’
‘Do you think it would be BORROWING if I took ten quid off you?
‘Do you think it would be BORROWING if I took ten quid off you?
Orwell - Keep the Apidistra Flying
He began to talk in obscene detail of his life in
Willowbed Road. He dilated on the smell of slops and cabbage, the clotted sauce-bottles
in the dining-room, the vile food, the aspidistras. He described his furtive cups of tea and
his trick of throwing used tea-leaves down the W. C. Ravelston, guilty and miserable, sat
staring at his glass and revolving it slowly between his hands. Against his right breast he
could feel, a square accusing shape, the pocket-book in which, as he knew, eight pound
notes and two ten-bob notes nestled against his fat green cheque-book. How awful these
details of poverty are! Not that what Gordon was describing was real poverty. It was at
worst the fringe of poverty. But what of the real poor? What of the unemployed in
Middlesbrough, seven in a room on twenty-five bob a week? When there are people
living like that, how dare one walk the world with pound notes and cheque-books in
one’s pocket?
‘It’s bloody,’ he murmured several times, impotently. In his heart he wondered — it was
his invariable reaction — whether Gordon would accept a tenner if you offered to lend it to
him.
They had another drink, which Ravelston again paid for, and went out into the street. It
was almost time to part. Gordon never spent more than an hour or two with Ravelston.
One’s contacts with rich people, like one’s visits to high altitudes, must always be brief.
It was a moonless, starless night, with a damp wind blowing. The night air, the beer, and
the watery radiance of the lamps induced in Gordon a sort of dismal clarity. He perceived
that it is quite impossible to explain to any rich person, even to anyone so decent as
Ravelston, the essential bloodiness of poverty. For this reason it became all the more
important to explain it. He said suddenly:
‘Have you read Chaucer’s Man of Lawe’s Tale? ’
‘The Man of Lawe’s Tale? Not that I remember. What’s it about? ’
‘I forget. I was thinking of the first six stanzas. Where he talks about poverty. The way it
gives everyone the right to stamp on you! The way everyone WANTS to stamp on you! It
makes people HATE you, to kn ow that you’ve no money. They insult you just for the
pleasure of insulting you and knowing that you can’t hit back. ’
Ravelston was pained. ‘Oh, no, surely not! People aren’t so bad as all that. ’
‘Ah, but you don’t know the things that happen! ’
Gordon did not want to be told that ‘people aren’t so bad’. He clung with a sort of painful
joy to the notion that because he was poor everyone must WANT to insult him. It fitted in
with his philosophy of life. And suddenly, with the feeling that he could not stop himself,
he was talking of the thing that had been rankling in his mind for two days past — the
snub he had had from the Dorings on Thursday. He poured the whole story out quite
shamelessly. Ravelston was amazed. He could not understand what Gordon was making
such a fuss about. To be disappointed at missing a beastly literary tea-party seemed to
him absurd. He would not have gone to a literary tea-party if you had paid him. Like all
rich people, he spent far more time in avoiding human society than in seeking it. He
interrupted Gordon:
‘Really, you know, you ought not to take offence so easily. After all, a thing like that
doesn’t really matter. ’
‘It isn’t the thing itself that matters, it’s the spirit behind it. The way they snub you as a
matter of course, just because you’ve got no money. ’
‘But quite possibly it was all a mistake, or something. Why should anyone want to snub
you? ’
‘“If thou be poure, thy brother hateth thee,”’ quoted Gordon perversely.
Ravelston, deferential even to the opinions of the dead, rubbed his nose. ‘Does Chaucer
say that? Then I’m afraid I disagree with Chaucer. People don’t hate you, exactly. ’
‘They do. And they’re quite right to hate you. You ARE hateful. It’s like those ads for
Listerine. “Why is he always alone? Halitosis is ruining his career. ” Poverty is spiritual
halitosis. ’
Ravelston sighed. Undoubtedly Gordon was perverse. They walked on, arguing, Gordon
vehemently, Ravelston deprecatingly. Ravelston was helpless against Gordon in an
argument of this kind. He felt that Gordon exaggerated, and yet he never liked to
contradict him. How could he? He was rich and Gordon was poor. And how can you
argue about poverty with someone who is genuinely poor?
‘And then the way women treat you when you’ve no money! ’ Gordon went on. ‘That’s
another thing about this accursed money business — women! ’
Ravelston nodded rather gloomily. This sounded to him more reasonable than what
Gordon had been saying before. He thought of Hermione Slater, his own girl. They had
been lovers two years but had never bothered to get married. It was ‘too much fag’,
Hermione always said. She was rich, of course, or rather her people were. He thought of
her shoulders, wide, smooth, and young, that seemed to rise out of her clothes like a
mermaid rising from the sea; and her skin and hair, which were somehow warm and
sleepy, like a wheatfield in the sun. Hermione always yawned at the mention of
Socialism, and refused even to read Antichrist. ‘Don’t talk to me about the lower classes,’
she used to say. ‘I hate them. They SMELL. ’ And Ravelston adored her.
‘Of course women ARE a difficulty,’ he admitted.
‘They’re more than a difficulty, they’re a bloody curse. That is, if you’ve got no money.
