By JAMES
JOYCE
ULYSSES
PART
THREE
TWO WORLDS
MONTHLY
Devoted to the Increase
of the Gaiety of Nations
Partial Contents of
VOLUME ONE NUMBER THREE
Third part of ULYSSES.......................James Joyce
A Little Girl Tells a Story to a Lady—
...................................... Djuna Barnes
Marie .................................. Ludwig Biro
Twelve Great Passions: Tragedy of
Queen Natalie ...................J. A. Brendon
Reply to an Invitation............... George Moore
Olivier's Brag ........................................................ Anatole France
Jimmy and the Desperate Woman..................
...............................................D. H. Lawrence
The Symons-Masefield Robbery...................
Brokenbrow (a play in three acts)....
..................................................Ernst Toller
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TWO WORLDS
MONTHLY
Devoted to the Increase of the Gaiety of Nations
EDITED BY SAMUEL ROTH
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Contents of Volume One, Number Three
Life and Letters................................................................................................................................................................................  253
A Little Girl Tells a Story to a Lady	Djuna	Barnes	255
Ernst Toller....................................................................................................................................................................................  261
The Housemaid..............................................................Richard	Le  Gallienne	264
Marie...............................................................................  Ludwig	Biro	265
The Conjurer...................................................................Richard	Middleton	273
Twelve Great Passions: III. The Tragedy of Queen Natalie of Servia ..............            J.	A. 	Brendon	276
In May..............................................................................John	Synge	290
Reply to an Invitation..............................................................George	Moore	291
Olivier's Brag	Anatole	France	293
In Markham Square...................................................................  Samuel	Roth	298
Jimmy and the Desperate Woman....................................................D.	H. Lawrence 299
The Symons-Masbfield Robbery..................................................................................................................................................................... 317
Intimate Glimpses of Anatole  France:	 Gourmont and the Snail....................J.	J.	Brousson	319
Brokenbrow: A Tragedy in Three Acts..................................................Ernst	Toller	321
Andante.......................................................................... A. E. Coppard	352
Ulysses: Part Three	  Joyce	353
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TWO WORLDS
MONTHLY
       Devoted to the Increase of the Gaiety of Nations
VOLUME ONE	NUMBER	THREE
Life and Letters
ONE of the happiest days of my life was that day on which I discovered
for myself the charm of Pickwick Papers. For weeks afterwards
I asked of life no more than the leisure to read it again and again, over
and over. I was so completely taken in by the idyllic carelessness of creation
as it rolled its idle way through those eight hundred pages of close print.
And when I learned that Dickens was barely twenty-four when he wrote it,
my delight was shot through with wonder! Only twenty-four years old!
Alas, we here in America only know the bitter Dickens who came to chastise
us for our unfair copyright laws, but what a lad must have been the creator
of Pickwick and Boz.
Years afterward the author of a voluminous but not at all disagreeable
book of social patter entitled Gossip of the Nineteenth Century reviled
the memory of Dickens, saying that it was hardly possible to concede great-
ness to a man who treated his wife so shabbily. It is a bit difficult to
understand why the young man who drew the portraits of Mrs. Bardell
and Mrs. Cluppins should ever have married, unless it was another Mrs.
Bardell who lured him into it. But that he should have consented to remain
married is little short of amazing—unless it was another Mrs. Cluppins
who builied him into it. At any rate I hope he earned well his social
disrepute.
I confess that I go back to Pickwick Papers more than to any other
book—unless it is the Bible whose influence on me is more primitive and
not as easy to understand. Now why, I ask myself as my hand falls the
how many hundredth time on my gilt-edged Rittenhouse edition which is
as stoutly built as it is beautifully printed, why am I about to reread the
adventures of Mr. Pickwick when here, only a glance or so away, are two
253
254
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
unread novels by Jane Austen, four by the Bronte women, and an even
dozen by Thackeray? Think not that I am untouched by the sweet urbane
voice of Jane Austen, or that I have not held my breath before the black
rising tide which we know by the name Bronte. Innumerable afternoons
of mine have been browned deliciously by the manner of Thackeray.
Why then am I contented to return to Pickwick Papers? Is there not
something in the book which has the power to quiet and calm me more than
anything else in the world ? It seems so. And does it act that way on me
only? Indeed not. I once knew a man who in the midst of reading
Pickwick Papers forgot that he was to be married that day. This man, if
he has continued to read the book, need never trouble to worry about
getting a divorce from one woman when this kind, wise book by a young
man of twenty-four conjectures that almost all women are pretty much
alike.
But I have not yet answered my question: Why do I go back to Pick-
wick Papers? I don’t really know. Nor will I try to guess. If you have
read the book you will easily be able to supply a reason you will like better.
If you have not read the book you must do so immediately, and you really
have no time to bother with reasons. There are eight hundred pages of
infinitely delightful reading before you.
S. R.

The terrible thing about the quest for truth is that you find it.
There are things which one must have the courage not to write.
Paul Bourget still believes in duchesses. What is there astonishing about
that? There are many people who believe in ghosts.

The crowd has no idea of how much sensibility and intelligence it requires
to enjoy the perfume of a rose or the smile of a woman.

Sainte-Beuve is too scholarly. He cannot stand nude before a nude statue;
he has to have pockets from which to take out note-books and papers.
A Little Girl
Tells A Story To A Lady
By DJUNA BARNES
DO you know Germany, Ma-
dame, Germany, in the early
spring? It is very beautiful then,
do you not think? Wide and clean,
and the Spree winding thin and dark,
and the yellow roses in the windows,
and the bright American women
coming in and out of the city with
gay laughter, and the German men
staring and staring over their beer,
heavy and tightly packed into their
life. It was such a spring, three
years ago that I came into Germany
from Russia. I was just sixteen and
my heart was an actress’s heart; it
it that way sometimes, one’s heart
is all one thing for months, and then
altogether another thing, nicht
wahr? And I used to go into the
little cafe at the end of the Zelten,
and eat eggs and drink coffee, and
sometimes the sparrows would fly
down suddenly, their hundreds of
tiny feet striking the tables and the
ground all together, and they would
hurry away with crumbs and fly up
again to the sky all together, so that
the place was as utterly without
birds as it had been with them. And
sometimes a woman came to this
cafe about the same hour in the day
I did, around four in the afternoon,
and once she came with a little man,
quite blond and uncertain. But I
must explain to you how she looked.
She was thin and tall, and, how
do the Germans say, temperament-
voll and kraftvoll, and worn. She
must have been forty then, and she
dressed very richly and carelessly,
and she wore many jewels, and she
could not keep her clothes on, al-
ways her shoulders would be coming
uncovered, or her gloves would be
lost, or her skirt would hang on one
hook, but all the time she was spen-
did and remorseless and dramatic,
as if she were the centre of a whirl-
wind, and her clothes a temporary
debris, and she talked sometimes to
the sparrows and sometimes to the
weinschenk, clasping her hands to-
gether so that the rings stood out
and you could see through them, she
was so thin, and sometimes, when
she came with the little pale man
with the light hair, she talked in
English, so that I did not know
where she came from.
Then one week I stayed away al-
together because I was trying out
for the Schauspielhaus, and I was
very anxious to get the part, and I
thought of nothing else. I sat some-
times by myself in the Tiergarten or
I walked down the Sieges-Allee
255
256
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
where all the Great German emper-
ors’ statues are that look like little
girls and widows, and then one day
I thought of this woman, and went
back to the garden, and there she
was sitting, drinking her beer and
talking to the birds.
And when I came in she got up
immediately and came over and
said:	“Why,	how	do	you do, I
have missed you so much, why did
you not tell me you were going
away, and I should have seen what
I could do about it.” She talked
like that, in a voice that touched
your heart, it was so light and clear
and unbroken. “I have a house,”
she said, “just on the Spree and you
would have come and stayed with
me, for it is very large and you
could have the room off my room,
it is very difficult to live in, but so
lovely, it is Early Italian, and the
bed is like those in which only young
girls, dreaming of the Virgin, were
allowed to lie, but you could sleep,
because you have passion.” And
somehow it did not seem funny that
she spoke to me, and I said that I
would meet her again some day in
the garden and go home with her,
and she was clever and did not show
surprise.
Then one evening, we came in al-
most at the same moment. It was
quite late and they were already
playing the fiddle. We sat together,
listening without speaking, and had
pleasure watching her who played
the violin, she was so heavy, a peas-
ant, but her shoulders were remorse-
ful and she bit her lip and looked
down at her hand as it moved, and
seemed interested in silence. Then
I got up and followed my lady, and
we came to a big house and she let
herself in with a key, and we were
in her home. And she turned at
once to the left and went in to the
dark room and switched on the
lights and sat down and said: “This
is where I sleep, this is how it is.”
And the place was very expensive
and disordered and melancholy.
Everything was tall and massive, the
chest of drawers rose above your
head, and the china stove was enor-
mous and white, and the bed was so
high that you would think of it as
something you would do some day,
and the walls were covered with
shelves, and in the shelves were
heavy books, with red morocco bind-
ings, and on the back of each book
was stamped a coat-of-arms, very in-
tricate and oppressive, and she rang
for tea, and began to take off her
hat.
A great war picture hung over the
bed, and the picture and the bed ran
together, for the huge rumps of the
dappled stallions were reined almost
into the pillows, and the generals
with their foreign helmets and their
dripping swords and the rolling
smoke and the tom limbs of the
dying seemed in some way, to be
fighting with that bed, it was so
large, so tom, so rumpled, so devas-
tated. The sheets were lying half
on the floor and the enormous coun-
terpane hung down and there were
feathers lying softly about, some
cupped up like petals, and trembling
in the slight draught from the long
windows, and some turned down and
moving slowly, aimlessly, gently,
gently, in the air. She smiled but
she did not say anything, and it was
not until a long time after that I
A LITTLE GIRL TELLS A STORY TO A LADY
257
saw a child, not more than three
years old, very little and pretty, ly-
ing in the centre of this bed, making
a thin noise, like a fly buzzing, and I
had thought so it was.
But she did not talk of the child,
and paid no attention to it, as if it
were in the bed and she did not know
it, and when the tea came she poured
it, but took none herself, drinking
little glasses of Rhine wine.
“You have seen Ludwig,” she
said. “We were married a long
time ago, he was just a' boy then.
I am Italian, but I studied English
and German because I was in a trav-
elling company. “You,” she said
abruptly, “you must give up acting.”
I did not think then that it was odd
that she should know of my ambi-
tion, though I had not mentioned it.
“And,” she went on, “you are not
for the stage, you are for something
more quiet and more internal. Now
I have lived in Germany ten years,
and I like it very much. You will
stay here and you will see. Ludwig
is not very strong, you saw that, he
is always going down, he has a room
to himself.” And then she stopped
talking. She seemed very tired and
presently she got up on the bed and
threw herself across it at the foot,
and went to sleep, her hair all about
her face. I went away then, but I
came back that night and tapped at
the window and she came, and nod-
ded to me and presently she appear-
ed at another window to the right
of her bedroom, and signed for me
to come in there, and I came up to
the window and climbed in, and did
not mind that she had not opened
the door for me. The room was
dark excepting for the moon, and
two thin candles that burned bright-
ly before the Virgin. It was a beau-
tiful room Madame, traurig as she
said, and foreign, and everything
was delicate yet gloomy. The cur-
tains over the bed were red velvet,
very Italian, and with gold fringes,
and the bed cover was red velvet
with the same gold fringe too, and
the chairs were high backed and up-
holstered in red, and on the floor
beside the bed, a little stand, on
which was a tasselled red velvet
cushion, and on the cushion a thick
Bible in Italian, lying open.
And she gave me a long, long
night-gown that came below my feet
and rose again fold upon fold, al-
most to my knees, and she loosened
my hair, it was long and yellow then,
and plaited it in two plaits, and she
put me down at her knee and she
said a prayer in German to me, and
then in Italian and ended with “God
bless you” and I got into bed, and
I loved her very much because there
was nothing between us but this 
strange preparation for sleep, and
she went away, and in the night I
heard the child crying, but I was
tired.
And I stayed with her for a year,
and the stage had gone out of my
heart, and I had become religieuse,
it was a gentle religion that began
with the bed, and the way I had gone
down to sleep that first night, and
the way I had prayed at her knee,
though she never repeated that, and
it grew with the furniture and the
air of the room, and the Bible open
at a page I could not read: it was a
religion Madame, that was empty of
need, and therefore it was not holy
perhaps, and not as it should have
258
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
been in its manner, but I was very
happy and I lived with her for one
year, and almost never saw Ludwig,
and almost never Valentine, for that
was her child, a little girl.
But at the end of that year I knew
there was trouble in the other room,
for I heard her walking in the night,
and now sometimes Ludwig would
be there with her. I heard him cry-
ing and talking, but I could not hear
what they said, though at times it
seemed to be a lesson for the child
to repeat, but if so, it never answer-
ed, only made that buzzing cry.
Sometimes it is very wonderful in
Germany Madame, nicht wahr?
There is nothing like a German win-
ter, and now she and I used to walk
all about the Imperial Palace, and
she stroked the cannons, and said
that they were beautiful, and we
talked of philosophy for she was
troubled and brilliant, and she said
always that one must try to be sim-
ple, and try to be like the people in
a whole, and she explained that, say-
ing that to be like every—man, the
common pitiful people, to be like all
of them all at once in your own per-
son, was holy, and she said that peo-
ple did not understand what was
meant by “Love your neighbors as
yourself” it meant, she said, that one
should be them all, and, oneself too,
and then she said, you would be
great and sad and powerful.
And it seemed sometimes as if
she were doing it, as if she were all
Germany in her Italian heart, com-
mon and uncommon, for she was
very simple and irreparable, so that
I was afraid of her and was not.
That is the way it was, Madame,
and she seemed to wish it to be that
way, though at other times she was
scattered and distraught, as at night,
when I heard her walking in her
room.
And then after I had been there
a year, she came in one night and
woke me and said to me that I must
come into her room, and it was in a
yet more terrible disorder. There
was a little cot bed in one corner
that had not been there before, and
she pointed to it and said it was for
me. The child was lying in the great
bed, against a large lace pillow, and
now it was four years old and yet
it did not walk, and I never heard
it make a sound, but that buzzing
cry. It was beautiful in that almost
divine way of idiot children, blond
and frail and innocent, with eyes and
mouth devoid of calculation, like
the child in the lap of the Virgin, or
like children seen playing about the
borders of holy prints, or like all
children on Christmas cards, and
cards for solemn occasions, if you
understand me Madame, something
reserved and set aside about it, as
if it were only for certain days, and
not for life. And now she talked to
me very quietly, but I did not rec-
ognize her former manner.
“You must sleep here now,” she
said, “for I brought you here for this
if I should need you, and now I need
you and you must stay, you must
stay here always.” She said “Will
you do that?” And I said no, I
could not do that. She took up the
candle and came to me and knelt
down, and put the candle on the floor
beside her, and she put her arms
about my knees. “Are you a trai-
tor ?” she said. “Have you come into
my house, and the house of my fa-
A LITTLE GIRL TELLS A STORY TO A LADY
259
thers, and the house of my child, to
betray me?” and I said no, I had
not come to betray. “Then,” she
said, “you will do as I tell you. I
shall teach you slowly, slowly, it will
not be hard, but you must forget
many things, you must begin to for-
get. I was wrong, all the things I
have said to you were wrong, it was
because I was a vain woman, and
did not know. I have,” she went on
as if she were speaking to her child,
someone who had been with her al-
ways, “I have brought you up badly,
forgive me, forgive me for that, that
is a confession, but now I shall do
better, you will see, you will never
go into that other room again, that
was a great vanity, now you will stay
here, you see, you will like it. I
shall bring you your breakfast and
dinner and supper, myself, with
these hands. I shall hold you on
my lap, I shall feed you, I shall rock
you to sleep, I shall cover you with
kisses, but you must not argue with
me any more, no, we shall have no
more arguments about things in the
world, we shall not talk about man
and his destiny, because he has no
destiny, that is the secret, the great
secret, I have been keeping it from
you until today, until this hour, per-
haps because I was jealous of that
knowledge, but now I give it to you,
I share it with you two. I was an
old woman,” she continued still hold-
ing my knees, “when Valentine was
bom, and Ludwig was only a boy.
I have to have you, he is not strong,
he does not know, he will not do.”
All this time she had been talking in
a level voice, and now she began as
if she were talking to a child no
older than her own.
“Don’t repeat anything after me,
it is a silly notion that children
should learn to speak things after
their teachers: but listen if you like,
because you must become accustom-
ed to the sounds of civilization, it’s
very foolish, it’s very wrong, but,”
she said, “you must hear a little be-
cause that is the way it is in the
world outside, and some day you
might go out and not understand and
become frightened.” And then she
began. “It is very beautiful in Ger-
many sometimes, see, the big stars
are coming in the sky, and the snow
falls down and covers the hedges
and the houses, and there is nothing,
and you do not need to be afraid,
and I have loved you, these hands
and these feet, and this breast and
this heart and your heart’s heart,
and your mouth and nose and cheeks
and eyes and your hair, your won-
derful hair, and I curl it, so, and
there are many ribbons for it, and
in the spring we shall go together in-
to the garden where the animals are
and the swans and the birds and the
roses, and where the students come
to read in their big books, and,” she
said speaking my name as if she
were talking to someone else “Katya
will go with you and she will say too,
no, there are no students, no swans,
no birds, no roses, it is all nothing,
just as you wish it, just fancy, noth-
ing at all, it is so simple, it is not
mysterious and the bells do not ring,
and the wars are not fought, and the
birds do not fly, and the river does
not move, and the trees do not grow
and there is no yesterday and no to-
day and no tomorrow, there are no
births and no deaths and no sorrow
and no comfort and no here and no
260
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
there, nothing, nothing! No laugh-
ing and no crying, no kissing and
beating, no strife and no joy, no eat-
ing no drinking, no mothers no fath-
ers, no sisters no brothers, no living
and dying, only you, only you !...”
And I stopped her and I said
“Elvira, why is it that you suffer so,
and what am I to do?’" And I tried
to put my arms about her, but she
struck them down, crying “Silence I”
and then she went on “No growing
no developing no flourishing no with-
ering no wilting no struggling no
death, only you, as you wish, only
It
you....
And then madame, I got up, it
was very cold in the room and I
went to the window and pulled the
curtains and leaned against the pane,
and looked out, and stood a long
time without saying anything, and
when I turned around she was re-
garding me, her hands held apart,
and I knew that I must go away
from her and leave her forever, and
I came up to her and I said “Good
bye my love,” and I went and put
my clothes on, and I came back to
her and she was still standing there
beside the picture, and I said to her,
without approaching her. Good bye
my love,” and went way.
It is so beautiful in Berlin some-
times, Madame, Nicht wahr? But
now there was something else in my
heart, and now it was a passion to
see Paris, and therefore I was going
to Paris, so it was I said lebe whol
to Berlin, and I went for the last
time to my little garden and ate an
egg and drank a cup of coffee and
watched the birds coming just as
they used to come, and going just
as they used to go, altogether here
and then altogether gone, and I was
happy in my heart, for that is the
way it is with my heart Madame,
and so I went back to her house, and
I went in at the door, for all the
doors seemed to be open, perhaps
they were sweeping, but I saw no
one, and I came to her bedroom
door, and I knocked but there was
no answer, and I pushed it open, and
there she was, sitting up in the bed
with her child, and she and the child
were making that same buzzing cry,
together, and no human sound was
between them, and everything was
in terrible disorder. I came up to
her, but she did not seem to know
me, and I said “I am going away,
I am going to Paris, because now
there is a great longing in me to be
away from here, and to be there,
and I came to say farewell.” And
she got down off the bed and she
came to the door and she said: “I
did not know. I loved you and
trusted you, but I was mistaken, for-
give me. ... I did not know I
could do it myself, but you see, I can
do it myself.” Then she got back
on the bed and said “Go now” And
I went.
Things are like that sometimes, in
Berlin, Nicht Wahr, Madame?
Ernst Toller
ERNST TOLLER was bom De-
cember 1, 1893, at Samotschin,
County Bromberg. His father, Max
Toller, a merchant, died when the
boy was sixteen. At first he attend-
ed public school, later a high school,
whose management had been confid-
ed to pensioned priests.
Finally he was the only pupil left,
die school ceased to exist, and the
twelve-year-old boy was taken to
Bromberg. There he underwent
seven years of drudgery in a Prus-
sian military high school. After
passing the college entrance exam-
inations, his wanderlust (which,
while a boy, had carried him on a
runaway trip to Bornholm and Den-
mark) took him to France. He
studied at the University of Gren-
oble and rambled about Southern
France and northern Italy.
The end of July, 1914, found
him at Lyons on his way to Paris.
The German consul at Lyons, a man
who possessed the same amount of
vision as most German foreign rep-
resentatives, quieted his disturbed
fears (this was on the thirty-first of
July) and advised him to proceed to
Paris. That night he heard the
shrill cry of the newsboys: “Dec-
laration of war between Germany
and Russia imminent.” He left
Lyons by the last train that goes to
Geneva. On the way, he was ar-
rested, freed, rearrested, freed
again, and after an adventurous
journey, reached Switzerland a few
minutes before the French frontier
was closed. In Munich he reported
as a volunteer, with the firm convic-
tion that it was his duty to defend
his “attacked fatherland.”
He lived to see “the great Day I”
but fought from the very first the
hate and orgies of revenge of the
journalistic and “literary” vipers.
Thirteen months of service in the
field followed. He believed in his
duty—lie murdered, murdered . . .
and at last found himself facing a
heap of “French” and “German”
corpses, in the Foret des Pretres.
These corpses, in a ghastly embrace,
seemed to lift their stark fists in pro-
test against a humanity which de-
spoils itself, against a fate which
gloats in the danse macabre of
blinded nations.
He was convalescent, a penitent,
yet laden with crime: a murderer
whose hands could never again be
clean.
He was discharged invalided. He
studied for a term in Munich. Slow-
ly he found himself. He was no
longer weary, torn by a disgust of
the age, and therefore shunned the
events of the times. He had grown
to be a thorough rebel.
He searched for comrades. He
took part in the “Kultur” congress
at Burg Lauenstein, which the pub-
261
262
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
lisher Diedrichs had convened. He
beheld the confusion, the cowardice,
and the dejection of his seniors. He
was in love with reality and, with
angry words, censured those traitors
to youth. He resolved to find revo-
lutionary young blood. In the win-
ter of 1917, he studied at Heidel-
berg and enjoyed the privilege of
being a guest at the house of Max
Weber, one of the few German
bourgeois professors who was a poli-
tician, and a man of character—in
German something even more signi-
ficant! He was invited to join a
circle of students, young men and
women, united by gloomy and uncer-
tain impulses. They discussed the
problems of the age; they all real-
ized with the full strength of their
love of truth and justice, that dis-
cussion could bring no solution. His
call to conspire against “the great
Day” bound all these spirited youths.
A cultural-political federation of
German youth sprang into being, its
platform bearing a naive-socialistic,
utopian-socialistic character. Fan-
tastic ideas struggled toward materi-
alization—the phalanx of German
revolutionary youth of the “enemy,”
end the war, build by itself the
League of Nations. How to rouse
the youth?
The faith of “the guileless fools”
clung to the godlike potency of
words. Appeals would assemble
those holding like views. Toller
planned to publish plays of Tolstoi
and Landauer, of Barbusse’s “Le
Feu,” of Frank’s “Der Mensch ist
gut,” in cheap pamphlet form. Like
a Don Quixote of 1917, furiously
attacked by the Pan-German frater-
nities, the federation held its own.
The attention of the notorious news
bureau of the General Staff was at-
tracted. A few of the students who
were members of the federation
were conscripted without any exam-
ination. (Among them was Bern-
hard Schottlaender, who was foully
murdered in Breslau in 1920 by fol-
lowers of Kapp.) Austrian girl-
students were forced to leave Ger-
many.
The writer succeeded in escaping
to Berlin. Here he became ac-
quainted with some kindred spirits.
(Kurt Eisner was one of them.) He
read the political articles of the day
and gained the, to him, staggering
conviction that the German Govern-
ment was not innocent of the out-
break of the war nor yet of its con-
tinuation—that the German people
were being deceived. He made a
close study of the management of
the war, its aims and purposes, and
the path that leads to the proletariat
lay clearer and clearer before him.
In January, 1918, he came to
Munich and took part in the strike
of the munitions-workers. Reclaim-
ed workers, escaped from service at
the front, employed at high wages,
arose and fought for their European
brothers in the field. Peace without
any annexations, open or secret, the
certainty of self-determination of all
countries, including Germany—these
were the slogans of the awakened
proletariat. After Kurt Eisner’s ar-
rest on the first day of the strike, the
workers elected the writer a member
of the strike committee. He spoke
at public meetings on the Theresien-
wiese, participated in the negotia-
which were begun to secure Eisner’s
tions with the police commissioner
ERNST TOLLER
263
release, and at the end of the strike
was arrested, charged with “at-
tempted treason”! At the same
time, he was again conscripted with-
out a medical examination.
There followed months of scien-
tific work in the military prison and
the custody of the barracks. If, be-
fore this, he was a rebel from senti-
ment, he now became a revolution-
ary socialist through understanding.
The drama “Wandlung” was creat-
ed during walks in the dingy square
of the prison yard.
The Revolution of November led
him to Munich. He was elected
chairman of the Central Committee
of Workers’, Peasants’, and Sol-
diers’ Soviets, and took part in the
meetings of the Bavarian National
Congress, the first German Soviet
held in Bavaria. In March, 1919,
the Independent Socialist Party
elected him chairman. Although he
himself was a Communist, he com-
bated the proclamation of a Bavari-
an Soviet, because he believed that
the time was not yet ripe for it. In-
asmuch as a Soviet had already been
spontaneously created in many Ba-
varian cities, however, he felt that
it was not a proclamation which was
necessary, but the understanding and
mastery of existing conditions, and
he accepted the election to enter the
government of the Soviet Republic.
In the first Soviet he was Chairman
of the Central Committee; in the
second, member of the Red Guard.
Recognizing that Munich was cut
off on all sides, realizing the disaster
of a bloody defeat of the workers,
he attempted to prepare a dissolu-
tion of the Soviet, the end of April.
The attempt was without success.
The revolutionary uprising, last rash
attempt of a vanguard of workers to
save the German November Revolu-
tion, was beaten.
A price of 10,000 marks was set
on the writer’s head. On June,
1919, he was arrested. On June
14th, 15th, 16th he was brought be-
fore the Munich Court Martial. He
was condemned to imprisonment in
a fortress for five years. It was
while serving his sentence that he
wrote “Brokenbrow,” or, to give the
German title, “Hinkemann.” It was
performed in Yiddish by the Yiddish
Art Theatre in New York, a city
which was also accorded the privi-
lege of viewing “Man and the
Masses” as presented by the Thea-
tre Guild.
Toller is known, not only for his
plays, but also as a poet; but it is
safe to say that of all his works,
both dramatic and poetic, none is so
likely to remain for posterity as
“Brokenbrow,” which we are pre-
senting here.

Posterity is a schoolboy who is condemned to learn a hundred verses by
heart. He learns ten of them and mumbles a few syllables of the rest.
The ten are glory; the rest is literary history.
The Housemaid
By RICHARD LE GALLIENNE
Poor pulses ready still to beat
At any sound of Love’s light feet,
Poor hungry heart too young to learn
Youth is no more, poor eyes that burn
Still on the women in the street.
O print-clad damsel, fresh and fair,
Bending above the threshold there
On supple knees and swaying line,
And honeyed curve—dear maid, be mine.
For oh, I know about thy neck
Hide silver globes without a fleck,
About thy soft and odorous waist
I know what other joys are placed,
And those strong limbs that make a lap
As soft as down—ah, blessed hap
To lie therein; these round arms bare,
How strongly would you draw me there.
Oh, how you make my blood a song,
And how this foolish heart will long,
And even brain will have its dream—
Ah, there, far up the street a gleam
Turns like a wing, it is her hand,
She kisses it—we understand.
An unnamable critic notes some of the flaming errors of Verhaeren—a
few “among a hundred others.” It is thither, toward the error, that the
mediocre spirit, like the fly, wings its way unerringly. He looks at neither
the eyes, the hair, the hands, the throat, nor all the grace of the woman
passing by; he sees only the mud with which some churl has bespattered
her gown; he rejoices at the sight; he would like to see the spot grow and
devour both the gown and the flesh of its wearer; he would have everything
as ugly, as dirty and despicable as himself.
264
Marie
By LUDWIG BIRO
THE private hotel, a maison
meublee, was recommended to
me by friends. It is situated in the
rue Victor Masse, a street in the
neighbourhood of the Boulevard,
and close to die “white lights” of
Montmartre. As my cab stopped in
front of it, a man in a brown cotton
blouse stepped out and possessed
himself of my trunk. At the door
stood the proprietor, Monsieur Bou-
douin, an honest-faced, smiling, fat
man, a promising host. He had been
apprised of my coming, my friends
having even informed him which
particular room I wanted. Indeed,
Monsieur Boudouin was so well pre-
pared for me, that he even pro-
nounced my foreign name correctly.
Most hospitably he shook my hand,
led me to his office, introduced me to
his wife and to his ten-year-old little'
daughter Lucienne, and then, hook-
ing his arm into mine, he led me up
to the second floor.
I liked my room very much. The
velvet canopy of my four-poster
filled me with awe, and the large fire-
place charmed me, for, at that time,
I did not realize how much more
comfortable a commonplace but effi-
cient iron stove is. Then Monsieur
Boudouin said: “Marie will bring up
your things. . . . Marie will take
care of your room. . . . Marie will
bring up your breakfast. . . .”
Marie I What magic, what poetry
is there in the name! I was only
eighteen and had been dreaming for
weeks of the charming Parisian wo-
men—not indeed of the Parisiennes
—and the name of this one is Marie!
How different from the ordinary,
common Mary! How much grace,
how much charm, magic and esprit!
Then came a bitter disappoint-
ment. There was a knock at the
door, and in came a short, heavy-
set, bony-faced, dark-skinned, long-
armed, heavy-handed woman. She
smiled and, nodding to me, she in-
troduced herself: “I am Marie.”
It was a shock. But Marie kept
on smiling, and most amiably helped
me get my things in order. She
gave me sound, practical advice, and
quietly expatiated upon the fickleness
of the girls in the Cafe Blanche.
She advised me to get acquainted
with some good, honest girl. Well,
thought I, Marie is not a representa-
tive of French womanly grace.
After all, not every Paris woman
can be the intoxicating Parisienne of
whom my brain, fed on cheap ro-
mances, had been dreaming.
But the Hotel Boudouin had an-
other disillusionment in store for
me.
Madame Boudouin interested me.
She sat all day in the hotel office,
and I spoke to her every time I call-
265
266
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
ed for my key, passing in and out.
She was about thirty, a blooming,
mature woman, with handsome, in-
telligent features—and, as I thought
then, sad-eyed. She seemed un-
happy. Was Monsieur Boudouin to
blame? She seemed to be cultured,
and certainly was very good looking,
and Monsieur Boudouin was rather
common, fat, and ignorant: just a
plain bourgeois.
I began to converse with Madame.
I talked wittily and drew heavily
upon my stock of information to ap-
pear worthy of French culture,
French esprit, and made curious dis-
coveries. Madame Boudouin had
not the slightest idea about the
Venus de Milo, and all she knew
about the Louvre was its shops.
This was her French culture! When
I quoted Musset’s poetry to her, she
had only an embarrassed smile for
me—that was all she had of French
esprit 1 In other respects . . . well,
she adored Monsieur Boudouin.
In short, she was not in need of
consolation, and so I desisted. But
we became good friends, and I came
to be on the most friendly terms with
Monsieur Boudouin also, and with
their little Lucienne. Occasionally
they invited me to take dinner with
them, and so, by and by, I became
acquainted with a phase of French
life of which French books and
French newspapers say nothing. I
became really fond of the little fam-
ily. Honest, decent, hard-working
people, the best of husbands, the
best of wives. Nothing was further
from them than the proverbial
French immorality so much talked
about outside of France. Why,
these people had not even been to
a theatre! They adored their little
daughter and worked for her like
slaves, and all they knew of life was
work. Their greatest dissipation
was a good dinner and a glass of
wine. They had come to Paris,
twelve years before, from the neigh-
bourhood of Dordogne. Then they
had only rented the hotel. They
had to work hard, both of them, but
five years later they bought the
place, and later Marie came to them,
and then they could take it easier.
Monsieur Boudouin did some wine
business on the side. Marie took
care of everything around the house.
I like them immensely. I liked
the hotel, I liked my room, its in-
efficient fire-place, the rattling win-
dows, and I liked Marie, who
brought me my breakfast punctually,
and I liked the cotton-bloused porter.
Him Marie introduced to me with:
“This is Joseph, my husband,” as
she fetched him up to my room to
help me move a cupboard.
Marie and Joseph took care of
the whole large house, Marie of the
two lower, and Joseph of the two
upper floors. Marie did her work
of cleaning with incredible swiftness
and in brilliant good humour. Hard-
working, good people, both of them,
good-natured, amiable and touching-
ly industrious. Once, when I was
laid up with fever, Marie nursed me
like a mother. She told me then
that she came from the Normandie,
and that, when she would have
saved enough, she would go back
home, buy some land and do farm-
ing.
I grew very fond of these folk.
Six months later I had to leave and
my leave-taking affected me greatly.
MARIE
267
I kissed little Lucienne, shook hands
with Madame Boudouin; and Mon-
sieur Boudouin, after drinking his
last glass of wine with me, heartily
embraced me. Outside stood Marie
and Joseph, and both of them warm-
ly pressed my hand in their callous-
ed palms. Marie was affected, Jo-
seph was affected, and I was affected.
Afterward, thinking of all of
them always touched my heart.
Four years passed, but whenever I
thought of the Boudouins, my heart
always warmed for them. The most
honest, best people; the pleasantest
place in the world, that Hotel Bou-
douin. Then one day, towards the
end of May, homeward bound from
London, I arrived in Paris. I had
notified Monsieur Boudouin, and
one sunny spring morning I stood
again in the rue Victor Masse.
Monsieur Boudouin was as fat as
ever; he smiled and hugged me.
Madame Boudouin had also put on
some fat; but she still was hand-
some, blooming and happy. She
shook both of my hands. I asked
for Lucienne and was told that three
years ago she had entered the Con-
vent school and was to stay there
another three years. Then she
would come back home, and marry.
The happy parents told me that Lu-
cienne was a beautiful girl, bright,
a good student and in excellent
health.
Monsieur Boudouin took me up
to my old room. On leaving me to
myself, I heard him call out to
Marie that I had arrived. There
was a crash, as from a dropping
dustpan and broom, a slamming of
a door, and an impatient rap at my
door, and then entered precipitately
Marie, squat, muscular and over-
joyed. She pressed my hand in both
of hers. How am I, and what have
I been doing, and where have I been,
she asks rapidly without giving me
a chance to answer. And wasn’t it
terrible when I had that bad fever
and she had to put cold compresses,
without end, on my head! They
had thought so often of me!
What a dear, good Marie! How
affecting, how warm-hearted, what
a faithful creature! I told her about
myself and then I asked some ques-
tions with genuine interest.
“Et vous? Ca va bien?”
Oh, indeed yes, she is quite well.
“And your husband?” say I.
He too is well, thanks, says she.
They are both first-rate. They work
hard, but they can stand it, for they
live well. Is this small satchel all
I have? What, another one below?
Her husband will bring it up. He
is downstairs now. And now she
must leave, for there is a good deal
of work to be done.
She left the room. I heard her
call down the stairway and soon
after, with the noise of Marie’s
brush and beater going on in the
next room, there is a rap at my door.
Ah, this will be my good friend Jo-
seph, think I.
I open the door and in comes my
satchel, and I am stretching out my
open palm for Joseph’s friendly
handshake, but draw it back again,
for it is not Joseph. Is this a mis-
take? Joseph was small, broad-
shouldered, dark-skinned, but this
man is tall and blond. Perhaps a
new valet, an increase in help.
“Just drop that satchel,” I tell the
man. Then I ask him: “So work
268
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
got too heavy for the two of them?”
The blond man looks at me aston-
ished. “Too heavy? Not at all.
There’s only two of us.”
“Well, and how about Marie’s
husband?”
“I am Marie’s husband.”
The blond man goes out, followed
by my startled look. Poor Marie
has been a widow then! Well,' she
is married and happy again.
At noon, chatting with M. Bou-
douin, I say to him:	“So	Marie
was widowed?”
“Widowed? Why, no!”
“Joseph died,” say I.
“Why, no,” says Monsieur Bou-
douin, wondering.
“Ah, I see, they were 'divorced!”
“Why, no. That is . . . well,
now . .. ”
Monsieur Boudouin looks at Ma-
dame, Madame looks at Monsieur,
who raises a thumb and pointing
with its curve backward and upward,
talks, explains and, by degrees, I be-
gin to understand. They need in the
hotel help, a man and a women.
The woman is Marie, has been Ma-
rie these ten years. The man, well,
he is changed. Marie is important
to them. Marie is a worker. Ma-
rie is honest. Marie keeps things
shipshape. They can depend on
Marie who watches their interest as
a lioness watches her cubs. The
man is unimportant. The men come
and go, but Marie stays. The
man’s bedroom is right next to Ma-
rie’s, right here on the ground floor,
to the left of the stairs. The man
comes, and at once becomes Marie’s
husband. Then, when he leaves, a
new man comes. If Marie likes
him, he stays and becomes her hus-
band.
I understood; Monsieur Boudouin
was perfectly satisfied with his ex-
planation. With his two hands
raised, palms turned upward, he
looked at Madame, as though call-
ing her to witness, and then, turning
to me he said, somewhat astonished,
as though expecting to be contradict-
ed: “She must have a man, mustn’t
she?”
But I hastened to agree, “Of
course she must,” with diplomatic
zeaL
And Madame, seriously and with
a graceful but firm nod, confirmed
the statement.
A week later I left them. Again
we parted with great warmth.
Again Monsieur Boudouin embraced
me and Madame shook my hands.
Marie, greatly moved, attended me
at my cab, and Ernest, not Joseph
this time, but Ernest, whom in the
course of the week I had come to
know as an honest, ’decent fellow,
took leave of me too, and I shook
his powerful hand with genuine lik-
ing.
