The Blind Bow-boy/Chapter 5
Campaspe lived on East Nineteenth Street, just around the corner from Paul's apartment in Gramercy Park. In the cool, June night air, John Armstrong walked home with her. Directly they were alone her manner changed almost imperceptibly; not that she seemed more dignified—Campaspe, even in her most apparently careless moments, always had dignity—; rather, she appeared to be preoccupied. As they strolled down Irving Place John made an effort to arouse her from her presumed lassitude. He started to speak and, indeed, did form sentences, but her replies were abstract and distant, if not entirely formal. Once or twice his hand edged nervously towards her arm, and even touched it, but she gave no sign that she was aware of this contact: she made no effort to move away, nor did she respond to it. Her mood was exacerbating, and it roused in John a kind of dumb anger and childlike helplessness. In a few brief moments, however, they stood before her door. After the fashion of the houses on this street, a short flight of steps descended to the entrance. He followed her, without a plan, largely without hope, but with a blind animal instinct, into the darkened vestibule and, as she was fitting her key in the lock, drew her quickly to him and kissed her, perforce, on the throat, as she had turned her head away.
Good-night, John, she said in an even voice, as she swung the door open.
Good God, Campaspe!
She slipped through the open doorway and shut the door behind her, not ostentatiously slamming it in his face, but closing it softly. Nevertheless, she noted, to John the effect wore the same air of finality. Through the eyes in the back of her head she was aware that he hesitated for a moment, dazed, before he walked away.
Campaspe, meanwhile, ascended the stairs, entered her chamber, and pressed a button, flooding the pleasant room with light. The soft toile de Jouy hangings at the windows blew gently back and forth with the refreshing breeze. The bed with its delicate linen was spread open, waiting for her. Frederika, her maid, following instructions, had long since retired, and Campaspe did not awaken her. It was with rather a sensuous feeling that she slipped off her clothes, and stood before a long mirror, regarding herself. At length, she donned a night-gown of French hand-manufacture and the colour of champagne, as filmy as it is possible for such a garment to be made. Over her shoulders she drew a neglige of the shade of the green orchid, as she sat down before her dressing-table, an elaborate altar, laid with rose-jade cists for cosmetics and crystal vials of French holy waters, blessed by Houbigant and Coty. She combed out her short hair until it bristled on either side of her face. Now she rubbed cold cream into her flesh, wiping away the discarded artificial complexion with a towel. Then she carefully made up again, applying fresh carmine to her lips, new rouge to her cheeks, and outlining her eyelids with a blue pencil. This was her invariable custom before retiring, and she often said to herself that she looked at least as well in bed as she did at the opera. Presently, still sitting before her dressing-table, she lighted a cigarette and began to reflect, one knee resting lightly on the other, swinging her leg backwards and forwards, from the foot of which a satin mule, the toe sparkling with an infinity of tiny mirrors, depended.
John Armstrong: she really never could accustom herself to men who smoked cigars. The manly American. Why, she wondered, was it deemed manly in America to drink coffee and effeminate to drink tea? . . . . A strangely reluctant boy, Harold. It would be interesting to know why he was so reluctant. She hoped, however, that he always would be. In his reluctance lay his claim to charm. . . . Lucky Paul! And lucky Bunny! Would he ever write fine music? she asked herself. Could a woman help him do this? Could this woman? A fine animal. The finest animal she had ever seen. Delicate and exquisite, and yet like an animal. She considered: not like a doe, more like a tiger; graceful and exquisite . . . and hungry! Campaspe smiled.
She recalled a phrase from A. E., which she had run across a day or so earlier: I could not desire what was not my own, and what is our own we cannot lose. . . . Desire is hidden identity. . . . Was life, she queried of the alert face in her mirror, a straight or a zigzag line? Do we, perhaps, live backwards and forwards, with memories of the past and mystic visions of the future? She remembered how some one had said of her that she was like a pleasant pool . . . exposing a dormant silvery surface . . . or rippling placidly . . . with shadows, which portended hidden depths. No one, she reflected, save herself, knew how deep the pool was, or what might lie concealed at the bottom. . . . Shadows! There must be a philosophy of shadows! Shadows were the only realities. And there were always shadows, but most people overlooked the shadow in their search for the object which cast it. It was, she assured herself, like searching for Richard Wagner, instead of listening to Tristan. She smiled again as a phrase of Paul's recurred to her: Campaspe does not know the vices, she invents them! Invents them! Imagination, that was the shadow of personality, assuredly the deepest enchantment! Savoir n'est rien, imaginer est tout. Rien n'existe que ce qu'on imagine, the sagacious fairy had remarked to Sylvestre Bonnard. . . . Campaspe sprayed herself with Guerlain's l'Heure Bleue.
