  The Peach-Tree: A Fantasy

  Every afternoon, after their grandfather had covered his face with his bandana handkerchief, the children went down the long, sloping path to play under the peach-tree at the bottom of the garden. Their three little heads bobbed up and down and lost themselves in the bright spring grass as they ran. Their feet sounded like tiny drums, and over everything echoed their voices, like the calling of birds across water.

  Because it grew in a hollow the children never saw the peach-tree until they were almost near enough to touch its boughs. Sometimes, as they ran through the grass, they would pause, and look at themselves and ask: ‘Is it gone?’ And then gaze at each other with round eyes, as if to say: ‘What if it’s there no longer?’ But day after day they ran suddenly into the hollow where, sheltered by the high stone wall running behind, it waited for them with its slender arms outstretched, but never weary, as if ready to bless them.

  At the sight of it the children would not speak, but to themselves they thought, ‘It’s here, it’s here! How silly we were!’

  And the hollow over which the peach-tree reigned like a young green king would take them into its bosom.

  Here was the beginning of a change for them. In the garden and the house, even after their grandfather had covered his face with his great handkerchief, their sweet voices were never still. They would call to each other as if from one star to another, and laugh and clap their hands. But the moment their feet touched the grass under the peach-tree they changed, their voices grew very soft, as if not to disturb the blossoms sleeping so lightly above, and laughter crept into their eyes.

  It was so sudden a change that for a long time they were silent, kneeling and sitting in the grass without moving. When at last they got to their feet it was softly and with care, as if the peach-tree had cast a spell over them. It seemed to them they must think, and speak, and act and dream, just as the tree did.

  They grew to love the tree more and more. Sometimes it seemed to them full of dreams, sometimes of awakenings, and day after day its light, slender arms were outstretched for them.

  Then one day they found that the peach-tree had changed too. They stood on the edge of the hollow with breathless delight and gazed at it. ‘It’s turned, it’s changed!’ they cried. They tried to touch it with their hands.

  The peach-tree had blossomed. All its little awakenings and dreams, all its whispers seemed to have come into this single awakening. It was one pale cloud of blossom; a mass of delicate pink snow against the grass; a crowd of the palest fingers against the blue sky. To the children it had for the first time the gift of laughter. They had heard its whispers and sighs before. But these new sounds, these airy, silvery notes which it seemed came from the throats of the blossoms themselves, they caught as one catches at a new and more lovely voice.

  Day after day it had its blossoming arms outstretched for them. At the height of its flowering it seemed to sing to them. Early bees sang, too. For days its blossoms rose up in the bright air, delicate but strong, pale but unfading, airy and yet never floating away.

  Then one afternoon the blossoms began to fall on the grass at the children’s feet. All that day the children laughed and tried to catch them as they fell—and all the next day and the next. On the grass the blossoms were like pink snow. The children built castles and towers with them and blew them away.

  But soon there came a day when the peach-tree changed again. It seemed to the children that the hollow where it grew was full of tears, things that to them were faded and ugly, bringing them thoughts which made their lips and eyes lose their brightness. As they sat down on the grass and looked up into the arms of the peach-tree, no longer like a cloud of pinkish snow, no more like a crowd of quivering fingers against the sky, they were quiet and sad.

  Not only the children, but the tree itself seemed sad at this loss. It bent over them heavily and silently, as if trying to tell them this or as if reproaching its weary self for having let all its loveliness slip away.

  But the children understood nothing of this. They only knew that the fragrant and delicate beauty of the tree had fallen to the ground, that it was dying there, and would never rise again; they only knew that the blossoms were no longer things which sang to them.

  Nevertheless, every afternoon after their grandfather had put his bandana handkerchief over his face, they still came and played under the peach-tree. They were not so happy, but still their voices were softer and their eyes more joyful than elsewhere. Only their long silences seemed to reproach the tree.

  At last, when it seemed that one of their silences must last for ever, the two older children got to their feet and said:

  ‘We are tired of sitting here always.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked the other. He was very small.

  The boy did not hear; the girl answered for him:

  ‘Along by the wall—as far as we can see, until we can go no further.’

  The little boy put chin in his hands and spoke softly:

  ‘I’m not coming. You can go.’

  They made no answer. Without moving his head the boy watched the other children go from beneath the peach-tree into the sunshine. He listened for the sound of their feet in the grass. Soon he guessed they had gone far along by the wall, where in summer-time nettles and thistles and mallow grew thickly about the feet of the hollyhocks and half the wall was hidden. He saw it all very clearly. His little blue eyes shone with thought. Now and then he listened. But only silence came from that part of the garden where they had gone.

  II

  That afternoon, as on all other afternoons, the boy sat and let his fancy play under the beautiful slender arms of the peach-tree. He sat deep in thought, while above him the tree seemed to hang with especial care, as though not wanting to lose him. All the time it seemed to be straining itself to put forward some new wonder.

  The boy did not notice this. He was content with the memory of the tree as a cloud of snow, as a host of quivering fingers. He liked to linger over its gentle perfume as it had reached him day after day.

  Suddenly, in the heart of these dreams, he heard the voices of the other children returning. They bounded wildly towards him through the long grasses, stumbling, panting with excitement and laughter.

  They fell breathlessly in the grass at his side. Their words ran over each other.

  ‘Such wonderful things—trees with flowers on, ever so wonderful—red and purple and orange. And in the grass—in the grass, stones, red and green, sparkling—you’d never believe! Trees so high you can’t see their tops—and birds with long blue tails and scarlet eyes and green wings. They’re like butterflies—only the butterflies settle on your head and tickle your eyes with thei
r wings. And then—oh! then there’s a pool, a long way inside, right under the darkest trees—and in it you can see the shadows of things that aren’t there. Really, really—it’s true! They move and change—all colours—and the fruits on the trees don’t taste like themselves, but like one another. Oh! it’s strange—it’s lovely—it goes on and on—we never got to the end!’

  To the boy their voices were strange. He gazed at them through all this with large eyes, not understanding. At last he murmured:

  ‘Where have you been?—what have you found?’

  They buried their faces in the grass again.

  ‘The garden! the garden—it’s sweet, it’s wonderful. You must come! We never got to the end, but we shall, we shall!’

  He had only one cry. ‘Where? Where?’

  The children glanced at each other—their voices fell to a whisper. They waved their hands carelessly. ‘We couldn’t tell you, it’s so strange. We can only take you.’

  The boy did not move. The other children tried to lift him to his feet.

  He protested a little: ‘No, no!’ and they let him fall again.

  Their voices were still excited and wondrous. ‘Oh! the trees—there were such blossoms—such fruit!’ they cried.

  Without saying anything the boy thought solemnly: ‘Not more wonderful than the peach-tree.’

  He dared not say this. In silence he listened to the other children talking wildly of the scented, blossoming garden which had given them such new and marvellous thoughts, and of which the secret was to them more precious than the peach-tree even at the time when it was like a cloud of snow.