A woman hates the sight of you if you’ve got no money. ’
‘I think that’s putting it a little too strongly. Things aren’t so crude as all that. ’
Gordon did not listen. ‘What rot it is to talk about Socialism or any other ism when
women are what they are! The only thing a woman ever wants is money; money for a
house of her own and two babies and Drage furniture and an aspidistra. The only sin they
can imagine is not wanting to grab money. No woman ever judges a man by anything
except his income. Of course she doesn’t put it to herself like that. She says he’s SUCH
A NICE man — meaning that he’s got plenty of money. And if you haven’t got money
you aren’t NICE. You’re dishonoured, somehow. You’ve sinned. Sinned against the
aspidistra. ’
‘You talk a great deal about aspidistras,’ said Ravelston.
‘They’re a dashed important subject,’ said Gordon.
Ravelston rubbed his nose and looked away uncomfortably.
‘Look here, Gordon, you don’t mind my asking — have you got a girl of your own? ’
‘Oh, Christ! don’t speak of her! ’
He began, nevertheless, to talk about Rosemary. Ravelston had never met Rosemary. At
this moment Gordon could not even remember what Rosemary was like. He could not
remember how fond he was of her and she of him, how happy they always were together
on the rare occasions when they could meet, how patiently she put up with his almost
intolerable ways. He remembered nothing save that she would not sleep with him and
that it was now a week since she had even written. In the dank night air, with beer inside
him, he felt himself a forlorn, neglected creature. Rosemary was ‘cruel’ to him — that was
how he saw it. Perversely, for the mere pleasure of tormenting himself and making
Ravelston uncomfortable, be began to invent an imaginary character for Rosemary. He
built up a picture of her as a callous creature who was amused by him and yet half
despised him, who played with him and kept him at arm’s length, and who would
nevertheless fall into his arms if only he had a little more money. And Ravelston, who
had never met Rosemary, did not altogether disbelieve him. He broke in:
‘But I say, Gordon, look here. This girl, Miss — Miss Waterlow, did you say her name
was? — Rosemary; doesn’t she care for you at all, really? ’
Gordon’s conscience pricked him, though not very deeply. He could not say that
Rosemary did not care for him.
‘Oh, yes, she does care for me. In her own way, I dare say she cares for me quite a lot.
But not enough, don’t you see. She can’t, while I’ve got no money. It’s all money. ’
‘But surely money isn’t so important as all that? After all, there ARE other things. ’
‘What other things? Don’t you see that a man’s whole personality is bound up with his
income? His personality IS his income. How can you be attractive to a girl when you’ve
got no money? You can’t wear decent clothes, you can’t take her out to dinner or to the
theatre or away for week-ends, you can’t carry a cheery, interesting atmosphere about
with you. And it’s rot to say that kind of thing doesn’t matter. It does. If you haven’t got
money there isn’t even anywhere where you can meet. Rosemary and I never meet except
in the streets or in picture galleries. She lives in some foul women’s hostel, and my bitch
of a landlady won’t allow women in the house. Wandering up and down beastly wet
streets — that’s what Rosemary associates me with. Don’t you see how it takes the gilt off
everything? ’
Ravelston was distressed. It must be pretty bloody when you haven’t even the money to
take your girl out. He tried to nerve himself to say something, and failed. With guilt, and
also with desire, he thought of Hermione’s body, naked like a ripe warm fruit. With any
luck she would have dropped in at the flat this evening. Probably she was waiting for him
now. He thought of the unemployed in Middlesbrough. Sexual starvation is awful among
the unemployed. They were nearing the flat. He glanced up at the windows. Yes, they
were lighted up. Hermione must be there. She had her own latchkey.
As they approached the flat Gordon edged closer to Ravelston. Now the evening was
ending, and he must part from Ravelston, whom he adored, and go back to his foul lonely
bedroom. And all evenings ended in this way; the return through the dark streets to the
lonely room, the womanless bed. And Ravelston would say ‘Come up, won’t you? ’ and
Gordon, in duty bound, would say, ‘No. ’ Never stay too long with those you love —
another commandment of the moneyless.
They halted at the foot of the steps. Ravelston laid his gloved hand on one of the iron
spearheads of the railing.
‘Come up, won’t you? ’ he said without conviction.
‘No, thanks. It’s time I was getting back. ’
Ravelston’s fingers tightened round the spearhead. He pulled as though to go up, but did
not go. Uncomfortably, looking over Gordon’s head into the distance, he said:
‘I say, Gordon, look here. You won’t be offended if I say something? ’
‘What? ’
‘I say, you know, I hate that business about you and your girl. Not being able to take her
out, and all that. It’s bloody, that kind of thing. ’
‘Oh, it’s nothing really. ’
As soon as he heard Ravelston say that it was ‘bloody’, he knew that he had been
exaggerating. He wished that he had not talked in that silly self-pitiful way. One says
these things, with the feeling that one cannot help saying them, and afterwards one is
sorry.
‘I dare say I exaggerate,’ he said.
‘I say, Gordon, look here. Let me lend you ten quid. Take the girl out to dinner a few
times. Or away for the week-end, or something. It might make all the difference. I hate to
t hink —’
Gordon frowned bitterly, almost fiercely. He had stepped a pace back, as though from a
threat or an insult. The terrible thing was that the temptation to say ‘Yes’ had almost
overwhelmed him. There was so much that ten quid would do! He had a fleeting vision of
Rosemary and himself at a restaurant table — a bowl of grapes and peaches, a bowing
hovering waiter, a wine bottle dark and dusty in its wicker cradle.