Another year passed. About the
Boudouins I heard only once from
a friend whom I recommended to
the hotel. All of them were tip-top,
my friend wrote, in good health and
prosperous. Two years later I
again had to go to Paris, where I
intended to spend two months. I
accordingly notified Monsieur Bou-
douin.
They received me with the old
affection, the good people. Little
Lucienne, now a beautiful, fair
young lady, was at home too. She
still remembered me. She had
MARIE
269
learned a good deal in the convent
school. She was sixteen now and, in
a year or two, was to marry. They
put me into my old room, and Marie
came in to greet me. She had not
changed, and looked as she did two
years ago, and six years ago. She
might have been thirty-five years old,
or thirty, or forty-five, for that mat-
ter. She was kind as ever, and her
amiable, warm, brown eyes looked
as pleasant as ever. The pressure
of her hand was as warm as I re-
membered it, and her questions just
as solicitous. Of her husband I
dared not inquire. But I did ask
Monsieur Boudouin about him.
“My goodness,” said Monsieur
Boudouin, “we had a great deal of
trouble about that. We had a man
from the Pyrenees. They are
thieves, all of them. This one was
a thief too. But he was so clever
that not even Marie caught him.
But when she got on to him, he
offered to whack up with her. Ma-
rie jumped upon him. She wanted
to scratch his eyes out. The fellow
bellowed, drew his knife, the police
came in; it was awful.”
“And this man . . . was he Ma-
rie’s . . .?”
“Her husband ? Why, yes. But
when he came from marketing,
which was one of his jobs, he sold
part on the way home. He stole
in other ways too. Yes, he was her
husband, but when she got on to
him ”
I became thoughtful. I did not
praise Marie, though Monsieur Bou-
douin seemed to expect it. I asked
him: “And now ... is there . . .
a new man ?”
“Oh my, yes! He came three
days ago. He came from the coun-
try. He worked on my sister-in-
law’s dairy-farm. He is an honest
fellow, but does not understand his
work. Marie is training him.”
I was thus reassured that Marie’s
family concerns were arranged. I
met the new man, a tall, spare fel-
low, dark, about thirty-five years
old, powerful, slow of gait. Marie
had already put him into the brown
cotton blouse. “Well, for the next
few years, Marie’s domestic comfort
is assured, anyhow,” thought I.
Four days had passed, and all at
once I noticed that Marie was ill-
humoured. In the afternoon I met
her in the hall and spoke to her, but
she barely returned my greeting.
Next morning I was waiting for my
breakfast which Marie had always
brought with unfailing punctuality,
but no breakfast came. I rang the
bell, rang it twice, three times. At
last Marie comes, angry, fire in her
eye, slams down upon the table, cup,
plates, tray and all, and without pay-
ing the least attention to me, leaves,
slamming the door after her.
What in heaven has struck Ma-
rie? I breakfasted and walked
down to the hotel office. As I en-
tered, Monsieur Boudouin was just
stepping out, .his face flushed, his
hair dishevelled; the amiable, quiet,
smiling man was greatly perturbed.
I wanted to stop him, but, most im-
politely, he pushed me aside, and
squeezing past me, he ran out of the
room and up the stairs. I entered
the office. There, Madame sudden-
ly jumped up from her seat, and as
though suddenly struck by a saving
idea, flushed up, and against her
270
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
usual quiet habit, rushed out shout-
ing after her husband.
I had just made up my mind to
go out, when in the narrow entry I
met Lucienne, just as she was coming
in. She too was flushed and excited.
I stopped her. “What is wrong
here, Lucienne? What has gone
askew ?”
Lucienne looked at me seriously,
and then said impressively: “Victor.
We have trouble with Victor.”
“Victor? Who is Victor?”
“The new man. The man whom
aunt sent us.”
“His name is Victor? What’s the
trouble with him ? Is he ill ?
What’s wrong with him?”
Lucienne, standing tiptoe, whis-
pered into my ear: “Victor doesn’t
want to.”
“What does he not want to?” I
asked wonderingly. The little girl,
getting quite close to me said serious-
ly, softly, plaintively, and astonish-
ed: “He does not want to be Ma-
rie’s husband.”
I looked at her, startled, taken
aback, as she was seriously nodding
to me. I did not question her any
further. But I did not leave, I
stayed. “What’s going to happen?”
I wondered.
A few minutes later, Monsieur
Boudouin rushed back into the office
and excitedly paced back and forth.
But soon after he was in a condition
to be talked to. Then Madame re-
turned and they both told me their
troubles.
“Victor has been here a week,”
said Monsieur Boudouin. “We
thought things were all right. But
no. No! They are all wrong.
“Marie thought,” said Madame,
“that Victor was only bashful. But
he isn’t. Victor does not want to.”
“Marie told him yesterday,” said
Monsieur Boudouin, “that her door
is open.”
“Yes, and Victor told her, that
for all he cared, she could take her
door off its hinges,” said Madame
indignantly.
“Marie asked him, whether he
wanted to or not.”
“Yes, and Victor said no!”
“Marie then asked him why he
had come at all.”
“Victor then told her it wasn’t in
his contract.”
“Then Marie called him a slob.”
“And Victor called her a slut.”
“Marie then came to me and
threatened to leave.”
“And she cried, and began to pack
her trunk.”
“She will leave. She is mad all
through.”
“The way she carried on! She
means it.” Both Madame and Mon-
sieur were desperate.
“What will become of us, if Ma-
rie leaves?” asked Monsieur.
“We are not accustomed to
drudgery any more,” said Madame
plaintively.
I thought of a brilliant idea. “Fire
Victor,” said I.
Monsieur Boudouin argumenta-
tively waved his hand:	“In the
first place, he has a year’s contract.”
“And then, Marie has set her
heart on him now,” added Madame.
I understood. Marie insisted on
her rights. It is up to Monsieur
Boudouin to get her what she is en-
titled to. If not, she packs her
trunk.
The Boudouin family sat down in
MARIE
271
conference. I, as a friend of theirs,
was invited to take part. At its con-
clusion Victor was called in. Victor
came in, with his heavy, bucolic gait,
respectfully, but composedly, a de-
termined challenge in his face.
Monsieur Boudouin talked to him.
What a good place is his in the
hotel I The work is not heavy, there
are lots of tips, and in a few years
he can go home and buy a small
farm. Victor agreed, nodding his
large, bony head, and when Mon-
sieur Boudouin had done talking, he
said calmly:	“Yes, I’ll stay. I’ll
stay gladly.”
Monsieur Boudouin exclaimed:
“But then, you must . . . you know
. . . Marie . . .”
Victor rolled his head slowly, first
from left to right, and then back
again, from right to left.
“No,” said Victor calmly, “that
is not in the contract.”
Monsieur Boudouin appeared pro-
voked. He started praising Marie.
What a decent, good body! How
industrious, how kind! And she has
already saved a good bit of money.
Victor again calmly rolled his
head from left to right and then
from right to left. “Nothing in the
contract about Marie,” he said
again.
Monsieur Boudouin’s forehead
was moist with anxious perspiration.
What does Victor want, he asked.
Have they not met providentially?
Have they not adjoining rooms,
made for domesticity? Would it
not be right and proper . . . con-
sider now, a man and a woman,...
evidently now . . . why, it would
be a crime not to . . .
Madame Boudouin signified her
approval of her husband’s hints with
vehement nods. But Victor kept on
rolling his head from side to side.
Monsieur Boudouin threw up his
hands and shrugged his shoulders in
despair, and Madame compressed
her lips in bitter disappointment.
Victor stood still. Then he made
slow preparations to leave, and when
partly turned toward the door he
repeated with adamant calmness:
“It’s not in the contract.”
Thus he slowly started to go out.
But Monsieur Boudouin jumped up
from his chair, rushed up to Victor,
and taking hold of his brown cotton
blouse turned him around again, and
flushed from excitement played his
trump card: “It is not in the con-
tract? Let us make a new contract
then.”
Victor stood looking serious and
expectant.
“We will pay you every month,”
said the excited Monsieur Boudouin,
“we will pay you . . . let’s see . . .
we will pay you . . .”
“Five francs,” interrupted Ma-
dame.
Victor looked at Madame, then
he looked at Monsieur, and then his
head went again from right to left
and then from left to right.
“Five francs a month!” said the
excited Monsieur Boudouin. “Only
think! Sixty francs a year!”
But Victor’s bony head slowly
turned from side to side.
“Well, how much do you want?”
asked the worried Boudouin, “How
much ?”
“Yes, how much?” added Ma-
dame.
“Ten francs,” came the answer,
after some deliberation.
272
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
There was some haggling. A
hundred and twenty francs a year
is a good deal, remonstrated Mon-
sieur Boudouin; but the bargain was
struck after all.
Victor cautiously repeated the
agreement. “Every month I get an
extra ten francs, then.”
Monsieur Boudouin nodded. Ma-
dame said: “Yes, as long as . . .”
Victor confirmed this with a nod.
Monsieur Boudouin then shook Vic-
tor’s hand, poured him a glass of
wine, and clinking their glasses to-
gether they drank in final confirma-
tion of the agreement. Then Victor
respectfully bowed and turning to-
ward the door, left the office with
his heavy, agricultural gait. Mon-
sieur and Madame exchanged
pleased glances, and Madame said
to her husband: “Now run to Ma-
rie and tell her.”
“I am going,” said Monsieur
Boudouin. “I am glad you inter-
rupted me. I wanted to offer him
ten francs to begin with.”
“Yes, and then he would have
asked fifteen,” said Madame.
Monsieur Boudouin was overjoy-
ed. He gaily clicked his tongue, and
stepped out to tell Marie all about
it.
At ten o’clock that night, on com-
ing home, I saw a light in the hotel
office. They sat at the supper table,
all three, Monsieur, Madame, and
Lucienne. They sat there in pleas-
antest concord, good humoured, and
contented; an exemplary, happy
family. There was a bottle on the
table. As I took my key off its hook
on the wall, they called me in to a
glass of wine.
“Until midnight we attend to the
door tonight,” said Monsieur Bou-
douin.
“We excused Victor until then,”
said Madame. “He just went to
bed.”
Lucienne’s presence embarrassed
me somewhat. “And so ... so
everything is arranged . . . satis-
factorily . . .?” I asked haltingly.
Monsieur Boudouin jumped up,
stepped out of the office door, slowly
walked up to the staircase and re-
turned a few minutes later, good
humoured, his eyes shining. “Yes,
everything is all right,” said he en-
thusiastically. “I have just been
there.”
Madame smiled and rejoiced, Lu-
cienne rejoiced, I also rejoiced; we-
clinked our wine glasses and drank.
“Long live the new couple,” shout-
ed Monsieur and Madame Bou-
douin.
“Long live the new couple,” shout-
ed little Lucienne and I.
Lucienne then was sent to bed,
and we stayed up till midnight for
a good time. Promptly at midnight
Victor came, sat down upon the
couch in the office, and at once an-
swering the bell, pulled the rope to
open the door for a late guest. We
then left for our beds.
Next morning Marie promptly
brought my breakfast. Her eyes
shone, and her smile was radiant as
ever, and a few mintues later she
rattled and pounded away at her
chores with her old, unflagging en-
ergy. I stepped down to the office.
Monsieur Boudouin was in excel-
lent humour. Madame was in ex-
cellent humour. So was Lucienne.
The whole hotel was in the best of
humour.
The Conjurer
By RICHARD MIDDLETON
CERTAINLY the audience was
restive. In the first place it
felt that it had been defrauded, see-
ing that Cissie Bradford, whose
smiling face adorned the bills out-
side, had failed to appear, and, sec-
ondly, it considered that the deputy
for that famous lady was more than
inadequate. To the little man who
sweated in the glare of the limelight
and juggled desperately with glass
balls in a vain effort to steady his
nerve it was apparent that his turn
was a failure. And as he worked
he could have cried with disappoint-
ment, for his was a trial per-
formance, and a year’s engagement
in the Hennings’ group of music-
halls would have rewarded success.
Yet his tricks, things that he had
’done with the utmost ease a thou-
sand times, had been a succession of
blunders, rather mirth-provoking
than mystifying to the audience.
Presently one of the glass balls fell
crashing on the stage, and amidst
the jeers of the gallery he turned
to his wife, who served as his as-
sistant.	
“I’ve lost my chance,” he said,
with a sob; “I can’t do it I”
“Never mind, dear,” she whis-
pered. “There’s a nice steak and
onions at home for supper.”
“It’s no use,” he said despairingly.
“I'll try the disappearing trick and
then get off. I’m done here.” He
turned back to the audience.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said
to the mockers in a wavering voice,
“I will now present to you the con-
cluding item of my entertainment. I
will cause this lady to disappear un-
der your very eyes, without the aid
of any mechanical contrivance or ar-
tificial device.” This was the merest
showman’s patter, for, as a matter
of fact, it was not a very wonderful
illusion. But as he led his wife for-
ward to present her to the audience
the conjurer was wondering whether
the mishaps that had ruined his
chance would meet him even here. If
something should go wrong—he felt
his wife’s hand tremble in his, and
he pressed it tightly to reassure her.
He must make an effort, an effort
of will, and then no mistakes would
happen. For a second the lights
danced before his eyes, then he
pulled himself together. If an earth-
quake should disturb the curtains and
show Molly creeping ignominiously
away behind he would still meet his
fate like a man. He turned round to
conduct his wife to the little alcove
from which she should vanish. She
was not on the stage!
For a minute he did not guess the
greatness of the disaster. Then he
realized that the theatre was intense-
ly quiet, and that he would have to
273
274
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
explain that the last item of his pro-
gramme was even more of a fiasco
than the rest. Owing to a sudden in-
disposition his skin tingled at the
thought of the hooting. His tongue
rasped upon cracking lips as he
braced himself and bowed to the au-
dience.
Then came the applause. Again
and again it broke out from all over
the house, while the curtain rose and
fell, and the conjurer stood on the
stage, mute, uncomprehending.
What had happened? At first he
had thought they were mocking him,
but it was impossible to misjudge
the nature of the applause. Besides,
the stage-manager was allowing him
call after call, as if he were a star.
When at length the curtain remained
down, and the orchestra struck up
the opening bars of the next song, he
staggered off into the wings as if he
were drunk. There he met Mr.
James Hennings himself.
“You’ll do,” said the great man;
“that last trick was neat. You
ought to polish up the others,
though. I suppose you don’t want to
tell me how you did it? Well, well,
come in the morning and we’ll fix up
a contract.” And so, without having
said a word, the conjurer found him-
self hustled off by the Vaudeville
Napoleon. Mr. Hennings had some-
thing more to say to his manager.
“Bit rum,” he said. “Did you see
it?”
“Queerest thing we've struck.”
“How was it done, do you think?”
“Can’t imagine. There one min-
ute on his arm, gone the next, no
trap, or curtain, or anything.”
“Money in it, eh?”
“Biggest hit of the century, I
should think.”
“I’ll go and fix up a contract and
get him to sign it to-night. Get on
with it.” And Mr. James Hennings
fled to his office.
Meanwhile the conjurer was
wandering in the wings with the
drooping heart of a lost child. What
had happened? Why was he a suc-
cess, and why did people stare so
oddly, and what had become of his
wife? When he asked them the
stage hands laughed, and said they
had not seen her. Why should they
laugh? He wanted her to explain
things, and hear their good luck.
But she was not in her dressing-
room, she was not anywhere. For
a moment he felt like crying.
Then, for the second time that
night, he pulled himself together.
After all, there was no reason to be
upset. He ought to feel very pleased
about the contract, however it had
happened. It seemed that his wife
had left the stage in some queer way
without being seen. Probably to in-
crease the mystery she had gone
straight home in her stage dress, and
had succeeded in dodging the stage-
door keeper. It was all very strange;
but, of course, there must be some
simple explanation like that. He
would take a cab home and find her
there already. There was a steak
and onions for supper.
As he drove along in the cab he
became convinced that this theory
was right. Molly had always been
clever, and this time she had cer-
tainly succeeded in surprising every-
body. At the door of his house he
gave the cabman a shilling for him-
self with a light heart. He could
THE CONJURER
275
afford it now. He ran up the steps
cheerfully and opened the door. The
passage was quite dark, and he won-
dered why his wife hadn’t lit the
gas.
“Molly!” he cried, “Molly!”
The small weary-eyed servant
came out of the kitchen on a savoury
wind of onions.
“Hasn’t missus come home with
you, sir?” she said.
The conjurer thrust his hand
against the wall to steady himself,
and the pattern of the wall-paper
seemed to burn his finger-tips.
“Not here!” he gasped at the
frightened girl. “Then where is she ?
Where is she?”
“I don’t know, sir,” she began
stuttering; but the conjurer turned
quickly and ran out of the house. Of
course, his wife must be at the the-
atre. It was absurd ever to have
supposed that she could leave the the-
atre in her stage dress unnoticed;
and now she was probably worrying
because he had not waited for her.
How foolish he had been.
It was a quarter of an hour before
he found a cab, and the theatre was
dark and empty when he got back
to it. He knocked at the stage
door, and the night watchman open-
ed it.
“My wife?” he cried.
“There’s no one here now, sir,”
the man answered respectfully, for
he knew that a new star had risen
that night.
The conjurer leaned against the
doorpost faintly.
“Take me up to the dressing-
rooms,” he said. “I want to see
whether she has been there while I
was away.”
The watchman led the way along
the dark passages. “I shouldn’t
worry if I were you, sir,” he said.
“She can’t have gone far.” He did
not know anything about it, but he
wanted to be sympathetic.
“God knows,” the conjurer mut-
tered, “I can’t understand this at
all.”
In the dressing-room Molly’s
clothes still lay neatly folded as she
had left them when they went on the
stage that night, and when he saw
them his last hope left the conjurer,
and a strange thought came into .his
mind.
“I should like to go down on the
stage,” he said, “and see if there is
anything to tell me of her.”
The night watchman looked at
the conjurer as if he thought he was
mad, but he followed him down to
the stage in silence. When he was
there the conjurer leaned forward
suddenly, and his face was filled with
a wistful eagerness.
“Molly!” he called, “Molly!”
But the empty theatre gave him
nothing but echoes in reply.

The world will never forgive the Jews for having disdained the religion
which they gave to the world. There is in this a sort of intellectual treason
which reminds one of those merchants who do not wear, or eat, or drink
their own merchandise.
Twelve Great Passions
III. The Tragedy of Queen Natalie of Servia
By J. A. BRENDON
I
"I LOVE my Servians, and my
 Servians love me—they will
never betray me,” Prince Michael
once affirmed. Nor was this merely
a vain, idle boast. Rarely, indeed,
has a ruler been more popular
among his people than was he. But
a Prince, especially be he the ruler
of a Balkan State, should place his
trust in something stronger than the
blind devotion of his subjects, for it
is possible to be loved and still to
have many enemies. In the Near
East, in fact if the former is the
case, the latter almost invariably
is so.
Now Prince Michael's enemies
not only were numerous but also
powerful. And one man in particu-
lar, Alexander Karageorgovitch,
hated him with all the intensity of
his nature. Prince Michael belonged
to the House of Obrenovitch; Alex-
ander to a rival family whose dy-
nastic hopes, though temporarily
thwarted, still were very strong. He
was an enemy, therefore, such as no
ruler safely can ignore, for he
aspired, and aspired openly, to seize
his rival’s throne, and to establish
himself upon it in his stead. But
Prince Michael, heedless to those in-
tentions, blind to the gathering
clouds of treachery, sunned himself
contentedly in the adulation of his
people.
And in doing so he greatly erred.
One day, in June, 1869, while
walking with three ladies in the park
of Topfschider, his favourite sum-
mer residence, unaccompanied, save
only by a footman and an aid-de-
camp, he was met by three men
walking together in the opposite di-
rection. As they passed, the men
saluted the Prince respectfully and
loyally.
He returned the greeting in that
gracious manner which had done
more than aught else to win for him
his subjects’ love. Then he moved
on. But, before he had advanced
many paces, the sound of pistol-
shots disturbed the stillness of the
summer morning. His companion
stepped aside in horror. For there,
stretched out upon the ground be-
tween them, lay Prince Michael shot
foully through the back—dead.
Now the people were not slow to
believe that Alexander Karageorgo-
vitch had been the instigator of this
crime; and, whether suspicion was
justified or not, their love for the
murdered Prince burst forth in a
furious flame of loyalty, which soon
extinguished Alexander’s hopes. His
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
277
was but a short-lived triumph. The
Servians, in fact, rallied round his
rival’s rightful heir, as, under nor-
mal circumstances, they never would
have done, for Milan Obrenovitch
was only a cousin to their beloved
Prince, and at that a mere boy, four-
teen years of age.
For a long while, indeed, Prince
Michael had despaired of finding an
heir to the throne in his own family,
for he himself was childless. Then,
not long before his death, he sud-
denly remembered that his Uncle
Jefrenn had married a certain Marie
Catargo, and that she had given him
a son. Jefrenn Obrenovitch was
dead. But where was the boy? Even-
tually he was found at Bucharest.
And his mother, who was leading a
licentious, gay and worthless life at
the Court of Prince Kursa, declared
herself only too glad to have the op-
portunity of shuffling her parental
obligations onto the shoulders of
another.
Forthwith she sent her son to Bel-
grade, and ventured to express the
hope that her nephew would be
pleased with his appearance. Nor
was her sarcasm unjustified or wast-
ed. Indeed, it would have been hard
to find, even in the gutters of Bel-
grade a wilder, more unkempt little
ragamuffin than was Milan. He
could not read; he could not write.
He had never been in Senna before.
The language was unknown to him.
He had no manners, and apparently
no virtues. Prince Michael was al-
most in despair. Was this boy the
only heir to the throne that could be
found? The thought was not en-
couraging.
Still, Milan’s father had been an
Obrenovitch. There must, then, be
some good in the child, his cousin
thought. Accordingly he set about
to find it. Nor did he fail. As a
matter of fact, there was plenty of
good in Milan. Decent food, decent
clothes, and a decent education soon
worked a miracle, and Milan, in an
incredibly short space of time, ceased
to be a hooligan, and developed into
a real little gentleman and a rare
little sportsman. He showed him-
self quick to learn, and willing; but
in one subject—the art of war—he
refused to take interest. This failing
worried his tutors, for Servia was a
troubled State, and her ruler, ipso
facto, leader of the army; it was es-
sential, then, for him to be a soldier.
But Prince Michael, for his part,
still had hopes; the boy, he felt, even
yet would learn.
And so, “I am proud of my suc-
cessor,” he once declared; “I shall
leave my kingdom and my people in
good hands.”
And, a few days later, he left
them. The treachery of the assassin
had made Milan, at the age of four-
teen, Prince of Servia.
Now surely, no boy has ever been
allowed to gather the reins of power
into his hands under sadder and, at
the same time, happier auspices.
Servia lost all sense of proportion in
paying homage to him. Prince
Michael had chosen him to be his
heir. That alone was enough to fan
enthusiasm. Whenever he showed
himself in public, the new Prince was
hailed with mad, intoxicating cheers.
The Court adored him. The great
officers of State were prepared to
sacrifice in his service their very all.
The Ministers were loyalty itself.
278
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
But the people—the people regard-
ed their Prince as but little other
than a god.
Such acclamations of loyalty and
devotion might well have turned a
saner, older head than Milan’s. And
Ristisch, Servia’s most trusty states-
man, was not slow to recognize the
danger to which the Prince was now
exposed. Flattery he knew to be an
insidious drug; so he resolved that,
during the days of the Regency, not
only must Milan’s education be al-
lowed to continue as strictly as be-
fore, but also that the boy must es-
cape for a while from Servia and
evil influences; that he must travel,
and so see the world and gain expe-
rience. This, no doubt, was wise and
salutary counsel; but, when choosing
a tutor for his charge, Ristisch failed
to display a similar wisdom.
Professor Huet may have been a
clever man, nay, was; and a con-
genial companion. But Milan need-
led more than this; he needed as tutor
some one able to keep a firm hand
upon him. This Huet could not do.
Education, therefore, defeated its
own object. Milan, in fact, as a re-
sult of his visits to the capitals of
Europe, learned more of the sub-
tleties of pleasure and the gentle
art of spending money than of
statesmanship. This, of course, was
the very thing to be avoided. His
father, it is true, had been an Obre-
novitch, but his mother—well, his
mother was Marie Catargo; and
heredity is not a factor in human life
to be despised.
After his return to the Court of
Belgrade, then, the Prince gave
many anxious moments to those who
wished him well. Youthful indiscre-
tions, perhaps, are pardonable. But
there is a limit to such toleration.
And all is not well when a man,
whose function in life is to lead oth-
ers, places pleasure before duty, and
allows selfishness to master his bet-
ter judgment.
It would be unjust, of course, to
blame Milan entirely for his- follies.
He had been led astray by flattery
and opportunity, two vicious harpies
into whose hands it is only too easy
for a prince to fall, a young and
handsome prince with a romantic
past. Still, neither excuse nor jus-
tification can lessen the gravity of
any danger. And the danger which
threatened Milan was a very real
one, and so acute that his advisers
deemed it necessary to take immedi-
ate action to avert it.
But what? What remedy could
be found? Only one, it would seem,
was possible. Milan must have a
wife, a wife whom he would love
and reverence, and who could turn
his eyes from the fickle beauties of
his Court; a wife, moreover, whom
the Servians, too, would love, and
who could share their devotion to
her husband. Yes, this certainly was
the ideal solution to the problem.
Besides, it might also provide, per-
haps, an answer to the ever-present
question of the succession.
Ristisch, therefore, strongly urged
the Prince to marry. And Milan, for
his part, liked the idea. The thought
of having a queen to share his throne
pleased him. He was all eagerness.
But unfortunately he was destined
soon to discover that it is no easy
matter to find a suitable bride for a
prince whose throne is set on quick-
sand; and that in the Almanach de
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
279
Gotha mention is made of crowns
esteemed more highly in the matri-
monial market than those of Balkan
States.
This proved a sorry blow to his
dignity. And when, after pourpar-
lers of phenomenal duration, a mere
Hungarian count rejected him as a
husband for his daughter in favour
of a man who had no claim to dis-
tinction other than a very short purse
and a very long pedigree, Milan
would have no more to do with
bridehunting. Mere mention of the
word marriage in his presence was
more than he would tolerate.
And so for a while he continued
to pursue the uneven tenor of his
way, until one day he happened to
notice a portrait lying on Ristisch’s
writing-table—the portrait of a girl,
and a very lovely girl.  The Prince’s
curiosity was aroused immediately,
and he made inquiry as to who she
was. Ristisch laughed; and then,
since he had been given the cue, ven-
tured again to introduce the forbid-
den topic.
The girl, he said, was a Russian,
and of very ancient lineage. In fact,
he hinted, she would make a highly
desirable parti for the Prince. She
was young and rich—yes, very rich.
Her father, moreover, possessed
great political influence. And an
alliance with Russia would . . .
II
But Milan paid no heed to these
particulars. He had forgotten even
Ristisch’s presence. The beauty of
the girl’s portrait had absorbed com-
pletely the attention both of his
senses and his eyes. Could the ori-
ginal be anything like so lovely?
Was it possible? He must see her
immediately. Where could he find
her?
At present, Ristisch told him, she
was to be found in Paris. She had
gone there to finish her education,
and was staying with her aunt,
Princess Mussuri.
Paris! Princess Mussuri! That
was enough for Milan. He decided
to leave for France immediately;
and forthwith sat down and wrote to
the Princess announcing his inten-
tion. At last he really was in love
—head over heels in love. It was
no mere manage de convenance that
he contemplated now, but romance,
the real thing, an undying devotion
—Love.
Under the circumstances, then,
perhaps it is not surprising that he
should have arrived at Paris several
hours earlier than he had intended,
or even had thought possible. He
had told the Princess that he would
present himself at her house at mid-
day. He arrived at Paris at four
o’clock in the morning. What could
he do with himself in the mean-
while? How could he kill time? He
was all impatience.
Then suddenly he remembered
that he had a cousin at the Servian
Consulate, one Alexander Konstanti-
novitch, whom he had not seen for a
long time. He decided, therefore,
to disturb him now, for, he thought,
he might be able perhaps there to
glean some information. And he
found Alexander only too ready to
gossip. The latter, in fact, also was
a love-sick swain; and could neither
talk nor think of anything save the
great passion which was consuming
him.
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TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
Now this humour suited Milan’s
mood, and he listened patiently to a
recital of the unknown lady’s
charms. She was only sixteen years
of age, it appeared, but lovely, ador-
able, a dream of all the graces, and,
incidentally, the daughter of a Rus-
sian colonel.
No, Konstantinovitch said, he
was not actually engaged to her,
but . . . Then he gave a significant
shrug of the shoulders which, trans-
lated into plain English, meant “all
but.” He had an appointment with
her, he said, at ten o’clock that
morning. Would the Prince accom-
pany him? The lady in question
was really anxious to meet him; she
had said so often.
Indeed—of course, Konstantino-
vitch did not realize this, for infatu-
ation had blinded his senses—she
had heard so much of Milan from
her ardent wooer that she had al-
most learned to love him. Kon-
stantinovitch, in fact, solely from
egotistic motives, merely in order to
enhance his own importance, had
laid much stress upon his connection
with that darling of society, the boy
Prince of Servia, who had not only
won the hearts of his own subjects,
but had set those of the beau monde
of Paris and Vienna in a flutter.
But of this interesting little fact,
Milan, needless to say, was kept in
ignorance. So he set out with his
cousin, not suspecting for a moment
whither he was going. He wanted
merely to kill time. And what more
attractive method could be found of
doing so than an adventure, especial-
ly an adventure in which a woman
was concerned?
On arriving at the house, he and
Konstantinovitch were shown into
the drawing-room. There they were
kept waiting for a few minutes. Pres-
ently an elderly lady entered; and
Milan, following his cousin’s ex-
ample, rose to greet her. To his
astonishment, he found himself be-
ing presented to the Princess Mus-
suri.
What was happening? His mind
was in confusion. And before he
could collect his thoughts or find his
bearings, the door again opened, and
a girl entered the room, the girl
whose portrait Milan had found ly-
ing on Ristisch’s table!
But the original was a thousand-
fold more adorable than the repro-
duction. Her eyes, they were ex-
pressive of a thousand moods, and
their colour, like the messages they
flashed, changed in lightning succes-
sion. Her manner was the manner
of a queen. Her skin, it put to shame
both the painter’s and the sculptor’s
art. Indeed, her mouth alone seem-
ed to mar the perfection of her
beauty. Even it had a reason; it was
made for laughter. No other wo-
man surely had such a smile. Milan,
at any rate, it bewitched; and for a
while he stood gazing at the goddess
before him in speechless wonder-
ment. Then he was dimly conscious
that he was being introduced to her.
“ ... the Princess’s niece, Natalie
Ketschko, my affianced bride.” What
was Konstantinovitch saying? What
did he mean? The words brought
Milan’s senses suddenly to earth
again. Could this be true? Was
he to be robbed of the woman of
his dreams so soon as he had found
her? The tension in his mind was
terrible. Then something snapped,
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
281
and joy flooded his heart. The
Princess was speaking.
“I think you are mistaken, Mon-
sieur Konstantinovitch,” she said;
“my niece is not engaged to you.”
And Konstantinovitch, thorough-
ly abashed, had no alternative other
than to pay the penalty of his fool-
ish indiscretion, and retire: Milan
did not accompany him. He re-
mained; he remained all day, and in
the evening the Princess entertained
him at dinner.
That was the sweetest day in all
his life; and, when eventually he left
the house, Prince Milan walked on
air, for Natalie had promised not
only to share his throne with him,
but also to share his life; never be-
fore had he realized as then the in-
finite possibilities of love. The
Princess, moreover, had informed
him—and this would spell joy to
Ristisch—that her niece’s dot, five
million roubles, would be handed
over to him on his wedding-day.
This did spell joy to Ristisch; he
was unsparing with congratulations,
as also were Milan’s other ministers.
And the Prince was wildly happy.
Nowhere in the sky of the future
could a cloud be seen. For once love
and wisdom seemed to be really in
agreement.
Now the news of the engagement
spread like fire. Servia it delighted,
for report had made the charms of
Natalie Ketschko, the idol of the
jeunesse doree of the day, well
known even in those unfrequented
parts. Europe overwhelmed the
happy couple with congratulations.
But Paris—Paris went mad. So ro-
mantic an attachment appealed irre-
sistibly to the Frenchman. Even
the beggars in the streets showered
blessings on the happy couple when
they showed themselves in public.
And to Natalie this new-found
love came as the consummation of
all happiness. For two things she
had longed throughout her life, ro-
mance and power. Now she seemed
to have found both, and, what is
more, to be fulfilling her destiny.
Once, many years before, a gipsy
woman had met her, walking in the
grounds of her father’s house near
Moscow. For a moment the old hag
gazed curiously into the child’s face.
Then suddenly she threw herself
upon the ground, reverently kissing
her feet and the hem for her frock.
“Why do you do that?” asked
Natalie.
“Because,” said the gipsy, “I
salute the chosen bride of a great
lord. A crown hangs above your
head, my child. Slowly it descends
—lower, and lower, and lower. Ah,
it touches your head. A great bril-
liance surrounds it. It is a royal
diadem.”
“Tell me more! Tell me more!”
cried Natalie, clapping her hands to-
gether, eager with excitement.
But for a while the gipsy was si-
lent. Then she continued:
“You will be the mother of a
royal race. You . . .”
“A royal race! I—the mother!”
gasped Natalie; then she laughed I
At the time she had thought the
gipsy mad. But now, so it seemed,
the prophecy was coming true. The
gipsy, however, had said more. She
had foreseen trouble in the future.
She had told the child that one day
she would be driven from her
throne, and that in the end she would
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TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
find herself face to face with misery,
disgrace, and tragedy.
But these ill-omened words had
been forgotten. They lay buried
beneath the joys of the present. Na-
talie had youth. She had beauty.
She had love. What more could a
girl desire? And soon she was to
become Princess. Princess Natalie
—it is a pretty name. To the femi-
nine heart there must have been
something infinitely attractive in the
title.
But to Milan she was already more
than a princess; more even than a
queen. And he lavished upon her all
that a lover has to offer, promises,
pleasure, jewels, and those thousand
small attentions which, perhaps, are
valued most of all. In her, more-
over, he confided all his secrets, his
hopes, ambitions, aims; he told her
what he had been, what he could be,
and what he would be, now that he
had won her. It was an ideal court-
ship. And the wedding should be
worthy of it. It must stand un-
matched for brilliance. On this point
Milan was determined; not even
the best was good enough for Na-
talie; and he spared neither pains
nor money in making the arrange-
ments.
For various reasons, diplomatic
and other, it was decided that the
ceremony should be performed at
Vienna; and the date agreed to was
October 17, 1875. But as the fate-
ful day drew near, Milan was
destined to receive a rude rebuff. No
royalties, it was found, could attend
the ceremony, nor could they send
even representatives. Inflexible rules
govern the actions of monarchs and
their courtiers, and marriages such
as this are not classed as being
worthy of official recognition.
A similar slight even Napoleon
III was forced to endure. But
Milan bitterly resented that inflicted
upon him. It was an indignity to
his bride, he felt; and for a while
disappointment clouded his happi-
ness, leaving him strangely troubled.
Why, he could not understand, but,
for some reason, an indefinable fore-
boding seemed to prey upon him, a
foreboding wholly out of proportion
to its cause.
And then, a few days before the
wedding, a very curious incident oc-
curred. Just as the Prince was leav-
ing the house where Natalie was
staying, an elderly woman accosted
him.
“What do you want with me,
Madame?” he inquired courteously.
“A few words with Your High-
ness,” was the reply.
The Prince started. “Then you
know me?”
“By sight, very well,” said the wo-
man. “I am in the service of Princess
Mussuri, and I have known Natalie
since she was a child. I implore you
not to marry her.”
“But why?”
“Why I Because nothing but
misery can come of such a union.
You like to rule; so does Natalie.
And what is more, she will rule. Be
warned, therefore—and in time.”
But Milan merely laughed, and
went his way. When one cannot
oneself read the future, it is hard
to believe that others can. In after
years the Prince remembered the wo-
man’s words, then he was sorry he
had not heeded them.
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
283
III
October 17, 1875. Vienna awoke
very early in the morning. Sight-
seers flocked into the city, every one
agog with eagerness to see Prince
Milan and his chosen bride, the fame
of whose beauty was spread broad-
cast. By nine o’clock in the morn-
ing the streets were packed with peo-
ple. In the Leopold Strasse—at any
rate in the neighbourhood of the
“Weisse Lamm,” the hotel at which
the Prince had arranged to receive
his guests—so dense was the throng
that all traffic had to be suspended.
And there, throughout the morning,
the crowd waited eager and ex-
pectant.
At last the clocks of the city
boomed the hour of twelve. The
great moment had come. Thousands
of eyes riveted their gaze in the di-
rection of the hotel.
Then, before yet the clocks had
finished chiming, punctual to the mo-
ment, the carriages—the Imperial
carriages which the Emperor Francis
Joseph had placed at the disposal of
the Prince and his consort—came
clattering along the street.
In the first, by the side of her
aunt, Princess Mussuri, sat Natalie,
a vision of loveliness, clad in a sim-
ple wedding-dress of satin. And, as
she drove past, the crowd cheered
and cheered until they made the very
walls of Vienna to echo and re-echo
their enthusiasm. Even rumour, it
seemed, had not done justice to her
beauty. But Natalie, it may be,
never before had appeared so beau-
tiful, for she was driving then not
only to meet the husband of her
choice and the hero of her dreams,
but to be made a princess, to become
Princess Natalie. No wonder she
was radiant with happiness.
And he, her hero, followed in the
second carriage with his mother.
That the latter should have been
present is perhaps remarkable, for
but little affection existed between
mother and son; and there was but
little reason for affection. In fact,
they had seen each other only once
since the day when Prince Michael
had rescued his heir from the moth-
er’s charge, and brought him to Bel-
grade; and at that meeting—it took
place in Paris—they had avowedly
repudiated one another.
None the less, in asking his
mother to attend the wedding, Milan
did wisely. It was one of those lit-
tle acts of statesmanship which
marked him early as a prince of
promise, and which render his sub-
sequent failure the more difficult to
understand. A true respect for the
Fifth Commandment is a national
characteristic of the Servian people.