She put out her cigarette and, casting aside her neglige and her mules, got into bed. Pressing a button in the jewelled head of an enamelled tortoise on her bed-table, she extinguished the lights, save that of her reading lamp, a great iridescent dragon-fly, suspended over her bed. Propping herself up against the pillows, she examined the books on her bed-table: plays by Luigi Pirandello, tales by Dopo Kunikida, poems by the Welsh poet, Ab Gwilym, Jésus-la-Caille by Francis Carco, Las Sonatas by Del Valle Inclán, and Aldous Huxley's Mortal Coils. . . . She swept these from the table, leaving one or two at the bottom of the pile. Choosing Rachilde's l'Animale, she read a few lines, and then put it aside. She opened a slight volume by Norman Douglas, and that met a similar fate. Two paragraphs in Ronald Firbank's Vainglory satisfied her. She was not criticizing the authors of these works, but it was her habit to insist that a book should satisfy a mood. With a sigh, again she stretched her arm towards her bed-table, and her fingers closed on a little volume bound in black leather: The Book of Common Prayer.
Opening at random, she happened on the service for St. Mark's Day: I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. . . . I am the vine, ye are the branches. . . . She flipped the pages: Whither shall I go then from thy Spirit: or whither shall I go then from thy presence? If I take the wings of the morning: and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea . . . A veil of silver betraying violet shut the page from her eyes. Instead, rose a vision of the sufficing peacocks designed by Gaston Lachaise. She must have an avenue of these, carved from semi-precious stones: chalcedony, sardonyx, malachite, onyx, pink and black, brown and carnation jade, crystal, and chrysoprase. . . . The veil lifted and exposed a brilliant flight of butterflies: the White-letter Hairstreak, the Dingy Skipper, the Camberwell Beauty, and the Pearl-bordered Fritillary, sapphire and emerald butterflies, and one of pale silver. . . . And the book was open at the Veni Creator Spiritus:
And lighten with celestial fire.
Thou the anointing spirit art,
Who dost the sevenfold gifts impart. . . .
Campaspe fell asleep.
About three o'clock in the afternoon she awakened feeling refreshed. She was one of those who awaken from the deepest sleep to immediate consciousness, and she was at once aware that it was raining. The room was gloomy, the curtains at the windows still drawn, but from the bathroom came the sound of water pouring into her tub. Frederika, with a curiously exact intuition, invariably anticipated the rising of her mistress by two or three minutes. The maid entered.
Good afternoon, madame.
Good afternoon, Frederika. Campaspe smiled. She was in the best of humours. . . .
Frederika brought the Times and the morning mail on a tray, and then retired to prepare Campaspe's breakfast. Campaspe picked up the Times and rapidly glanced over the headlines. . . . The Kaiser's state carriages bought by a funeral director caught her eye. How splendid, she turned it over, to be borne to the tomb in such a manner, and she wondered if these royal vehicles resembled the state coaches of Ludwig of Bavaria, rococo, with Cupids and gilt. . . . She read of a blind man at Peekskill who had attended an execution at Sing Sing so that he might sense the feeling of it. . . . She fingered the envelopes on the tray. One of them, in a strange handwriting, she opened. It was a bill from a hat-shop on Fifty-seventh Street. She tore this up slowly. The other letters she tossed unopened on her bed-table. Frederika had returned, and Campaspe sipped her coffee.
Paul had promised to come in at five. Would he bring Harold? She laughed to herself as she recalled the precipitate romance of Bunny and Zimbule. Two babes in the woods, she mused aloud. . . . There were a few orders for the cook, which Campaspe delivered through Frederika. She never had trouble with servants. She had a system, which was to give each of them a certain part of the work to do. When they had completed their allotted tasks they could come or go as they liked. She put no restrictions on their time. As for Frederika, a middle-aged Alsatian woman, with a sad face, which reminded Campaspe irresistibly of Duse's, she adored her mistress, and was inventive in contriving ways to please her.
After her bath, Campaspe dressed carefully but comfortably. She liked to feel the stiff brush moving through her hair, and the pressure of Frederika's arm. She took quite as much pleasure in her body as she did in her mind. Was not her body, indeed, her chief mental pleasure? . . . An hour later she descended to the salon in a frock designed by Erte, of cornflower-blue batiste, with soft butter-colour linen collar and cuffs. The drawing-room was spacious and cool. Campaspe did not like crowded rooms. There were few rugs, few pictures, few pieces of furniture. The chairs and the couches were covered with toile de Jouy, with a design printed in mauve, a design in which Cupid and Pysche embraced in the company of nightingales and camellias. The pictures on the walls were by Monticelli, Derain, Jennie Vanvleet Cowdery, and Matisse. Near the high windows, looking down on the street below, stood great jars of lustre ware in which were growing forced geranium trees, nearly three feet tall, the stalks bare, bursting, at the top, into clusters of scarlet blossoms framed in velvet-green. She moved to the piano and touched the keys. On the rack was a jumble of sheets, in great disorder, pages of this laid between pages of that, fox-trots and jazz tunes, music by Manuel de Falla and Darius Milhaud. She mentally noted her intention of purchasing some American Indian and Spanish gipsy records for her victrola. She rang the bell. Are there brioches, Frederika? Mr. Moody likes brioches. Yes, madame. Again it occurred to her to wonder if Paul would bring Harold.