‘No fear! ’ he said.
‘I do wish you would. I tell you I’d LIKE to lend it you. ’
‘Thanks. But I prefer to keep my friends. ’
‘Isn’t that rather — well, rather a bourgeois kind of thing to say?
’
‘Do you think it would be BORROWING if I took ten quid off you? I couldn’t pay it
back in ten years. ’
‘Oh, well! It wouldn’t matter so very much. ’ Ravelston looked away. Out it had got to
come — the disgraceful, hateful admission that he found himself forced so curiously often
to make! ‘You know, I’ve got quite a lot of money. ’
‘I know you have. That’s exactly why I won’t borrow off you. ’
‘You know, Gordon, sometimes you’re just a little bit — well, pigheaded. ’
‘I dare say. I can’t help it. ’
‘Oh, well! Good night, then. ’
‘Good night. ’
Ten minutes later Ravelston rode southwards in a taxi, with Hermione. She had been
waiting for him, asleep or half asleep in one of the monstrous armchairs in front of the
sitting-room fire. Whenever there was nothing particular to do, Hennione always fell
asleep as promptly as an animal, and the more she slept the healthier she became. As he
came across to her she woke and stretched herself with voluptuous, sleepy writhings, half
smiling, half yawning up at him, one cheek and bare arm rosy in the firelight. Presently
she mastered her yawns to greet him:
‘Hullo, Philip! Where have you been all this time? I’ve been waiting ages. ’
‘Oh, I’ve been out with a fellow. Gordon Comstock. I don’t expect you know him. The
poet. ’
‘Poet! How much did he borrow off you? ’
‘Nothing. He’s not that kind of person. He’s rather a fool about money, as a matter of
fact. But he’s very gifted in his way. ’
‘You and your poets! You look tired, Philip. What time did you have dinner? ’
‘Well — as a matter of fact I didn’t have any dinner. ’
‘Didn’t have any dinner! Why? ’
‘Oh, well, you see — I don’t know if you’ll understand. It was a kind of accident. It was
like this. ’
He explained. Hermione burst out laughing and dragged herself into a more upright
position.
‘Philip! You ARE a silly old ass! Going without your dinner, just so as not to hurt that
little beast’s feelings! You must have some food at once. And of course your char’s gone
home. Why don’t you keep some proper servants, Philip? I hate this hole-and-comer way
you live. We’ll go out and have supper at Modigliani’s. ’
‘But it’s after ten. They’ll be shut. ’
‘Nonsense! They’re open till two. I’ll ring up for a taxi. I’m not going to have you
starving yourself. ’
In the taxi she lay against him, still half asleep, her head pillowed on his breast. He
thought of the unemployed in Middlesbrough, seven in a room on twenty-five bob a
week. But the girl’s body was heavy against him, and Middlesbrough was very far away.
Also he was damnably hungry. He thought of his favourite corner table at Modigliani’s,
and of that vile pub with its hard benches, stale beer-stink, and brass spittoons. Hermione
was sleepily lecturing him.
‘Philip, why do you have to live in such a dreadful way? ’
‘But I don’t live in a dreadful way. ’
‘Yes, you do. Pretending you’re poor when you’re not, and living in that poky flat with
no servants, and going about with all these beastly people. ’
‘What beastly people? ’
‘Oh, people like this poet friend of yours. All those people who write for your paper.
They only do it to cadge from you. Of course I know you’re a Socialist. So am I. I mean
we’re all Socialists nowadays. But I don’t see why you have to give all your money away
and make friends with the lower classes. You can be a Socialist AND have a good time,
that’s what I say. ’
‘Hermione, dear, please don’t call them the lower classes! ’
‘Why not? They ARE the lower classes, aren’t they? ’
‘It’s such a hateful expression. Call them the working class, can’t you? ’
‘The working class, if you like, then. But they smell just the same. ’
‘You oughtn’t to say that kind of thing,’ he protested weakly.
‘Do you know, Philip, sometimes I think you LIKE the lower classes. ’
‘Of course I like them. ’
‘How disgusting. How absolutely disgusting. ’
She lay quiet, content to argue no longer, her arms round him, like a sleepy siren. The
woman-scent breathed out of her, a powerful wordless propaganda against all altruism
and all justice. Outside Modigliani’s they had paid off the taxi and were moving for the
door when a big, lank wreck of a man seemed to spring up from the paving-stones in
front of them. He stood across their path like some fawning beast, with dreadful
eagerness and yet timorously, as though afraid that Ravelston would strike him. His face
came close up to Ravelston’ s — a dreadful face, fish- white and scrubby-bearded to the
eyes. The words ‘A cup of tea, guv’nor! ’ were breathed through carious teeth. Ravelston
shrank from him in disgust. He could not help it. His hand moved automatically to his
pocket. But in the same instant Hennione caught him by the ann and hauled him inside
the restaurant.
‘You’d give away every penny you’ve got if I let you,’ she said.
They went to their favourite table in the corner. Hennione played with some grapes, but
Ravelston was very hungry. He ordered the grilled rumpsteak he had been thinking of,
and half a bottle of Beaujolais. The fat, white-haired Italian waiter, an old friend of
Ravelston’s, brought the smoking steak. Ravelston cut it open. Lovely, its red-blue heart!