Milan knew this; and so saw that
anything in the shape of a public
reconciliation with his mother would
do much to win for him the favour
of his subjects.
But perhaps also he himself sin-
cerely desired such a reconciliation,
for at this time countless good reso-
lutions inspired him, and he solemn-
ly renounced his youthful indiscre-
tions, swearing to himself henceforth
to live solely for the welfare of his
subjects and the happiness of Na-
talie. On this day, then, his wed-
ding-day, the day of days, no dis-
cordant note must be struck.
Nor indeed was there. The cere-
mony was all it could have been and
284
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
should have been; impressive but
simple, sincere but dignified. And
the reception accorded in the streets,
was it not a splendid augury for the
future? Milan could not conceal
his emotion.
“I wish,” he said, when thanking
his guests for their good wishes and
congratulations, “that every one of
my subjects as well as every one I
know could be as happy as I am at
this moment.” That was all. Then
he drove away with Natalie. And
surely never have a bridal pair set
forth under fairer auspices. They
were both young, both popular, and
they loved each other dearly. The
subsequent and awful debacle not
even the most inveterate cynic could
have dared predict.
A house at Joanka had been lent
to the newly-married couple for their
honeymoon, and there they passed
an ideal time, three weeks of joyous
irresponsibility, of freedom from
all cares of State, and from the glare
of the limelight which inevitably
shines upon a throne, be it only that
of a small Balkan State. Yet even
the return to Belgrade was not with-
out its. compensations. Vienna had
cheered; Belgrade went mad. A
wonderful welcome was extended to
the Prince and his consort. The
festivities lasted three whole days.
But it was during the drive to the
palace through the streets of his
capital that Milan lived the proudest
moments in his life, and Natalie both
the proudest and the happiest.
Then the palace doors closed upon
them. The new life really had be-
gun. And perhaps it was well that
neither Natalie nor her husband then
could read the future, for already in
the far, far distance, barely percep-
tible above the horizon, had ap-
peared that cloud, at present no big-
ger than a man's hand, which ulti-
mately was destined not only to
darken the sky of their happiness,
but indeed to wreck their lives.
“You will rule; Natalie will rule,”
the bride’s old nurse once had said
to Milan. “I implore you not to
marry her.” At the time the Prince
had laughed. What did this old wo-
man know of love? “Nothing but
misery can result from the union,”
she had declared. Why, the mere
thought of such a catastrophe had
seemed ridiculous.
But now—Milan knew not what
to think. His wife seemed to be a
woman strangely different from die
fascinating girl whom he had learned
to love. He could not understand
the change; it puzzled him. He had
hoped to look to Natalie for help,
advice, and sympathy; but instead,
he found only determined opposi-
tion.
And between two opposing wills
even love can be stifled.
The position of consort, it would
seem, soon lost its attractiveness for
Natalie. Born a Russian, trained in
an autocratic school, she thirsted for
power, for the power which right
had invested in her husband, and,
what is more, she was determined to
have it. At first, perhaps, Milan
may have admired her pluck and
spirit. Indeed, while under the spell
of a new, absorbing passion, he did
his utmost to humour her little
whims and fancies, for he loved her
dearly and was very proud of her.
But the end was inevitable. Sover-
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
285
The cloud had rolled nearer—
much nearer. Not yet, however, did
it burst. The sun of triumph still
shone brightly above the palace.
These were the halcyon-days of
Milan’s reign, the most glorious per-
haps in all the history of Servia.
They mark an era of organization,
progress, and reform. Plenty and
prosperity flourished everywhere.
Belgrade grew apace, and became a
city worthy of taking rank among
the towns of Europe. And then, in
1882, came the crowning triumph.
The Powers recognized Servia as a
kingdom. This was Milan’s reward
for the consummate skill with which
he conducted his great war against
the Turks. And it was the very re-
ward he wanted, the epitome of his
aims.
To Natalie, also, this came as the
sweetest of happenings. Now she
was a queen, and, amid the joys of
the present, readily forgot the disap-
pointments of the past. The future
once again seemed rich with prom-
ises of hope. And, in the happy mo-
ments of a new-found greatness, she
strove hard to blot out her former
errors, promising thenceforth to
work in one accord with Milan to
prepare a heritage for her son,
Alexander (Sacha, she called him),
the little prince whom she and her
husband both adored.	
But, alas! the ship of love, like the
ship of friendship, despite gay rig-
ging, often proves itself frail and
unseaworthy. Not fair weather but
foul is the test of its stability. And
even in a calm sea the ship which
carried Natalie and Milan had given
anxious moments to the pilot. How
then could it ride a storm? How in-
eignty is not a power that can be
divided.
And tact, the strongest of human
virtues, was a force unknown to Na-
talie. Self-willed and impulsive, she
could not bring herself to be content
merely with influencing her husband
and his ministers; instead, she tried
to ride rough-shod over opposition.
Quarrels, therefore, between herself
and Milan soon became events of
daily occurrence, and, as time went
on, they increased in violence. Now
these quarrels not only jeopardized
her own happiness and the Prince’s,
but also were a real menace to the
welfare of the country.
In the first place, there were at
Court many persons, especially wo-
men, who bated Natalie. Her pres-
ence, and Milan’s devotion to her,
robbed them directly of favours with
which once he had honoured them.
They delighted, therefore, in trying
to poison her mind against him by
telling exaggerated stories of what
Court life once had been. And
Natalie listened to these stories, even
believed them. Her idol, too, had
feet of clay. It was to this bitter
fact that she awoke from the sweet
illusion of her childish dreams. Then
a new barrier sprang up between
husband and wife—jealousy. And
jealousy, like ivy, when once plant-
ed, grows apace. Nothing can
stay it.
Secondly, from a political point of
view, these quarrels were of very
grave importance. With the Prince
ruling at the head of one faction and
his consort at the head of another,
the machinery of State needed con-
stant adjustment, and gave cause for
much anxiety.
286
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
deed—especially so fierce a storm
as that which before long burst over
it with overwhelming suddenness ?
IV
Just as the Empress Eugenie
sometimes is said to have been the
cause of the great war of 1870,
which wrecked the power of Na-
poleon III in the heyday of its splen-
dour, so Natalie sometimes is said to
have provoked the war of 1885, be-
tween Servia and Bulgaria.
Be this as it may, that was also
ended in disaster. The noble edifice
which Milan had labouriously con-
structed crumbled, like a pack of
cards, in an instant to the ground.
His life work, his good resolves, his
noble intentions seemed to have re-
sulted only in failure. And now
when he needed it most—this was
the bitterest blow of all—Natalie
withheld from him her sympathy.
Indeed, the old quarrels between the
King and Queen again broke forth,
and with renewed vigour. And
Milan, under the influence of defeat
and disappointment, made no en-
deavour to conceal them. They be-
came the talk of Servia; and, upon
the King, reacted in the inevitable
manner. Weary of fruitless effort,
weary of domestic misery, he
plunged wildly into the former reck-
less mode of living. Domestic
troubles had rendered life at the
palace unendurable.
“The Castle,” wrote a Servian
officer, in a letter to his family, “is
in a state of utter confusion; one
scandalous scene succeeds another;
die King looks ill, as if he never
slept. Poor fellow! he flies for
refuge to us in the guard-house and
plays cards with the officers. Some-
times he speaks bitterly about his un-
happiness at home. . . . Card play-
ing, however, is his worst enemy; it
will work his total ruin.”
Thus, while he drifted aimlessly
along, Natalie, or rather conspiracy
and disorder, ruled the land. No
king could have found himself in a
more invidious position. But Milan,
who once had been ambitious, still
had pride. And it was pride which
at length roused him from his
lethargy, and forced him to make
another effort to retrieve his fallen
fortunes—just one more. Once
again, however, bad luck attended
him.
Nikola Christitch, whom he chose
as his adviser, was, it is true, a man
of great ability. But, unfortunately,
he was merely his wife’s cat’s paw.
And Artemesia Christitch was per-
haps the cleverest woman in the Bal-
kans, totally unscrupulous, and, it so
happened, the Queen’s most bitter
enemy. To ruin Natalie was the am-
bition of her life, and to achieve her
object she was prepared to sacrifice
even the King.
Now in the hands of such a wo-
man Milan of course, was power-
less. He allowed himself to become
entangled helplessly in the meshes of
her* fascination. Then he saw what
he had done, and tried to escape.
But it was too late. Already he had
lost the respect of his subjects; al-
ready Natalie was cognizant of the
plot against her.
But she, instead of trying to save
her husband from himself, instead of
allowing him to come to her and
plead forgiveness, proceeded to
counterplot with ruthless cunning.
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
287
 The fever of ambition had seized
her firmly. And she aspired now to
 drive Milan from his throne, and
 establish herself as regent until her
son should come of age.
A crisis obviously was imminent,
and in 1887 it reached a climax. At
the Easter reception, held at the
palace, it was customary for the
Queen to kiss the wives of State offi-
cials and foreign representatives. On
this occasion, however, as the wife
of a certain Greek diplomat ad-
vanced to receive the honour, Na-
talie turned her head aside contemp-
tuously; she refused even to look at
the woman. In vain the chamber-
lain remonstrated with her, implor-
ing her to consider the consequences
of her action. In vain Milan him-
self interceded. Natalie was ob-
durate. Why, she asked, should she
be gracious to the latest recipient of
her husband’s favours?
And the insult in her words, audi-
ble to all who chose to listen, was
more even than the tactfulness of
courtiers could counteract. Despite
its diplomatic significance, to hush up
the scandal was found to be impos-
sible, Natalie’s remarks being noth-
ing other than a declaration of open
war between herself and the King,
her husband. Clearly, then, Servia
henceforth would not be big enough
to hold both her and Milan. One
of them must go.
But which?
The King, infuriated by his wife’s
indiscret behaviour, wished for an
immediate divorce. The Emperor
Francis Joseph, however, dissuaded
him from taking so extreme a
course. Such action, he pointed out,
would be a crowning act of folly,
and spell ruin both to Milan and the
House of Obrenovitch, for Natalie,
in spite of all her faults, was still the
idol of the people, and, in the role
of the injured wife, would receive
a full measure of their sympathy.
Accordingly, until a reconciliation
or some permanent arrangement
could be agreed upon, it was decid-
ed that she should leave the king-
dom and live abroad with her son
in whatever town the King might
choose for the latter’s education, but
that, during the Crown Prince’s an-
nual visits to his father, she should
be free to travel where she liked.
On April 6, 1887, husband and
wife parted. It was a sorry day,
this. Both felt the situation keenly.
As they stood at the railway sta-
tion, bidding a formal farewell to
one another, instinctively their
thoughts travelled back, over years
gone beyond recall, to their wedding-
morning. They remembered the
cheers, their joy, their happiness,
and how, with a perfect trust in one
another, they had set out together
down the unknown road of life. And
this was to be the end I That jour-
ney indeed had proved a miserable
failure! And it might have been so
different—both saw it now—so very
different, if only ambition had not
warred with love.
The thought of separation had de-
lighted Milan, but the reality, now
that it had come to him, pained him
even more than had domestic dis-
cord. He could not disguise his emo-
tion. But had his dream of happi-
ness faded irrevocably? Was it too
late for himself and Natalie mutual-
ly to forgive and to forget? He
still had hope. And there is an in-
288
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
finite tenderness in the letters which
he sent to her during the early
months of their separation.
“I would be much obliged,” he
wrote from Gleichenberg in Septem-
ber, “if you would let me know what
are your wishes as to our future re-
lations towards one another. As on
my homeward journey I must pass
Baden, it would be, I think, proper
for me to stop there in order to pay
you a short visit before I continue
my journey to Vienna. If this pro-
posal should not please you, then
perhaps you will spare Sacha to me.
I would only take him as far as
Vienna, and bring him back the next
afternoon.”
And later, when writing to im-
plore her to keep her compact and
not to return to Belgrade merely in
order to further her ambitions, the
reason which he gave was this: “Our
son is now old enough to notice the
estrangement between us.”
But Natalie—what were her feel-
ings ? It is difficult to say, for pride
and ambition dominated her. Still,
in her letters, too, there is a note of
real regret. “You might,” she re-
marked in one of them, “have
chosen a more experienced consort,
but not one more devoted.” Or
again, “If you have made me un-
happy,” she said, “you are still more
uphappy than I am, and the day will
come when you will view things dif-
ferently, and you will find no excuse
for your conduct.” A woman’s love
dies very hard.
If only, then, during this period of
separation, Natalie had been tactful
and unselfish, even now all might
have been well. But plotting had be-
come a mania with her; it was the
very essence of her life. Instead,
therefore, of quietly seeking a recon-
ciliation, she struggled boldly to re-
gain what she regarded as her rights,
and thereby forced her husband’s
hand until ultimately he had no alter-
native other than to take the Crown
Prince from her keeping.
To be robbed of her son—Natalie
had suffered much; this she could not
endure, and would not. Arguments
were of no avail; threats were of no
avail; nor were entreaties. The
Queen was obdurate; never, she
maintained, would she surrender her
son—and for this who can blame
her?—to the care of Artemesia
Christitch, who now openly was
Milan’s paramour. At length, there-
fore, the King was left with no al-
ternative other than to send to Wies-
baden to remove the boy by force.
Not yet did Natalie yield. In-
deed, when Milan’s agent, General
Protitsch, burst into the room where
she, with the Prince by her side,
awaited him, he found a pistol
levelled at his head, and the hand
which held it did not swerve the frac-
tion of an inch.
“Advance,” said the Queen, with
deliberate firmness, “and I fire.”
“Madam, you cannot be in ear-
nest,” replied the soldier courteously.
“I have my orders. Your Majesty
knows an officer must obey his or-
ders.”
Then Natalie yielded. But, in that
one minute, all her love for Milan
turned to hatred. Without giving
another thought to reconciliation,
she resolved that henceforth there
should be war between her husband
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
289
and herself, war to the death. And,
although he had scored the first suc-
cess, she saw clearly now that she
would score the last. His victory
had left him only with a fatal course
of action to pursue; now he must of
necessity sever completely his mar-
riage tie. Pride gave him no alter-
native. And for divorce proceedings,
no time could have been less propi-
tious for him than the present.
Indeed, to Natalie, first robbed of
her son, and then renounced by the
man who had robbed her, the sym-
pathies of the Servian people went
out wholeheartedly. The King they
regarded as an object of suspicion
and scorn, so that his position as
their ruler became impossible; he
felt no longer justified in retaining
it. Nor now had he desire to. Fruit-
less strivings had quelled his ambi-
tions and his hopes. He had grown
weary, struggling with the heavy
burden of kingship, whilst from
afar the voice of pleasure cooed to
him promises of peace and happi-
ness. Besides, were he to stay in
Servia longer, he would undoubted-
ly lose all. By abdicating, however,
he might still perhaps be able to save
something for his son.
In March, 1889, therefore, he
laid down his crown and retired to
Paris, leaving regents to govern the
country until Prince Alexander
should come of age.
And with that act ends the sorry
story of his reign. Henceforth he
plays but a small part on the stage
of life. In Paris he soon ceased even
to be notorious, passing unnoticed
among the reckless throng of aim-
less pleasure-seekers, so that before
long even restaurant proprietors for-
got to remind their guests that “the
gentleman with a dark moustache sit-
ting over there” was the ex-King of
Servia. To politics he paid but lit-
tle heed, and he interfered only
when the regents or the Government
asked him for advice. Then he gave
it reluctantly.
But in Natalie thirst for power re-
mained still unabated. Nothing
could quench it; not even the awful
experience of being driven from the
country by force of arms. And in
the end she triumphed, for later, as
her son’s chosen adviser, she became,
in fact if not in name, ruler of
Servia.
After the divorce, however, her
path and Milan’s only once con-
verged. In August, 1895, King
Alexander decided to bring to an
end the regency, and to seize with his
own hands the reins of government.
It was a daring move, this great coup
d'etat, and brilliantly executed. But
it deserves mention here only be-
cause Milan was chosen as the emis-
sary to convey to Natalie the news
of her son’s intentions.
And Milan went. Thus, after
many long years of separation, wife
and husband met. And a terrible
and trying ordeal that meeting
proved to be.  Emotion overcame
them both. The room seemed to be
filled with the ghosts of the past, and
the voice of memory was very cruel
now a new and unexpected bond of
unity had sprung up between them—
the triumph of their son. In him, at
any rate, each could see the other;
and with proud, loving, anxious eyes
they watched his every action, for he
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TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
was all that was left to them of their
love and of their dream of happi-
ness.
Alexander, too, was a prince of
promise, a man of courage, with the
gift of statecraft. But just as mar-
riage had wrecked the greatness of
the father, so now it wrecked the
greatness of the son. Which particu-
lar fiend of folly persuaded the
King to marry that particular one
of his mother’s ladies-in-waiting he
chose to marry, it is impossible to
say. ...
Clever Draga Maschin may have
been, but she was not the woman for
the boy King of Servia to take to
wife. In the first place, she was old
enough to be her husband’s mother,
and, secondly, she was the most un-
popular woman in all Servia; the
people hated her, and for imposing
her upon them as their Queen they
never forgave King Alexander.
Nor did his father ever forgive
him for marrying her. But Milan
did not live to see the awful conse-
quences of his son’s infatuation. His
heart had long been weak—some say
that it was broken—and he died at
Vienna on February 11, 1901. More
than two years, therefore, elapsed
before that memorable morning
dawned when Europe awoke to hear
the ghasdy tidings that the King of
Servia and his Queen had been foully
murdered in the night.
Thus faded the last of Natalie’s
dreams. Nor was there any one to
console her in her sorrow.
IN MAY
By JOHN SYNGE
In a nook
That opened south,
You and I
Lay mouth to mouth.
A snowy gull
And sooty daw
Came and looked
With many a caw;
“Such,” I said,
“Are I and you,
When you’ve kissed me
Black and blue!”
Reply To An Invitation
By GEORGE MOORE
(A letter to the Lord Chancellor of England in reply to
an invitation to attend the dinner given to Sir Leslie Ward
—“Spy”—at the Savoy Hotel.)
DEAR SIR: I am much obliged
to you for your letter press-
ing me to attend the dinner which
is to be given to Sir Leslie Ward at
the Savoy Hotel on Monday next,
November 21, at 7:45 p. m., and re-
gret that I am unable to attend or
to encourage my friends to take
tickets.
Yet I cannot let the occasion pass
without congratulating you on what
you have done for the Arts, for you
have gathered such a magnificent ar-
istocratic host—two Dukes, many
Marquises, innumerable Earls, Vis-
counts, Barons, and a Multitude of
Knights and Baronets—that it is
probable that many besides myself
will begin to see that the dinners
given to artists would gain very
much in interest if they were free
from those whose occupations and
ambitions have drawn their talents
into other directions than Art.
We do not intrude our opinions
of politics upon politicians, nor our
views regarding the interpretation
of Acts of Parliament upon lawyers,
and have always been at a loss to
understand why the Arts that we
practise should be expounded to us
by aliens. Indeed, the heartfelt ap-
preciation of the Arts that we have
listened to on occasions when it
seemed to us churlish to refuse to
come in have left us a little resentful.
The wounds we received are not yet
quite healed, and we doubt (I am
speaking now not only in my name,
but in the names of the friends
whom you have asked me to bring)
if the speeches that will be delivered
on November 21 at the Savoy Hotel
will differ very much from the
speeches which we still bear in
mind.
We dare to predict that the paint-
ers and poets who assemble there
will hear, as we have heard in past
times, that Art is not a mere adorn-
ment, as they imagined, a gratifica-
tion between nations, more far-
reaching even than wireless teleg-
raphy, for it touches the heart.
Those of our company who assemble
at the table of the Philistine will
hear, of a certainty, that nations are
at variance and at war for lack of
knowledge of each other, and they
will be told that the drawings of Sir
Leslie Ward have helped, and will
continue to help Frenchmen to un-
derstand England, and that the
drawings of any one of the great
291
292
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
Frenchmen, no matter which, will
enable Englishman to understand
France.
On November 21 at the Savoy
Hotel, soon after nine o’clock, the
words will ring out: Art holds the
keys of Peace, and the hours will go
by, each speaker differentiating be-
tween the Arts, one contending that
whereas the Arts of Painting and
Music can be understood by all men,
the Art of Literature is limited by
a knowledge of language. The next
speaker will not, however, fail to
remark that language has ceased
to be a barrier, averring that by
means of translation Literature has
been placed on the same universal
level as Music and Painting.
Eleven o’clock will mark the in-
troduction of another theme, and
one that will bring down the curtain
fitly on an historic occasion. About
that time a speaker will arise who
will point out that Art is part of the
great primal substance known as Na-
ture, and he will be followed by an-
other who will declare that Nature
is something more and something
less than Art; that Nature is not Na-
ture because it is Art, that Nature
is not Art because it is Nature; and
that the stupendous creations of the
artist are no less mysterious than
those of God Himself.
I have heard all this kind of
aristocratic patter before, and really
cannot bring myself to listen to it
again.
Thanking you very much for your
letter, I remain, truly yours,
George Moore.
121 Ebury Street, London, S. W. I.
November 15, 1921.
Nothing so imparts the satisfaction of having accomplished one’s duty as
a good night’s sleep, an excellent meal, a beautiful moment of love.
When God saw how faulty was man He tried again and made woman. As
to why he then stopped there are two opinions. One of them is woman’s.
Do not permit a woman to ask forgiveness, for that is only the first step.
The second is justification of herself by accusation of you.
Olivier’s Brag
By ANATOLE FRANCE
THE Emperor Charlemagne
and his twelve peers, having
taken the palmer’s staff at Saint-
Denis, made a pilgrimage to Jeru-
salem. They prostrated themselves
before the tomb of Our Lord, and
sat in the thirteen chairs of the great
hall wherein Jesus Christ and his
Apostles met together to celebrate
the blessed sacrifice of the Mass.
Then they fared to Constantinople,
being fain to see King Hugo, who
was renowned for his magnificence.
The King welcomed them in his
Palace, where, beneath a golden
dome, birds of ruby, wrought with a
wondrous art, sat and sang in bushes
of emerald.
He seated the Emperor of France
and the twelve Counts about a table
loaded with stags, boars, cranes,
wild geese, and peacocks, served in
pepper. And he offered his guests,
in ox-horns, the wines of Greece and
Asia to drink. Charlemagne and his
companions quaffed all these wines
in honour of the King and his daugh-
ter, the Princess Helen. After sup-
per Hugo led them to the chamber
where they were to sleep. Now this
chamber was circular, and a column,
springing in the midst thereof, car-
ried the vaulted roof. Nothing
could be finer to look upon. Against
the walls, which were hung with gold
and purple, twelve beds were rang-
ed, while another greater than the
rest stood beside the pillar.
Charlemagne lay in this, and the
Counts stretched themselves round
about him on the others. The wine
they had drunk ran hot in their veins,
and their brains were afire. They
could not sleep, and fell to making
brags instead, and laying of wagers,
as is the way of the knights of.
France, each striving to outdo the
other in warranting himself to do
some doughty deed for to manifest
his prowess. The Emperor opened
the game. He said:
“Let them fetch me, a-horseback
and fully armed, the best knight
King Hugo hath. I will life my
sword and bring it down upon him
in such wise it shall cleave helm
and hauberk, saddle and steed, and
the blade shall delve a foot deep
underground.”
Guillaume d’Orange spoke up
after the Emperor and made the
second brag.
“I will take,” said he, “a ball of
iron sixty men can scarce lift, and
hurl it so mightily against the palace
wall that it shall beat down sixty
fathoms’ length thereof.”
Ogier, the Dane, spake next.
“Ye see yon proud pillar which
bears up the vault. To-morrow will
I tear it down and break it like a
straw.”
After which Renaud de Montau-
ban cried with an oath:
“ ’Od’s life! Count Ogier, whiles
you overset the pillar, I will clap the
293
294
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
dome on my shoulder and hale it
down to the seachore.”
Gerard de Roussillon it was made
the fifth brag.
He boasted he would uproot
single-handed, in one hour, all the
trees in the Royal pleasaunce.
Aimer took up his parable when
Gerard was done.
“I have a magic hat,” said he,
‘‘made of a sea-calf’s skin, which
renders me invisible. I will set it
on my head, and to-morrow, whenas
King Hugo is seated at meat, I will
eat up his fish and drink down his
wine. I will tweak his nose and buf-
fet his ears. Not knowing whom or
what to blame, he will clap all his
serving-men in gaol and scourge
them sore—and we shall laugh.”
“For me,” declared Huon de Bor-
deaux, whose turn it was, “for me,
I am so nimble I will trip up to the
King and cut off his beard and eye-
brows without his knowing aught
about the matter. ’Tis a piece of
sport I will show you to-morrow.
And I shall have no need of a sea-
calf hat either!”
Doolin de Mayence made his
brag too. He promised to eat up in
one hour all the figs and all the
oranges and all the lemons in the
King’s orchards.
Next the Due Naisme said in this
wise:
“By my faith! I will go into the
banquet hall, I will catch up flagons
and cups of gold and fling them so
high they will never light down again
save to tumble into the moon.”
Bernard de Brabant then lifted
his great voice:
“I will do better yet,” he roared.
“Ye know the river that flows by
Constantinople is broad and 'deep,
for it is come nigh its mouth by
then, after traversing Egypt, Baby-
lon, and the Earthly Paradise.
Well, I will turn it from its bed
and make it flood the Great Square
of the City.”
Gerard de Viane said:
“Put a dozen knights in line of 
array. And I will tumble all the
twelve on their noses, only by the
wind of my sword.”
It was the Count Roland laid the
twelfth wager, in the fashion fol-
lowing :
“I will take my horn, I will go
forth of the city and I will blow such
a blast all the gates of the town will
drop from their hinges.”
Olivier alone has said no word
yet. He was young and courteous,
and the Emperor loved him dearly.
“Olivier, my son,” he asked, “will
you not make your brag like the rest
of us?”
“Right willingly, sire,” Olivier re-
plied. “Do you know the name of
Hercules of Greece?”
“Yea, I have heard some dis-
course of him,” said Charlemagne.
“He was an idol of the misbe-
lievers, like the false god Ma-
hound.”
“Not so, sire,” said Olivier. “Her-
cules of Greece was a knight among
the Pagans and King of a Pagan
kingdom. He was a gallant cham-
pion and stoutly framed in all his
limbs. Visiting the Court of a cer-
tain Emperor who had fifty daugh-
ters, virgins, he wedded them all on
one and the same night, and that so 
well and thoroughly that next mom- 
ing they all avowed themselves well- 
contented women and with naught 
OLIVIER’S BRAG
295
left to learn. He had not slighted
ever a one of them. Well, sire, an
you will, I will lay my wager to do
after the fashion of Hercules of
Greece.”
“Nay, beware, Olivier, my son,”
cried the Emperor, “beware what
you do; the thing would be a sin. I
felt sure this King Hercules was a
Saracen!”
“Sire,” returned Olivier, “know
this—I warrant me to show in the
same space of time the selfsame
prowess with one virgin that Her-
cules of Greece did with fifty. And
the maid shall be none other but the
Princess Helen, King Hugo’s daugh-
ter.”
“Good and well,” agreed Charle-
magne ;.“that will be to deal honest-
ly and as a good Christian should.
But you were in the wrong, my son,
to drag the fifty virgins of King
Hercules into your business, where-
in, the Devil fly away with me else,
I can see but one to be concerned.”
“Sire,” answered Olivier mildly,
“there is but one of a truth. But
she shall win such satisfaction of me
that, an I number the tokens of my
love, you will to-morrow see fifty
crosses scored on the Wall, and that
is my brag.”
The Count Olivier was yet speak-
ing when lo! the column which bare
the vault opened. The pillar was
hollow and contrived in such sort
that a man could lie hid therein at
his ease to see and hear everything.
Charlemagne and the twelve Counts
had never a notion of this; so they
were sore surprised to behold the
King of Constantinople step forth.
We was white with anger and his
eyes flashed fire.
He said in a terrible voice:
“So this is how ye show your grat-
itude for the hospitality I offer you.
Ye are ill-mannered guests. For a
whole hour have ye been insulting
me with your bragging wagers.
Well, know this—you, Sir Emperor,
and ye, his knights: if to-morrow ye
do not all of you make good your
boasts, I will have your heads cut
off.”
Having said his say, he stepped
back within the pillar, which shut to
again closely behind him. For a
while the twelve paladins were dumb
with wonder and consternation. The
Emperor was the first to break the
silence.
“Comrades,” he said, “ ’tis true
we have bragged too freely. May-
hap we have spoken things better
unsaid. We have drunk overmuch
wine, and have shown unwisdom.
The chiefest fault is mine; I am your
Emperor, and I gave you the bad
example. I will devise with you to-
morrow of the means whereby we
may save us from this perilous pass;
meantime, it behoves us to get to
sleep. I wish you a good night.
God have you in his keeping!”
A moment later the Emperor and
the twelve peers were snoring under
their coverlets of silk and cloth of
gold.
They awoke on the morrow, their
minds still distraught and deeming
the thing was but a nightmare. But
anon soldiers came to lead them to
the Palace, that they might make
good their brags before the King’s
face.
“Come,” cried the Emperor,
“come; and let us pray God and His
Holy Mother. By Our Lady’s help

296
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
shall we easily make good our
brags.”
He marched in front with a more
than human majesty of port. Ar-
riving anon at the King’s Palace,
Charlemagne, Naisme, Aimer,
Huon, Doolin, Guillaume, Ogier,
Bernard, Renaud, the two Gerards,
and Roland fell on their knees and,
joining their hands in prayer, made
this supplication to the holy Vir-
gin:
“Lady, which art in Paradise, look
on us now in our extremity; for love
of the Realm of the Lilies, which is
thine own, protect the Emperor of
France and his twelve peers, and
give them the puissance to make
good their brags.”
Thereafter they rose up comfort-
ed and fulfilled of bright courage
and gallant confidence, for they knew
that Our Lady would answer their
prayer.
King Hugo, seated on a golden
throne, accosted them, saying:
“The hour is come to make good
your brags. But an if ye fail so
to do, I will have your heads cut off.
Begone therefore, straightway, es-
corted by men-at-arms, each one of
you to the place meet for the doing
of the fine things ye have insolently
boasted ye will accomplish.”
At this order they separated and
went divers ways, each followed by
a little troop of armed men. Whiles
some returned to the hall where they
had passed the night, others betook
them to the gardens and orchards.
Bernard de Brabant made for the
river, Roland hied him to the ram-
parts, and all marched valiantly.
Only Olivier and Charlemagne tar-
ried in the Palace, waiting, the one
for the knight that he had sworn to
cleave in twain, the other for the
maiden he was to wed.
But in very brief while a fearful
sound arose, awful as the last trump
that shall proclaim to mankind the
end of the world. It reached the
Great Hall of the Palace, set the
birds of ruby trembling on their
emerald perches and shook King
Hugo on his throne of gold.
’Twas a noise of walls crumbling
into ruin and floods roaring, and
high above the din blared out an ear-
splitting trumpet blast. Meanwhile
messengers had come hurrying in
from all quarters of the 'city and
thrown themselves trembling at the
King’s feet, bearing strange and ter-
rible ridings.
“Sire,” said one, “sixty fathoms'
length of the city walls is fallen in at
one crash.”
“Sire,” cried another, “the pillar
which bare up your vaulted hall is
broken down, and the dome thereof
we have seen walking like a tortoise
toward the sea.”
“Sire,” faltered a third, “the
river, with its ships and its fishes, is
pouring through the streets, and will
soon be beating against your Palace
walls.”
King Hugo, white with terror,
muttered:
“By my fault! these men are wiz-
ards.”
“Well, Sir King,” Charlemagne
addressed him with a smile on his
lips, “the Knight I wait for is long
of coming.”
The King sent for him, arid he
came. He was a knight of stately
stature and well armed. The good
OLIVIER’S BRAG
297
Emperor clave him in twain, as he
had said.
Now while these things were a-do-
ing, Olivier thought to himself:
“The intervention of Our Most
Blessed Lady is plain to see in these
marvels; and I am rejoiced to be-
hold the manifest tokens she vouch-
safes of her love for the Realm of
France. Not in vain have the Em-
peror and his companions implored
the succour of the Holy Virgin,
Mother of God. Alas! I shall pay
for all the rest, and have my head
cut off. For I cannot well ask the
Virgin Mary to help me make good
my brag. ’Tis an enterprise of a
sort wherein ’twould be indiscret to
crave the interference of Her who is
the Lily of Purity, the Tower of
Ivory, the Guarded Door and the
Fenced Orchard-Close. And, lack-
ing aid from on high, I am sore
afraid I may not do so much as I
have said.”
Thus ran Olivier’s thoughts, when
King Hugo roughly accosted him
with the words:
“ ’Tis now your turn, Count, to
fulfil your promise.”
“Sire,” replied Olivier, “I am
waiting with great impatience for
the Princess, your daughter. For
you must needs do me the priceless
grace of giving me her hand.”
“That is but fair,” said King
Hugo. “I will therefore bid her
come to you and a chaplain with her
for to celebrate the marriage.”
At church, during the ceremony,
Olivier reflected:
“The maid is sweet and comely as
ever a man CQuld desire, and too fain
am I to clip her in my arms to regret
the brag I have made.”
That evening, after supper, the
Princess Helen and the Count Oli-
vier were escorted by twelve ladies
and twelve knights to a chamber,
wherein the twain were left alone
together.
There they passed the night, and
on the morrow guards came and led
them both before King Hugo. He
was on his throne, surrounded by
his knights. Near by stood Charle-
magne and the peers.
“Well, Count Olivier,” demanded
the King, “is your brag made
good?”
Olivier held his peace, and al-
ready was King Hugo rejoiced at
heart to think his new son-in-law’s
head must fall. For of all the brags
and boasts, it was Olivier’s had an-
gered him worst.
“Answered,” he stormed. “Do
you dare to tell me your brag is ac-
complished?”
Thereupon the Princess Helen,
blushing and smiling, spake with
eyes downcast and in a faint voice,
yet clear withal, and said—“Yea!”
Right glad were Charlemagne
and the peers to hear the Princess
say this word.
“Well, well,” said Hugo, “these
Frenchmen have God and the Devil
o’ their side. It was fated I should
cut off none of these knights’ heads
. . . Come thither, son-in-law”-—and
he stretched forth his hand to Oli-
vier, who kissed it.
The Emperor Charlemagne em-
braced the Princess and said to her:
“Helen, I hold you for my daugh-
ter and my son’s wife. You will go
along with us to France, and you will
live at our Court.”
298
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
Then, as his lips lay on the Prin-
cess’s cheek, he rounded softly in
her ear:
“You spake as a loving-hearted
woman should. But tell me this in
closest confidence,—Did you speak
the truth?”
She answered:
“Sire, Olivier is a gallant man and
a courteous. He was so full of pretty
ways and dainty devices for to dis-
tract my mind, I never thought of
counting. Nor yet did he keep
score. Needs therefore must I hold
him quit of his promise.”
King Hugo made great rejoicings
for his daughter’s nuptials. There-
after Charlemagne and his twelve
peers returned back to France, tak-
ing with them the Princess Helen.
In Markham Square
By SAMUEL ROTH
Believe me that I had no thought
When I came to Markham Square
To live
That there were lilacs growing there.
Who would have thought it of the place?
Cold it seemed and grey and bare
Until
These lilacs showed their coral hair.
For this I fled America
From poetesses rioting there
Each spring
With dewy lilac in their hair?
And it’s no place for one to live
Who is wedded to despair,
Although
It matters neither here nor there.
Jimmy and the Desperate
Woman
By D. H. LAWRENCE
"HE is very fine and strong
somewhere, but he does
need a level-headed woman to look
after him.”
That was the friendly feminine
verdict upon him. It flattered him,
it pleased him, it galled him.
Having divorced a very charming
and clever wife, who had held this
opinion for ten years, and at last had
got tired of the level-headed protec-
tive game, his gall was uppermost^
“I want to throw Jimmy out on
the world, but I know the poor lit-
tle man will go and fall on some
woman’s bosom. That’s the worst
of him. If he could only stand alone
for ten minutes. But he can’t. At
the same time, there is something
fine about him, something rare.”
This had been Clarissa’s summing
up as she floated away in the arms of
the rich young American. The rich
young American got rather angry
when Jimmy’s name was mentioned.
Clarissa was now his wife. But she
did sometimes talk as if she were
still married to Jimmy.
Not in Jimmy’s estimation, how-
ever. That worm had turned. Gall
was uppermost. Gall and worm-
wood. He knew exactly what Claris-
sa thought—and said—about him.
And the “something fine, something
rare, something strong” which he
was supposed to have “about him”
was utterly Outbalanced, in his feel-
ings at least, by the “poor little
man” nestled upon “some woman’s
bosom,” which he was supposed to
be.
“I am not’’ he said to himself, “a
poor little man nestled upon some
woman’s bosom. If I could only find
the right sort of woman, she should
nestle on mine.”
Jimmy was now thirty-five, and
this point, to nestle or to be nestled,
was the emotional crux and turning-
point.
He imagined to himself some
really womanly woman, to whom he
should be only “fine and strong,”
and not for one moment “the poor
little man.” Why not some simple
uneducated girl, some Tess of the
D’Urbervilles, some wistful Gretch-
en, some humble Ruth gleaning an
aftermath? Why not? Surely the
world was full of such!
The trouble was he never met
them. He only met sophisticated
women:	He really never had a
chance of meeting “real” people. So
few of us ever do. Only the people
we don’t meet are the “real” people,
299
300
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
the simple, genuine, direct, sponta-
neous, unspoilt souls. Ah, the sim-
ple, genuine, unspoilt people we
don't meet! What a tragedy it is!
Because, of course, they must be
there! Somewhere! Only we never
come across them.
Jimmy was terribly handicapped
by his position. It brought him into
contact with so many people. Only
never the right sort. Never the
“real” people: the simple, genuine,
unspoilt, etc., etc.
He was editor of a high-class,
rather high-brow, rather successful
magazine, and his rather personal,
very candid editorials brought him
shoals, swarms, hosts of admiring
acquaintances. Realize that he was
handsome, and could be extraordi-
narily “nice,” when he liked, and
was really very clever, in his own
critical way, and you see how many
chances he had of being adored and
protected.