When at last he was announced, he had come alone. Sensitive to impressions, he was immediately aware of her disappointment and of the occasion for it.
You wanted me to bring Harold, he said. Of course, I intended to bring him, but he has not been near me today. I'm afraid last night was more than he expected.
I hope the poor boy is not too alarmed. He is reluctant, Paulet. . . .
Frederika bore in the tea in a miniature alabaster pot, set, together with three alabaster cups without handles, on an engraved and filigreed alabaster tray. Campaspe was standing by the mantel. Raising an ancient burnished copper mirror with a phœnix Picked in the back to a level with her face, she contemplated her reflection.
I've just finished my breakfast, Paulet . . . I can't drink any tea. Pour some for yourself. She handled the mirror in a reverent, even an affectionate, manner.
I had breakfast at ten, Paul groaned. The snake-charmer was hungry and she began to prowl about for food!
Are they there still? Campaspe smiled at the memory of the pretty picture.
No. After breakfast—Zimbule ate seven eggs—Bunny telephoned for a taxi, and they departed together, after kissing me. They have sworn eternal affection and they have begun housekeeping in Bunny's apartment.
I'd like to have them here, Campaspe threw in, almost. . . .
Almost . . . is what I felt. It's the way we both feel about so many things.
It's my philosophy . . . almost. Campaspe replaced the mirror on the mantelshelf.
Paul had walked to the window and was looking down on the rain-swept street. Suddenly he exclaimed, How strange! A sailor with an umbrella.
Why? What? How strange? Campaspe joined him.
Sailors don't carry umbrellas. Never. It's an unwritten law in the navy.
The sailor was now passing the house. The wind was high and as he walked abreast of the window the umbrella tilted far back, exposing the young man's face.
The rule remains unbroken, Campaspe cried. It isn't a sailor at all. It's the Duke!
The Duke?
The Duke of Middlebottom. I thought he was in Capri, but he's always travelling about in some disguise or other. How delightful of him to come here. He will assist in Harold's education.
Is he the man you told me about . . . the man who gave those parties in London?
Yes.
God help Harold!
Oh! We'll look out for Harold. What a splendid prank. I wonder what can he be up to?
A little later, after Paul had gone and it had grown quite dark, Campaspe still lingered in the drawing-room. Frederika came in to light the lamps, but Campaspe requested the maid to leave the room dark. It was still drizzling outside and the drops of rain rattled against the window-panes. The rain fell interminably this summer. Campaspe sat quietly in a high-backed chair, resting her chin on her palm, thinking . . . Presently she heard a step in the hall.
Is that you, Cupid? she called.
Campaspe! He came in; slunk would be a better word.
She rang the bell, and asked Frederika to light the lamps. As the room became brighter she looked at her husband; he was so small, so tired, so worried, so generally insignificant. She also noted, with some alarm, that he wore an air of conscious guilt, which betokened an effort at explanation.
He began, indeed, at once: Campaspe, can you forgive me?
Forgive you? Her tone was gentle. For what?
For what I did last night.
She was very languid, very uninterested, very kind, a trifle impatient, perhaps, with his stupidity.
There is, of course, nothing for which I need forgive you.
Campaspe!
What have I to forgive you?
You saw me with . . .
That! She laughed. Cupid, why will you always be so romantic? Will you never believe me when I tell you that I don't care in the least what you do? I should never have married you if I had planned to worry about you. I married you because I knew I should never have to worry about you. You understand my views perfectly. Do just as you please, but I will not have you making these scenes over nothing.
Campaspe . . . Couldn't things be different between us? Couldn't you? .
She rose with a look of determination. It's quite impossible. . . . Her tone was firmer now. . . . It's no good going over it. You must understand that it is quite impossible. We have our children, and it is very comfortable living this way. So long as you are satisfied, I am content, but anything else is quite impossible.
Campaspe!
She was leaving the room, but she turned back to face him. In her face now there was an expression of definite displeasure. Her square jaw was set hard.
Do, please, she said, stop pronouncing my name like a moonstruck savage.
Where are you going? His look was haunting, intense, pitiful, helpless.
I am going to change my dress.
Are you dining at home tonight? He was almost pathetic.
I had intended to . . . but now, I don't know. I can't bear you when you're sentimental.
I'll promise . . . he choked . . . not to be.
And you'll stop apologizing?
Yes.
And you'll talk about something else than me?
Ye-es.
And do get over looking moonstruck, Cupid, and, for God's sake, don't call me Campaspe again tonight!
She passed on through the open door, and ascended the stairs. Cupid stared after her with the rapt, hopeless expression of a dog who has howled in vain for two hours, and has at last lost faith in his power to open doors.