In Middlesbrough the unemployed huddle in frowzy beds, bread and marg and milkless
tea in their bellies. He settled down to his steak with all the shameful joy of a dog with a
stolen leg of mutton.
Gordon walked rapidly homewards. It was cold. The fifth of December — real winter
now. Circumcise ye your foreskins, saith the Lord. The damp wind blew spitefully
through the naked trees. Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over. The poem he had
begun on Wednesday, of which six stanzas were now finished, came back to his mind. He
did not dislike it at this moment. It was queer how talking with Ravelston always bucked
him up. The mere contact with Ravelston seemed to reassure him somehow. Even when
their talk had been unsatisfactory, he came away with the feeling that, after all, he wasn’t
quite a failure. Half aloud he repeated the six finished stanzas. They were not bad, not
bad at all.
But intermittently he was going over in his mind the things he had said to Ravelston. He
stuck to everything he had said. The humiliation of poverty! That’s what they can’t
understand and won’t understand. Not hardship — you don’t suffer hardship on two quid a
week, and if you did it wouldn’t matter — but just humiliation, the awful, bloody
humiliation. The way it gives everyone the right to stamp on you. The way everyone
WANTS to stamp on you. Ravelston wouldn’t believe it. He had too much decency, that
was why. He thought you could be poor and still be treated like a human being. But
Gordon knew better. He went into the house repeating to himself that he knew better.
There was a letter waiting for him on the hall tray. His heart jumped. All letters excited
him nowadays. He went up the stairs three at a time, shut himself in and lit the gas. The
letter was from Doring.
DEAR COMSTOCK, — What a pity you didn’t turn up on Saturday. There were some
people I wanted you to meet. We did tell you it was Saturday and not Thursday this time,
didn’t we? My wife says she’s certain she told you. Anyway, we’re having another party
on the twenty-third, a sort of before-Christmas party, about the same time. Won’t you
come then? Don’t forget the date this time.
Yours
PAUL DORING
A painful convulsion happened below Gordon’s ribs. So Doring was pretending that it
was all a mistake — was pretending not to have insulted him! True, he could not actually
have gone there on Saturday, because on Saturday he had to be at the shop; still, it was
the intention that counted.
His heart sickened as he re-read the words ‘some people I wanted you to meet’. Just like
his bloody luck! He thought of the people he might have met — editors of highbrow
magazines, for instance. They might have given him books to review or asked to see his
poems or Lord knew what. For a moment he was dreadfully tempted to believe that
Doring had spoken the truth. Perhaps after all they HAD told him it was Saturday and not
Thursday. Perhaps if he searched his memory he might remember about it — might even
find the letter itself lying among his muddle of papers. But no! He wouldn’t think of it.
He fought down the temptation. The Dorings HAD insulted him on purpose. He was
poor, therefore they had insulted him. If you are poor, people will insult you. It was his
creed. Stick to it!
He went across to the table, tearing Doring’s letter into small bits. The aspidistra stood in
its pot, dull green, ailing, pathetic in its sickly ugliness. As he sat down, he pulled it
towards him and looked at it meditatively. There was the intimacy of hatred between the
aspidistra and him. ‘I’ll beat you yet, you b — ,’ he whispered to the dusty leaves.
Then he rummaged among his papers until he found a clean sheet, took his pen and wrote
in his small, neat hand, right in the middle of the sheet:
DEAR DORING, — With reference to your letter: Go and yourself.
Yours truly
GORDON COMSTOCK
He stuck it into an envelope, addressed it, and at once went out to get stamps from the
slot machine. Post it tonight: these things look different in the morning. He dropped it
into the pillar-box. So there was another friend gone west.
Chapter 6
This woman business! What a bore it is! What a pity we can’t cut it right out, or at least
be like the animals — minutes of ferocious lust and months of icy chastity. Take a cock
pheasant, for example. He jumps up on the hens’ backs without so much as a with your
leave or by your leave. And no sooner it is over than the whole subject is out of his mind.
He hardly even notices his hens any longer; he ignores them, or simply pecks them if
they come too near his food. He is not called upon to support his offspring, either. Lucky
pheasant! How different from the lord of creation, always on the hop between his
memory and his conscience!
Tonight Gordon wasn’t even pretending to do any work. He had gone out again
immediately after supper. He walked southward, rather slowly, thinking about women. It
was a mild, misty night, more like autumn than winter. This was Tuesday and he had four
and fourpence left. He could go down to the Crichton if he chose. Doubtless Flaxman and
his pals were already boozing there. But the Crichton, which had seemed like paradise
when he had no money, bored and disgusted him when it was in his power to go there. He
hated the stale, beery place, and the sights, sounds, smells, all so blatantly and offensively
male. There were no women there; only the barmaid with her lewd smile which seemed
to promise everything and promised nothing.
Women, women! The mist that hung motionless in the air turned the passers-by into
ghosts at twenty yards’ distance; but in the little pools of light about the lamp-posts there
were glimpses of girls’ faces. He thought of Rosemary, of women in general, and of
Rosemary again. All afternoon he had been thinking of her. It was with a kind of
resentment that he thought of her small, strong body, which he had never yet seen naked.
How damned unfair it is that we are filled to the brim with these tormenting desires and
then forbidden to satisfy them! Why should one, merely because one has no money, be
deprived of THAT? It seems so natural, so necessary, so much a part of the inalienable
rights of a human being.