In the first place his good looks:
the fine, clean lines of his face, like
the face of the laughing faun in one
of the faun’s unlaughing, moody mo-
ments. The long, clean lines of the
cheeks, the strong chin and the
slightly arched, full nose, the beauti-
ful dark-grey eyes with long lashes,
and the thick black brows. In his
mocking moments, when he seemed
most himself, it was a pure Pan
face, with thick black eyebrows cock-
ed up, and grey eyes with a sardonic
goaty gleam, and nose and mouth
curling with satire. A good-looking,
smooth-skinned satyr. That was
Jimmy at his best. In the opinion
of his men friends.
In his own opinion, he was a sort
of Martyred Saint Sebastian, at
whom the wicked world shot arrow
after arrow—Mater Dolorosa noth-
ing to him—and he counted the
drops of blood as they fell: when he
could keep count. Sometimes—as
for instance when Clarissa said she
was really departing with the rich
young American, and should she di-
vorce Jimmy, or was Jimmy going
to divorce her?—then the arrows
assailed him like a flight of starlings
flying straight at him, jabbing at
him, and the drops of martyred
blood simply spattered down, he
couldn’t keep count.
So, naturally, he divorced Clarissa.
In the opinion of his men friends,
he was, or should be, a consistently
grinning faun, satyr, or Pan-person.
In his own opinion, he was a Mar-
tyred Saint Sebastian with the mind
of a Plato. In the opinion of his
woman friends, he was a fascinating
little man with a profound under-
standing of life and the capacity
really to understand a woman and
to make a woman feel a queen;
which of course was to make a wo-
man feel her real self. . . .
He might, naturally, have made
rich and resounding marriages, espe-
cially after the divorce. He didn’t.
The reason was, secretly, his resolve
never to make any woman feel a
queen more. It was the turn of the
woman to make him feel a king.
Some unspoilt, unsophisticated,
wild-blooded woman, to whom he
would be a sort of Solomon of wis-
dom, beauty, and wealth. She would
need to be in reduced circumstances
to appreciate his wealth, which
amounted to the noble sum of three
thousand pounds and a little week-
ending cottage in Hampshire. And
JIMMY AND THE DESPERATE WOMAN
301
to be unsophisticated she would have
to be a woman of the people. Ab-
solutely.
At the same time, not just the
“obscure vulgar simplican.”
He received many letters, many,
many, many, enclosing poems,
stories, articles, or more personal
unbosomings. He read them all:
like a solemn rook pecking and
scratching among the litter.
And one—not one letter, but one
correspondent—might be the one—
Mrs. Emilia Pinnegar, who wrote
from a mining village in Yorkshire.
She was, of course, unhappily mar-
ried.
Now Jimmy had always had a
mysterious feeling about these dark
and rather dreadful mining villages
in the north. He himself had
scarcely set foot north of Oxford.
He felt that these miners up there
must be the real stuff. And Pinne-
gar was a name, surely! And
Emilia!
She wrote a poem, with a brief
little note, that, if the editor of the
Commentator thought the verses of
no value, would he simply destroy
them. Jimmy, as editor of the Com-
mentator, thought the verses quite
good and admired the brevity of the
note. But he wasn’t sure about
printing the poem. He wrote back,
Had Mrs. Pinnegar nothing else to
submit?
Then followed a correspondence.
And at length, upon request, this
from Mrs. Pinnegar:
“You ask me about myself, but
what shall I say? I am a woman of
thirty-one, with one child, a girl of
eight, and I am married to a man
who lives in the same house with me,
but goes to another woman. I try
to write poetry, if it is poetry, be-
cause I have no other way of ex-
pressing myself at all, and even if it
doesn’t matter to anybody besides
myself, I feel I must and will ex-
press myself, if only to save myself
from developing cancer or some dis-
ease that women have. I was a
school-teacher before I was married,
and I got my certificates at Rother-
ham College. If I could, I would
teach again, and live alone. But
married women teachers can’t get
jobs any more, they aren’t al-
lowed ”
The Coal-Miner
By His Wife
The donkey-engine’s beating noise
And the rattle, rattle of the sorting
screens
Come down on me like the beat of
his heart,
And mean the same as his breathing
means.
The burning big pit-hill with fumes
Fills the air like the presence of that
fair-haired man,
And the burning fire burning deeper
and deeper
Is his will insisting since time began.
As he breathes the chair goes up and
down
In the pit-shaft; he lusts like the
wheel-fans spin
The sucking air: he lives in the coal
Underground: and his soul is a
strange engine.
That is the manner of man he is.
I married him and I should know.
302
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
The mother earth from bowels of
coal
Brought him forth for the overhead
woe.
This was the poem that the editor
of the Commentator hesitated about.
He reflected, also, that Mrs. Pinne-
gar didn’t sound like one of the
nestling, unsophisticated rustic type.
It was something else that still at-
tracted him: something desperate in
a woman, something tragic.
The Next Event
If at evening, when the twilight
comes,
You ask me what the day has
been,
I shall not know. The distant drums
Of some new-comer intervene
Between me and the day that’s been.
Some strange man leading long
columns
Of unseen soldiers through the green
Sad twilight of these smoky slums.
And as the darkness slowly numbs
My senses, everything I’ve seen
Or heard the daylight through, be-
comes
Rubbish behind an opaque screen.
Instead, the sound of muffled drums
Inside myself: I have to lean
And listen as my strength succumbs,
To hear what these oncomings
mean.
Perhaps the Death-God striking his
thumbs
On the drums in a deadly rat-ta-
ta-plan.
Or a strange man marching slow as
he strums
The tune of a new weird hope in
Man.
What does it matter! The day that
began
In coal-dust is ending the same, in
crumbs
Of darkness like coal. I live if I
can;
If I can’t, then I welcome what-
ever comes.
This poem sounded so splendidly
desperate, the editor of the Com-
mentator decided to print it, and,
moreover, to see the authoress. He
wrote, Would she care to see him,
if he happened to be in her neigh-
bourhood? He was going to lec-
ture in Sheffield. She replied, Cer-
tainly.
He gave his afternoon lecture, on
Men in Books and Men in Life.
Naturally, men in books came first.
Then he caught a train to reach the
mining village where the Pinnegars
lived.
It was February, with gruesome
patches of snow. It was dark when
he arrived at Mill Valley, a sort of
thick, turgid darkness full of men-
ace, where men speaking in a weird
accent went past like ghosts, drag-
ging their heavy feet and emitting
the weird scent of the coal-mine un-
derworld. Weird and a bit grue-
some it was.
He knew he had to walk uphill to
the little market-place. As he went,
he looked back and saw the blade
valleys with bunches of light, like
camps of demons it seemed to him.
And the demonish smell of sulphur
JIMMY AND THE DESPERATE WOMAN
303
and coal in the air, in the heavy,
pregnant, clammy darkness.
They directed him to New Lon-
don Lane, and down he went down
another hill. His skin crept a little.
The place felt uncanny and hostile,
hard, as if icon and minerals breath-
ed into the black air. Thank good-
ness he couldn’t see much, or be
seen. When he had to ask his way
the people treated him in a “heave-
half-a-brick-at-him” fashion.
After much weary walking and
asking, he entered a lane between
trees, in the cold slushy mud of the
outskirts of the town, in some mud-
sunk country. He could see the red,
sore fires of the burning pit-hill
through the trees, and he smelt the
sulphur. He felt like some modem
Ulysses wandering in the realms of
Hecate. How much more dismal
and horrible, a modern Odyssey
among mines and factories, than any
Sirens, Scyllas or Charybdises.
So he mused to himself as he
waded through icy black mud, in a
black lane, under black trees that
moaned an accompaniment to the
sound of the coal-mine’s occasional
hissing and chuffing, under a black
sky that quenched even the electric
sparkle of the colliery. And the
place seemed unhabitated like a cold
black jungle.
At last he came in sight of a
glimmer. Apparently, there were
dwellings. Yes, a new little street,
with one street-lamp, and the houses
all apparently dark. He paused.
Absolute desertion. Then three
children.
They told him the house, and he
stumbled up a dark passage. There
was light on the little backyard. He
knocked, in some trepidation. A
rather tall woman, looking down at
him with a “Who are you?” look,
from the step above.
“Mrs. Pinnegar?”
“Oh, is it you, Mr. Frith? Come
in.”
He stumbled up the step into the
glaring light of the kitchen. There
stood Mrs. Pinnegar, a tall woman
with a face like a mask of passive
anger, looking at him coldly. Im-
mediately he felt his own shabbiness
and smallness. In utter confusion,
he stuck out his hand.
“I had an awful time getting
here,” he said. “I’m afraid I shall
make a frightful mess of your
house.” He looked down at his
boots.
“That’s all right,” she said.
“Have you had your tea?”
“No—but don’t you bother about
me.”
There was a little girl with fair
hair in a fringe over her forehead,
troubled blue eyes under the fringe,
and two dolls. He felt easier.
“Is this your little girl?” he asked.
“She’s awfully nice. What is her
name?”
“Jane.”
“How are you, Jane?” he said.
But the child only stared at him
with the baffled, bewildered, pained
eyes of a child who lives with hos-
tile parents.
Mrs. Pinnegar set his tea, bread
and butter, jam, and buns. Then
she sat opposite him. She was hand-
some, dark straight brows and grey
eyes with yellow grains in them, and
a way of looking straight at you as
if she were used to holding her own.
Her eyes were the nicest part of her.
304
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
They had a certain kindliness, min-
gled, like the yellow grains among
the grey, with a relentless, unyield-
ing feminine will. Her nose and
mouth were straight, like a Greek
mask, and the expression was fixed.
She gave him at once the impression
of a woman who has made a mis-
take, who knows it, but who will not
change: who cannot now change.
He felt very uneasy. Being a
rather small, shambling man, she
made him aware of his physical in-
conspicuousness. And she said not
a word, only looked down on him,
as he drank his tea, with that change-
less look of a woman who is hold-
ing her own against Man and Fate.
While, from the corner across the
kitchen, the little girl with her fair
hair and her dolls, watched him also
in absolute silence, from her hot
blue eyes.
“This seems a pretty awful place,”
he said to her.
“It is. It’s absolutely awful,” the
woman said.
“You ought to get away from it,”
he said.
But she received this in dead
silence.
It was exceedingly difficult to make
any headway. He asked about Mr.
Pinnegar. She glanced at the clock.
“He comes up at nine,” she said.
“Is he down the mine?”
“Yes. He’s on the afternoon
shift.”
There was never a sound from
the little girl.
“Doesn’t Jane ;ever talk?” he
asked.
“Not much,” said the mother,
glancing round.
He talked a little about his lec-
tures, about Sheffield, about London.
But she was not really interested.
She sat there rather distant, very
laconic, looking at him with those
curious unyielding eyes. She looked
to him like a woman who has had
her revenge, and is left stranded on
the reefs where she wrecked her op-
ponent. Still unrelenting, unregret-
ting, unyielding, she seemed rather
undecided as to what her revenge
had been, and what it had all been
about.
“You ought to get away from
here,” he said to her.
“Where to?” she asked.
“Oh”—he made a vague gesture
—“anywhere, so long as it is quite.
away.”
She seemed to ponder this, under
her portentous brow.
“I don’t see what difference it
would make,” she said. Then glanc-
ing round at her child: “I don’t see
what difference anything would
make, except getting out of the world
altogether. But there’s her to con-
sider.” And she jerked her head in
the direction of the child.
Jimmy felt definitely frightened.
He wasn’t used to this sort of grim-
ness. At the same time he was ex-
cited. This handsome, laconic wo-
man, with her soft brown hair and
her unflinching eyes with their gold
flecks, seemed to be challenging him
to something. There was a touch of
challenge in her remaining gold-
flecked kindness. Somewhere, she
had a heart. But what had happen-
ed to it? And why?
What had gone wrong with her?
In some way, she must have gone
against herself.
“Why don’t you come and live
JIMMY AND THE DESPERATE WOMAN
305
with me?” he said, like the little
gambler he was.
The queer, conflicting smile was
on his face. He had taken up her
challenge, like a gambler. The very
sense of a gamble, in which he could
not lose desperately, excited him. At
the same time, he was scared of her,
and determined to get beyond his
scare.
She sat and watched him, with
the faintest touch of a grim smile on
her handsome mouth.
“How do you mean, live with
you?” she said.
“Oh—I mean what it usually
means,” he said, with a little puff of
self-conscious laughter.
“You’re evidently not happy here.
You’re evidently in the wrong cir-
cumstances altogether. You’re obvi-
ously not just an ordinary woman.
Well, then, break away. When I
say, Come and live with me, I mean
just what I say. Come to London
and live with me, as my wife, if you
like, and then if we want to marry,
when you get a divorce, why, we can
do it”
Jimmy made this speech more to
himself than to the woman. That
was how he was. He worked out
all his things inside himself, as if
it were all merely an interior prob-
lem of his own. And while he did
so, he had an odd way of squinting
his left eye and wagging his head
loosely, like a man talking absolute-
ly to himself, and turning his eyes
inwards.
The woman watched him in a sort
of wonder. This was something she
was not used to. His extraordinary
manner, and his extraordinary bald
proposition, roused her from her
own tense apathy.
“Well!” she said. “That’s got to
be thought about. What about her?”
—and again she jerked her head to-
wards the round-eyed child in the
comer. Jane sat with a completely
expressionless face, her little red
mouth fallen a little open. She seem-
ed in a sort of trance: as if she
understood like a grown-up person,
but, as a child, sat in a trance, un-
conscious.
The mother wheeled round in her
chair and stared at her child. The
little girl stared back at her mother,
with hot, troubled, almost guilty blue
eyes. And neither said a word. Yet
they seemed to exchange worlds of
meaning.
“Why, of course,” said Jimmy,
twisting his head again; “she’d
come, too.”
The woman gave a last look at
her child, then turned to him, and
started watching him with that slow,
straight stare.
“It’s not”—he began, stuttering
—“it’s not anything sudden and un-
considered on my part. I’ve been
considering it for quite a long time
—ever since I had the first poem,
and your letter.”
He spoke still with his eyes turned
inwards, talking to himself. And
the woman watched him unflinching-
“Before you ever saw me?” she
asked, with a queer irony.
“Oh, of course. Of course be-
fore I ever saw you. Or else I
never should have seen you. From
the very first, I had a definite
feeling ”
He made odd, sharp gestures, like
306
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
a drunken man, and he spoke like a
drunken man, his eyes turned in-
ward, talking to himself. The wo-
man was no more than a ghost mov-
ing inside his own consciousness, and
he was addressing her there.
The actual woman sat outside
looking on in a sort of wonder.
This was really something new to
her.
“And now you see me, do you
want me, really, to come to Lon-
don?”
She spoke in a dull tone of in-
credulity. The thing was just a
little preposterous to her. But why
not? It would have to be some-
thing a little preposterous, to get her
out of the tomb she was in.
“Of course I do!” he cried, with
another scoop of his head and scoop
of his hand. "Now I do actually
want you, now I actually see you.”
He never looked at her. His eyes
were still turned in. He was still
talking to himself, in a sort of
drunkenness with himself.
To her, it was something extra-
ordinary. But it roused her from
apathy.
He became aware of the hot blue
eyes of the hot-cheeked little girl
fixed upon him from the distant cor-
ner. And he gave a queer little
giggle.
“Why, it’s more than I could ever
have hoped for,” he said, “to have
you and Jane to live with me! Why,
it will mean life to me.” He spoke
in an odd, strained voice, slightly
delirious. And for the first time he
looked up at the woman and, ap-
parently straight at her. But, even
as he seemed to look straight at her,
the curious cast was in his eye, and
he was only looking at himself, in-
side himself, at the shadows inside
his own consciousness.
“And when would you like me to
come?” she asked, rather coldly.
“Why, as soon as possible. Come
back with me tomorrow, if you will.
I’ve got a little house in St. John’s
Wood, waiting for you. Come with
me tomorrow. That’s the simplest.”
She watched him for some time,
as he sat with ducked head. He
looked like a man who is drunk—
drunk with himself. He was going
bald at the crown, his rather curly
black hair was thin.
“I couldn’t come tomorrow, I
should need a few days,” she said.
She wanted to see his face again.
It was as if she could not remember
what his face was like, this strange
man who had appeared out of no-
where, with such a strange proposi-
tion.
He lifted his face, his eyes still
cast in that inturned, blind look. He
looked now like a Mephistopheles
who has gone blind. With his black
brows cocked up, Mephistopheles,
Mephistopheles blind and begging
in the street.
“Why, of course it’s wonderful
that it’s happened like this for me,”
he said, with odd pouting emphasis,;
pushing out his lips. “I was finish-
ed, absolutely finished. I was finish-
ed while Clarissa was with me. But
after she’d gone, I was absolutely
finished. And I thought there was
no chance for me in the world again.
It seems to me perfectly marvellous
that this has happened—that I’ve
come across you”—he lifted his
face sightlessly—“and Jane—Jane
—why she’s really too good to be 
JIMMY AND THE DESPERATE WOMAN
307
true.” He gave a slight hysterical
laugh. “She really is.”
The woman, and Jane, watched
him with some embarrassment.
“I shall have to settle up here,
with Mr. Pinnegar,” she said,
rather coldly musing. “Do you
want to see him?”
“Oh, I--- ” he said, with a de-
precating gesture, “I don’t care. But
if you think I’d better—why, cer-
tainly ”
“I do think you’d better,” she
said.
“Very well, then, I will. I’ll see
him whenever you like.”
“He comes in soon after nine,”
she said.
“All right, I’ll see him then.
Much better. But I suppose I’d bet-
ter see about finding a place to sleep
first. Better not leave it too late.”
“I’ll come with you and ask for
you.”
“Oh, you’d better not, really. If
you tell me where to go ”
He had taken on a protective
tone: he was protecting her against
herself and against scandal. It was
his manner, his rather Oxfordy man-
ner, more than anything else, that
went beyond her. She wasn’t used
to it.
Jimmy plunged out into the gulf-
ing blackness of the Northern night,
feeling how horrible it was, but
pressing his hat on his brow in a
sense of stronge adventure. He was
going through with it.
At the baker’s shop, where she
had suggested he should ask for a
bed, they would have none of him.
Absolutely they didn’t like the looks
of him. At the Pub, too, they shook
their heads: didn’t want to have
anything to do with him. But, in a
voice more expostulatingly Oxford
than ever, he said:
“But look here—you can’t ask a
man to sleep under one of these
hedges. Can’t I see the landlady?”
He persuaded the landlady to
promise to let him sleep on the big,
soft settee in the parlour, where the
fire was burning brightly. Then,
saying he would be back about ten,
he returned through mud and drizzle
up New London Lane.
The child was in bed, a saucepan
was boiling by the fire. Already the
lines had softened a little in the wo-
man’s face.
She spread a cloth on the table.
Jimmy sat in silence, feeling that she
was hardly aware of his presence.
She was absorbed, no doubt, in the
coming of her husband. The
stranger merely sat on the sofa, and
waited. He felt himself wound up
tight. And once he was really
wound up, he could go through with
anything.
They heard the nine o’clock
whistle at the mine. The woman
then took the saucepan from the fire
and went into the scullery. Jimmy
could smell the smell of potatoes be-
ing strained. He sat quite still.
There was nothing for him to do or
to say. He was wearing his big
black-rimmed spectacles, and his
face, blank and expressionless in the
suspense of waiting, looked like the
death-mask of some sceptical phil-
osopher, who could wait through the
ages, and who could hardly distin-
guish life from death at any time.
Came the heavy-shod tread up the
house entry, and the man entered,
rather like a blast of wind. The
308
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
fair moustache stuck out from the
blackish, mottled face, and the fierce
blue eyes rolled their whites in the
coal-blackened sockets.
“This gentleman is Mr. Frith,”
said Emily Pinnegar.
Jimmy got up, with a bit of an
Oxford wriggle, and held out his
hand, saying: “How do you do?”
His grey eyes, behind the spec-
tacles, had an uncanny whitish
gleam.
“My hand’s not fit to shake,”
said the miner. “Take a seat.”
“Oh, nobody minds coal-dust,”
said Jimmy, subsiding onto the sofa.
“It’s clean dirt.”
“They say so,” said Pinnegar.
He was a man of medium height,
thin, but energetic in build.
Mrs. Pinnegar was running hot
water into a pail from the bright
brass tap of the stove, which had a
boiler to balance the oven. Pinne-
gar dropped heavily into a wooden
armchair, and stooped to pull off his
ponderous grey pit-boots. He
smelled of the strange, stale under-
ground. In silence he pulled on his
slippers, then rose, taking his boots
into the scullery. His wife followed
with the pail of hot water. She re-
turned and spread a coarse roller-
towel on the steel fender. The man
could be heard washing in the scul-
lery, in the semi-dark. Nobody said
anything. Mrs. Pinnegar attended
to her husband’s dinner.
After a while, Pinnegar came run-
ning in, naked to the waist, and
squatted plumb in front of the big
red fire, on his heels. His head and
face and the front part of his body
were all wet. His back was grey
and unwashed. He seized the towel
from the fender and began to rub
his face and head with a sort of
brutal vigour, while his wife brought
a bowl, and with a soapy flannel si-
lently washed his back, right down
to the loins, where the trousers roll-
ed back. The man was entirely ob-
livious of the stranger—this wash-
ing was part of the collier’s ritual,
and nobody existed for the moment.
The woman, washing her husband's
back, stooping there as he kneeled
with knees wide apart, squatting on
his heels on the rag hearthrug, had
a peculiar look on her strong, hand-
some face, a look sinister and deri-
sive. She was deriding something
or somebody; but Jimmy could not
make out whom or what.
It was a new experience for him
to sit completely and brutally ex-
cluded, from a personal ritual. The
collier vigorously rubbed his own
fair, short hair, till it all stood on
end, then he stared into the red-hot
fire, oblivious, while the red colour
burned in his cheeks. Then again
he rubbed his breast and his body
with the rough towel, brutally, as
if his body were some machine he
was cleaning, while his wife, with a
peculiar slow movement, dried his
back with another towel.
She took away the towel and
bowl. The man was dry. He still
squatted with his hands on his knees,
gazing abstractedly, blankly into the
fire. That, too, seemed part of his
daily ritual. The colour flushed in
his cheeks, his fair moustache was
rubbed on end. But his hot blue
eyes stared hot and vague into the
red coals, while the red glare of the
coal fell on his breast and naked
body.
JIMMY AND THE DESPERATE WOMAN
309
He was a man of about thirty-
five, in his prime, with a pure smooth
skin and no fat on his body. His
muscles were not large, but quick,
alive with energy. And as he
squatted bathing abstractedly in the
glow of the fire, he seemed like some
pure-moulded engine that sleeps be-
tween its motions, with incompre-
hensible eyes of dark iron-blue.
He looked round, always averting
his face from the stranger on the
sofa, shutting him out of conscious-
ness. The wife took out a bundle
from the dresser-cupboard, and
handed it to the out-stretched work-
scarred hand of the man on the
hearth. Curious, that big, homy,
work-battered clean hand, at the
end of the suave, thin naked arm.
Pinnegar unrolled his shirt and
undervest in front of the fire, warm-
ed them for a moment in the glow,
vaguely, sleepily, then pulled them
over his head. And then at last he
rose, with his shirt hanging over his
trousers, and in the same abstract,
sleepy way, shutting the world out
of his consciousness, he went out
again to the scullery, pausing at the
same dresser-cupboard to take out
his rolled-up day trousers.
Mrs. Pinnegar took away the
towels and set the dinner on the
table—rich, oniony stew out of a
hissing brown stew-jar, boiled pota-
toes, and a cup of tea. The man
returned from the scullery, in his
clean flannelette shirt and black
trousers, his fair hair neatly brush-
ed. He planked his wooden arm-
chair beside the table, and sat heavi-
ly down, to eat.
Then he looked at Jimmy, as one
wary, probably hostile, man looks at
another.
“You’re a stranger in these parts,
I gather?” he said. There was
something slightly formal, even a bit
pompous, in his speech.
“An absolute stranger,” replied
Jimmy, with a slight aside grin.
The man dabbed some mustard
on his plate, and glanced at his food
to see if he would like it.
“Come from a distance, do you?”
he asked, as he began to eat. As he
ate, he seemed to become oblivious
again of Jimmy, bent his head over
his place, and ate. But probably he
was ruminating something all the
time, with barbaric wariness.
“From London,” said Jimmy,
warily.
“London I” said Pinnegar, with-
out looking from his plate.
Mrs. Pinnegar came and sat, in
ritualistic silence, in her tall-backed
rocking-chair under the light.
“What brings you this way,
then?” asked Pinnegar, stirring his
tea.
“Oh!” Jimmy writhed a little on
the sofa. “I came to see Mrs.
Pinnegar.”
The miner took' a hasty gulp of
tea.
“You’re acquainted then, are
you?” he said, still without looking
round. He sat with his side-face to
Jimmy.
“Yes, we are now," explained
Jimmy. “I didn’t know Mrs. Pinne-
gar till this evening. As a matter
of fact, she sent me some poems for
the Commentator—I’m the editor—
and I thought they were good, so I
wrote and told her so. Then I felt
I wanted to come and see her,
310
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
and she was willing, so I came.”
The man reached out, cut himself
a piece of bread, and swallowed a
large mouthful.
“You thought her poetry was
good?” he said, turning at last to
Jimmy and looking straight at him,
with a stare something like the
child’s, but aggressive. “Are you
going to put it in your magazine?”
“Yes, I think I am,” said Jimmy.
“I never read but one of her
poems—something about a collier
she knew all about, because she’d
married him,” he said, in his pecu-
liar harsh voice, that had a certain
jeering clang in it, and a certain in-
domitableness.
Jimmy was silent. The other
man’s harsh fighting-voice made him
shrink.
“I could never get on with the
Commentator myself,” said Pinne-
gar, looking round for his pudding,
pushing his meat-plate aside.
“Seems to me to go a long way
round to get nowhere.”
“Well, probably it does” said
Jimmy, squirming a little. “But so
long as the way is interesting! 1
don’t see that anything gets any-
where at present—certainly no peri-
odical.”
“I don’t know,” said Pinnegar.
“There’s some facts in the Libera-
tor—and there’s some ideas in the
Janus. I can’t see the use, myself,
of all these feelings folk say they
have. They get you nowhere.”
“But,” said Jimmy, with a slight
pouf of laughter, “where do you
want to get? It’s all very well talk-
ing about getting somewhere, but
where, where in the world today do
you want to get? In general, I
mean. If you want a better job in
the mine—all right, go ahead and
get it. But when you begin to talk
about getting somewhere, in life—
why, you’ve got to know what you’re
talking about.”
“I’m a man, aren’t I?” said the
miner, going very still and hard.
“But what do you mean, when
you say you’re a man?” snarled
Jimmy, really exasperated. “What
do you mean? Yes, you are a man.
But what about it ?”
“Haven’t I the right to say I
won’t be made use of?” said the
collier, slow, harsh, and heavy.
“You’ve got a right to say it,” re-
torted Jimmy, with a pouf of laughs
ter. “But it doesn’t mean anything.
We’re all made use of from King
George downwards. We have to
be. When you eat your pudding
you’re making use of hundreds of
people—including your wife.”
“I know it. I know it. It makes
no difference, though. I’m not go-
ing to be made use of.”
Jimmy shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh, all right!” he said. “That’s
just a phrase, like any other.”
The miner sat very still in his
chair, his face going hard and re-
mote. He was evidently thinking
over something that was stuck like a
barb in his consciousness, something
he was trying to harden over, as the
skin sometimes hardens over a steel
splinter in the flesh.
“I’m nothing but made use of,”
he said, now talking hard and final,
to himself, and staring out into
space. “Down the pit, I’m made use;
of, and they give me a wage, such
as it is. At the house, I’m made use
of, and my wife sets the dinner on
JIMMY AND THE DESPERATE WOMAN
311
the table as if I was a customer in a
shop.”
“But what do you expect?” cried
Jimmy, writhing in his chair.
“Me? What do I expect? I ex-
pect nothing. But I tell you what”—
he returned, and looked straight and
hard into Jimmy’s eyes—“I'm not
going to put up with anything,
either.”
Jimmy saw the hard finality in the
other man’s eyes, and squirmed
away from it.
“If you know what you’re not go-
ing to put up with ” he said.
“I don’t want my wife writing
poetry! And sending it to a parcel
of men she’s never seen. I don’t
want my wife sitting like Queen
Boadicea, when I come home, and a
face like a stone wall with holes in
it. I don’t know what’s wrong with
her. She doesn’t know herself. But
she does as she likes. Only, mark
you, I do the same.”
  “Of course I” cried Jimmy, though
there was no of course about it.
  “She’s told you I’ve got another
woman?”
  “Yes.”
  “And I’ll tell you for why. If I
give in to the coal face, and go down
the mine every day to eight hours’
slavery, more or less, somebody’s
got to give in to me.”
“Then,” said Jimmy, after a
pause, “if you mean you want your
wife to submit to you—well, that’s
the problem. You have to marry the
woman who will submit.”
It was amazing, this from Jimmy.
He sat there and lectured the collier
like a Puritan Father, completely
forgetting the disintegrating flutter
of Clarissa, in his own background.
“I want a wife who’ll please me,
who’ll want to please me,” said the
collier.
“Why should you be pleased, any
more than anybody else ?” asked the
wife coldly.
“My child, my little girl wants to
please me—if her mother would let
her. But the women hang together.
I tell you”—and here he turned to
Jimmy, with a blaze in his dark blue
eyes—“I want a woman to please
me, a woman who’s anxious to
please me. And if I can’t find her
in my own home, I’ll find her out
of it.”
“I hope she pleases you,” said the
wife, rocking slightly.
“Well,” said the man, “she does.”
“Then why don’t you go and live
with her altogether?” she said.
He turned and looked at her.
“Why don’t I?” he said. “Be-
cause I’ve got my home. I’ve got
my house, I’ve got my wife, let her
be what she may, as a woman to
live with. And I’ve got my child.
Why should I break it all up?”
“And what about me?” she asked,
coldly and fiercely.
“You? You’ve got a home.
You’ve got a child. You’ve got a
man who works for you. You’ve got
what you want. You do as you
like ”
“Do I?” she asked, with intoler-
able sarcasm.
“Yes. Apart from the bit of
work in the house, you do as you
like. If you want to go, you can
go. But while you live in my house,
you must respect it. You bring no
men here, you see.”
“Do you respect your home ?” she
said.
312
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
“Yes! I do! If I get another
woman—who pleases me—I deprive
you of nothing. All I ask of you is
to do your duty as a housewife.”
“Down to washing your back!”
she said, heavily sarcastic; and, Jim-
my thought, a trifle vulgar.
“Down to washing my back,
since it’s got to be washed,” he said.
“What about the other woman?
Let her do it.”
“This is my home.”
The wife gave a strange move-
ment, like a mad woman.
Jimmy sat rather pale and fright-
ened. Behind the collier’s quietness
he felt the concentration of almost
cold anger and an unchanging will.
In the man’s lean face he could see
the bones, the fixity of the male
bones, and it was as if the human
soul, or spirit, had gone into the liv-
ing skull and skeleton, almost invul-
nerable.
Jimmy, for some strange reason,
felt a wild anger against this bony
and logical man. It was the hard-
driven coldness, fixity, that he could
not bear.
“Look here!” he cried, in a reso-
nant Oxford voice, his eyes glaring
and casting inwards behind his spec-
tacles. “You say Mrs. Pinnegar is
free—free to do as she pleases. In
that case, you have no objection if
she comes with me right away from
here.”
The collier looked at the pale,
strange face of the editor in wonder.
Jimmy kept his face slightly averted,
and sightless, seeing nobody. There
was a Mephistophelian tilt about the
eyebrows, and a Martyred Sebastian
straightness about the mouth.
“Does she want to?” asked Pinne-
gar, with devastating incredulity.
The wife smiled faintly, grimly. She
could see the vanity of her husband
in his utter inability to believe that
she could prefer the other man to
him.
“That,” said Jimmy, “you must
ask her yourself. But it’s what I
came here for: to ask her to come
and live with me, and bring the
child.”
“You came without having seen
her, to ask her that?” said the hus-
band, in growing wonder.
“Yes,” said Jimmy, vehemently,
nodding his head with drunken em-
phasis. “Yes! Without ever having
seen her!”
“You’ve caught a funny fish this
time, with your poetry,” he said,
turning with curious husband-fami-
liarity to his wife. She hated this
offhand husband-familarity.
“What sort of fish have you
caught?” she retorted. “And what
did you catch her with ?”
“Bird-lime!” he said, with a faint,,
quick grin.
Jimmy was sitting in suspense.
They all three sat in suspense, for
some time.
“And what are you saying to
him?” said the collier at length.
Jimmy looked up, and the ma-
levolent half-smile on his face made
him rather handsome again, a mix-
ture of faun and Mephisto. He
glanced curiously, invitingly, at the
woman, who was watching him from
afar.
“I say yes!” she replied, in a cool
voice.
The husband became very still,
sitting erect in his wooden armchair-
and staring into space. It was as
JIMMY AND THE DESPERATE WOMAN
313
if he were fixedly watching some-
thing fly away from him, out of his
own soul. But he was not going to
yield at all, to any emotion.
He could not now believe that
this woman should want to leave
him. Yet she did.
“I’m sure it’s all for the best,”
said Jimmy, in his Puritan-Father
voice. “You don’t mind, really”—
he drawled uneasily—“if she brings
the child. I give you my word I’ll
do my very best for it.”
The collier looked at him as if
he were very far away. Jimmy
quailed under the look. He could
see that the other man was relent-
lessly killing the emotion in himself,
stripping himself, as it were, of his
own flesh, stripping himself to the
hard unemotional bone of the hu-
man male.
“I give her a blank cheque,” said
Pinnegar, with numb lips. “She
does as she pleases.”
“So much for fatherly love, com-
pared with selfishness,” she said.
He turned and looked at her with
that curious power of remote anger.
And immediately she became still,
quenched.
“I give you a blank cheque, as
far as I’m concerned,” he repeated
abstractedly.
“It is blank indeed!” she said,
with her first touch of bitterness.
Jimmy looked at the clock. It
was growing late: he might be shut
out of the public-house. He rose to
go, saying he would return in the
morning. He was leaving the next
day, at noon, for London.
He plunged into the darkness and
mud of that black, night-ridden
country. There was a curious ela-
tion in his spirits, mingled with fear.
But then he always needed an ele-
ment of fear, really, to elate him.
He thought with terror of those two
human beings left in that house to-
gether. The frightening state of
tension! He himself could never
bear an extreme tension. He always
had to compromise, to become apol-
ogetic and pathetic. He would be
able to manage Mrs. Pinnegar that
way. Emily! He must get used to
saying it. Emily! The Emilia was
absurd. He had never known an
Emily.
He felt really scared, and really
elated. He was doing something
big. It was not that he was in love.
with the woman. But, my God, he
wanted to take her away from that
man. And he wanted the adventure
of her. Absolutely the adventure of
her. He felt really elated, really
manly.
But in the morning he returned
rather sheepishly to the collier’s
house. It was another dark, drizzling
day, with black trees, black road,
black hedges, blackish brick houses,
and the smell and the sound of col-
lieries under a skyless day. Like
living in some weird underground.
Unwillingly he went up that
passage-entry again, and knocked at
the back door, glancing at the miser-
able little back garden with its cab-
bage-stalks and its ugly sanitary ar-
rangements.
The child opened the door to him:
with her fair hair, flushed cheeks,
and hot, dark-blue eyes.
“Hello, Jane!” he said.
The mother stood, tall and square,
by the table, watching him with por-
tentous eyes, as he entered. She was
314
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
handsome, but her skin was not very
good: as if the battle had been too
much for her health. Jimmy glanced
up at her, smiling his slow, ingratiat-
ing smile, that always brought a
glow of success into a woman’s
spirit. And as he saw her gold-
flecked eyes searching in his eyes,
without a bit of kindliness, he
thought to himself: “My God, how-
ever am I going to sleep with that
woman!” His will was ready, how-
ever, and he would manage it some-
how.
And when he glanced at the mo-
tionless, bony head and lean figure
of the collier seated in the wooden
armchair by the fire, he was the
more ready. He must triumph over
that man.
“What train are you going by?”
asked Mrs. Pinnegar.
“By the twelve-thirty.” He look-
ed up at her as he spoke, with the
wide, shining, childlike, almost coy
eyes that were his peculiar asset.
She looked down at him in a sort
of interested wonder. She seem-
ed almost fascinated by his child-
like, shining, inviting dark-grey
eyes, with their long lashes: such an
absolute change from that dangerous
unyielding that looked out always
from the back of her husband’s blue
eyes. Her husband always seemed
like a menace to her, in his thinness,
his concentration, his eternal un-
yielding. And this man looked at
one with the wide, shining, fascinat-
ing eyes of a young Persian kitten,
something at once bold and shy and
coy and strangely inviting. She fell
at once under their spell.
“You’ll have dinner before you
go,” she said.
“No!” he cried in panic, unwill-
ing indeed to eat before that other
man. “No, I ate a fabulous break-
fast I will get a sandwich when I
change in Sheffield: really!”
She had to go out shopping. She
said she would go out to the station
with him when she got back. It was
just after eleven.
“But look here,” he said, address-
ing also the thin abstracted man who
sat unnoticing, with a newspaper,
“we’ve got to get this thing settled.
I want Mrs. Pinnegar to come and
live with me, her and the child. And
she’s coming! So don’t you think,
now, it would be better if she came
right along with me to-day! Just
put a few things in a bag and come
along. Why drag the thing out?”
“I tell you,” replied the husband,
“she has a blank cheque from me to
do as she likes.”
“All right, then! Won’t you do
that? Won’t you come along with
me now?” said Jimmy, looking up
at her exposedly, but casting his eyes
a bit inwards. Throwing himself
with deliberate impulsiveness on her
mercy.'
“I can’t!” she said decisively. “I
can’t come today.”
“But why not—really? Why not,
while I’m here? You .have that
blank cheque, you can do as you
please ”
“The blank cheque won’t get me
far,” she said rudely; “I can’t come
today, anyhow.”
“When can you come, then?” he
said, with that queer, petulant plead-
ing. “The sooner the better, sure-
ly.”
“I can come on Monday,” she
said abruptly.
JIMMY AND THE DESPERATE WOMAN
315
“Monday!” He gazed up at her
in a kind of panic, through his spec-
tacles. Then he set his teeth again,
and nodded his head up and down.
“All right, then! Today is Satur-
day. Then Monday!”
“If you’ll"excuse me,” she said,
“I’ve got to go out for a few things.
I’ll walk to the station with you
when I get back.”
She bundled Jane into a little sky-
blue coat and bonnet, put on a heavy
black coat and black hat herself, and
went out.
Jimmy sat very uneasily opposite
the collier, who also wore spectacles
to read. Pinnegar put down the
newspaper and pulled the spectacles
off his nose, saying something about
a Labour Government.
“Yes,” said Jimmy. “After all,
best be logical. If you are demo-
cratic, the only logical thing is a La-
bour Government. Though, per-
sonally, one Government is as good
as another, to me.”
“Maybe so!” said the collier.
“But something's got to come to an
end, sooner or later.”
“Oh, a great deal!” said Jimmy,
and they lapsed into silence.
“Have you been married be-
fore ?” asked Pinnegar, at length.
“Yes. My wife and I are di-
vorced.”
“I suppose you want me to divorce
my wife?” said the collier.
“Why — yes! — that would be
best ”
“It’s the same to me,” said Pinne-
gar; “divorce or no divorce. I’ll
live with another woman, but I’ll
never marry another. Enough is as
good as a feast. But if she wants
a divorce, she can have it.”
“It would certainly be best,” said
Jimmy.
There was a long pause. Jimmy
wished the woman would come back.
“I look on you as an instrument,”
said the miner. “Something had to
break. You are the instrument that
breaks it.”
It was strange to sit in the room
with this thin, remote, wilful man.
Jimmy was a bit fascinated by him.
But, at the same time, he hated him
because he could not be in the same
room with him without being under
his spell. He felt himself domi-
nated. And he hated it.
“My wife,” said Pinnegar, look-
ing up at Jimmy with a peculiar, al-
most merry, teasing smile, “expects
to see me go to pieces when she
leaves me. It is her last hope.”
Jimmy ducked his head and was
silent, not knowing what to say. The
other man sat still in his chair, like
a sort of infinitely patient prisoner,
looking away out of the window and
waiting.
“She thinks,” he said again, “that
she has some wonderful future
awaiting her somewhere, and you’re
going to open the door.”
And again the same amused smile
was in his eyes.
And again Jimmy was fascinated
by the man. And again he hated
the spell of this fascination. For
Jimmy wanted to be, in his own
mind, the strongest man among men,
but particularly among women. And
this thin, peculiar man could domi-
nate him. He knew it. The very
silent unconsciousness of Pinnegar
dominated the room, wherever he
was.
Jimmy hated this.
316
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
At last Mrs. Pinnegar came back,
and Jimmy set off with her. He
shook hands with the collier.
“Good-bye!” he said.
“Good-bye!” said Pinnegar, look-
ing down at him with those amused
blue eyes, which Jimmy knew he
would never be able to get beyond.
And the walk to the station was
almost a walk of conspiracy against
the man left behind, between the
man in spectacles and the tall wo-
man. They arranged the details for
Monday. Emily was to come by the
nine o’clock train: Jimmy would
meet her at Marylebone, and instal
her in his house in St. John’s Wood.
Then, with the child, they would be-
gin a new life. Pinnegar would di-
vorce his wife, or she would divorce
him: and then, another marriage.
Jimmy got a tremendous kick out
of it all on the journey home. He
felt he had really done something
desperate and adventurous. But he
was in too wild a flutter to analyse
any results. Only, as he drew near
London, a sinking feeling came over
him. He was desperately tired after
it all, almost too tired to keep up.
Nevertheless, he went after din-
ner and sprang it all on Severn.
“You damn fool!” said Severn, in
consternation. “What did you do it
for?”
“Well,” said Jimmy, writhing.
“Because I wanted to.”
“Good God! The woman sounds
like the head of Medusa. You’re
a hero of some stomach, I must say I
Remember Clarissa?”
“Oh,” writhed Jimmy. “But this
is different.”
“Ay, her name’s Emma, or some-
thing of that sort, isn’t it?”
“Emily!” said Jimmy briefly.
“Well, you’re a fool, anyway, so
you may as well keep on acting in
character. I’ve ho doubt, by play-
ing weeping-willow, you’ll outlive all
the female storms you ever prepare
for yourself. I never yet did see a
weeping-willow uprooted by a gale,
so keep on hanging your harp on it,
and you’ll be all right. Here’s luck!
But for a man who was looking for
a little Gretchen to adore him,
you’re a corker!”
Which was all that Severn had to
say. But Jimmy went home with his
knees shaking. On Sunday morning
he wrote an anxious letter. He
didn’t know how to begin it: Dear
Mrs. Pinnegar and Dear Emily
seemed either too late in the day
or too early. So he just plunged in,
without dear anything.
“I want you to have this before
you come. Perhaps we have been
precipitate. I only beg you to de-
cide finally, for yourself, before you
come. Don’t come, please, unless
you are absolutely sure of yourself.
If you are in the least unsure, wait
a while, wait till you are quite cer-
tain, one way or the other.
“For myself, if you don’t come I
shall understand. But please send
me a telegram. If you do come, I
shall welcome both you and the
child. Yours ever—J. F.”
He paid a man his return fare,
and three pounds extra, to go on the
Sunday and deliver this letter.
The man came back in the eve-
ning. He had delivered the letter.
There was no answer.
Awful Sunday night: tense Mon-
day morning!
JIMMY AND THE DESPERATE WOMAN
317
A telegram: “Arrive Marylebone
12.50 with Jane. Yours ever.
Emily”
Jimmy set his teeth and went to
the station. But when he felt her
looking at him, and so met her eyes:
and after that saw her coming slow-
ly down the platform, holding the
child by the hand, her slow, cat’s
eyes smouldering under her straight
brows, smouldering at him: he al-
most swooned. A sickly grin came
over him as he held out his hand.
Nevertheless he said:
“I’m awfully glad you came.”
And as he sat in the taxi, a per-
verse but intense desire for her came
over him, making him almost help-
less. He could feel, so strongly, the
presence of that other man about
her, and this went to his head like
neat spirits. That other man! In
some subtle, inexplicable way, he
was actually bodily present, the hus-
band. The woman moved in his
aura. She was hopelessly married
to him.
And this went to Jimmy’s head
like neat whisky. Which of the two
would fall before him with a greater
fall—the woman, or the man, her
husband?
The Symons-Masefield Robbery
Exhibit One
WANDERER'S SONG
By ARTHUR SYMONS
(Published before the year 1900)
I have had enough of women, and enough of love,
But the land waits and the sea waits, and day and night is enough;
Give me a long white road, and the grey wide path of the sea,
And the wind’s will and the bird’s will, and the heart-ache still in me.
Why should I seek out sorrow, and give gold for strife?
I have loved much and wept much, but tears and love are not life;
The grass calls to my heart, and the foam to my blood cries up,
And the sun shines and the road shines, and the wine’s in the cup.
I have had enough of wisdom, and enough of mirth,
But the way’s one, and the end’s one, and it’s soon to the ends
of the earth;
And it’s then good-night and to bed, and if heels or heart-ache,
Well, it’s sound sleep, and long sleep, and sleep too deep to wake.
318
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
Exhibit Two
SEA-FEVER
By JOHN MASEFIELD
(Published about the year 1910)
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s
shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face and a grey dawn breaking.
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the seagulls crying.
I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life.
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a
whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yam from a laughing fellow rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.
We might pause to make comparisons, but for the shrewd reader this
is not at all necessary. The dull reader has at least two good poems to
set to memory; their resemblance to each other need not trouble him.
Intimate Glimpses of
Anatole France
By J. J. BROUSSON
GOURMONT AND THE SNAIL
HE calls Remy de Gourmont a
“polygraph.”
—He is a jack of all trades and
master of none. There is in him
something of the trickster. His
prestige is due especially to the rapid
fire of his paradoxes. He has writ-
ten prolifically. Nothing is foreign
to him. But in nothing is he pre-
eminent. For example: his LATIN
MYSTIQUE is a mediocre book,
astonishing only to those who know
a bit of Latin. The most insignifi-
cant professor of ecclesiastic rhetoric
could do better. The most original
part of his work, to my mind, is
the PHYSIQUE DE L’AMOUR.
Here he demonstrates that the mas-
terpiece of creation is the snail.
Ye-es, the snail! You probably
never suspected it. But let us see.
In the first place, this gasteropod of
the lovely horns is at the same time
male and female. It can taste of one
or the other sex, which is a great
advantage! Its decision is influ-
enced by circumstances. To love it
brings experience. I am aware that
some of our contemporaries are said
to have pursued various studies in an
attempt to improve upon the arbi-
trary methods of the Creator. For
myself, I am a routinier. I am con-
tented to follow in the paths as-
signed to me by Providence and the
civil state. I do not try to escape
from my sex. But the snail may pass
from one mode to the other, at will.
Its loves last, if I am not mistaken,
for five or six weeks. That is some-
thing worth starting! With us poor
humans pain lasts a century and
pleasure the space of a lightning-
flash. Even in his day the monk
Barbette observed this. “You who
give yourselves up to lechery and
fornication!” he shouted from the
pulpit. “Poor men! You are great
fools! The game is not worth the
candle! In the ecstasy of pleasure
you are in the seventh heaven. But
how long do you stay there! If only
this endured seven years, seven
months, seven days, seven hours!...
But . . . cric-crac and you are in
hell!” If the snail goes to hell for
its lechery, it goes well documented.
It will be able to live on its memories
throughout eternity. Happy the
snails! But do they recognize their
happiness? You will say to me
“they do not have an immortal
319
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TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
soul!” Much good it would do
them! They will never lose it, in
any event. We have it only that we
may lose it! But, on the evidence of
Remy de Gourmont, they possess a
certain excitatory* instrument for
the trifling details of admittance.
Here we have indeed dexterous
sports! This organ is tipped with
lime. What more do you want? O
yes, my friend! The snail is ugly,
clammy, repugnant... but it is her-
maphrodite . .. and its loves endure
for six weeks. And it has an ex-
citatory instrument tipped with
limestone—which is just as good as
an immortal soul!
You know Remy de Gourmont?
•Note: Possibly the English word “sensitiz-
ing” is closer to the French “excitatoire.” “Ex-
citatory” is not quite right.
He is said to be notoriously ugly.
He is the leper of the city of Aosta.
He goes out only at night In the
daytime he would need a rattle. In
thumbing some old volume he
caught a form of leprosy believed to
have been extinct since the Middle
Ages. He is a nice soul inhabiting
the most ruinous of bodies. It is he
who is the slug. I would not say
that he is a hermaphrodite. I have
not seen him! And, in truth, I don’t
much care to. Each one finds his
salvation as he may! But his love
affairs last for six weeks and, as re-
gards the excitatory organ, he could
give lessons to the most homy of
snails. That is a providential com-
pensation. God has given him
leprosy and ugliness. But also, vo-
luptuousness. . . .
Before undergoing a surgical operation arrange your temporal affairs. You
may live.
Woman would be more charming if one could fall into her arms without
falling into her hands.
It is not to our credit that women like best the men who are not as other
men, nor to theirs that they are not particular as to the nature of the dif-
ference.
Brokenbrow
A Tragedy
By ERNST TOLLER
ACT I : SCENE I
Indicates the kitchen-living room of
a workman’s house. Maggie
Brokenbrow is pottering about at
the range. Eugene Brokenbrow
comes in. He sits ’down. His
right hand lies before him on the
table. He is clutching some small
object at which he stares incessant-
ly. (Brokenbrow must speak with-
out any fluency or pathos. His
speech is that of simple folk—
laboured and toneless.)
Maggie: Did mother give you
the coals? (Eugene is silent).. Gene!
I’m asking you: did mother give you
the coals? Answer me. You’d think
his wits are wandering. Gene! Do
say something. What’s to become of
us? Not a bit of wood, not a bit of
coal. Gene I Do you want me to
burn the bedstead to keep the range
going?
Gene: The little creature. Such
lovely colours. Its heart is beating
so hard I can feel it with my hands.
Sitting in the dark. Now it’ll always
be in the dark.
Maggie: What have you got
there, Gene?
Gene: And you can just stand
there by the range! I wonder the
saucepan doesn’t drop out of your
hands! Can’t you feel a great dark-
ness coming over you? A creature,
a little live thing, might be you or
me. So pleased with its little self.
Chirrup, chirrup—you know how
they chirrup away in the mornings?
Pleased to see the light again, they
are—tweet tweet! But now—but
now! When I walked in she had
just put out its eyes with a red-hot
knitting needle . . . (he groans
aloud).
Maggie: What? Who?
Gene: Your mother. Your own
mother. Fancy a mother putting out
the eyes of a goldfinch because the
paper said that blind birds sing bet-
ter ! I chucked her coals on the floor,
I did; and the ten bob she gave me.
Maggie, I punished your mother the
same as you’d punish a child that
was cruel to animals. But then I let
her go; because I seemed to remem-
ber—it was horrible—didn’t I use
to do the same thing and think noth-
ing of it? The feelings of an an-
imal, well, what about it? Wring its
neck, cut its throat, put a bullet
through it—who cares? When I
was in good health all that seemed
just as it should be. Now that I’m
a cripple I know; it’s a horrible
321
322
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
thing! It’s murdering one’s own
flesh. Worse than murder, tortur-
ing a live body. But in those days
—people in good health are blind,
I tell you, just blind!
Maggie: Oh, what have you
been doing? That’s our last chance
gone.
Gene: But just think of it! A
mother putting out the eyes of a live
animal. How could she, I ask you,
how could she ?
(Maggie goes out.)
Gene (to the bird): Poor little,
beast! Poor little blighter! They’ve
fixed us up good and proper, you
and me. Human beings did that.
Human beings! If you could talk
you’d say it was devils, what we call
human beings. Maggie! She’s gone
off. Probably tired of us. {He hunts
about for something.) Crumbs—
and a cage. What, a cage? To show
;each other how miserable we are?
No, I won’t be cruel to you. I’ll be
what they call Fate. Kinder than
my fate is to me. Because, you see,
I’m fond of you. . . . (Gene rushes
out. After a few moments he comes
back without the goldfinch). Noth-
ing but a little splash of red on the
wall and a few feathers. And there’s
an end. That’s an idea. Makes you
giddy to think of, though. But if
they’d shown me some one like I am
now, in the old days, I don’t know
what I’d have done. You don’t
rightly know what you’d do in some
cases; you don’t really know your-
self. I might have laughed — I
might even have laughed! And
what about her? Her mother puts
out the eyes of a goldfinch. How do
you know what she'll do? {He
laughs hysterically and begins to
screech a tune in a high shrill voice.)
(Maggie comes in and looks at
him in terror. She stops her
ears with a shudder of disgust
and suddenly sobs aloud.)
Maggie : O my God! O my
God!
Gene (turns to Maggie in a
burst of fury): What’s the matter?
What are you howling for? What
is it? Can’t you speak? Are you
howling because I’m—because I—
because people would point at me in
the street like a freak, if they knew
what’s the matter with me ? Because
some blasted hero’s bullet made a
cripple of me—made a laughing- 
stock of me? Because you’re
ashamed of me? Is that it? Tell
me the truth—the truth, woman I
. . . Steady! . . . I’ve gone all gid-
dy  ( Tenderly beseeching her.) 
I want the truth. Why are you cry- 
ing?
Maggie : I... I love you so ....
Gene: Are you sure it’s love?
Or are you just sorry for me? Aren’t
you holding my hand just because
you’re so sorry for me?
Maggie: I love you. . . .
Gene : When our dog got old— 
a dog we had when we were kids— 
such a good old dog, as faithful as
they make ’em, wouldn’t ever let any 
one do us any harm—well, he got
the mange and his hair fell out and 
his eyes were all runny. You couldn’t
bear to touch him; he was a sight.
It made you sick to look at him. Ex-
cept, you see, that we remembered 
what he used to be like, looking at 
you just like a human being when
you were in trouble. So we couldn’t 
just put an end to him—so we had 
BROKENBROW
323
to have him about the house—even
when he got on the beds. . . . (He
screams out) Maggie! Am I like
that dog?
Maggie (stops her ears in de-
spair): I can’t stand it any longer!
I’ll do myself'"in I I’ll turn on the
gas! I can’t stand it!
Gene (helplessly): Maggie, old
girl, what’s the matter? I’ll do you
no harm. I’m only a poor bloody
cripple. A sick man—like one of
these secret diseases. I’m a punch-
and-judy show that’s been worked
till its arms dropped off, that’s what
I am. The pension’s not enough to
live on and just a bit too much to
die on. Maggie, I’d back down on
my mates; I think I’d even start
scabbing for you, if I only knew. . . .
But you see, what I can’t swallow—
what’s eating me is the idea that you
—that I’m nothing to you but a
mangy dog. (Speaking softly, se-
cretly.) And listen, Maggie, since
today, since that happened at your
mother’s, since I got that idea, that
horrible idea—I’ve been haunted,
yes, haunted. Voices and faces—
like a bogy on my back, like a gram-
ophone squeaking at me all the time.
“Gene the Funny Man,” it says,
“Gene the Freak Show.” Over and
over again: “Gene the Funny Man
—Gene the Freak Show.” And then,
all of a sudden, I see you, all alone
in the room by the window, watch-
ing me walk along the street—hid-
ing behind the curtains—and laugh-
ing, holding your sides for laughing,
laughing fit to burst yourself, laugh-
ing. . . . (After a few moments he
says simply): Now, Maggie, you
couldn’t do that, could you? You
couldn’t laugh at me?
Maggie : What am I to say
to you, Gene? You won’t believe
me anyway.
Gene : Yes I will, yes I will, Mag-
gie, my dear. I’m so happy. I’m
plumb silly, I’m so happy! I believe
you. I’ll get work all right. Just
you wait! Even if I have to crawl
on all fours and make a beast of
myself.
(Jock Rooster comes in.)
Jock : Evening, all.
Maggie and Gene: Evening,
Jock.
Jock: Well, what’s up? Always
merry and bright, I don’t think.
Gene: You’ve got nothing to
grouse about. You’ve got a job and
you’ll be foreman one of these days.
Jock: Like hell! This here re-
striction of output will do me in. A
working-man has less chance than a
dumb brute these days. They get
fattened up anyway, and turned out
to grass; and only when they’re
bloody well bursting with beans—off
to the butcher!
Maggie: You oughtn’t to say
things like that. It’s downright blas-
pheming against God.
Jock : The likes of us can’t come
to judgment. Even if there were
one, we poor devils would have to
go to heaven, because these blasted
profiteers don’t give us time for any
sins. And anyhow that would only
be right as a reward for making our
bosses so damn comfortable in
this world. Anyway I’m an atheist.
Don’t believe in God any more.
Which God, I ask you? The Jew’s
God? The heathen’s God? The
Christian’s God? The Frenchies’
God? The German God?
Gene:	I	shouldn’t	wonder	if
324
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
they’d all got stuck on the barbed
wire in No-man’s-land. The god of
battles, that’s them—all the lot of
them.
Maggie : All my life I’ve believed
in God’s justice. You can’t take that
from me.
Jock: If God were just, Missis,
he’d have to act just. But does he?
The dear, just, merciful God! Not
he! Come, we know better’n that
by n6w. God and my King! God
and my country! God and murder!
God and Mammon! All in the name
of God. You’d think the gentry say
“God” wants this, that, and the
other thing whenever they’re
ashamed to say “I want.” Sounds
better! People fall for it. I’d leave
believing in God to people who
can make a profit out of it. The
likes of us aren’t fighting for the
next world, but for this; we’re not
on the side of the angels, we’re on
the side of the workers, we are.
Gene : Fighting for the workers
is all very well. But to go and fight
for the works, for those blasted ma-
chines that break your bones before
they’re fairly grown—why, I used
to dread going to the works of a
morning, couldn’t think how I’d get
through the day, and when the bell
rang in the evening, I’d do a bolt
out of doors like a mad thing!
Jock : Machines don’t bother me.
I'm the boss of the machine. When
I’m working in the factory I often
think to myself: I’ll teach that blast-
ed old machine who’s the boss. Let
the damn thing whizz and creak and
bang, so long as I’m driving it—driv-
ing it hard, driving it till it fairly
sweats blood, as you might say.
Makes me laugh to see it banging its
old head off. Whoa, old horse, I
say, smell the whip! You’ll swallow
anything I damn well feed you, and
you’ll turn out just what I tell you to.
I’m the fellow who gives you orders,
understand? Buck up, Gene, you’ve
only got to be a man, to boss a ma-
chine.
Gene (softly): Sometimes in this
world it’s easier to be like God than
to be a man.
Maggie (stares strangely at
Jock): How you do excite your
self, Jock Rooster.
(Jock grunts deprecatingly.)
Gene: It’s not his machines he
gets excited about.
Maggie: What do you mean?
Gene: Do you want me to tell
you? It’s women.
Jock: Well, why not? What else
is there in the world for the likes of
us ? As soon as you’re born, the old
man starts cursing because there’s
another mouth to feed. When you
go to school in the morning you’re
hungry; and when you go to bed at
night your innards rumble with emp-
tiness. And after that you go
through the mill; sell your horse-
power, like so much petrol, for the
use of the boss. Turn yourself into
a blasted hammer or a lever or a
penholder or a flatiron, as you might
say. That’s life, that is. What else
is there? The only bit of fun a man
gets out of it is women. No one can
come interfering with that. A man’s
his own boss about that. He can tell
the boss and the police and the lot
of them to go to hell; this is where
I come in; you keep off the grass!
It’s all very well for the rich; they
get all sorts of fun—music, books,
the seaside. But the like of us? We
BROKENBROW
325
read a book once in a while, but as
for settling down to it day after day
—we haven’t the grit, we didn’t
learn enough for that at school. The
same with music; grand opera is all
very well, but give me a revue or
something nice and bright like the
Merry Widow—you know how it
goes? (Hums the opening of the
Merry Widow waltz.) Or a waltz
on the pennyano in the pub to give
you a dance with your girl—that’s
the stuff for me! Women mean ever
so much more to us than they do to
the rich. They’re, as you might say,
the kernel of life. And if that goes
bad on you, you might as well go and
hang yourself right away, mightn’t
you?
Gene : I dare say------
Jock: You’re a married woman,
Missis, so there’s no call to mince
matters; and I say, what would a
man like me get out of life if he
couldn’t go with his girl every day?
(Gene gazes intently at Maggie.)
What do you say to that, Missis ?
Maggie: I think . . . (shyly) I
think women aren’t all alike.
Gene (jumps up): I’ll get work,
Maggie, old girl. Never you fear.
Then I’ll be able to give you a
Christmas present.
Jock: Waste of time—there’s
nothing doing.
Gene: Just you wall and see,
Jock, my lad I So long, Maggie.
(Goes out. A few moments of si-
lence.)
Jock: A great hefty fellow like
that—fit to go into the ring—shame
that he can’t get a job. And never
gets down in the mouth about it.
You’re a lucky woman, aren’t you?
Maggie (stares at him blankly):
Yes.
Jock: I don’t half envy Gene
when I see you two together.
(Maggie drops her head on her
hands and weeps.)
Jock : What’s up, Missis ? What
have I said? I meant no harm.
Why, you’re crying! What is it?
Shall I go and fetch Gene? I dare
say I could catch him up.
Maggie (sobbing aloud): My
head’s bursting! I’m going off my
head! I’ll scream—I’ll scream my
head off!
Jock (concerned): Are you ill?
Can I do anything for you? Or
maybe you’re in the family way? It
does take some women like that.
Maggie : O my God—O my God
—It’s not that—(laughs hysterical-
ly) it’s only that I’d be thankful to
be lying in my grave!
Jock: What, isn’t he good to
you ? Does he knock you about ?
Maggie: I’ll tell—yes, I’ll tell—
I’ll tell—I’m only a woman after all
. . . My man, my Gene—well, you
see, my Gene isn’t—he isn’t properly
a man at all. . .
Jock: Are you sure you’re not go-
ing to be ill, Missis? Maybe you’re
feverish ?
Maggie: Oh no. My Gene—it
was in the war they did him in—and
now he’s a cripple, in a manner of
speaking. Oh, I’m ashamed to tell
you right out. You see—you see—
he’s not really a man any more, if
you know what I mean ...
(She claps her hand on her mouth
as if she were scared of her
words as soon as they are un-
der stood. Jock gives one loud
guffaw.)
326
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
Maggie: Christ! What have I
done now? You’re laughing at me.
Oh, for shame! How can you? I’d
never have thought it of you.
Jock: Oh, excuse me, it just pop-
ped out—you know how things pop
out? When you hear that sort of
thing, you can’t really help laughing.
(With pious indignation.) But you
know a man like that has no
business to keep you—selfish of him,
I call it—if he really cared for you
he’d let you go.
(He begins to stroke Maggie and
she leans up against him.)
Maggie: It’s not so easy as you
think, Jock. It’s not easy to know
what to think. Sometimes you think
one thing and sometimes another.
I’m so sorry for him. Such a fine
chap he was before the war. So full
of life. But now he can’t do any-
thing but grouse from morning till
night. Grousing at every one and
every thing—even God. And when
he looks at me, he looks right
through me as if I weren’t human at
all. I might be a bit of furniture.
Sometimes I’m really frightened to
go near him—I can’t abide him—it
makes me sick to look at him. (She
shudders with disgust.) O my God,
what’s to become of us?
Jock (more and more tenderly):
Have a good cry, my dear; that’s
right. Do you good. My mother
always used to say, swallowing your
tears only chokes you.
Maggie: You won’t tell him I
told you? Promise? I’d do myself
in.
Jock : Not a word, Maggie, trust
me. I’ve done a month in prison
before now because I’d promised to
hold my tongue. You don’t need to
worry. A young woman like you—
look at me—you can’t stand another
year of this, grieving the way you do.
Maggie darling . . . darling Maggie.
. .. (Kisses her.)
Maggie: This is wickedness.
Jock: Wickedness? Not a bit of
it; it’s nature, that’s what it is, hu-
man nature. The parsons and the
gentry preach about sin—but I say it
would be a sin to stick to that man—
who isn’t a man—a sin against na-
ture. Anyway, faithful wives are an-
other of their fairy tales. They keep
that to preach to us on Sundays. But
as for them—a friend of mine used
to go with the bank manager’s
lady. . . .
Maggie : There’s some one on the
stairs—if that’s Gene....
Jock: I’d better be off. Maggie,
come round to my room one day.
You know the address? There’s
nothing to be scared about, no one
ever comes near the place. Come
and talk things over and have a good
cry—if you know what I mean?
Won’t you?
Maggie : I don’t know . . .
Jock: Do you remember how we
used to play in the park and build
castles on the sand-heap, Maggie
darling? I had my eye on you even
in those days when you were nothing
but a kid. Maggie darling, you’ll
come, won’t you? (Maggie shakes
her head.) (With sudden brutal-
ity): Not so much fuss about it
You’ll come!
Maggie: I--------
Jock: You shall!
Maggie (consenting): Well . . .
Jock: So long, darling!
(Goes out.)
Maggie : I’m only a woman after
BROKENBROW
327
all. I don’t rightly know... life’s so
hard.
CURTAIN.
ACT II : SCENE I
Indicates the outside of a traveling
peep-show. The showman is sit-
ting on a stool among his pots and
pans. Gene stands before him.
Gene : (pointing out a paragraph
in a newspaper): There!
Showman: What do you mean:
“There” ?
Gene: It’s printed here. (He
reads out the words laboriously in a
sing-song voice.) “Wanted: a power-
ful man for a sensational turn. Lib-
eral remuneration. Only men in first-
class condition need apply.”
Showman: That’s right. Face
the light, my man. (Feels Gene*s
muscles.) Biceps flabby. Chest—
thighs—calves—flabby. But it’s just
the sort of thing I want. That fleshy
sort of fake looks as powerful as a
grizzly. That’s first rate. You’re
hired. Shake.
Gene: What have I got to do?
Showman : Oh, that—simple, my
boy! Listen to me. The public is
fed up with sobstuff. Only conchies
fall for it nowadays. That’s not my
idea of business. The public likes
blood. Plenty of it. Christians or
no Christians! Spells success in my
business. Public interest and private
interest go together. (Picks up his
flute.) See that. (Plays a few notes.)
Pap for old maids. Roses and rap-
tures! Slobber and treacle. Bah!
(Seizes two drumsticks.) See this?
(Begins to beat his drum.) That’s
the stuff to give’m. (Goes on beating
tattoos.) The people eat it. Lap it
up and wallow in it. (More tat-
toos.) Glory, Glory! That’s the
life!
Gene : Do you mind telling me—
Showman: Just coming to it.
Here’s a cageful of rats. And a
cageful of mice. Your turn. There’s
a fortune in it. At every perform-
ance you take one rat and one mouse,
bite a hole in their throats; take a
suck of blood; flourish—and off!
Brings the house down.
Gene: Live animals. No, sir, I
can’t do it.
Showman: Bunkum! Ten bob a
day. All expenses found. All over
in half an hour. Silly prejudices.
All a matter of habit. Think of the
perquisites. You’ll paper your walls
with proposals from flappers. Chuck
your moral scruples overboard.
Nowadays a girl’s virtue is easily
mended. Harley Street does the re-
pairs.
Gene (greedily): Ten bob a
day. . . .
Showman: Beginning to nibble?
(Chuckles.)
Gene: It’s foul, it’s horrible—
with live animals!
Showman: Well, go and find an-
other job—if you can. (Chuckles.)
Nothing doing. What’s it to be—
yes or no ?
Gene (choking): It’s only—for
my wife. (Breaks out.) You see, if
a person loves you, and you’re afraid
you might lose her love, when it’s all
you have left. . . . Isn’t there any
other work you could put me to, sir?
Showman : Yes or no ?
Gene (stammering arid almost
moaning): Oh—ten bob—oh—for
the likes of us—it’s just a bloody
328
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
roundabout—round and round and
on and on. ... I’ll do it, sir.
Showman : That’s talking! Mark
my words: Prime Ministers and
Fieldmarshals and parsons and cir-
cus managers know what’s good poli-
cy: we give the public what it likes!
(The stage darkens.)
SCENE II
(Faint Candlelight. The outlines of
Jock and Maggie are just visible
against the back wall.)
Jock: Do you love me?
Maggie: You—you--------
Jock: Gene thinks------
Maggie: Leave him be. I hate
him—hate him!
Jock: Funny things women! Why
didn’t you run away as soon as he
came back—as soon as you knew ?
Maggie: Oh, I don’t know. I
don’t remember. I think I was
ashamed to let any one know.
Jock: Poor devil! When you
come to think of it....
Maggie: You’re not to think. I
won’t have it.
Jock: After all he’s a pal of
mine.
Maggie: Don’t—don’t!
Jock (after a while): What hap-
pened the first night he got home?
Did he try to start anything?
Maggie : Oh, stop it, Jock.
Jock:	But even if he were
healthy, you’d come to me, wouldn’t
you? . . . What are you getting up
for? What’s wrong?
Maggie : God ought to strike you
dumb—and me and him and every
one. Words—words are nothing
but torture now.
(The stage darkens.)
SCENE III
A fair is indicated. There is a booth
so brightly painted that it drowns
the din of the barrel-organs and
brass bands. On a platform in
front of the booth stands a tat-
tooed woman and Gene, who is
dressed in flesh-pink tights.
Showman (mouthing and rapping
out his speech): Ladies and gentler
men. Walk up. Walk up closer.
Listen, behold and admire! In the
first act you will see Monachia the
Tattooed Lady; she wears the great-
est works of art of the old masters
in front and the most modern, ex-
pressionist, futurist, dadaist confec-
tions behind. On her naked body.
You won’t only see her legs; you
won’t only see her arms; you won’t
only see her back; you’ll see every
single part of her, which by the laws
of church and state may only be seen
by ladies and gentlemen over eight
een years of age. Between the acts
you will see a child being beheaded. 
A real live child. A thing you have 
never seen before. A thing you 
wouldn’t see in Africa, nor in Asia,
nor in Australia; a thing you can
only see in Europe and America.
Our last act (points to Gene) is
Robot, the strong man of the Em-
pire. Powerful as a grizzly bear.
Devours live rats and mice before
the very eyes of our esteemed public.
The hero of the civilized world.
The pride and power and manhood 
of the Empire. He can grind rocks 
to powder. He can hammer nails
through the thickest skull with his 
bare fist. He can strangle thirty-
two men with his finger and thumb. 
All fly before him. And all who fly
BROKENBROW
329
must die. You haven’t seen the world
till you’ve seen him. . . . And we
have more sensations for you. Sensa-
tions with petticoats as thin as spi-
der’s webs, not to be lifted out here.
So walk up---walk up, ladies and
gentlemen. We won’t ask you to
pay a shilling; we won’t ask you to
pay sixpence, thrippence a head is
the entrance for to-day only. Owing
to our unprecedented success the en-
trance is only threepence a head.
So walk up, walk up. First come,
first served. Last warning. The per-
formance is about to begin. (A bell
rings.) Cash ready. Thrippence a
head. Walk up—walk up I
A Girl (pointing at Gene): I say,
Jess, what would you say to feeling
his muscles?
Another Girl : Or his ribs....
Showman (hears them): Cer-
tainly, ladies. Feel as much as you
please. That’s not stuffing; that’s no
fake. That’s Robot, the incarnate
might of Empire.
(Jock and Maggie come on with
their arms around each other’s
waists. At first they don’t see
the booth. As they speak the
din becomes inaudible but the
crowd carries on its business in
dumb show).
Jock: This is the life! Are you
enjoying yourself, Maggie? Isn’t it
glorious? Makes you glad to be
alive. Like a turn on the round-
abouts, Maggie? I’ll stand you any-
thing you like now.
Maggie : It’s like a dream—like
a story-book. Six years of worrying,
pinching and scraping and grieving
I’ve had. Like a mole that doesn’t
dare show its nose above ground.
Not that I ask for much, Jock. Don’t
think I expect a lot. A poor girl
doesn’t look for much, from the
start. If you’re lucky you work and
work every day of your life till you
are too old and have to come on your
children. If you’re not, you get noth-
ing but grousing and rows and knock-
ing about from your man. But this—
this is more than I’d ever hoped for.
JOCK: The beginning of a new
life for you, Maggie.
Maggie (tenderly):	I say,
Jock-----
JOCK: What, Maggie?
Maggie: Darling. (Kisses him
long and tenderly.)
Jock (with obvious self-satisfac-
tion): You see, you don’t mind all
the people any more—bashfulness is
just one of those notions as you
might say-----
Showman (makes his voice
heard): Robot, the strong man of
the Empire. (His voice becomes in-
audible again.)
Maggie: O Jock! Jock!
Jock: What’s the matter?
Maggie: Look here, do you see
who that is?
Jock: Who?
Maggie : That man in the tights.
Jock: How should I know? An
acrobat. One of these fellows out
of a circus. Here to-day and gone
to-morrow.
Maggie: That’s him.
Jock: That’s who?
Maggie: Gene.
Showman (makes his voice
heard): Devours live rats and mice
before the very eyes of our esteemed
customers. His country’s hero. The
pride of the Empire. Give us a tune
on your muscles, Robot. Careful
now—careful of the public.
330
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
(Gene begins sparring and show-
ing the play of his muscles. The
Showman’s voice becomes inau-
dible.)
Jock: Did you ever hear of such
a fraud! His country’s hero—a
man without—what they call a eu-
nuch. (Roars with laughter.) That’s
the sort of hero they kept on the
home front—the red tabs, the press
correspondents, the glory-merchants,
the diehards, the armchair patriots.
. . . That’s a fine show to make of
a lump of padded putty!
Maggie: Stop it, stop it. How
can you be so heartless, Jock? What
have I done ? I’m worse than a street
girl, I am. It’s better to sell your-
self than to sell your man.
Jock (catches hold of Maggie?s
arm): Shut up. Don’t be so soft.
Maggie : Did you hear what he’s
doing? Eating live rates and mice.
That man wouldn’t hurt a fly if he
could help it. He even lifted his
hand to my mother for putting out
the eyes of her goldfinch. He would
not let me set mouse-traps in the
kitchen because it’s wicked to torture
animals. And now he has to eat live
rats and mice.
Jock: Well, you don’t have to
kiss him any more, anyhow.
Maggie : I want to kiss him, I’m
going to kiss him—here and now—
in front of every one. What have I
done to him? Was it his fault that he
stopped that bullet? It was my fault
for letting him go to the war—his
mother’s fault—every one’s fault—
for letting such things happen.
Jock: Oh, shut up. People are
looking at us. Come along or he’ll
see you.
Maggie: I want him to see me.
I’ll kneel down and confess before
God that I’m no better than a fallen
woman. I’m a worm in his sight.
Let me go, let me go to him.
Jock (holding her close to him):
And supposing it makes you sick to
look at him?
Maggie (simply): Then I shall
love him all the more.
Jock (dragging her off): Oh,
come along, you crazy bitch.
Showman (makes his voice
heard again): Walk up, ladies and
gentlemen—walk up and see all our
astounding sensations. (Goes into
the tent.)
A Working Woman (to an-
other): Because! I’m taking those
shirts to the pawn-shop, you needn’t
think I haven’t any more at home.
I’ve got a solid pure silk cape that
my grandmother left me. But there’s
nothing left to pawn but the shirts
.... (They stroll away.)
(Maggie and Jock at the other
side of the stage. Jock is hold-
ing on to Maggie who is hang-
ing back.)
Maggie: No.
Jock: You won’t come?
Maggie: No.
Jock : And supposing he finds out
that you’re going to have a baby?
Maggie : He’ll forgive me. He’s
always been kind.
Jock : He’ll give you a good hid-
ing!
Maggie: I’ve got to do it. I
know it is God’s will. He has not
quite forsaken me in the midst of my
sins. This is my punishment, O
Lord. Thy will be done. I will love
Gene and serve him as if he were my
Savior.
BROKENBROW
331
Jock : Then I shall go straight to
him.
Maggie: We’ll both go straight
to him.
Jock: And tell him that you’ve
been deceiving him.
Maggie: It’s no use threatening
me, Jock. I won’t go with you any
more. I’ve never really called my
life my own. When I was little I
was always waiting for it to begin.
And then I saw the world was full
of things, wonderful, lovely things—
things I couldn’t properly get hold
of; and anyhow they were so fine
and so soft you wouldn’t dare to
touch them. You see my hands have
always been all rough and dirty—
they’re only fit to hide under my
apron. I didn’t care for any one to
see my hands.... But now, but now
—I think there’s nothing in the
world that’s fit to touch; it’s all as
dirty and as ugly as my hands.