Willowbed Road. He dilated on the smell of slops and cabbage, the clotted sauce-bottles
in the dining-room, the vile food, the aspidistras. He described his furtive cups of tea and
his trick of throwing used tea-leaves down the W. C. Ravelston, guilty and miserable, sat
staring at his glass and revolving it slowly between his hands. Against his right breast he
could feel, a square accusing shape, the pocket-book in which, as he knew, eight pound
notes and two ten-bob notes nestled against his fat green cheque-book. How awful these
details of poverty are! Not that what Gordon was describing was real poverty. It was at
worst the fringe of poverty. But what of the real poor? What of the unemployed in
Middlesbrough, seven in a room on twenty-five bob a week? When there are people
living like that, how dare one walk the world with pound notes and cheque-books in
one’s pocket?
‘It’s bloody,’ he murmured several times, impotently. In his heart he wondered — it was
his invariable reaction — whether Gordon would accept a tenner if you offered to lend it to
him.
They had another drink, which Ravelston again paid for, and went out into the street. It
was almost time to part. Gordon never spent more than an hour or two with Ravelston.
One’s contacts with rich people, like one’s visits to high altitudes, must always be brief.
It was a moonless, starless night, with a damp wind blowing. The night air, the beer, and
the watery radiance of the lamps induced in Gordon a sort of dismal clarity. He perceived
that it is quite impossible to explain to any rich person, even to anyone so decent as
Ravelston, the essential bloodiness of poverty. For this reason it became all the more
important to explain it. He said suddenly:
‘Have you read Chaucer’s Man of Lawe’s Tale? ’
‘The Man of Lawe’s Tale? Not that I remember. What’s it about? ’
‘I forget. I was thinking of the first six stanzas. Where he talks about poverty. The way it
gives everyone the right to stamp on you! The way everyone WANTS to stamp on you! It
makes people HATE you, to kn ow that you’ve no money. They insult you just for the
pleasure of insulting you and knowing that you can’t hit back. ’
Ravelston was pained. ‘Oh, no, surely not! People aren’t so bad as all that. ’
‘Ah, but you don’t know the things that happen! ’
Gordon did not want to be told that ‘people aren’t so bad’. He clung with a sort of painful
joy to the notion that because he was poor everyone must WANT to insult him. It fitted in
with his philosophy of life. And suddenly, with the feeling that he could not stop himself,
he was talking of the thing that had been rankling in his mind for two days past — the
snub he had had from the Dorings on Thursday. He poured the whole story out quite
shamelessly. Ravelston was amazed. He could not understand what Gordon was making
such a fuss about. To be disappointed at missing a beastly literary tea-party seemed to
him absurd. He would not have gone to a literary tea-party if you had paid him. Like all
rich people, he spent far more time in avoiding human society than in seeking it. He
interrupted Gordon:
‘Really, you know, you ought not to take offence so easily. After all, a thing like that
doesn’t really matter. ’
‘It isn’t the thing itself that matters, it’s the spirit behind it. The way they snub you as a
matter of course, just because you’ve got no money. ’
‘But quite possibly it was all a mistake, or something. Why should anyone want to snub
you? ’
‘“If thou be poure, thy brother hateth thee,”’ quoted Gordon perversely.
Ravelston, deferential even to the opinions of the dead, rubbed his nose. ‘Does Chaucer
say that? Then I’m afraid I disagree with Chaucer. People don’t hate you, exactly. ’
‘They do. And they’re quite right to hate you. You ARE hateful. It’s like those ads for
Listerine. “Why is he always alone? Halitosis is ruining his career. ” Poverty is spiritual
halitosis. ’
Ravelston sighed. Undoubtedly Gordon was perverse. They walked on, arguing, Gordon
vehemently, Ravelston deprecatingly. Ravelston was helpless against Gordon in an
argument of this kind. He felt that Gordon exaggerated, and yet he never liked to
contradict him. How could he? He was rich and Gordon was poor. And how can you
argue about poverty with someone who is genuinely poor?
‘And then the way women treat you when you’ve no money! ’ Gordon went on. ‘That’s
another thing about this accursed money business — women! ’
Ravelston nodded rather gloomily. This sounded to him more reasonable than what
Gordon had been saying before. He thought of Hermione Slater, his own girl. They had
been lovers two years but had never bothered to get married. It was ‘too much fag’,
Hermione always said. She was rich, of course, or rather her people were. He thought of
her shoulders, wide, smooth, and young, that seemed to rise out of her clothes like a
mermaid rising from the sea; and her skin and hair, which were somehow warm and
sleepy, like a wheatfield in the sun. Hermione always yawned at the mention of
Socialism, and refused even to read Antichrist. ‘Don’t talk to me about the lower classes,’
she used to say. ‘I hate them. They SMELL. ’ And Ravelston adored her.
‘Of course women ARE a difficulty,’ he admitted.
‘They’re more than a difficulty, they’re a bloody curse. That is, if you’ve got no money.