Jock (raging with wounded vani-
ty): Then you can go to hell, you
snivelling cow! There are plenty
more, I can tell you—I’ve only to
hold up my little finger and they set-
tle on me like bees.
(They are crowded of the stage.
The Showman steps out of the
booth with Gene.)
Showman : Walk up, walk up,
ladies and gentlemen. Hearken, be-
hold and admire! Walk up, walk
up!
(The. stage 'darkens.)
SCENE IV
Indicates the interior of a modest
public-house. A stout, cheerful,
bustling barmaid serving behind
the bar. Wooden tables and
benches round the room. Tom
Callow, Dick Faithful, Bill Beer
and others sit at the tables. Two
workmen, a stonemason arid a
bricklayer, stand at the bar. Be-
fore the curtain rises, voices are
heard quarrelling.
Stonemason : Not if there was
to be a hundred Revolutions. Revo-
lutions can’t change nothing. A
plumber’s better than a plasterer, a
blacksmith’s better than a tinker, a
linotype operator’s better than a ma-
chine laborer, a taxi-driver’s better
than a van-driver. I’ll always be a
stonemason and you’ll never be any-
thing but a bricklayer.
Bricklayer: Swank, I call it.
All right, cocky—you won’t mind me
taking a drink alongside of your
royal highness, I suppose? If I am
a poor bloody bricklayer. And proud
of it, mark you, proud of it I am.
Stonemason: A stone-cutter is
an artist, I tell you; and a bricklay-
er’s nothing but a common laborer.
Bricklayer: We get put upon,
same as you do. What’s the odds?
Stonemason: Well, we’ve got
something to show for it, we have.
Didn’t we get two bob a day more
than you before the war? Doesn’t
that show you? No, no, bricklayers,
stick to your last, as they say! If
you was to ask me to-day to take on
your job—I wouldn’t half laugh.
Why, the nippers at home know bet-
ter than that. No use trying to drag
me down. Can’t be done, Revolu-
tion or no Revolution.
(They pay and go out quarrelling.)
Bricklayer : Bit too big for your
boots, you are!
Stonemason :	G	arn,	you’re
balmy!
332
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
Bricklayer : Begging your lord-
ship’s pardon!
Stonemason: Suck it!
Tom Callow: Workers of the
world unite! “The enlightened pro-
letariat recognizes no class distinc-
tions”—yes, I don’t think. (He
sees Gene, who has come in mean-
while and sits at a vacant table.)
Hallo, Gene; how did you get here?
Gene (in a hoarse and jerky
voice): My throat’s dry. There’s
a taste of blood—it’s beastly, it fair-
ly poisons you. Got to have a drink.
Christ, I’m no teetotaler, what’s
there to gape at?
Callow: Me? I’m not gaping.
Why should I? I don’t have to be
poisoned before I step around to the
pub. The kitchen at home is enough
to drive any one to it—my drawing-
room and dining-room and bathroom
and laundry all rolled in one—and
nursery full of wretched kids; and
my wife nagging, nagging all day
long—no, thank you! Give me the
pub. Not that husbands aren’t to
blame too for things being as they
are. We go to meetings and talk
our heads off about the brotherhood
of man and the great times that are
coming, and when we go home we
haven’t so much as a kind word to
throw to our wives.
(While he is talking Harry Bur-
ley comes in. Hearing the last
wordsf Burley begins talking as
soon as he gets inside the
’door.)
Burley :	Nowadays,	comrade,
it’s the fellows that own the grand
houses that get all the fun. Twenty
rooms apiece and then they’re not
satisfied! But the war started mak-
ing things hot for them. (With the.
impassioned rhetoric of the practiced
public speaker.) At last they see the
writing on the wall. At last they
feel the earth quaking under their
feet. They are shaking in their
shoes, for their hearts are black but
their faces are pale, and their teeth
are chattering with fright. Com-
rades, at last the day is dawning!
Dick Faithful: But you’ve not
found the true light, brother. The
heavenly light comes from the city
of God that is not built with hands.
You seem to think that all of us
working-men are bound to belong to
your party. You people don’t seem
to know that some of us have found
our own salvation.
Gene : You see, Harry, you think
it’s easy to make people happy, but
I’ve been doing a bit of thinking late-
ly and it seems to me that you can’t
make every one happy—really hap-
py that is. I think that happiness is
something very hard to get, some
thing (he breathes heavily) that a
man either has or hasn’t got.
Burley: You’re full of bourgeois
ideology, comrade. It really makes
me laugh to hear you. In accord-
ance with economic laws, history is
about to give birth to a new order
of society. The tides are rising and
the solid earth crumbles at their ad-
vance. So we shall change with
changing conditions, until, almost
without noticing it, we have become
part of the Socialist State. That’s
not a fairy tale, that’s solid scientific
fact. Everything is bound to work
out according to our programme.
Why shouldn’t people be happy in
the new order? It’s perfectly simple.
Instead of producing silks and satins
for the idle rich, we shall set to work
BROKENBROW
333
to produce serviceable woollens
cheap enough for every one to be
clothed and warm. Sensible living
conditions will produce sensible peo-
ple, and sensible people are happy.
Humanity is rising from the realm
of want to the realm of freedom.
Surely that's simple enough. ( Turn-
ing to Callow.) But people that
think we can take short cuts and skip
the logical historical development of
events, crazy upstarts with wild sen-
timental theories instead of scientific
facts-----
Callow: Will be solemnly de-
nounced from the pulpit. I know, I
know—you’ve got your formula and
every one and everything has to fit
it. I know all about your official ser-
mons, but I tell you that what peo-
ple need is the spirit of Revolution.
If the spirit of Revolution is not in
them, then all your historical devel-
opments and social conditions won’t
help them. And if they have that
spirit of Revolution, then the new
age will begin, whatever the condi-
tions. It might be now, today. No
need to wait for developments. You
people are strong on discipline, but
you have no leadership. Even when,
by your own lights, “conditions’'
have been ripe for action, you’ve al-
ways fallen down on the job.
Faithful: Neither is your light
the true light, brother. I have been
born again. I have seen the heavenly
light, and my feet are set upon the
straight and narrow way.
Bill Beer : What I say is, let me
alone and I won’t ask nothing better.
Peace and quiet is all I ask. But any
one who comes monkeying with me
—he’d better look out, that’s all I
Burley (answering Callow):
You’re not a regular socialist at all,
Tom. You’re nothing but an anar-
chist. That’s why you can’t talk like
a responsible being. It’s not worth
arguing with you until you’ve at least
joined a Party. And as for you,
Dick, you’re not even class-conscious
yet; you’re simply fumbling about in
the dark. I tell you: proper social
conditions is all we need. The rest
is simple.
Gene (answering Burley): It
maybe simple. Perhaps you’re right.
What you said about silks and satins
is just my idea. People can’t act
rightly as long as they haven’t
enough to eat. The first thing you’ve
got to give a man is enough to eat
and a roof over his head, and a lit-
tle bit more than that—a share of
the things that make life worth liv-
ing for any one. Till you give him
those things you can’t expect that
he’ll act rightly. Perhaps it’s just
that I’m not so clever as you, com-
rade. It isn’t so easy for me to see
how simple it all is. And you’re a
branch secretary, so you’re bound to
understand these things better.
(Burley shows signs of taking this
amiss.) I’m not saying anything
against the Party. For a working-
man the Party means a deal more
than it does for the other sort. For
the rich it’s just politics, but for us—
well, it might go wrong, there might
be really bad rotten spots on it—but
all the same it would be—the Party.
That means just everything for us—
all we believe and hope and dream.
. . . But look here, supposing a man
had something the matter with him
that couldn’t be cured—something
the matter with him inside—or out-
side, for that matter—that could
334
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
never get better—would it make him
happy if there were to be sensible so-
cial conditions?
Burley : I’m afraid I don’t un-
derstand that question.
Gene: Sorry, I’m afraid I’ve
been a bit muddled in my head since
I got my bullet. You see—there’s
such a lot to understand. Every day
of your life things creep up and
drag at you and—bowl you over.
And all that is too much to get hold
of in words—in thoughts. Things
are so queer, when you come to think
of it. Everything—being alive at
all, I mean. It’s so queer, it fright-
ens you. There don’t seem sense in
it somehow. I don’t see how a man
is to get hold of it at all. Trying to
get hold of yourself is like trying to
bail out the sea with a pail. You go
on living and you understand what
it’s all about; and then, when you
look back, it’s quite different and not
like it seemed at the time. Some-
times you say to yourself: Well, I’m
just a bit of the world—as it might
be the tree outside the window—and
there’s no more sense in trying to get
to the bottom of things—asking.
What am I? and Why am I alive?
and What does everything mean?—
than it would be to ask questions like
that about a tree that was growing.
There it is, and that’s all about it.
But all the same I don’t see my way
—I’m all mixed up—like the word
in the Bible before God created the
waters and the dry land. All mixed
up and all dark. And I keep think-
ing of it—day in, day out. But look
here, I want to tell you—I want to
explain . . . you see—take the men
that got smashed up in the war—
what’s to become of them?
Burley : Why, they’ll be support-
ed by the Socialist State. They will
be fed and clothed, and there’s no
reason why they shouldn’t be as well
off as any one else.
Gene : But supposing a man had
no arms?
Burley : He’d be given artificial
arms. If he could do any work, he’d
be given some easy job.
Gene: But supposing he had no
legs either ?
Burley : The Socialist State
would look after him just the same.
Gene: But supposing there was
something the matter with his mind?
Burley (with a robust lack of
sentimentality): Then he’d have to
go into an asylum. But mind you,
not the sort of asylum we have now,
where people are treated like dumb
brutes. People who are ill will be
treated kindly—treated like human
beings.
Gene : I don’t mean mad people.
I mean people who aren’t ill, exactly,
but who have something hurting
them—in their souls—if you take
my meaning.
Burley : There are no such peo-
ple. People with healthy bodies
have healthy souls. Common sense
will tell you that. And people who
are not right in their heads belong in
an asylum.
Gene: There’s another thing I
wanted to ask.	Supposing—(he
swallows nervously) supposing a
man had lost his—manhood, as you
might say. Supposing that had been
blown off in the war. What do you
think would become of him in a So-
cialist State?
(Bill Beer sniggers.)
BROKENBROW
335
Burley (mopping his brow):
What questions you do ask! Makes
me go all hot and cold. Nothing to
laugh at, Comrade Beer. That sort
of thing does happen sometimes.
Callow : .. That sort of thing
makes you feel more like crying than
laughing.
Faithful: A man like that
would be bound to find grace; God
in His mercy would not leave him in
outer darkness.
Burley: Wen, if I’m to answer
that question—as far as I know
science hasn’t answered that question
yet—oh! stop a moment—what a
fool I am! There won’t be any wars
under the new order. That’s the an-
swer. Plain common sense.
Gene: Not so plain as all that.
When the new order comes, there
may be people like that already in
the world. How are they going to
be happy? Or the same thing might
happen to a man if he had an acci-
dent at the works or some other way.
How could he be happy?
Burley : That’s another devilish
difficult question.
Callow : Seems to me you’re
just trying to pick holes. Better not
worry your head about things like
that. Soldiers of the Revolution
have no business to muddle them-
selves with such ideas. Accidents
like that can’t be helped. Casualties
have to be sacrificed. The Move-
ment demands sacrifices.
Gene: That’s true enough. But
there’s no reason why one shouldn’t
talk over these things. Because
these things do happen to some peo-
ple. And while we’re talking about
it, I think the answer—well, I could
tell you a story about a man. He
was nothing special—not a delegate
or anything. Just one of the rank
and file. A working-man. A friend
of mine he was. I thought a lot of
him. He got married when he was
twenty. Met his wife at the works.
They were a good-looking couple. It
was a pleasure to see them together.
She was ever such a pretty little
thing and he was a great powerful
chap. More powerful than I am
even. Then the war started and
they turned him into a blinking hero.
He hadn’t any kids. Wasn’t earn-
ing enough for that. Before the war
he thought a lot of his wife, of
course; but it wasn’t till he got into
the trenches that he really found out
how much. She was so sweet—such
pretty ways—such a good wife to
him. It made him go all queer to
think about her when he was out
there. He was always thinking
about her. And after a bit he began
to think: wouldn’t it be nice if we had
a youngster?—or two or three.
Boys and girls. She’d make a splen-
did mother, she would. You see, he
was forgetting what a large family
really means when you can’t make
both ends meet. And no wonder—
the way we have to live! The things
a man would like to know about—
the country, fields and trees, the
truth about things—how’s a work-
ing-man to find out about them?
Work, work from morning till night,
ever since you were so high. And of
a Saturday night you go and see a
pack of lies on the movies. About
working girls who marry dukes and
live happy ever after, and all that
silly muck. Christ, what a way to
live! When you come to think of it.
Never get a chance at anything that
336
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
isn’t cheap and nasty and second-
hand. Pack drill, that’s what it is—
not life. Well, as I was saying: one
day he stopped a bullet. Nothing
much, just a nice little blighty wound,
so he thought. He hadn’t had any
leave yet. When he got to hospital
he started feeling round his band-
ages. But he didn’t think nothing of
it. Till he heard some one say—in
the next bed—“Hallo,” they said,
“our eunuch is waking up. He’ll get
a nasty jar when he finds out what
they’ve done to him.” And he
thought to himself: they can’t be
talking about me, surely? What do
they mean by that? A eunuch, that’s
. . . And he lay still again, quite
still; and shut his eyes. The way
you turn your head when you don’t
want to look at something horrible.
But he didn’t go to sleep the whole
of that night. And next morning
they told him. Well, the first few
days he yelled the house down—
more like an animal it was—till, all
of a sudden, he heard himself and
noticed he was squeaking and squeal-
ing—like a woman. So he shut up.
He tried to think about his wife, but
as soon as he thought of her he had
to shut his eyes and lie down stiff and
still the way he did the first day, and
shut his eyes. He meant to hang
himself. But he didn’t have the
nerve. So he was sent home. He
came along to me first. Because we
were pals. Asked me how he was
to break it to his wife? Fair gave
me the creeps, he did. So that's the
sort of thing you are, I thought to
myself. I was sorry for him, but all
the same, he gave me the creeps. If
you looked at it one way, it was
rather funny. I didn’t know what to
say to him. I saw him with his wife.
I saw what a bad time he was hav-
ing. But what can you really see
that’s going on inside a man? There
you sit and here I sit. I see you.
But what do I see ? A man shakes
hands with you; you hear him say
something; and that’s all. What do
I really know about you ? And what
do you really know about me ? Noth-
ing. Nothing! (He breaks out.) I
tell you that man must have been in
hell. Fair bleeding his heart away.
It’s a wonder he managed to go on
living at all.. . . Then, one day, he
came to see me and you couldn’t
help noticing how much better he
looked. Lovely, he looked. It does
not sound right to say a man looks
lovely. But that man did. Fair
shining with happiness he was. You
could almost feel it. Just because
he’d found out that his wife didn’t
look down on him. She wasn’t hat-
ing him. She wasn’t laughing at
him. He didn’t care what she did—
after all, she was a healthy woman
and he was a cripple—as long as he
knew that she loved him just the
same. And that woman loved him.
You’d hardly think it was possible—
but that woman loved—as you might
say—his soul.
(Silence. Jock Rooster comes in
manifestly intoxicated.)
Jock : Evening all. What’s up ?
You all lost your tongues? Let’s
have a tune.
(Puts coin in the automatic piano,
which begins to whine and
wheeze and groan and rattle
out a marching tune. Jock sits
at Gene’s table.)
Jock: Evening, Gene.
Gene: Evening.
BROKENBROW
337
JOCK (speaking thickly, with the
inarticulacy of intoxication): Don’t
wonder your Maggie gave you the
go-by . .. you (snorts with laughter)
—you bleeding hero!
Gene : What say ?
Jock: The in-incarnate might of
the Empire! (Laughs.) Devours
live rats and mice! (Laughs.)
Gene: How do you know that?
Quiet, Jock—it’s too horrible, what
I’m doing. I couldn’t tell you how
horrible it is. I’d rather bite through
my own veins than do it. There’s
things that ought not to be allowed.
And there am I doing it. ... You
see, it’s like this: Maggie isn’t strong
in health. You know my pension
doesn’t go far. It’s not my fault
that we’re out of work. But you see,
if a man can’t provide for his wife,
can’t even give her enough to eat,
she’s liable to take a dislike to him.
I’ve noticed that often with women.
And there’s no call for her to put up
with that. So, you see. . . . Promise
me you won’t say a word to Maggie.
Promise, Jock.
Jock: Promise.
Gene : Maggie is a queer girl. If
she was to find out that I’ve sucked
rats’ blood she might—I don’t know
—it would turn her stomach.
Jock (with sudden arid solemn in-
dignation):	But look here—that
stuff about the strongest man and the
pride of the Empire—that’s what I
call a bloody swindle. You’ll have
the police after you.
Gene (suspiciously): What do
you mean by that?
JOCK: You know quite well what
I mean. What’s more, I promised
not to tell because I don’t have to
tell Maggie. She’s seen you.
Gene (agitated): Seen me?
What did she say? Did she cry?
(Urgently.) Tell me what she said,
can’t you ?
Jock: Cry? What the hell is
there to cry about? She laughed.
It made her a bit sick at first, but
then she laughed.
Gene (going to pieces complete-
ly): Turned her stomach—and then
she laughed. . . . (Hysterically.)
La—la—la—laugh, oh—ha—ha—
la—laughed. . . . She laughed!
Jock: Well, isn’t it laughable, I
ask you? He makes himself out to
be the strongest man in the world
when he isn’t a man at all. (Laughs.)
Not a man at all!
Gene (shocked into perfect self-
control): Who—who told you that?
Jock: Who told me? Maggie
told me.
Gene: When did she tell you?
Jock : At the fair.
Gene : How did you two come to
be at the fair?
Jock: Well, what do you expect?
A young woman like that. Is she
never to have a bit of fun? I’d be
ashamed of myself, I would—asking
questions like that.
Gene: I ought to be ashamed of
myself?
Jock : Do you think it’s for me to
be ashamed of myself? Or Mag-
gie ? What right have you to hang
on to her, anyway? She’s got
grounds for divorce, she has. Even
the Catholic Church would allow
that.
Gene (quickly): That’s true. I
forgot about that. Your King and
Country needs you—and smashes
you up—and when you’re properly
smashed your wife has grounds for
338
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
divorce. I’d forgotten that’s the
way things are worked. Well, what
are you going to do about it? With
Maggie, I mean?
Jock: None of your business.
Gene: That’s true again. It’s
none of my business. Nothing but
a ground for divorce, that’s all I am.
. . . But supposing Maggie was a
stranger and I was asking you as a
friend: what are you going to do
about it?
Jock (mulishly): Just what I
please.
Gene : But Maggie’s not a whore.
I mean, these things can be fixed up
—they’re bound to be—I see that
now. I’ll give her up. Then you’ll
marry her?
Jock : That’s not what she’s after.
She only wants a bit of fun now and
then. And the sooner you know it
the better. And if she doesn’t get
enough fun with me, I’ll send her on
the streets. Then I’ll be in clover.
Gene (softly but in fierce anger):
You swine, you!
JOCK: Oh, I’m a swine, am I?
Do you really think I’d let her go on
the streets? Call yourself a friend of
mine!
Callow: What’s up, you two?
What’s the use of having words at
the pub. Go home and take it out of
your wives!
Jock: We weren’t having words,
we were having a joke.
Callow: Well, if that was a joke
I’d like to hear you when you’re row-
ing.
Jock: You see, we went to the
fair and-----
Gene (grips him by the arm):
Jock—stop it. For my sake, for
Maggie’s sake-------
Jock : And there we saw the most
powerful man in the world. A whale
of a lad. He devoured live rats and
mice, he did-------
Callow: A black heathen would
knew better than to go and look at
that!
Jock : And when I came to look
at this chap I found he was a man I
know. It would have made a cat
laugh—the most powerful man in
the world turned out to be a man I
knew who had had both his—(ges-
ture of taking aim)—bing! bang!
—well it wasn’t a man at all, it was
one of these chaps they call eunuchs!
(All those present, including Faith-
ful, give a loud snort of laugh-
ter.	Gene’s wide tormented,
eyes are enthralled by their
laughter.)
Jock	(shouting across the,
laugh): That man was-----------
(Gene interrupts him. He rises
and stands in a pool of light.
At first he speaks heavily and,
even in the heat of his passion,
has to grope for words; but in
the end his speech is over-
whelming in its simplicity.)
Gene: That man was Broken-
brow. Laugh. Laugh, all of you.
Go on. She laughed. You don’t
often see a freak of nature. A real
live eunuch. Shall I give you a song?
(Sings in a shrill, squeaky voice:)
“The hours I spent with thee, dear
heart,
Are as a string of pearls to me”. ..
I sing almost as well as a blinded
goldfinch, don’t I? . . . Fools! You
don’t know what it feels like—tor-
ture. What a change there’d have to
be before you could build a better
BROKENBROW
339
world. You fight the bosses; you’re
full of talk about the rich being sel-
fish and mean, and set up with them-
selves, but you’re every bit as bad
as they are. You hate each other
because one of you swears by one
programme and one by another. No
one trusts his neighbor. No one
trusts himself. Everything you do is
smothered with envy and treachery.
You have nothing but fine words—
wonderful, holy words. “Peace and
plenty.” Words are all very fine for
people in good health. But you
don’t see the places you can’t reach.
There are people you can't make
happy with all your states and society
and family and community. Your
remedies end where our suffering be
gins.
Men stand alone;
A great pit opens where there is no
help,
And in the sky there is no happiness,
The trees are thick with mockery
And the waves beat out “ridicu-
lous” !
A darkness chokes you where there is
no love,
And there is nothing to be done.
(There is silence for a few mo-
ments. Gene stumbles out).
Callow: Where are you off to?
Gene (his face distorting his
words): The woman laughed.
(Goes out. The stage is in twi-
light and the Scene hurries to its
end.
Burley (rushing to the ’door):
Gene, I say, Gene! He’s gone. If
I'd only known. Conditions are all
wrong, that’s the trouble.
Faithful (rapturously): I have
sinned against the light. I have made
mock of the crucified.
Jock (in a maudlin whine): I say,
we ought to do something for him—
Bill Beer: You’re a swine, you
are, and no mistake.
Callow (jumps up suddenly):
It’s all quite simple. No, nothing is
simple.... Bill please, miss.
Curtain.
ACT III—SCENE I.
Indicates a street in the West End.
Twilight. The curtain rises on
Brokenbrow clinging to a lamp-
post. A little boy comes up to
him.
Boy : My sister’s just thirteen.
Brokenbrow (absently): Is that
so?
Boys: Sister’s pretty. Sister’s just
thirteen.
Brokenbrow ( mechanically ) :
You hungry?
Boy: Sister’s got a room of her
own. Sister’s just thirteen.
(Brokenbrow buys buns from a
street vendor—an old woman
—and gives them to the boy.)
Brokenbrow: So your sister’s
thirteen. . . . And how old are you?
Boy: Seven. (Eating the buns.)
Thanks, mister. All the same—no
use talking to you—slow in the up-
take, you are.
(The boy runs away. The street
lamps brighten. People pass
along the street. The Showman
comes on dressed in an evening
overcoat and a top hat, slightly
intoxicated.
Showman: Hullo. Why, that’s
Brokenbrow. I say, old man.
Shouldn’t show yourself in the street.
340
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
Mustn’t make yourself cheap. Ought
to pay at the door for looking at
you. Star turn. Sweep the country.
Sensational discovery. What you
gaping at? Seen a ghost?
Brokenbrow: Yes, sir.... Mur-
der is walking the world. Look
around you, look around. My eyes
are opened now. They stabbed my
eyes open. What a glare. Dark.
I want the dark. Let it be dark.
Showman :	Pull	yourself	to-
gether, man. Been drinking? Too
many whiskies. Take my advice, my
boy. Stick to beer. Two pints of
beer’s better than two double whis-
kies. Whisky’s good business for
the pubs but damn bad business for
the public.
Brokenbrow : Good business for
me, sir. They stabbed my eyes open.
I see it all—-down to the ground,
down to the naked ground. I see
what men are. I see what the world
is. It’s war again, sir. Men stab-
bing men and laughing. Men stab-
bing men and laughing.
Showman : Well, well, if you see
all that you must see the war’s a back
number now. Peepshow “the hor-
rors of the war” won’t earn six-
pence. Nowadays Progress is the
word. Hundred per cent. All the
rage. Full steam ahead and pat me
on the back. Look about you, man.
Got to make good nowadays. Show
your paces. Spirit of the age.
Doesn’t matter what it is: boxing,
politics, stock exchange, golf cham-
pion, copper king, movie star, pro-
phet, jockey, antisemite, agitator, ad-
vertising man. Business booming.
Take time by the forelock. No
pitch so black it won’t wash off.
Morality: free sample given away
with every packet. (Laughs.) Cud-
dled a nigger woman once. There’s
a race for you. . ... Well, so long.
See you at nine sharp to-morrow.
Brokenbrow: No, sir. That’s
finished.
Showman : Don’t make me laugh.
That would be a good ’un! Now
that you’ve got your hand in?
Now you can do it on your head?
Like clockwork. (Sings the tune of
the "British Grenadiers”.)
“Of all the world’s great heroes
There’s none that can compare”—
(Imitates gesture and sound of bit-
ing and sucking.) Ladies and gentle-
men, like a taste of blood? (Sings.)
“With a tow row, row row, row
row.” Come again, ladies and gen-
tlemen. Pass your plates up. Don’t
be bashful. Well, well, Robot—go
home and sleep it off.
Brokenbrow: Begging your par-
don, sir, I can’t come back. The ad-
vance you gave me—I’ll settle up.
. . . Can’t have people saying I
cheated them. Got to set my house
in order.
Showman: What? D’you mean
to say you’re serious ? Come, come,
my man, a joke’s a joke, but you
can’t get away with this. Got you
under contract for the season,
haven’t I? {Brutally). Set the po-
lice on you. Drive you to work. Free
exchange and barter. Foundation of
society. Violation of sacred rights.
Got law and order behind me.
Nothing doing. Either you turn up
at nine sharp tomorrow or I turn you
over to the police. (His voice soft-
ens.) There, there, Brokenbrow, it’s
BROKENBROW
341
all for your own good. Want to keep
you out of gaol.
Brokenbrow: Gaol, is it? Those
rats and mice I murdered—they
were in gaol before they went to the
scaffold. And there are people go-
ing about like "free men who are only
walking up and down in gaol—like
beasts in a cage. Barred windows
that let no light come through. Walls
that choke the life out of you.
Chains that eat into your flesh. Oh,
I’m not afraid of gaol, sir. And any-
way (screaming with hate) you, sir,
you’re a devil. I do believe you are
the evil one himself. Stuffing people
with blood. Stripping people of
shame. I . . . I . . . (threatening
gesture) Oh! I . . . (gesture of de-
spair). But there’ll be other men
who’ll—who’ll. .. . And, you know,
there’s a woman too. A woman who
laughed at me. My woman. (Sav-
agely) Been laughing a long while
now, that woman. Going to cry for
a change. But they’re all deaf—
their ears are stopped with laughing.
Showman (taken aback): Well,
I never! You wouldn’t think that
chap could string ten words together,
and here he is tub-thumping with the
best of them. What’s wrong with
me? What have I done? Solid
business man like me. Backbone of
the country. (Jovially.) Can’t take
you seriously, though. You’re tipsy.
Have it out with you to-morrow.
Hustle along, have a good time and
get a move on. Otherwise you’ll
find yourself stranded. Man with
your gifts! So long—you old hit of
the season, you. See you to-morrow.
(Showman goes off.)
Brokenbrow (alone): To-mor-
row—he says: to-morrow—just as if
there had to be a to-morrow. I see.
I see. At last, I see. Oh! light—
my eyes—my poor eyes ...
(Brokenbrow breaks down com-
pletely. From now on the Scene
becomes a nightmare pressing
upon his disordered mind. The
figures crowd in upon him as in
a dream, and are re-absorbed
by the surrounding darkness.
(One-armed and one-legged vet-
erans of the war with barrel-
organs advance concentrically
upon Brokenbrow, nonchalantly
singing:
“They put us in the army and they
handed up a pack,
They took away our nice clothes and
dressed us up in kakh,
They marched us twenty miles and
more to fit us for the war.” ...
(They suddenly stand still. One
after another they shout at each
other.)
My beat!
(No one gives way to the other.
They all shout together:)
My beat!
(There is a moment of silence.
Since no one gives way they all
sit down suddenly as at a word
of command and begin to sing
and tur ntheir barrel-organs.
Presently they get up and
march against each other as if
they were storming a barri-
cade. Filled with revolutionary
ardour and wildly turning their
barrel-organs they begin to
sing:)
“To hell with the Kaiser,
To hell with the Czar,
342
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
To hell with Lloyd George,
And also G. R.”
(The barrel-organs crash together.
The men recoil and return to
the assault. Military police
come runing up and shout:)
Law and order! Your King and
Country need you! Right about—
turn!
(Sudden silence. The sound of
these familiar words quiets the
veterans. They turn about as at
the word of command and
march around the stage, each in
his own separate orbit, turning
their barrel-organs and singing:
“It’s a long way to Tipperary,”
etc., etc.
(Newspaper boys run across the
stage.)
First Boy:	Evening special!
Sensational news! New night-club
opened. Stomach dances. Jazz.
Champagne. American bar.
Second Boy: Evening edition!
Latest sensation. Jews massacred in
Galicia. Synagogue burnt down. A
thousand burnt to death.
Voice: Cheers! Down with the
Jews.
Third Boy: Trixie Try. Most
beautiful film star in the world.
Trixie Try featuring in drama of
crime: “The Passionate Murderess.”
Sensational. Brutal. Whips the
senses.
Fourth Boy: Plague in Finland.
Mothers drown their own children.
Sensational report. Outbreak of mob
violence. Government sending troops
to preserve law and order. A hun-
dred armoured cars leave for Fin-
land.
Fifth Boy: Spirit of the Em-
pire. Progress of Civilization. Re-
vival of Christianity. Stirring film
drama: The Passion of our Lord.
Featuring world-famous star.
Gladys Gladeyes in the part of our
Saviour. Two-million-dollar pro-
duction. Preceded by Dempsey-Car-
pentier fight.
Sixth Boy : Greatest discovery of
the Twentieth Century. “Levitite.”
Scientific miracle. Record-breaking
poison-gas. Flight squadron now
able to wipe the largest city, men,
women and children, off the face of
the earth. Inventor given honorary
degree by all European universi-
ties. Pope confers title on inventor.
Seventh Boy: Dollar slumping!
Dollar slumping! Rising birthrate
anticipated. Latest statistics. Great
triumph for Professors of Repopu-
lation.
Eighth Boy: Popular insurance
competition. Pays one hundred per
cent dividend. Solution of economic
problems. Solution of the Class
War.
(Two old Polish Jews cross the
stage.)
First Jew: It’s the old story.
They flogged us. They dragged us
out of bed in the black darkness.
They took our women and girls. The
hand of God has smitten us.
Second Jew : Smitten us, is right.
Call us the Chosen People. Chosen
for the good God’s whipping-post.
(They go of.)
A Little Love-Machine: He
was so sweet—nothing but a kid—
so I stayed all night—he hadn’t
more than a couple of bob to give
me.
Her Bully: I’ll push in your
BROKENBROW
343
face next tune you start acting soppy
—going with a man for love!
Love-Machine : Give us a
chance!  I’m ill, you know. . . .
(They go of.)
Old Woman Selling Cakes:
The second coming of my Saviour is
at hand. Do not deny my Saviour,
sir. All my hope is in Him, and the
Kingdom of Heaven is near.
Buyers: And eats up all your
savings!
Old Woman: Who cares for
filthy lucre, sir. An old wreck like
me can’t be worse off. The trials of
this world don’t trouble me. I’ve
drunk the dregs of them and my
soul is thirsting for deliverance. I
know that my Redeemer liveth.
(They go of.)
(Street vendor approaches a
young man with stiff collar and
monocle.)
Vendor : Latest remedy for weak
men: Cantharoids.
Monocle: I always use Dami-
anox.
Vendor: That’s not made any
more. Proved unprofitable. All
flavor, no nourishment. Now being
sold for boot polish.
(They go of.)
Cries: A man taken ill! Had
a stroke! Police!
Voices: That’s that Robot from
the fair. Comes of drinking all that
blood. No wonder!
A Guardsman: One of those
bloody reds, I expect. Lazy swine.
We’d have made short work of him
in Ireland. Put a gun in bis hand
and make the blighter blow his own
head off. Or bash it in for him. At
the word of command: fall in and
salute the flag. Those rotters have
got to come to heel. Need a touch
of the whip.
Cavalryman: Great mistake to
take prisoners. Our orders were:
take him round the corner, kick his
bottom to make him jump, and pot
him in the back. “Prisoner shot
while attempting to escape.”
(Street-walkers come running
from all directions.)
First Prostitute: Robot can
sleep with me. Take him to my
place. I’ll give him a glass of wine
to set him up.
Second Prostitute: No, take
him to my place.
Third Prostitute: To mine.
To mine.
Fourth Prostitute: You old
hag, you. Of all people! Haven’t
even got your discharge from hos-
pital. Be off with you. (Third and
Fourth Prostitutes begin fighting.
Military music in the next street.
Drums and fifes. Then brass and
drums.) (Screeching.) Soldiers!
Soldiers! Hip, hip, hurrah!
(Every one leaves Brokenbrow
and rushes of. The street is
'empty. The street lamps darken
at the sound of the band—
which recedes slowly. Broken-
brow gets up.)
Brokenbrow:	Infinite	skies
above me ... Everlasting stars....
(The stage darkens.)
SCENE II
Indicates Gene's home. Tom Cal-
low stands by the table waiting.
Eugene Brokenbrow comes in car-
rying a small parcel. His eyes
shine feverishly and his move-
344
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
ments are swifter arid freer than
in the earlier scenes«
Tom: I’ve been waiting to tell
you, Gene—the reason-----------
Gene: No need to give me rea-
sons, Mister Callow; I’ve no use for
reasons. I’ve gone further than that.
Do you know what this is?
Tom: How should I know?
Gene: The Fact. Notreasons.
Fact. I looked into a shop window.
I could hardly believe my eyes. Did
not know whether to laugh or cry.
Thought I must be dreaming. But
no, there it was; in the window. I
went in and asked why they put it
there. That’s an image of Priapus,
the salesman said. The ancient
Greeks and Romans, he said, wor-
shipped him as a god. The women?
I said. Men and women both, he
said. I asked if it was for sale. Yes.
By installments ? They didn’t do busi-
ness like that, he said. Beg pardon,
I said, a working-man is so used to
it. So I left my watch and took the
image.
(Gene takes the little bronze
image out of its wrappings and
puts it on the mantel-piece.
Lights a candle beside it.
Tom (coaxing him): You aren’t
feeling well, Gene—I can see you’re
not yourself.
Gene: Quite well.
Tom: You know I think I’ll stay
till your wife comes in.
Gene :	How	these	Christians
love one another!
Tom: How do you mean?
Gene: Just a moment. Did you
ever see people walking along the
street?
Tom : Funny questions you do ask.
Gene: You go along the streets,
day after day, like a blind man. And
then, all of a sudden, you see. Souls.
Do you know what souls look like?
Not like living creatures. One’s a
ghost, another’s a machine, the
third’s a cash register, the fourth a
brass-hat. ... I say, did you ever
put out the eyes of a goldfinch?
(Without waiting for an answer.)
The sins of the mothers shall be vis-
ited upon the children unto the
third and fourth generation. That’s
what the Book says, doesn’t it?
Good night, Tom. No offence
meant. ... I know, I know—rea-
sons—fact.
Tom: I’d better stay.
Gene: Go, go. Maggie’s just
coming. All that I said in the pub—
it was only because I’d had a couple.
Tom: Oh, well—good night then,
Gene.
Gene: Good night, Tom. . . .
Just a moment. How long have you
been married?
Tom: Twenty-three years.
Gene: There was a time when
you were thinking of getting a di-
vorce, weren’t you ?
Tom: I did once. But we got
kind of used to each other. There
were the children, too.
Gene: Yes, of course, children.
. .. Divorce is what they call “sep-
aration from bed and board,” isn’t
it?
Tom: That’s what they call it.
Gene: And your wife’s religious,
isn’t she?
Tom: Never misses church on
Sunday. What’s a man to do about
it? As far as I’m concerned, let her
go it if it amuses her. ... (at the
'door). Good night, Gene.
BROKENBROW
345
(Tom Callow goes out. Gene
alone.)
Gene (to the image): They have
none other gods but thee. It’s all
lies and fooling when they pray to
the Crucified. They only pray to
thee. All their Hail-Marys rise to
thee, all their Our-Fathers make a
ring of roses round thy nakedness;
and their processions are nothing but
a dance to honor thee. Thou art no
hypocrite, thou dost not hide thyself
in lying words. Thou art Alpha and
Omega, the first thing and the last.
Thou art the truth, thou art the god
of all. . . . Thou hast cast off thy
servant, O my god, but thy servant
builds thee an altar.... I do believe
he’s laughing. Go on, laugh, that’s
right, laugh! They laughed at me
for no reason. But you may laugh,
you have the right to laugh at me
for ever and ever, amen. (Noise on
the stairs.) That’s Maggie ... dark
night is coming and my eyes are go-
ing blind.
(Old Mrs. Brokenbrow comes in.)
Mrs. Brokenbrow: Good eve-
ning.
Gene : Oh—you I Good evening,
mother. What are you doing here
at this time of night? When did
you start going out in the evening?
Is it because the night’s so fine and
warm? The birds were flying low.
We shall have thunder soon.
Mrs. Brokenbrow: He’s come
back.
Gene: Who has?
Mrs. Brokenbrow: Father.
Gene: Whose father?
Mrs. Brokenbrow: Your fa-
ther.
Gene: Mother, what are you
talking about? My father 'died
when I was six months old. You’ve
told me that again and again.
Mrs. Brokenbrow: I told you
lies. But he was dead—dead to me.
It happened when you were only six
months old. You weren’t weaned
yet. One night he came home the
worse for drink. Arm in arm with a
woman he’d picked up in the street.
He shouted at me. “Be off,” he said,
“go and sleep with the old people. I
want something a bit livelier along-
side of me. You give me the hump
ever since you’ve thrown a pup.” I
couldn’t believe my own eyes. There
he stood—not my own husband, but
a beast, a wild beast, coming to tear
me to pieces and take away my child.
I took a carving-knife to him. But
he just laughed at me and went off
with his woman. He didn’t come
back that night, or the next. He just
went off and left me as if we’d never
met. So I went on the streets to
earn money for you. I wasn’t so
bad-looking in those days. And to-
day------
Gene: To-day?
Mrs. Brokenbrow: He came
back. In rags and tatters, rotten
and lousy with dirt. He was on his
last legs when he felt his way into
the room. I knew his step on the
stairs. What are you coming here
for after twenty-nine years, I said.
He mumbled like an idiot—the
nasty old man. “Don’t hit me,” he
said. And then: “I’ve come back
home to die.”
Gene : And what did you say to
him, mother?
Mrs. Brokenbrow: I told him
to undress and go to bed. There
were clean clothes in the drawers and
346
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
hot water on the stove and soap on
the sink.
Gene : Then you’ve forgiven
him?
Mrs. Brokenbrow (harshly):
I’ll never forgive him. I’ll look
after him till he dies. That’s noth-
ing but my duty. When he dies, I’ll
close his eyes—no stranger shall do
that for him. But when they come
and carry him away in his coffin to
the cemetery, then I shall draw the
blinds and lock the door and I shan’t
follow him to his grave. (Trium-
phantly.) Strangers shall bury him.
That’ll be my revenge for what he’s
done to me.
Gene (after a moment): What
was it that hurt most, mother. Going
short of food while he spent his
wages at the pub ?
Mrs. Brokenbrow : No.
Gene : Bringing home that wom-
an off the streets ?
Mrs. Brokenbrow : No.
Gene: Was it when he laughed
at you while you were standing there
cut to the heart?
Mrs. Brokenbrow: Yes, Gene,
that was the worst thing of all.
Gene: You’re right, mother. I’ll
have nothing to do with him and I
won’t follow him to his grave either.
(Silence.)
Mrs. Brokenbrow: Gene, I’ve
got to have a suit of clothes for your
father.
Gene: Here, you can have my
Sunday suit 'for him.
(Takes suit from cupboard and
gives it to Mrs. Brokenbrow.)
Mrs. Brokenbrow: That’ll fit
him. . . . You know, father was al-
ways very particular about his
clothes ... Is Maggie in?
Gene: She’ll soon be back. . . .
Mother, you’ve got your troubles to
bear and I’ve got mine. But you can
tell about yours—but I don’t dare
say a word for fear they’d laugh at
me.
Mrs. Brokenbrow: We all have
to bear our troubles. No one gets
let off. Life’s too strong for us,
Gene. I must be getting back. Fa-
ther’ll be getting hungry. Good
night.
Gene : Good night, mother.
(Mrs. Brokenbrow goes out.)
Gene : That was the worst of all
—laughing at her when she was cut
to the heart. Didst thou hear it, thou
great god? Art thou content with
the burnt sacrifices of thy servants?
Father the whore’s champion. Wife
the little chuckling pigeon, billing and
cooing for thee. Shall we dance
before thee? Drink rat’s blood for
a threepenny entrance and dance for
two human lives.
(Gene begins to dance, rhythmic-
ally hopping from one leg to
the other, his arms swinging
loose, at first slowly, but soon
with a wild and rapid rhythm.)
Gene: Hop, skip and jump—
hurrah. Walk up, ladies and gents.
Cash at the door—hurrah. The
more the merrier—hip, hip, hip.
(He breaks into hysterical laugh-
ter and drops onto a footstool.
After a moment Fanny comes
in.)
Fanny: Good evening. Maggie
not in?
Gene: No.
Fanny : You don’t half look blue,
sitting here. Such a wonderful night
out—warm as anything. I’m going
dancing. Care to come along?
BROKENBROW
347
Gene : You, woman—sorry, I was
dreaming.
Fanny: I say, Gene--------
Gene: Yes.
Fanny: I say, Gene--------
Gene: Well?
Fanny: You’re still a fine up-
standing young fellow, the best look-
ing of the lot----
Gene: Well?
Fanny : Well, I mean to say------
Gene: Yes?
Fanny : When you come to think
of it—Maggie’s always in a tantrum
nowadays—of course, I wouldn’t
say a thing against any friend of
mine, but between ourselves, I don’t
envy you. (Comes close to .Gene.)
I say, Gene—what about it? Come
along. You can tell Maggie you
went to a branch meeting; you can
say—oh well, you know what I
mean.
Gene : Do you mean—I’m to
stay with you to-night? That what
you’re driving at? It’s so fine and
warm to-night. You can’t walk a
step without falling over a couple of
cats. In the park-----
Fanny : It’s warm enough to
sleep on a bench in the park. I say,
Gene------
(Fanny cuddles up to Gene arid
kisses him. Gene shakes her of.
and gives a shout of laughter.)
Fanny (furiously): Do you think
I’d run after you?
Gene: Run after yourself, my
dear. Plenty of men running around
in the park. Tom cats, she cats, dogs
and bitches. It’s the heat.
Fanny (raging): Next time you
can whistle for me.
(Runs out.)
Gene (laughs): Brokenbrow is
dead. Brokenbrow is risen again on
the third day and ascended into
heaven. There’s a naked idol in the
market-place. They buzz round him
like flies after honey. Walk up, ladies
and gentlemen. Sensational revela-
tions! ... Me—a lawful ground for
divorce!
(A few moments silence. Maggie
comes in.)
Maggie : Good evening, Gene.
Gene (without looking up): And
the Lord said to Cain: Where is thy
brother Abel? And he answered:
Am I my brother’s keeper?
Maggie : It’s me, Gene.
Gene: But the Lord said: Thy
brother’s blood cries to heaven for
vengeance.
Maggie : I’ve brought you some
flowers, Gene. It’s our wedding an-
niversary.
Gene : Some people have the face
to laugh at you and come wheedling
you in the same breath. Thanks,
Maggie. It’s kind of you. They’re
asters, aren’t they? Does you good
to look at the colors. Our wedding
day was lovely, wasn’t it—and our
wedding night—it was lovely.
Maggie: It was peace then.
Gene: And then came the war.
You said: I’m proud of you, proud
that you’re in the Guards. And when
we left for the front you cried.
Were you crying for joy because I
was in the Guards?
Maggie : We had so much to look
forward to.
Gene: Yes, the future looked like
a bed of roses. But you know, at
the front, when a shell dropped on a
flower-bed it wiped out the flowers.
Plants and animals—animals and
people—it’s all the same thing. I
348
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
was a cheery young fellow and didn’t
think twice about it. You used to be
jealous in those days.
Maggie: Yes.
Gene (harshly): You don’t need
to be jealous any more now. Now,
you can—laugh at me. (Maggie be-
gins to cry.) That’s right, laugh
away! Crying? No play-acting,
woman; laugh, laugh! You’ve learnt
how to laugh. You laugh to see a
man lay his skinned soul naked in
the filth of the street. Stop your
crying. Or must I sing to you?
(Sings shrilly the opening of the
Merry Widow waltz.) Why don’t
you laugh? (Exhausted.) I pressed
the button, didn’t I ?
Maggie (warding him off with out-
spread palms): My God, how you
look at me—I’m frightened of you.
Gene: Frightened? Not you!
Frightened of me when I’m not—
not even-------
Maggie (quickly—humbly): No,
I’m not frightened. Indeed I’m not.
I love you, how could I be fright-
ened?
Gene: Tell me the truth, woman.
Maggie : I will.
Gene : I know all about you.
Maggie : I’ve been a bad woman,
Gene.
Gene: You’re not telling lies,
now?
Maggie : I was bad. I’m only a
woman, after all. It came over me
all of a sudden. I loved you, and at
the same time—I didn’t love you. It
was wicked of me. I don’t know if
you can ever care for me again ?
Gene : I can’t blame you for go-
ing with Jock. You had a right to
do that, if you loved him.
Maggie (uncomprehending): No
—no-------
Gene: But you must go away,
Maggie. At once. Or, no—I’ll go.
I’m not making any claims. The
furniture is yours. Good-by.
Maggie: O Gene, O Gene—my
dear, my poor, poor dear. I have
betrayed you for thirty pieces of sil-
ver. I have been a bad woman.
Gene: Oh! you woman, you!
Who taught you to tell lies these last
few weeks? Or have I been deaf
all along? Not knowing what was
going on in my own home? Every-
thing has turned upside down. But-
terflies turn into worms—a worm
with eyes, a lying worm, wheedling
me like a whore that has her living
to get. (Raging.) Let go my hands.
Don’t dare to touch me. My crip-
pled body made you sick, but now,
now you make me sick. Your hands
—toads, slimy toads. Your breasts,
your little round firm breasts—a
heap of filth. Your mouth, your
sweet red mouth—a stinking cess-
pool. Your whole body, your strong,
healthy, flowering body—I loathe
the sight of it—rotting in the midst
of health. Nothing but a carcass
turning to corruption before my
eyes.
Maggie (on her knees): Scold
me, yes, scold me. Beat me—beat
me! I deserve it.
Gene : Going to the fair and see-
ing your husband put on show like
a wild beast—your husband sucking
the blood of wretched little animals
—standing there with your lover and
laughing—laughing!
Maggie : That’s not true. Before
God, that’s not true.
Gene : I can’t bear to talk to you.
BROKENBROW
349
You’re lying. You’re lying—not
like a human being but like a devil.
Good-by.
(Gene turns to go.)
Maggie: Say what you like to
me, Gene, but stay with me. I take
all the blame on myself. Yet, I
laughed at the fair—I laughed like
this. (Laughs.)
Gene: You deserve to die for
that. Not because you had a lover
—you had a right to. Not for lying
to me—you thought you had a right
to. But because you laughed at me
—you must die. A mother may
strangle her child, and no one have
the right to cast a stone at her. But
if she laughed while it was choking
and mocked its face as it turned
black for want of breath—then she
should burn in hell to all eternity.
I’ll let you off lightly, you, woman;
I won’t leave you to everlasting tor-
ment. Why are you kneeling to me ?
Kneel to him. He is your god. Pray
to him—pray! (Drags her to the
image of Priapus. Hits breathing has
turned to groaning.) (After a mo-
ment.) What—what are you staring
at? What’s in your eyes? That's
no lie—I’ll take my oath there’s no
lie in your eyes. I’ve known your
eyes so long now. I saw them first
at the works—and then in barracks
—and in hospital—and in prison.
The same eyes everywhere. The
eyes of hunted, beaten, tormented,
broken creatures. . . . Maggie, I
thought you had everything, and
now—you’re just as miserable and
helpless as I am. .. . Well, if that’s
the way it is—then I suppose we
must be brother and sister to each
other. I am you and you are I. . . .
And what’s to become of us?
Maggie : I will never leave you
again.
Gene : That’s not what I mean,
Maggie. That’s all over and done
with. What does it matter to us?
What does it matter if you go with
some one else, or tell me lies, or
laugh at me? It won’t help you.
Even if you were to go in silks and
satins and live in a grand house and
never stop laughing—all the same
you’d be nothing but a poor unhap-
py creature just like me. I see that
now—I see. . . . Leave me alone,
Maggie.
Maggie: Leave you alone, now?
Gene: There’s no help for it.
You’ve got to leave me alone. I’ve
got to leave you alone.
Maggie: What’s to become of
us?
Gene: You know, once, about six
years ago, when I was in a bad way
—I hadn’t had enough to eat for
weeks—my mouth used to water
whenever I saw any one taking a bite
of food. In the park I’d sec rich
people’s children eat their morning
sandwiches. And to see some kid
putting his teeth into a bit of bread
and butter—it was frightful the way
I felt. I forgot about being hungry.
I was wild with the kid. I couldn’t
bear to see him. I could have mur-
dered him just to make him stop
eating.
Maggie: What do you mean,
Gene? I don’t see what that has to
do with it.
Gene : It’s my own fault that peo-
ple laugh at me. I ought to have
looked out for myself when the big
pots and the brass hats started this
wickedness that has smashed up the
350
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
earth. I’m fit to laugh at, yes, and
so is everything else in our time—
as miserable and ridiculous as I am.
The world has lost its soul and I
have lost my sex. What’s the differ-
ence. Let’s go our ways. You
yours. I mine.
Maggie : What do you mean by
all this, Gene ?
Gene: Just this: I’ve seen and
understood; but I don’t know how
long it’ll last. A man’s nature is
stronger than his thoughts. His
thoughts are ways of fooling him-
self.
Maggie: But what’s to become
of me?
Gene : You’re strong and healthy.
There’s no place for a cripple in this
world where no one’s any good that
can’t make good. Either he’s healthy
and then his soul is healthy, or he’s
not right in his mind and ought to be
put away. That’s what healthy,
sensible people say. It’s not really
true; but it’s not really lies either.
A cripple is good for nothing—his
mainspring’s broken, useless, like the
wings of those eagles in the Zoo
when their tendons are cut. Good-
by, Maggie; I wish you a happy life.
Maggie: Gene, what are you
going to do? You won’t leave me
alone ?
Gene : It’s not because of any ill-
ness, not because I’m smashed up.
.. . But, you see, I walked along the
street and there were no people—
nothing but grinning faces, rows and
rows of horrible grinning faces. And
I came home and there were more
faces—and then, just wretchedness,
senseless, endless wretchedness of
blinded creatures. I haven’t the
strength to go on. I haven’t the
strength to fight or the strength to
believe. A man who has no strength
for dreams has lost the strength to
live. That bullet was the fruit of
the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil. All that I see, I under-
stand; all that I understand, hurts
me. Living is only being hurt and
wanting to go on. ... I won’t go on.
Maggie: You wouldn’t do your-
self in? Gene—O Gene, I didn’t
laugh at you—I swear I didn’t laugh.
Listen, Gene darling, I’m going to
stay with you. For ever and ever.
It’ll all come right again. You and
me. We’ll keep each other warm.
You and me. Me and you.
Gene: You didn’t laugh—look at
me, Maggie—I believe you, Maggie
—darling. (Kisses her tenderly.)
It’all all come right again—you and
me. Me and you.
Maggie (clings to him): It’ll be
summer and quiet in the fields.
There will be stars and walking hand
in hand.
Gene (tears himself away): It’ll
be autumn and the leaves falling.
Cold stars—and hate—and fist
against fist.
Maggie (screams): Gene!
Gene (wearily): I know too
much.
Maggie (crying helplessly like a
child): Don’t leave me alone. I’m
lost in the dark. I’ll hurt myself. Oh,
how it hurts, how it hurts. I’m so
frightened to be alone. Think,
Gene, think—all alone in the world.
And nothing but wild beasts every-
where. No one to be good to you.
Every one tearing and biting and
scratching. Don’t leave me! Don’t
BROKENBROW
351
leave me! Whom God hath joined
—I belong to you.
Gene : What’s against nature
can’t be God’s will. Try, Maggie,
try to fight your way out. There’s
nothing wrong with you. Start all
over again. Start fighting for a bet-
ter world—a world that’s made for
the like of us.
Maggie (hopelessly shrugging
her shoulders): Even if I wanted to
I shouldn’t know how. I haven’t the
fight left in me. I’m all in bits.
(Desperately.) O God, I’ll never
find my way. We’re caught in a
trap, Gene, that’s what it is. A spi-
der’s got hold of us and won’t let
go. We’re all tied up and tangled
and can’t move a step. I don’t un-
derstand what life’s about. O dear
Lord Jesus, deliver us from evil!
(Goes out heavily.)
Gene (alone): Alpha and Ome-
ga, first and last. Who can find any
first or last in a spider’s web?
(Throws the image of Priapus onto
the fire.) You lying god. You
wretched devil, you. (After a mo-
ment.) If that’s the truth, who’s got
the right to judge his neighbor?
We’re all condemned to judge our-
selves. . . . Deliver us. Deliver us.
In all the streets of all the towns of
all the world they cry: Deliver us.
The Frenchy that fired off my bul-
let—or the nigger maybe—he’s cry-
ing out just the same: Deliver us. I
wonder if he’s alive and how he likes
it? Of all the halt and the maimed
and the blind, which is he ? He did
me in, and another fellow did him in.
But who did us all in? All of us:
one soul in one body.
To think there’s people in the
world that don’t see that. And peo-
ple who’ve forgotten it!
The war came and took them and
they hated their chiefs and obeyed
orders and killed each other. And
it’s all forgotten. They’ll be taken
again and hate their bosses again and
obey orders again and—kill each
other. Again and again. That’s
what people are. They might be dif-
ferent if they wanted to. But they
don’t want to. They mode at life.
They scourge and spit upon and cru-
cify life.
Again and again and for ever.
There’s no sense in it. Making
themselves poor when they might be
rich and not need to pray for the
kingdom of heaven. The blind and
the blinded. Just as if they’d got to.
Blindman’s buff. Round and round
—for thousands and thousands of
years. As if there was no help for it.
As if it had got to be. Ships caught
in the current, smashing each other
to bits.
(Noise of voices outside. The
door is thrown open. A crowd
of people presses into the
room; led by Tom Callow.)
Tom: In the yard—in the yard—
in the yard—your wife—threw her-
self down—don’t look—don’t look
at her—don’t—it’s—terrible:
(The body of Maggie wrapped
in a sheet is carried in.)
Gene (his eyes glazed, moving
mechanically):	Leave	me	alone.
Leave me alone. Leave me alone
with my wife. . . . (Beseeching.)
Please. (They leave the room.) She
was strong and sound. And she
broke the net. And here I stand—
352
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
here I stand—monstrous—ridicu-
lous. In all ages there’ll be men like
me. But why me? Why should it
fall on me? It doesn’t pick and
choose. It hits this man and that
man. And the next and the next go
free. What can we know about it?
Where from? Where to? Any day
the kingdom of heaven may arise,
any night the great flood may come
and swallow up the earth.
(The stage closes.)
Andante
By A. E. COPPARD
Now dusk, now sleep,
The night with honied sleep,
Deep drowned sleep.
But the nimble stars
Noursle and poise and yearn, and in the mere
Drop their white buds to honour that gradual horn,
Whose mute cadenzas now so whitely rise.
In dove-delighting woods the limber bough
Unshakes its chrism of dew.
Sways not the lilied stem,
The rose not sways;
But the wind’s unknown thoughts among the cocksfoot grasses
In tranquil litanies mingle and mourn and wane.
No song so soft but yet these reedy lips
More softly sigh.
No night so dark but yet its lovely glooms
Enrich the strange trees.
No star so dim but yet its crystal eye
Glimmers with salutations.
The eyeing heavens
Noursle and poise and yearn,
And like a silent passionate woman
Earth, the beloved, lies but does not sleep.
Ulysses
By JAMES JOYCE
Part Three
IV
In the Heart of the Hibernian
Metropolis
BEFORE Nelson’s pillar trams
slowed, shunted, changed trol-
ley started for Blackrock, Kingstown
and Dalkey, Clonskea, Rathgar and
Terenure, Palmerston park and up-
per Rathmines, Sandymount Green,
Rathmines, Ringsend and Sandy-
mount Tower, Harold’s Cross. The
hoarse Dublin United Tramway
Company’s timekeeper bawled them
off:
—Rathgar and Terenure!
—Come on, Sandymount Green!
Right and left parallel clanging
ringing a doubledecker and a single-
deck moved from their railheads,
swerved to the down line, glided
parallel.
—Start, Palmerston park!
The Wearer of the Crown
Under the porch of the general
post office shoeblacks called and pol-
ished. Parked in North Prince’s
street His Majesty’s vermilion mail-
cars, bearing on their sides the royal
initials, E. R., received loudly flung
sacks of letters, postcards, letter-
cards, parcels, Insured and paid, for
local, provincial, British and over-
seas delivery.
Gentlemen of the Press
Grossbooted draymen rolled bar-
rels dullthudding out of Prince’s
stores and bumped them up on the
brewery float. On the brewery float
bumped dullthudding barrels rolled
by grossbooted draymen out of
Prince’s stores.
—There it is, Red Murray said.
Alexander Keyes.
—Just cut it out, will you? Mr.
Bloom said, and I’ll take it round to
the Telegraph office.
The door of Ruttledge’s office
creaked again. Davy Stephens, min-
ute in a large capecoat, a small felt
hat crowning his ringlets, passed out
with a roll of papers under his cape,
a king’s courier.
Red Murray’s long shears sliced
out the advertisement from the news-
paper in four clean strokes. Scissors
and paste.
—I’ll go through the printing
works, Mr. Bloom said, taking the
cut square.
—Of course, if he wants a par,
353
354
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
Red Murray said earnestly, a pen
behind his ear, we can do him one.
—Right, Mr. Bloom said with a
nod. I’ll rub that in.
We.
William Brayden, Esquire, of
Oaklands, Sandymount
Red Murray touched Mr. Bloom’s
arm with the shears and whispered:
—Brayden.
Mr. Bloom turned and saw the
liveried porter raise his lettered cap
as a stately figure entered between
the newsboards of the Weekly Free-
man and National Press and the
Freeman’s Journal and National
Press. Dullthudding Guinness’s bar-
rels. It passed stately up the stair-
case steered by an umbrella, a sol-
emn beardframed face. The broad-
cloth back ascended each step: back.
All his brains are in the nape of his
neck, Simon Dedalus says. Welts of
flesh behind on him. Fat folds of
neck, fat, neck, fat, neck.
—Don’t you think his face is like
Our Saviour? Red Murray whis-
pered.
The door of Ruttledge’s office
whispered: ee: cree. They always
build one door opposite another for
the wind to. Way in. Way out.
Our Saviour: beardframed oval
face: talking in the dusk Mary,
Martha. Steered by an umbrella
sword to the footlights: Mario the
tenor.
—Or like Mario, Mr. Bloom said.
—Yes, Red Murray agreed. But
Mario was said to be the picture of
Our Saviour.
Jesus Mario with rougy cheeks,
doublet and spindle legs. Hand on
his heart. In Martha.
Co-ome thou lost one,
Co-ome thou dear one
The Crozier and the Pen
—His grace phoned down twice
this morning, Red Murray said
gravely.
They watched the knees, legs,
boots vanish. Neck.
A telegram boy stepped in nimbly,
threw an envelope on the counter
and stepped off posthaste with a
word.
—Freeman!
Mr. Bloom said slowly:
—Well, he is one of our saviours
also.
A meek smile accompanied him as
he lifted the counterflap, as he pass-
ed in through the sidedoor and along
the warm dark stairs and passage,
along the now reverberating boards.
But will he save the circulation?
Thumping, thumping.
He pushed in the glass swingdoor
and entered, stepping over strewn
packing paper. Through a lane of
clanking drums he made his way
towards Nannetti’s reading closet.
With Unfeigned Regret it is
We Announce the Dissolu-
tion of a Most Respected
Dublin Burgess
Hynes here too: account of the
funeral probably. Thumping thump.
This morning the remains of the
late Mr. Patrick Dignam. Ma-
chines. Smash a man to atoms if
they got him caught. Rule the world
today. His machineries are pegging
ULYSSES
355
away too. Like these, got out of
hand: fermenting. Working away,
tearing away. And that old grey
rat tearing to get in.
How a Great Daily Organ is
Turned Out
Mr. Bloom halted behind the
foreman's spare body, admiring a
glossy crown.
Strange he never saw his real
country. Ireland my country. Mem-
ber for College green. He boomed
that workaday worker tack for all
it was worth. It's the ads and side
features sell a weekly not the stale
news in the official gazette. Queen
Anne is dead. Published by author-
ity in the year one thousand and.
Demesne situate in the townland of
Rosenallis, barony of Tinnachinch.
To all whom it may concern schedule
pursuant to statute showing return
of number of mules and jennets ex-
ported from Ballina. Nature notes.
Cartoons. Phil Blake’s weekly Pat
and Bull story. Uncle Toby’s page
for tiny tots. Country bumpkin's
queries. Dear Mr. Editor, what is
a good cure for flatulence?  I'd like
that part. Learn a lot teaching
others. The personal note M. A.
P. Mainly all pictures. Shapely
bathers on golden strand. World's
biggest balloon. Double marriage
of sisters celebrated. Two bride-
grooms laughing heartily at each
other. Cuprani too, printer. More
Irish than the Irish.
The machines clanked in three-
four time. Thump, thump, thump.
Now if he got paralysed there and
no one knew how to stop them they'd
clank on and on the same, print it
over and over and up and back.
Monkeydoodle the whole thing.
Want a cool head.
—Well, get it into the evening
edition, councillor, Hynes said.
Soon be calling him my lord may-
or. Long John is backing him they
say.
The foreman, without answering,
scribbled press on a corner of the
sheet and made a sign to a type-
setter. He handed the sheet silently
over the dirty glass screen.
—Well, get it into the evening ed-
ition, councillor, Hynes said.
Soon be calling him my lord mayor.
Long John is backing him they say.
The foreman, without answering,
scribbled press on a corner of the
sheet and made a sign to a type-
setter. He handed the sheet silently
over the dirty glass screen.
—Right: thanks, Hynes said
moving off.
Mr. Bloom stood in his way.
—If you want to draw the cashier
is just going to lunch, he said, point-
ing backward with his thumb.
—Did you? Hynes asked.
—Mm, Mr. Bloom said. Look
sharp and you’ll catch him.
—Thanks, old man, Hynes said.
I’ll tap him too.
He hurried on eagerly towards
the Freeman's Journal.
Three bob I lent him in Meagh-
er's. Three weeks. Third hint.
We Se&the Canvasser at Work
Mr. Bloom laid his cutting on Mr.
Nannetti’s desk.
—Excuse me, councillor, he said.
This ad, you see. Keyes, you re-
member.
356
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
Mr. Nannetti considered the cut-
ting a while and nodded.
—He wants it in for July, Mr.
Bloom said.
He doesn’t hear it. Nannan.
Iron nerves.
The foreman moved his pencil to-
wards it.
—But wait, Mr. Bloom said. He
wants it changed. Keyes, you see.
He wants two keys at the top.
Hell of a racket they make. May-
be he understands what I.
The foreman turned around to
hear patiently and, lifting an elbow,
began to scratch slowly in the arm-
pit of his alpaca jacket.
—Like that, Mr. Bloom said,
crossing his forefinger at the top.
Let him take that in first.
Mr. Bloom, glancing sideways up
from the cross he had made, saw the
foreman’s sallow face, think he has
a touch of jaundice, and beyond the
obedient reels feeding in huge webs
of paper. Clank it. Clank it. Miles
of it unreeled. What becomes of it
after? O, wrap up meat, parcels:
various uses, thousand and one
things.
Slipping his words deftly into the
pauses of the clanking he drew swift-
ly on the scarred woodwork.
House of Key(e)s
—-Like that, see. Two crossed
keys here. A circle. Then here the
name Alexander Keyes, tea, wine
and spirit merchant. So on.
Better not teach him his own busi-
ness.
—You know yourself, councillor,
just what he wants. Then round the
top in leaded: the house of keys.
You see? Do you think that’s a
good idea?
The foreman moved his scratch-
ing hand to his lower ribs and
scratched there quietly.
—The idea, Mr. Bloom said, is
the house of keys. You know, coun-
cillor, the Manx parliament. In-
nuendo of home rule. Tourists, you
know, from the isle of Man. Catch-
es the eye, you see. Can you do
that?
I could ask him perhaps about
how to pronounce that voglio. But
then if he didn’t know only make it
awkward for him. Better not
—We can do that, the foreman
said. Have you the design?
—I can get it, Mr. Bloom said.
It was in a Kilkenny paper. He has
a house there too. I’ll just run out
and ask him. Well, you can do that
and just a little par calling attention.
You know the usual. High class
licensed premises. Longfelt want.
So on.
The foreman thought for an in-
stant.
—We can do that, he said. Let
him give us a three months’ renewal.
A typesetter brought him a limp
galleypage. He began to check it
silently. Mr. Bloom stood by, hear-
ing the loud throbs of cranks, watch-
ing the silent typesetters at their
cases.
Orthographical
Want to be sure of his spelling.
Proof fever. Martin Cunningham
forgot to give us his spellingbee con-
undrum this morning. It is amusing
to view the unpar one ar alleled em-
barra two ars is it? double ess ment
ULYSSES
357
of a harassed pedlar while gauging
au the symmetry of a peeled pear
under a cemetery wall. Silly, isn’t
it? Cemetery put in of course on ac-
count of the symmetry.
I could have said when he clap-
ped on his -topper. Thank you. I
ought to have said something about
an old hat or something. No, I
could have said. Looks as good as
new now. See his phiz then.
Sllt. The nethermost deck of the
first machine jogged forward its fly-
board with sllt the first batch of
quirefolded papers. Sllt. Almost
human the way it sltt to call atten-
tion. Doing its level best to speak.
That door too sllt creaking, asking
to be shut. Everything speaks in its
own way. Sllt.
Noted Churchman an Occasion-
al Contributor
The foreman handed back the gal-
leypage suddenly, saying:
—Wait. Where’s the archbishop’s
letter? It’s to be repeated in the
Telegram. Where’s what’s his
name?
He looked about him round his
loud unanswering machines.
—Monks, sir ? a voice asked from
the castingbox.
—Ay. Where’s Monks ?
Monks!
Mr. Bloom took up his cutting.
Time to get out.
—Then I’ll get the design, Mr.
Nannetti, he said, and you’ll give it
a good place I know.
—Monks!
—Yes, sir.
Three months* renewal. Want to
get some wind off my chest first.
Try it anyhow. Rub in August:
good idea: horseshow month. Balls-
bridge. Tourists over for the
show.
He walked on through the case-
room, passing an old man, bowed,
spectacled, aproned. Old Monks,
the dayfather. Queer lot of stuff he
must have put through his hands in
his time: obituary notices, pubs’ ads,
speeches, divorce suits, found drown-
ed. Nearing the end of his tether
now. Sober serious man with a bit
in the savingsbank I’d say. Wife a
good cook and washer. Daughter
working the machine in the parlour.
Plain Jane, no damn nonsense.
And it Was the Feast of the
Passover
He stayed in his walk to watch a
typesetter neatly distributing type.
Reads it backwards first. Quickly
he does it. Must require some prac-
tice that. mangiD. kcirtaP. Poor
papa with his hagadah book, reading
backwards with his finger to me.
Pessach. Next year in Jerusalem.
Dear, O dear! All that long busi-
ness about that brought us out of the
land of Egypt and into the house of
bondage alleluia. Shema Israel Ad-
onai Elohenu. No, that’s the other.
Then the twelve brothers, Jacob’s
sons. And then the lamb and the
cat and the dog and the stick and
the water and the butcher and then
the angel of death kills the butcher
and he kills the ox and the dog kills
the cat. Sounds a bit silly till you
come to look into it well. Justice
it means but it’s everybody eating
everyone else. That’s what life is
after all. How quickly he does that
358
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
job. Practice makes perfect Seems
to see with his fingers.
Mr. Bloom passed on out of the
clanking noises through the gallery
on to the landing. Now am I going
to tram it out all the way and then
catch him out perhaps ? Better phone
him up first. Number? Same as
Citron’s house. Twentyeight. Twen-
tyeight double four.
Only Once More That Soap.
He went down the house staircase.
Who the deuce scrawled all over
these walls with matches ? Looks as
if they did it for a bet. Heavy
greasy smell there always is in those
works. Lukewarm glue in Thom’s
next door when I was there.
He took out his handkerchief to
dab his nose. Citronlemon? Ah,
the soap I put there. Lose it out of
that pocket. Putting back his hand-
kerchief he took out the soap and
stowed it away, buttoned, into the
hip pocket of his trousers.
What perfume does your wife
use? I could go home still: tram:
something I forgot. Just to see be-
fore dressing. No. Here. No.
A sudden screech of laughter
came from the Evening Telegraph
office. Know who that is. What’s
up? Pop in a minute to phone.
Ned Lambert it is.
He entered softly.
Erin, Green Gem of the Silver
Sea
—The ghost walks, professor
MacHugh murmured softly, biscuit-
fully to the dusty windowpane.
Mr. Dedalus, staring from the
empty fireplace at Ned Lambert's
quizzing face, asked of it sourly:
—Wouldn’t it give you a heart-
burn?
Ned Lambert, seated on the table,
read on:
—Or again, note the meanderings
of some purling rill as it babbles on
its way, fanned by gentlest zephyrs
tho' quarelling with the stony ob-
stacles, to the tumbling waters of
Neptune's blue domain, mid mossy
banks, played on by the glorious sun-
light or 'neath the shadows cast o'er
its pensive bosom by the overarching
leafage of the giants of the forest.
What about that, Simon? he asked
over the fringe of his newspaper.
How’s that for high ?
—Changing his drink, Mr. Deda-
lus said.
Ned Lambert, laughing, struck
the newspaper on his knees, repeat-
ing:
—The pensive bosom and the
overarching leafage. O boys! O
boys!
—And Xenophon looked upon
Marathon, Mr. Dedalus said, look-
ing again on the fireplace and to the
window, and Marathon looked on
the sea.
—That will do, professor Mac-
Hugh cried from the window. I
don’t want to hear any more of the
stuff.
He ate off the crescent of water
biscuit he had been nibbling and,
hungered, made ready to nibble the
biscuit in his other hand.
High falutin stuff. Bladderbags.
Ned Lambert is taking a day off, I
see. Rather upsets a man’s day a
funeral does. He has influence they
say. Old Chatterton, the vice-chan-
ULYSSES
359
cellor is his granduncle or his great-
granduncle. Close on ninety they
say. Subleader for his death written
this long time perhaps. Living to
spite them. Might go first himself.
Johnny, make room for your uncle.
The right honourable Hedges Eyre
Chatterton. Daresay he writes him
an odd shaky cheque or two on gale
days. Windfall when he kicks out.
Alleluia.
—Just another spasm, Ned Lam-
bert said.
—What is it? Mr. Bloom asked.
—A recently discovered fragment
of Cicero’s, professor MacHugh an-
swered with pomp of tone. Our
lovely land.
Short But to the Point
—Whose land? Mr. Bloom said
simply.
—Most pertinent question, the
professor said between his chews.
With an accent on the whose.
—Dan Dawson’s land, Mr. Ded-
alus said.
—Is it his speech last night ? Mr.
Bloom asked.
Ned Lambert nodded.
—But listen to this, he said.
The doorknob hit Mr. Bloom in
the small of the back as the door
was pushed in.
—Excuse me, J. J. O’Molloy said,
entering.
Mr. Bloom moved nimbly aside.
—I beg yours, he said. 
—Good day, Jack.
—Come in. Come in.
—Good day.
—How are you, Dedalus?
—Well. And yourself?
J. J. O’Molloy shook his head.
Sad
Cleverest fellow at the junior bar
he used to be. Decline poor chap.
That hectic flush spells finis for a
man. Touch and go with him.
What’s in the wind, I wonder.
Money worry.
—Or again if we but climb the
serried mountain peaks.
—You’re looking extra.
—Is the editor to be seen? J. J.
O’Molloy asked, looking towards
the inner door.
—Very much so, professor Mac-
Hugh said. To be seen and heard.
He’s in his sanctum with Lenehan.
J. J. O’Molloy strolled to the
sloping desk and began to turn back
the pink pages of the file.
Practice dwindling. A mighthave-
been. Losing heart. Gambling.
Debts of honour. Reaping the
whirlwind. Used to get good re-
tainers from D. and T. Fitzgerald.
Their wigs to show their grey mat-
ter. Brains on their sleeve like the
statue in Glasnevin. Believe he does
some literary work for the Express
with Gabriel Conroy. Wellread fel-
low. Myles Crawford began on the
Independent. Funny the way those
newspaper men veer about when
they get wind of a new opening.
Weathercocks. Hot and cold in the
same breath. Wouldn’t know which
to believe. One story good till you
hear the next. Go for one another
baldheaded in the papers and then
all blows over. Hailfellow well met
the next moment.
—Ah, listen to this for God’s
sake, Ned Lambert pleaded. Or
again if we but climb the serried
mountain peaks. . . .
360
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
—Bombast! the professor broke
in testily. Enough of the inflated
windbag!
—Peaks, Ned Lambert went on,
towering high on high, to bathe our
souls, as it were. . . .
—Bathe his lips, Mr. Dedalus
said. Blessed and eternal God!
Yes? Is he taking anything
for it.
—As 'twere, in the peerless pan-
orama of Ireland’s, portfolio, un-
matched, despite their wellpraised
prototypes in other vaunted prize re-
gions for very beauty, of bosky
grove and undulating plain and lus-
cious pastureland of vernal green,
steeped in the transcendent trans-
lucent glow of our mild mysterious
Irish twilight. . . .
His Native Doric
—The moon, professor Mac-
Hugh said. He forgot Hamlet.
—That mantles the vista far and
wide and wait till the glowing orb of
the moon shines forth to irradiate
her silver effulgence.
—O! Mr. Dedalus cried, giving
vent to to a hopeless groan, pitch
and onions! That’ll do, Ned. Life
is too short.
He took off his silk hat and, blow-
ing out impatiently his bushy mous-
tache, welshcombed his hair with
raking fingers.
Ned Lambert tossed the news-
paper aside, chuckling with delight.
An instant after a hoarse bark of
laughter burst over professor Mac-
Hugh’s unshaven blackspectacled
face.
—Doughy Daw! he cried.
What Wetherup Said
All very fine to jeer at it now in
cold print but it goes down like hot
cake that stuff. He was in the
bakery line too wasn’t he? Why
they call him Doughy Daw. Feather-
ed nest well anyhow. Daughter en-
gaged to that chap in the inland
revenue office with the motor.
Hooked that nicely. Entertainments
open house. Big blow out. Wether-
up always said that. Get a grip of
them by the stomach.
The inner door was opened vio-
lently and a scarlet beaked face,
crested by a comb of feathery hair,
thrust itself in. The bold blue eyes
stared about them and the harsh
voice asked:
—What is it?
—And here comes the sham squire
himself, professor MacHugh said
grandly.
—Getoutothat, you blooming old
pedagogue! the editor said in rec-
ognition.
—Come, Ned, Mr. Dedalus
said, putting on his hat. I must get
a drink after that.
—Drink! the editor cried. No
drinks served before mass.