A woman hates the sight of you if you’ve got no money. ’
‘I think that’s putting it a little too strongly. Things aren’t so crude as all that. ’
Gordon did not listen. ‘What rot it is to talk about Socialism or any other ism when
women are what they are! The only thing a woman ever wants is money; money for a
house of her own and two babies and Drage furniture and an aspidistra. The only sin they
can imagine is not wanting to grab money. No woman ever judges a man by anything
except his income. Of course she doesn’t put it to herself like that. She says he’s SUCH
A NICE man — meaning that he’s got plenty of money. And if you haven’t got money
you aren’t NICE. You’re dishonoured, somehow. You’ve sinned. Sinned against the
aspidistra. ’
‘You talk a great deal about aspidistras,’ said Ravelston.
‘They’re a dashed important subject,’ said Gordon.
Ravelston rubbed his nose and looked away uncomfortably.
‘Look here, Gordon, you don’t mind my asking — have you got a girl of your own? ’
‘Oh, Christ! don’t speak of her! ’
He began, nevertheless, to talk about Rosemary. Ravelston had never met Rosemary. At
this moment Gordon could not even remember what Rosemary was like. He could not
remember how fond he was of her and she of him, how happy they always were together
on the rare occasions when they could meet, how patiently she put up with his almost
intolerable ways. He remembered nothing save that she would not sleep with him and
that it was now a week since she had even written. In the dank night air, with beer inside
him, he felt himself a forlorn, neglected creature. Rosemary was ‘cruel’ to him — that was
how he saw it. Perversely, for the mere pleasure of tormenting himself and making
Ravelston uncomfortable, be began to invent an imaginary character for Rosemary. He
built up a picture of her as a callous creature who was amused by him and yet half
despised him, who played with him and kept him at arm’s length, and who would
nevertheless fall into his arms if only he had a little more money. And Ravelston, who
had never met Rosemary, did not altogether disbelieve him. He broke in:
‘But I say, Gordon, look here. This girl, Miss — Miss Waterlow, did you say her name
was? — Rosemary; doesn’t she care for you at all, really? ’
Gordon’s conscience pricked him, though not very deeply. He could not say that
Rosemary did not care for him.
‘Oh, yes, she does care for me. In her own way, I dare say she cares for me quite a lot.
But not enough, don’t you see. She can’t, while I’ve got no money. It’s all money. ’
‘But surely money isn’t so important as all that? After all, there ARE other things. ’
‘What other things? Don’t you see that a man’s whole personality is bound up with his
income? His personality IS his income. How can you be attractive to a girl when you’ve
got no money? You can’t wear decent clothes, you can’t take her out to dinner or to the
theatre or away for week-ends, you can’t carry a cheery, interesting atmosphere about
with you. And it’s rot to say that kind of thing doesn’t matter. It does. If you haven’t got
money there isn’t even anywhere where you can meet. Rosemary and I never meet except
in the streets or in picture galleries. She lives in some foul women’s hostel, and my bitch
of a landlady won’t allow women in the house. Wandering up and down beastly wet
streets — that’s what Rosemary associates me with. Don’t you see how it takes the gilt off
everything? ’
Ravelston was distressed. It must be pretty bloody when you haven’t even the money to
take your girl out. He tried to nerve himself to say something, and failed. With guilt, and
also with desire, he thought of Hermione’s body, naked like a ripe warm fruit. With any
luck she would have dropped in at the flat this evening. Probably she was waiting for him
now. He thought of the unemployed in Middlesbrough. Sexual starvation is awful among
the unemployed. They were nearing the flat. He glanced up at the windows. Yes, they
were lighted up. Hermione must be there. She had her own latchkey.
As they approached the flat Gordon edged closer to Ravelston. Now the evening was
ending, and he must part from Ravelston, whom he adored, and go back to his foul lonely
bedroom. And all evenings ended in this way; the return through the dark streets to the
lonely room, the womanless bed. And Ravelston would say ‘Come up, won’t you? ’ and
Gordon, in duty bound, would say, ‘No. ’ Never stay too long with those you love —
another commandment of the moneyless.
They halted at the foot of the steps. Ravelston laid his gloved hand on one of the iron
spearheads of the railing.
‘Come up, won’t you? ’ he said without conviction.
‘No, thanks. It’s time I was getting back. ’
Ravelston’s fingers tightened round the spearhead. He pulled as though to go up, but did
not go. Uncomfortably, looking over Gordon’s head into the distance, he said:
‘I say, Gordon, look here. You won’t be offended if I say something? ’
‘What? ’
‘I say, you know, I hate that business about you and your girl. Not being able to take her
out, and all that. It’s bloody, that kind of thing. ’
‘Oh, it’s nothing really. ’
As soon as he heard Ravelston say that it was ‘bloody’, he knew that he had been
exaggerating. He wished that he had not talked in that silly self-pitiful way. One says
these things, with the feeling that one cannot help saying them, and afterwards one is
sorry.
‘I dare say I exaggerate,’ he said.
‘I say, Gordon, look here. Let me lend you ten quid. Take the girl out to dinner a few
times. Or away for the week-end, or something. It might make all the difference. I hate to
t hink —’
Gordon frowned bitterly, almost fiercely. He had stepped a pace back, as though from a
threat or an insult. The terrible thing was that the temptation to say ‘Yes’ had almost
overwhelmed him. There was so much that ten quid would do! He had a fleeting vision of
Rosemary and himself at a restaurant table — a bowl of grapes and peaches, a bowing
hovering waiter, a wine bottle dark and dusty in its wicker cradle.
‘No fear! ’ he said.
‘I do wish you would. I tell you I’d LIKE to lend it you. ’
‘Thanks. But I prefer to keep my friends. ’
‘Isn’t that rather — well, rather a bourgeois kind of thing to say?
’
‘Do you think it would be BORROWING if I took ten quid off you? I couldn’t pay it
back in ten years. ’
‘Oh, well! It wouldn’t matter so very much. ’ Ravelston looked away. Out it had got to
come — the disgraceful, hateful admission that he found himself forced so curiously often
to make! ‘You know, I’ve got quite a lot of money. ’
‘I know you have. That’s exactly why I won’t borrow off you. ’
‘You know, Gordon, sometimes you’re just a little bit — well, pigheaded. ’
‘I dare say. I can’t help it. ’
‘Oh, well! Good night, then. ’
‘Good night. ’
Ten minutes later Ravelston rode southwards in a taxi, with Hermione. She had been
waiting for him, asleep or half asleep in one of the monstrous armchairs in front of the
sitting-room fire. Whenever there was nothing particular to do, Hennione always fell
asleep as promptly as an animal, and the more she slept the healthier she became. As he
came across to her she woke and stretched herself with voluptuous, sleepy writhings, half
smiling, half yawning up at him, one cheek and bare arm rosy in the firelight. Presently
she mastered her yawns to greet him:
‘Hullo, Philip! Where have you been all this time? I’ve been waiting ages. ’
‘Oh, I’ve been out with a fellow. Gordon Comstock. I don’t expect you know him. The
poet. ’
‘Poet! How much did he borrow off you? ’
‘Nothing. He’s not that kind of person. He’s rather a fool about money, as a matter of
fact. But he’s very gifted in his way. ’
‘You and your poets! You look tired, Philip. What time did you have dinner? ’
‘Well — as a matter of fact I didn’t have any dinner. ’
‘Didn’t have any dinner! Why? ’
‘Oh, well, you see — I don’t know if you’ll understand. It was a kind of accident. It was
like this. ’
He explained. Hermione burst out laughing and dragged herself into a more upright
position.
‘Philip! You ARE a silly old ass! Going without your dinner, just so as not to hurt that
little beast’s feelings! You must have some food at once. And of course your char’s gone
home. Why don’t you keep some proper servants, Philip? I hate this hole-and-comer way
you live. We’ll go out and have supper at Modigliani’s. ’
‘But it’s after ten. They’ll be shut. ’
‘Nonsense! They’re open till two. I’ll ring up for a taxi. I’m not going to have you
starving yourself. ’
In the taxi she lay against him, still half asleep, her head pillowed on his breast. He
thought of the unemployed in Middlesbrough, seven in a room on twenty-five bob a
week. But the girl’s body was heavy against him, and Middlesbrough was very far away.
Also he was damnably hungry. He thought of his favourite corner table at Modigliani’s,
and of that vile pub with its hard benches, stale beer-stink, and brass spittoons. Hermione
was sleepily lecturing him.
‘Philip, why do you have to live in such a dreadful way? ’
‘But I don’t live in a dreadful way. ’
‘Yes, you do. Pretending you’re poor when you’re not, and living in that poky flat with
no servants, and going about with all these beastly people. ’
‘What beastly people? ’
‘Oh, people like this poet friend of yours. All those people who write for your paper.
They only do it to cadge from you. Of course I know you’re a Socialist. So am I. I mean
we’re all Socialists nowadays. But I don’t see why you have to give all your money away
and make friends with the lower classes. You can be a Socialist AND have a good time,
that’s what I say. ’
‘Hermione, dear, please don’t call them the lower classes! ’
‘Why not? They ARE the lower classes, aren’t they? ’
‘It’s such a hateful expression. Call them the working class, can’t you? ’
‘The working class, if you like, then. But they smell just the same. ’
‘You oughtn’t to say that kind of thing,’ he protested weakly.
‘Do you know, Philip, sometimes I think you LIKE the lower classes. ’
‘Of course I like them. ’
‘How disgusting. How absolutely disgusting. ’
She lay quiet, content to argue no longer, her arms round him, like a sleepy siren. The
woman-scent breathed out of her, a powerful wordless propaganda against all altruism
and all justice. Outside Modigliani’s they had paid off the taxi and were moving for the
door when a big, lank wreck of a man seemed to spring up from the paving-stones in
front of them. He stood across their path like some fawning beast, with dreadful
eagerness and yet timorously, as though afraid that Ravelston would strike him. His face
came close up to Ravelston’ s — a dreadful face, fish- white and scrubby-bearded to the
eyes. The words ‘A cup of tea, guv’nor! ’ were breathed through carious teeth. Ravelston
shrank from him in disgust. He could not help it. His hand moved automatically to his
pocket. But in the same instant Hennione caught him by the ann and hauled him inside
the restaurant.
‘You’d give away every penny you’ve got if I let you,’ she said.
They went to their favourite table in the corner. Hennione played with some grapes, but
Ravelston was very hungry. He ordered the grilled rumpsteak he had been thinking of,
and half a bottle of Beaujolais. The fat, white-haired Italian waiter, an old friend of
Ravelston’s, brought the smoking steak. Ravelston cut it open. Lovely, its red-blue heart!
In Middlesbrough the unemployed huddle in frowzy beds, bread and marg and milkless
tea in their bellies. He settled down to his steak with all the shameful joy of a dog with a
stolen leg of mutton.
Gordon walked rapidly homewards. It was cold. The fifth of December — real winter
now. Circumcise ye your foreskins, saith the Lord. The damp wind blew spitefully
through the naked trees. Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over. The poem he had
begun on Wednesday, of which six stanzas were now finished, came back to his mind. He
did not dislike it at this moment. It was queer how talking with Ravelston always bucked
him up. The mere contact with Ravelston seemed to reassure him somehow. Even when
their talk had been unsatisfactory, he came away with the feeling that, after all, he wasn’t
quite a failure. Half aloud he repeated the six finished stanzas. They were not bad, not
bad at all.
But intermittently he was going over in his mind the things he had said to Ravelston. He
stuck to everything he had said. The humiliation of poverty! That’s what they can’t
understand and won’t understand. Not hardship — you don’t suffer hardship on two quid a
week, and if you did it wouldn’t matter — but just humiliation, the awful, bloody
humiliation. The way it gives everyone the right to stamp on you. The way everyone
WANTS to stamp on you. Ravelston wouldn’t believe it. He had too much decency, that
was why. He thought you could be poor and still be treated like a human being. But
Gordon knew better. He went into the house repeating to himself that he knew better.
There was a letter waiting for him on the hall tray. His heart jumped. All letters excited
him nowadays. He went up the stairs three at a time, shut himself in and lit the gas. The
letter was from Doring.
DEAR COMSTOCK, — What a pity you didn’t turn up on Saturday. There were some
people I wanted you to meet. We did tell you it was Saturday and not Thursday this time,
didn’t we? My wife says she’s certain she told you. Anyway, we’re having another party
on the twenty-third, a sort of before-Christmas party, about the same time. Won’t you
come then? Don’t forget the date this time.
Yours
PAUL DORING
A painful convulsion happened below Gordon’s ribs. So Doring was pretending that it
was all a mistake — was pretending not to have insulted him! True, he could not actually
have gone there on Saturday, because on Saturday he had to be at the shop; still, it was
the intention that counted.
His heart sickened as he re-read the words ‘some people I wanted you to meet’. Just like
his bloody luck! He thought of the people he might have met — editors of highbrow
magazines, for instance. They might have given him books to review or asked to see his
poems or Lord knew what. For a moment he was dreadfully tempted to believe that
Doring had spoken the truth. Perhaps after all they HAD told him it was Saturday and not
Thursday. Perhaps if he searched his memory he might remember about it — might even
find the letter itself lying among his muddle of papers. But no! He wouldn’t think of it.
He fought down the temptation. The Dorings HAD insulted him on purpose. He was
poor, therefore they had insulted him. If you are poor, people will insult you. It was his
creed. Stick to it!
He went across to the table, tearing Doring’s letter into small bits. The aspidistra stood in
its pot, dull green, ailing, pathetic in its sickly ugliness. As he sat down, he pulled it
towards him and looked at it meditatively. There was the intimacy of hatred between the
aspidistra and him. ‘I’ll beat you yet, you b — ,’ he whispered to the dusty leaves.
Then he rummaged among his papers until he found a clean sheet, took his pen and wrote
in his small, neat hand, right in the middle of the sheet:
DEAR DORING, — With reference to your letter: Go and yourself.
Yours truly
GORDON COMSTOCK
He stuck it into an envelope, addressed it, and at once went out to get stamps from the
slot machine. Post it tonight: these things look different in the morning. He dropped it
into the pillar-box. So there was another friend gone west.
Chapter 6
This woman business! What a bore it is! What a pity we can’t cut it right out, or at least
be like the animals — minutes of ferocious lust and months of icy chastity. Take a cock
pheasant, for example. He jumps up on the hens’ backs without so much as a with your
leave or by your leave. And no sooner it is over than the whole subject is out of his mind.
He hardly even notices his hens any longer; he ignores them, or simply pecks them if
they come too near his food. He is not called upon to support his offspring, either. Lucky
pheasant! How different from the lord of creation, always on the hop between his
memory and his conscience!
Tonight Gordon wasn’t even pretending to do any work. He had gone out again
immediately after supper. He walked southward, rather slowly, thinking about women. It
was a mild, misty night, more like autumn than winter. This was Tuesday and he had four
and fourpence left. He could go down to the Crichton if he chose. Doubtless Flaxman and
his pals were already boozing there. But the Crichton, which had seemed like paradise
when he had no money, bored and disgusted him when it was in his power to go there. He
hated the stale, beery place, and the sights, sounds, smells, all so blatantly and offensively
male. There were no women there; only the barmaid with her lewd smile which seemed
to promise everything and promised nothing.
Women, women! The mist that hung motionless in the air turned the passers-by into
ghosts at twenty yards’ distance; but in the little pools of light about the lamp-posts there
were glimpses of girls’ faces. He thought of Rosemary, of women in general, and of
Rosemary again. All afternoon he had been thinking of her. It was with a kind of
resentment that he thought of her small, strong body, which he had never yet seen naked.
How damned unfair it is that we are filled to the brim with these tormenting desires and
then forbidden to satisfy them! Why should one, merely because one has no money, be
deprived of THAT? It seems so natural, so necessary, so much a part of the inalienable
rights of a human being.