—Quite right too, Mr. Dedalus
said, going out. Come on, Ned.
Ned Lambert sidled down from
the table. The editor’s blue eyes
roved towards Mr. Bloom’s face,
shadowed by a smile.
—Will you join us, Myles? Ned
Lambert asked.
Memorable Battles Recalled
—North Cork militia! the editor
cried, striding to the mantelpiece.
ULYSSES
361
We won every time! North Cork
and Spanish officers!
—Where was that, Myles? Ned
Lambert asked with a reflective
glance at his toecaps.
—In Ohio! the editor shouted.
—So it was, begad, Ned Lambert
agreed.
Passing out, he whispered to J. J.
O’Molloy:
—Incipient jigs. Sad case.
—Ohio! the editor crowed in high
treble from his uplifted scarlet face.
My Ohio!
—A perfect cretic! the professor
said. Long, short and long.
O, Harp Eolian
He took a reel of dental floss
from his waistcoat pocket and,
breaking off a piece, twanged it
smartly between two and two of his
resonant unwashed teeth.
—Bingbang, bangbang.
Mr. Bloom, seeing the coast clear,
made for the inner door.
—Just a moment, Mr. Crawford,
he said. I just want to phone about
an ad.
He went in.
—What about that leader this
evening? professor MacHugh ask-
ed, coming to the editor and laying
a firm hand on his shoulder.
—That’ll be all right, Myles Craw-
ford said more calmly. Never you
fret. Hello, Jack. That’s all right.
—Good day, Myles, J. J. O’Mol-
loy said, letting the pages he held
slip-limply back on the file. Is that
Canada swindle case on today?
The telephone whirred inside.
—Twenty-eight... . No, twenty.
* .. Double four.... Yes.
Spot the Winner
Lenehan came out of the inner
office with Sport's tissues.
—Who wants a dead cert for the
Gold cup? he asked. Sceptre with
O. Madden up.
He tossed the tissues on to the
table.
Screams of newsboys barefoot in
the hall rushed near and the door
was flung open.
—Hush, Lenehan said. I hear
feetstoops.
Professor MacHugh strode across
the room and seized the cringing
urchin by the collar as the others
scampered out of the hall and down
the steps. The tissues rustled up in
the draught, floated softly in the air
blue scrawls and under the table
came to earth.
—It wasn’t me, sir. It was the
big fellow shoved me, sir.
Throw him out and shut the door,
the editor said. There’s a hurricane
blowing.
Lenehan began to paw the tissues
up from the floor, grunting as he
stooped twice.
—Waiting for the racing special,
sir, the newsboy said. It was Pat
Farrell shoved me, sir.
He pointed to two faces peering
in round the doorframe.
Him, sir.
—Out of this with you, professor
MacHugh said gruffly.
He hustled the boy out and
banged the door to.
J. J. O’Molloy turned the files
crackingly over, murmuring, seek-
ing:
—Continued on page six, column
four.
362
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
—Yes. . . . Evening Telegraph
here, Mr. Bloom phoned from the
inner office. Is the boss... ? Yes,
Telegraph.... To where? ... Aha!
Which auction rooms? . . . Aha! I
see. . .. Right. I’ll catch him.
A Collision Ensues
The bell whirred again as he rang
off. He came in quickly and bumped
against Lenehan who was struggling
up with the second tissue.
—Pardon, monsieur, Lenehan
said, clutching him for an instant and
making a grimace.
—My fault, Mr. Bloom said, suf-
fering his grip. Are you hurt? I’m
in a hurry.
—Knee, Lenehan said.
He made a comic face and
whined, rubbing his knee:
—The accumulation of the anno
Domini.
—Sorry, Mr. Bloom said.
He went to the door and, holding
it ajar, paused. J. J. O’Molloy
slapped the heavy pages over. The
noise of two shrill voices, a mouth-
organ, echoed in the bare hallway
from the newsboys squatted on the
doorsteps:
We are the hoys of Wexford
Who fought with heart arid hand.
Exit Bloom
—I’m just running round to
Bachelor’s walk, Mr. Bloom said,
about this ad of Keyes’s. Want to
fix it up. They tell me he’s round
there in Dillon’s.
He looked indecisively for a mo-
ment at their faces. The editor
who, leaning against the mantel-
shelf, had propped his head on his
hand suddenly stretched forth an
arm amply.
—Begone! he said. The world is
before you.
—Back in no time, Mr. Bloom
said, hurrying out.
J. J. O’Molloy took the tissues
from Lenehan’s hand and read them,
blowing them apart gently, without
comment.
—He’ll get that advertisement,
the professor said, staring through
his blackrimmed spectacles over the
crossblind. Look at the young
scamps after him.
—Show. Where ? Lenehan cried,
running to the window.
A Street Cortege
Both smiled over the crossblind
at the file of capering newsboys in
Mr. Bloom’s wake, the last zigzag-
ging white on the breeze a mocking
kite, a tail of white bowknots.
—Look at the young guttersnipe
behind him hue and cry, Lenehan
said, and you’ll kick. O, my rib
risible! Taking off his flat spaugs
and the walk. Small nines. Steal
upon larks.
He began to mazurka in swift
caricature cross the floor on sliding
feet past the fireplace to J. J.
O’Molloy who placed the tissues in
his receiving hands.
—What’s that? Myles Craw-
ford said with a start Where are
the other two gone?
—Who? the professor said, turn-
ing. They’re gone round to the
Oval for a drink. Paddy Hooper is
ULYSSES
363
there with Jack Hall. Came over
last night.
—Come on then, Myles Craw-
ford said. Where’s my hat?
He walked jerkily into the office
behind, parting the vent of his
jacket, jingling his keys in his back
pocket. They jingled then in the air
and against the wood as he locked
his desk drawer.
—He’s pretty well on, professor
MacHugh said in a low voice.
—Seems to be, J. J. O’Molloy
said, taking out a cigarette case in
murmuring meditation, but it is not
always as it seems. Who has the
most matches ?
The Calumet of Peace
He offered a cigarette to the pro-
fessor and took one himself. Lene-
han promptly struck a match for
them and lit their cigarettes in turn.
J. J. O’Molloy opened has case
again and offered it.
—Thanky vous, Lenehan said,
helping himself.
The editor came from the inner
office, a straw hat awry on his brow.
He declaimed in song, pointing
sternly at professor MacHugh:
’Twas rank and fame that tempted
thee,
’Twas empire charmed thy heart.
The professor grinned, locking his
long lips.
—Eh? You bloody old Roman
empire? Myles Crawford said.
He took a cigarette from the open
case. Lenehan, lighting it for him
with quick grace, said:
—Silence for my brandnew rid-
dle!
—lmperium romanum, J. J.
O’Molloy said gently. It sounds
nobler than British or Brixton. The
word reminds one somehow of fat
in the fire.
Myles Crawford blew his first puff
violently toward the ceiling.
—That’s it, he said. We are the
fat. You and I are the fat in the
fire. We haven’t got the chance of
a snowball in hell.
The Grandeur That Was Rome
—Wait a moment, professor
MacHugh said, raising two quiet
claws. We mustn’t be led away by
words, by sounds of words. We
think of Rome, imperial, imperious,
imperative.
He extended elocutionary arms
from frayed stained shirtcuffs, paus-
ing:
—-What was their civilisation?
Vast, I allow: but vile. Cloacae:
sewers. The Jews in the wilderness
and on the mountaintop said: It is
meet to be here. Let us build an al-
tar to Jehovah. The Roman, like
the Englishman who follows in his
footsteps, brought to every new
shore on which he set his foot (on
our shore he never set it) only his
cloacal obsession. He gazed about
him in his toga and he said: It is
meet to be here. Let us construct
a watercloset.
—Which they accordingly did do,
Lenehan said. Our old ancient an-
cestors, as we read in the first chap-
ter of Guinness’s, were partial to the
running stream.
—They were nature’s gentlemen,
J. J. O’Molloy murmured. But we
have also Roman law.
364
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
—And Pontius Pilate is its proph-
et, professor MacHugh responded.
—Do you know that story about
chief baron Palles? J. J. O’Molloy
asked. It was at the royal univer-
sity dinner. Everything was going
swimmingly .. .
—First my riddle, Lenehan said.
Are you ready?
Mr. O’Madden Burke, tall in
copious grey of Donegal tweed,
came in from the hallway. Stephen
Dedalus, behind him, uncovered as
he entered.
—Entrez, mes enfants! Lenehan
cried.
—I escort a suppliant, Mr.
O’Madden Burke said melodiously.
Youth led by Experience visits
Notoriety.
—How do you do? the editor
said, holding out a hand. Come in.
Your governor is just gone.
? ? ?
Lenehan said to all:
—Silence! What opera resem-
bles a railway line ? Reflect, ponder,
excogitate, reply.
Stephen handed over the typed
sheets, pointing to the title and sig-
nature.
—Who? the editor asked.
Bit torn off.
—Mr. Garrett Deasy, Stephen
said.
—That old pelters, the editor
said. Who tore it? Was he short
taken ?
On swift sail flaming
From storm and south
He comes, pale vampire,
Mouth to my mouth.
—Good day, Stephen, the profes-
sor said, coming to peer over their
shoulders. Foot and mouth? Are
you turned. . . ?
Bullockbefriending bard.
Shindy in Wellknown Restau-
rant
—Good day, sir, Stephen an-
swered, blushing. The letter is not
mine. Mr. Garrett Deasy asked me
to . . .
—O, I know him, Myles Craw-
ford said, and knew his wife, too.
The worst old Tartar God ever
made. She had the foot and mouth
disease and no mistake! The night
she threw the soup in the waiter’s
face in the Star and Garter. Oho!
A woman brought sin into the
world. For Helen, the runaway
wife of Menelaus, ten years the
Greeks. O’Rourke, prince of
Breffni.
—Is he a widower? Stephen
asked.
—Ay, a grass one, Myles Craw-
ford said, his eye running down the
typescript. Emperor’s horses. Habs-
burg. An Irishman saved his life on
the ramparts of Vienna. Don’t you
forget! Maximilian Karl O’Don-
nell, graf von Tirconnel in Ireland.
Sent his heir over to make the king
an Austrian fieldmarshal now. Going
to be trouble there one day. Wild
geese. O yes, every time. Don’t
you forget that!
—The moot point is did he forget
it, J. J. O’Molloy said quietly, turn-
ing a horseshoe paperweight. Sav-
ing princes is a thank you job.
Professor MacHugh turned on
him.
ULYSSES
365
—And if not? he said.
—I’ll tell you how it was, Myles
Crawford began. A Hungarian it
was one day . . .
Lost Causes Noble Marquess
Mentioned
—We were always loyal to lost
causes, the professor said. Success
for us is the death of the intellect
and of the imagination. We were
never loyal to the successful. We
serve them. I teach the blatant
Latin language. I speak the tongue
of a race the acme of whose men-
tality is the maxim: time is money.
Material domination.	Dominus!
Lord! Where is the spirituality?
Lord Jesus!  Lord Salisbury. A sofa
in a westend club. But the Greek I
Kyrie Eleison!
A smile of light brightened his
darkrimmed eyes, lengthened his
long lips.
—The Greek! he said again.
Kyrios!  Shining word! The vow-
els Semite and the Saxon know-not.
Kyrie! The radiance of the intel-
lect. I ought to profess Greek, the
language of the mind. Kyrie eleison!
The closetmaker and the cloacamak-
er will never be lords of our spirit.
We are liege subjects of the catholic
chivalry of Europe that foundered
at Trafalgar and of the empire of
the spirit, not an imperium, that
went under with the Athenian fleets
at AEgospotami. Yes, yes. They went
under. Pyrrhus, misled by an oracle,
made a last attempt to retrieve the
fortunes of Greece. Loyal to a lost
cause.
He strode away from them to-
ward the window.
—They went forth to battle, Mr.
O’Madden Burke said gravely, but
they always fell.
—Boohoo! Lenehan wept with a
little noise. Owing to a brick re-
ceived in the latter half of the
matinee. Poor, poor, poor Pyrrhus!
He whispered then near Stephen’s
ear:
Lenehan’s Limerick
—There’s a ponderous pundit
MacHugh
Who wears goggles of ebony
hue.
As he mostly sees double
To wear them why trouble?
I can’t see the Joe Miller. Can
you?
In mourning for Sallust, Mulligan
says. Whose mother is beastly dead.
Myles Crawford crammed the
sheets into a sidepocket.
—That’ll be all right, he said. I’ll
read the rest after. That’ll be all
right.
Lenehan extended his hands in
protest.
—But my riddle! he said. What
opera is like a railway line?
—Opera? Mr. O’Madden
Burke’s sphinx face reriddled.
Lenehan announced gladly:
—The Rose of Castille. See the
wheeze ? Rows of cast steel. Gee!
He poked Mr. O’Madden Burke
mildly in the spleen. Mr. O’Mad-
den Burke fell bade with grace on
his umbrella, feigning a gasp.
—Help! he sighed. I feel a
strong weakness.
Lenehan, rising to tiptoe, fanned
366
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
his face rapidly with the rustling tis-
sues.
The professor, returning by way
of the files, swept his hand across
Stephen’s and Mr. O’Madden
Burke’s loose ties.
—Paris, past and present, he said.
You look like communards.
—Like fellows who had blown up
the Bastille, J. J. O’Molloy said in
quiet mockery. Or was it you shot
the lord lieutenant of Finland be-
tween you ? You look as though you
had done the deed. General Bo-
brikoff.
Omnium Gatherum
—We were only thinking about it,
Stephen said.
—All the talents, Myles Craw-
ford said. Law, the classics .. .
   —The turf, Lenehan put in.
—Literature, the press.
—If Bloom were here, the pro-
fessor said. The gentle art of ad-
vertisement.
—And Madam Bloom, Mr.
O’Madden Burke added. The vocal
muse. Dublin’s prime favorite.
Lenehan gave a loud cough.
—Ahem! he said very softly. O,
for a fresh of breath air! I caught a
cold in the park. The gate was open.
“You Can Do It”
The editor laid a nervous hand
on Stephen’s shoulder.
—I want you to write something
for me, he said. Something with a
bite in it. You can do it. I see it
in your face, in the lexicon of
Youth. . . .
See it in your face. See it in your
eye. Lazy idle little schemer.
-—Foot and mouth disease! the
editor cried in scornful invective.
Great nationalist meeting in Borris-
in-Ossory. All bull! Bulldosing the
public! Give them something with
a bite in it. Put us all into it, damn
its soul. Father, Son and Holy
Ghost and Jakes M’Carthy.
—We can all supply mental pa-
bulum, Mr. O’Madden Burke said.
Stephen raised his eyes to the bold
unheeding stare.
—He wants you for the press-
gang, J. J. O’Molloy said.
The Great Gallaher
—You can do it, Myles Craw-
ford repeated, clenching his hand in
emphasis. Wait a minute. We’ll
paralyse Europe as Ignatius Gal-
laher used to say when he was on the
shaughraun, doing billiardmarking
in the Clarence. Gallaher, that was
a pressman for you. That was a
pen. You know how he made his
mark? I’ll tell you. That was the
smartest piece of journalism ever
known. That was in eighty-one,
sixth of May, time of the invincibles,
murder in the Phoenix park, before
you were born, I suppose. I’ll show
you.
He pushed past them to the files.
—Look at here, he said, turning.
The New York World cabled for a
special. Remember that time ?
Professor MacHugh nodded.
—New York World, the editor
said, excitedly pushing back his straw
hat, Where it took place. Tim Kelly,
or Kavanagh I mean, Joe Brady and
the rest of them. Where Skin-the-
goat drove the car. Whole route,
see?
ULYSSES
367
—Skin-the-goat, Mr. O’Madden
Burke said. Fitzharris. He has
that cabman’s shelter, they say, down
there at Butt bridge. Holohan told
me. You know Holohan?
—Hop and carry one, is it?
Myles Crawford said.
—And poor Gumley is down
there, too, so he told me, minding
stones for the corporation. A night
watchman.
Stephen turned in surprise.
—Gumley? he said. You don’t
say so? A friend of my father’s,
is he?
—Never mind Gumley, Myles
Crawford cried angrily. Let Gum-
ley mind the stones, see they don’t
run away. Look at here. What did
Ignatius Gallaher do? I’ll tell you.
Inspiration of genius. Cabled right
away. Have you Weekly Freeman
of 17 March? Right. Have you
got that?
He flung back pages of the files
and stuck his finger on a point.
—Take page four, advertisement
for Bransome’s coffee let us say.
Have you got that? Right.
The telephone whirred.
A Distant Voice
—I’ll answer it, the professor said
going.
—B is parkgate. Good.
His finger leaped and struck point
after point, vibrating.
—T is viceregal lodge. C is where
murder took place. K is Knock-
maroon gate.
The loose flesh of his neck shook
like a cock’s wattles. An illstarched
dicky jutted up and with a rude ges-
ture he thrust it back into his waist-
coat.
—Hello ? Evening T ele graph
here. . . . Hello? . . . Who’s there?
. . . Yes. . . . Yes. . . . Yes.. . .
—F to P is the route Skin-the-
goat drove the car for an alibi. Inch-
icore, Roundtown, Windy Arbour,
Palmerston Park, Ranelagh. F. A.
B. P. Got that? X is Davy’s pub-
lichouse in upper Leeson street.
The professor came to the inner
door.
—Bloom is at the telephone, he
said.
—Tell him go to hell, the editor
said promptly. X is Burke’s public-
house, see?
Clever, Very
—Clever, Lenehan said. Very.
—Gave it to them on a hot plate,
Myles Crawford said, the whole
bloody history.
Nightmare from which you will
never awake.
—I saw it, the editor said proud-
ly. I was present, Dick Adams, the
besthearted bloody Corkman the
Lord ever put the breath of life in,
and myself.
Lenehan bowed to a shape of air,
announcing:
—Madam, I’m Adam. And Able
was I ere I saw Elba.
—History! Myles Crawford
cried. The Old Woman of Prince’s
street was there first. There was
weeping and gnashing of teeth over
that. Out of an advertisement, Gre-
gor Grey made the design for it.
That gave him the leg up. Then
Paddy Hooper worked Tay Pay
who took him on to the Star. Now
368
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
he’s got in with Blumenfeld. That’s
press. That’s talent. Pyatt! He
was all their daddies.
—-The father of scare journalism,
Lenehan confirmed, and the brother-
in-law of Chris Callinan.
—Hello? ... Are you there? . . .
Yes, he’s here still. Come across
yourself.
—Where do you find a pressman
like that now, eh? the editor cried.
He flung the pages down.
—Clamn dever, Lenehan said to
Mr. O’Madden Burke.
—Very smart, Mr. O’Madden
Burke said.
Professor Mac Hugh came from
the inner office.
—Talking about the invincibles,
he said, did you see that some hawk-
ers were up before the recorder . . .
—O yes, J. J. O’Molloy said
eagerly. Lady Dudley was walking
home through the park to see all the
trees that were blown down by that
cyclone last year and thought she’d
buy a view of Dublin. And it turned
out to be a commemoration postcard
of Joe Brady or Number One or
Skin-the-goat. Right outside the
viceregal lodge, imagine!
—They’re only in the hook and
eye department, Myles Crawford
said. Psha! Press and the bar!
Where have you a man now at the
bar like those fellows, like White-
side, like Isaac Butt, like silver-
tongued O’Hagan? Eh? Ah, bloody
nonsense! Only in the halfpenny
place!
His mouth continued to twitch un-
speaking in nervous curls of disdain.
Would anyone wish that mouth
for her kiss? How do you know?
Why did you write it then?
Rhymes and Reasons
Mouth, south. Is the mouth south
someway? Or the south a mouth?
Must be some. South, pout, out,
shout, drouth. Rhymes: two men
dressed the same, looking the same,
two by two.
......................la	tua	pace
................che	parlor	ti piace,
.... mentreche il vento, come fa,
si tace.
He saw them three by three, ap-
proaching girls, in green, in rose, in
russet, entwining, per l'aer perso in
mauve, in purple, quella pacifica
oriaflamma, in gold of oriflamme, di
rimirar fe piu ardenti. But I old
men, penitent, leadenfooted, under-
darkneath the night: mouth south:
tomb womb.
—Speak up for yourself, Mr.
O’Madden Burke said.
Sufficient for the Day ...
J. J. O’Molloy, smiling palely,
took up the gage.
—My dear Myles, he said, fling-
ing his cigarette aside, you put a
false construction on my words. I
hold no brief, as at present advised,
for the third profession qua profes-
sion but your Cork legs are running
away with you. Why not bring in
Henry Grattan and Flood and De-
mosthenes and Edmund Burke? Ig-
natius Gallaher we all know and his
Chapelizod boss, Harmsworth of
the farthing press, and his American
cousin of the Bowery gutter sheet
not to mention Paddy Kelly's Bud-
get, Pups Occurrences and our
ULYSSES
369
watchful friend The Skibereen
Eagle. Why bring in a master of
forensic eloquence like Whiteside?
Sufficient for the day is the newspa-
per thereof.
Links with Bygone Days of
Yore
—Grattan and Flood wrote for
this very paper, the editor cried in
his face. Irish volunteers. Where
are you now? Established 1763.
Dr. Lucas. Who have you now like
John Philpot Curran? Psha!
—'Well, J. J. O’Molloy said,
Bushe K. C., for example.
—Bushe? the editor said. Well,
yes. Bushe, yes. He has a strain
of it in his blood. Kendal Bushe or
I mean Seymour Bushe.
—He would have been on the
bench long ago, the professor said,
only for . . . But no matter.
J. J. O’Molloy turned to Stephen
and said quietly and slowly:
—One of the most polished peri-
ods I think I ever listened to in my
life fell from the lips of Seymour
Bushe. It was in that case of frat-
ricide the Childs murder case.
Bushe defended him.
Arid in the porches of mine ear
did pour.
By the way how did he find that
out? He died in his sleep. Or the
other story, beast with two backs ?
—What was that? the professor
asked.
Italia, Magistra Artium
—He spoke on the law of evi-
dence, J. J. O’Molloy said, of Ro-
man justice as contrasted with the
earlier Mosaic code, the lex talionis.
And he cited the Moses of Michel-
angelo in the Vatican.
—Ha.
—A few wellchosen words, Lene-
han prefaced. Silence!
Pause. J. J. O’Molloy took out his
cigarette case.
False lull. Something quite ordi-
nary.
Messenger took out his match box
thoughtfully and lit his cigar.
I have often thought since on
looking back over that strange time
that it was that small act, trivial in
itself, that striking of that match,
that determined the whole after-
course of both our lives.
A Polished Period
J. J. O’Molloy resumed, mould-
ing his words:
—He said of it: that stony effigy
in frozen music, horned and terrible,
of the human form divine, that eter-
nal symbol of wisdom and prophecy
which, if aught that the imagination
or the hand of sculptor has wrought
in marble of soultransfigured and of
soultransfiguring deserves to live, de-
serves to live.
His slim hand with a wave graced
echo and fall.
—Fine! Myles Crawford said at
once.
—The divine afflatus, Mr.
O’Madden Burke said.
—You like it? J. J. O’Molloy ask-
ed Stephen.
Stephen, his blood wooed by grace
of language and gesture, blushed.
He took a cigarette from the case.
J. J. O’Molloy offered his case to
Myles Crawford. Lenehan lit their
370
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
cigarettes as before and took his
trophy, saying:
—Muchibus thankibus.
A Man of High Morale
—Professor Magennis was speak-
ing to me about you, J. J. O’Molloy
said to Stephen. What do you think
really of that hermetic crowd, the
opal hush poets: A. E. the master
mystic? That Blavatsky woman
started it. She was a nice old bag
of tricks. A. E. has been telling
some yankee interviewer that you
came to him in the small hours of
the morning to ask him about planes
of consciousness. Magennis thinks
you must have been pulling A. E.’s
leg. He is a man of the very high-
est morale, Magennis.
Speaking about me. What did he
say? What did he say? What did
he say about me? Don’t ask.
—No, thanks, professor Mac-
Hugh said, waving the cigarette case
aside. Wait a moment. Let me say
one thing. The finest display of
oratory I ever heard was a speech
made by John F. Taylor at the col-
lege historical society. Mr. Justice
Fitzgibbon, the present lord justice
of appeal, had spoken and the paper
under debate was an essay (new for
those days), advocating the revival
of the Irish tongue.
He turned toward Myles Craw-
ford and said:
—You know Gerald Fitzgibbon.
Then you can imagine the style of
his discourse.
—He is sitting with Tim Healy,
J. J. O’Molloy said, rumor has it,
on the Trinity college estates com-
mission.
—He is sitting with a sweet thing
in a child’s frock, Myles Crawford
said. Go on. Well?
—It was the speech, mark you,
the professor said, of a finished ora-
tor, full of courteous haughtiness
and pouring in chastened diction, I
will not say the vials of his wrath
but pouring the proud man’s con-
tumely upon the new movement. It
was then a new movement. We were
weak, therefore worthless.
He closed his long thin lips an in-
stant but, eager to be on, raised an
outspanned hand to his spectacles
and, with trembling thumb and ring-
finger touching lightly the black
rims, steadied them to a new focus.
Impromptu
In ferial tone he addressed J. J.
O’Molloy:
—Taylor had come there, you
must know, from a sick bed. That
he had prepared his speech I do not
believe for there was not even one
shorthand writer in the hall. His
dark lean face had a growth of shag-
gy beard round it. He wore a loose
neckcloth and altogether he looked
(though he was not) a dying man.
His gaze turned at once but slow-
ly from J. J. O’Molloy’s toward
Stephen’s face and then bent at once
to the ground, seeking. His unglazed
linen collar appeared behind his
bent head, soiled by his withering
hair. Still seeking, he said:
—When Fitzgibbon’s speech had
ended John F. Taylor rose to reply.
Briefly, as well as I can bring them
to mind, his words were these.
He raised his head firmly. His
eyes bethought themselves once
ULYSSES
371
more. Witless shellfish swam in the
gross lenses to and fro, seeking out-
let.
He began:
—Mr. chairman, ladies and gen-
tlemen: Great was my admiration in
listening to the remarks addressed to
the youth of Ireland a moment since
by my learned friend. It seemed to
me that I had been transported into
a country far away from this coun-
try, into an age remote from this
age, that I stood in ancient Egypt
and that I was listening to the speech
of some highpriest of that land ad-
dressed to the youthful Moses.
His listeners held their cigarettes
poised to hear, their smokes ascend-
ing in frail stalks that flowered with
his speech. And let our crooked
smokes. Noble words coming. Look
out. Could you try your hand at it
yourself?
—And it seemed to me that I
heard the voice of that Egyptian
highpriest raised in a tone of like
haughtiness and like pride. I heard
his words and their meaning was re-
vealed to me.
From the Fathers
It was revealed to me that those
things are good which yet are cor-
rupted which neither if they were su-
premely good nor unless they were
good could be corrupted. Ah, curse
you! That’s saint Augustine.
—Why will you Jews not accept
our culture, our religion and our
language? You are a tribe of nomad
herdsmen; we are a mighty people.
You have no cities nor no wealth: our
cities are hives of humanity and our
galleys, tireme and quadrirerne, lad-
en with all manner merchandise fur-
row the waters of the known globe.
You have but emerged from primi-
tive conditions: we have a literature,
a priesthood, an agelong history and.
a polity.
Nile.
Child, man, effigy.
By the Nilebank the babemaries
kneel, cradle of bulrushes: a man
supple in combat:	stonehorned,
stonebearded, heart of stone.
—You pray to a local and obscure
idol: our temples, majestic and mys-
terious, are the abodes of Isis and
Osiris, of Horus and Ammon Ra.
Yours serfdom, awe and humble-
ness: ours thunder and the seas.
Israel is weak and few are her chil-
dren: Egypt is an host and terrible
are her arms. Vagrants and dayla-
bourers are you called: the world
trembles at our name.
A dumb belch of hunger cleft his
speech. He lifted his voice above it
boldly:
—But, ladies and gentlemen, had
the youthful Moses listened to and
accepted that view of life, had he
bowed his head and bowed his will
and bowed his spirit before that ar-
rogant admonition he would never
have brought the chosen people out
of their house of bondage nor fol-
lowed the pillar of the cloud by day.
He would never have spoken with
the Eternal amid lightnings on
Sinai’s mountaintop nor ever have
come down with the light of inspira-
tion shining in his countenance and
bearing in his arms the tables of the
law, graven in the language of the
outlaw.
He ceased and looked at them,
enjoying silence.
372
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
Ominous—for Him !
J. J. O’Molloy said not without
regret:
—And yet he died without having
;entercd the land of promise.
—A-sudden-at-the-moment-though-
from-lingering-illness-often-previous-
ly-expectorated-demise, Lenehan
said. And with a great future be-
hind him.
The troop of bare feet was heard
rushing along the hallway and pat-
tering up the staircase.
—That is oratory, the professor
said, uncontradicted.
Gone with the wind. Hosts at
Mullaghmast and Tara of the kings.
Miles of ears of porches. The tri-
bune’s words howled and scattered
to the four winds. A people shel-
tered within his voice. Dead noise.
Akasic records of all that ever any-
where wherever was. Love and laud
him: me no more.
I have money.
—Gentlemen, Stephen said. As
the next motion on the agenda paper
may I suggest that the house do now
adjourn?
—You take my breath away. Is it
not perchance a French compliment?
Mr. O’Madden Burke asked. ’Tis
the hour, methinks, when the wine-
jug, metaphorically speaking, is
most grateful in Ye ancient hostelry.
—That it be and hereby is reso-
lutely resolved. All who are in fa-
vor say ay, Lenehan announced. The
contrary no. I declare it carried.
To which particular boosing shed?
My casting vote is: Mooney’s!
He led the way, admonishing:
—We will sternly refuse to par-
take of strong waters, will we not?
Yes, we will not. By no manner of
means.
Mr. O’Madden Burke, following
dose, said with an ally’s lunge of his
umbrella:
—Lay on, Macduff!
—Chip of the old block! the edi-
tor cried, slapping Stephen on the
shoulder. Let us go. Where are
those blasted keys?
He fumbled in his pocket, pulling
out the crushed typesheets.
—Foot and mouth. I know.
That’ll be all right. That’ll go in.
Where are they? That’s all right.
He thrust the sheets back and
went into the inner office.
Let Us Hope
J. J. O’Molloy, about to follow
him in, said quietly to Stephen:
—I hope you will live to see it
published. Myles, one moment.
He went into the inner office, clos-
ing the door behind him.
—Come along, Stephen, the pro-
fessor said. That is fine, isn’t it?
It has the prophetic vision. Fuit
Ilium/ The sack of windy Troy.
Kingdoms of this world. The mas-
ters of the Mediterranean are fella-
heen today.
The first newsboy came pattering
down the stairs at their heels and
rushed out into the street, yelling:
—Racing special!
Dublin, I have much, much to
learn.
They turned to the left along Ab-
bey street.
—I have a vision, too, Stephen
said.
—Yes, the professor said, skip-
ULYSSES
373
ping to get into step. Crawford will
follow.
Another newsboy shot past them,
yelling as he ran:
—Racing special!
Dear Dirty Dublin
Dubliners.
—Two Dublin vestals, Stephen
said, elderly and pious, have lived
fifty and fiftythree years in Fumbal-
ly’s lane.
—Where is that? the professor
asked.
—Off Blackpitts.
Damp night reeking of hungry
dough. Against the wall. Face
glistening tallow under her fustian
shawl. Frantic hearts. Akasic rec-
ords. Quicker, darlint!
On now. Dare it. Let there be
life.
—They want to see the views of
Dublin from the top of Nelson’s
pillar. They save up three and ten-
pence in a red tin letterbox money-
box. They shake out the threepenny
bits and a sixpence and coax out the
pennies with the blade of a knife.
Two and three in silver and one and
seven in coppers. They put on their
bonnets and best clothes and take
their umbrellas for fear it may come
on to rain.
—Wise virgins, professor Mac-
Hugh said.
Life on the Raw
—They buy one and fourpence-
worth of brawn and four slices of
panloaf at the north city dining
rooms in Marlborough street from
Miss Kate Collins, proprietress....
They purchase four and twenty ripe
plums from a girl at the foot of Nel-
son’s pillar to take off the thirst of
the brawn. They give two three-
penny bits to the gentleman at the
turnstile and begin to waddle slowly
up the winding staircase, grunting,
encouraging each other, afraid of
the dark, panting, one asking the
other have you the brawn, praising
God and the Blessed Virgin, threat-
ening to come down, peeping at the
airslits. Glory be to God. They
had no idea it was that high.
Their names are Anne Kearns
and Florence MacCabe. Anne
Kearns has the lumbago for which
she rubs on Lourdes water given her
by a lady who got a bottleful from
a passionist father. Florence Mac-
Cabe takes a crubeen and a botde of
double X for supper every Saturday.
—Antithesis, the professor said,
nodding twice. Vestal virgins. I
can see them. What’s keeping our
friend?
He turned.
A bevy of scampering newsboys
rushed down the steps, scampering
in all directions, yelling, their white
papers fluttering. Hard after them
Myles Crawford appeared on the
steps, his hat aureoling his scarlet
face, talking with J. J. O’Molloy.
—Come along, the professor
cried, waving his arm.
He set off again to walk by Steph-
en’s side.
Return of Bloom
—Yes, he said. I see them.
Mr. Bloom, breathless, caught in
a whirl of wild newsboys near the
offices of the Irish Catholic and Dub-
lin Penny Journal, called:
374
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
—Mr. Crawford! A moment!
—Telegraph! Racing special!
—What is it? Myles Crawford
said, falling back a pace.
A newsboy cried in Mr. Bloom’s
face:
—Terrible tragedy in Rathmines!
A child bit by a bellows!
Interview With the Editor
—Just this ad, Mr. Bloom said,
pushing through towards the steps,
puffing, and taking the cutting from
his pocket. I spoke with Mr. Keyes
just now. He’ll give a renewal for
two months, he says. After he’ll
see. But he wants a par to call at-
tention in the Telegraph too, the
Saturday pink. And he wants it if
it’s not too late. I told councillor
Nannetti from the Kilkenny People.
I can have access to it in the national
library. House of keys, don’t you
see? His name is Keyes. It’s a
play on the name. But he practi-
cally promised he’d give the renewal.
But he wants just a little puff. What
will I tell him. Mr. Crawford?
K. M. A.
B-Will you tell him he can kiss my
aunt? Myles Crawford said, throw-
ing out his arm for emphasis. Tell
him that straight from the stable.
A bit nervy. Look out for squalls.
All off for a drink. Arm in arm.
Lenehan’s yachting cap on the cadge
beyond. Usual blarney. Wonder
is that young Dedalus the moving
spirit. Has a good pair of boots
on him today. Last time I saw him
he had his heels on view. Been
walking in muck somewhere. Care-
less chap. What was he doing in
Irishtown ?
—Well, Mr. Bloom said, his eyes
returning, if I can get the design I
suppose it’s worth a short par. He’d
give the ad I think. I’ll tell him....
K. M. R. I. A.
—He can kiss my royal Irish aunt,
Myles Crawford cried loudly over
his shoulder. Any time he likes, tell
him.
While Mr. Bloom stood weigh-
ing the point and about to smile he
strode on jerkily.
Raising the Wind
—Nulla bona, Jack, he said, rais-
ing his hand to his chin. I’m up to
here. I’ve been through the hoop
myself. I was looking for a fellow
to back a bill for me, no later than
last week. You must take the will
for the deed. Sorry, Jack. With a
heart and a half if I could raise the
wind anyhow.
J. J. O’Molloy pulled a long face
and walked on silently. They caught
up on the others and walked abreast.
—When they have eaten the
brawn and the bread and wiped
their twenty fingers in the paper the
bread was wrapped in, they go near-
er to the railings.
—Something for you, the profes-
sor explained to Myles Crawford.
Two old Dublin women on the top
of Nelson’s pillar.
Some Column!—That’s What
Waddler One Said
—That’s new, Myles Crawford
said. That’s copy. Out for the
ULYSSES
375
waxies’ Dargle. Two old trickies,
what?
—But they are afraid the pillar
will fall, Stephen went on. They
see the roofs and argue about where
the different churches are: Rath-
mines’ blue dome, Adam and Eve’s,
saint Laurence O’Toole’s. But it
makes them giddy to look so they
pull up their skirts....
Those Slightly Rambunctious
Females
—Easy all, Myles Crawford said,
no poetic license. We’re in the arch-
diocese here.
—And settle down on their striped
petticoats, peering up at the statue
of the onehandled adulterer.
—Onehandled adulterer! the pro-
fessor cried. I like that. I see the
idea. I see what you mean.
Dames Donate Dublin’s Cits
Speedpills Velocitous Aero-
lith’s Belief
—It gives them a crick in their
necks, Stephen said, and they are too
tired to look up or down or to speak.
They put the bag of plums between
them and eat the plums out of it,
one after another, wiping off with
their handkerchiefs the plumjuice
that dribbles out of their mouths and
spitting the plumstones slowly out
between the railings.
He gave a sudden loud young
laugh as a close. Lenehan and Mr.
O’Madden Burke, hearing, turned,
beckoned and led on across towards
Mooney’s.
—Finished ?	Myles Crawford
said. So long as they do no
worse.
Sophist Wallops Haughty
Helen Square On Proboscis.
Spartans Gnash Molars.
Ithacans Vow Pen is
Champ.
—You remind me of Antisthenes,
the professor said, a disciple of Gor-
gias, the sophist. It is said of him
that none could tell if he were bitter-
er against others or against himself.
He was the son of a noble and a
bondwoman. And he wrote a book
in which he took away the palm of
beauty from Argive Helen and
handed it to poor Penelope.
Poor Penelope. Penelope Rich.
They made ready to cross O’Con-
nell street.
Hello There, Central!
At various points along the eight
lines tramcars with motionless trol-
leys stood in their tracks, bound for
or from Rathmines, Rathfarnham,
Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey,
Sandymount Green, Ringsend and
Sandymount Tower, Donnybrook,
Palmerston Park and Upper Rath-
mines, all still, becalmed in short
circuit. Hackney cars, cabs, delivery
wagons, mailvans, private brough-
ams, aerated mineral water floats
with rattling crates of bottles, rat-
tled, rolled, horsedrawn, rapidly.
What ?-—and Likewise—Where ?
—But what do you call it? Myles
Crawford asked. Where did they
get the plums?
376
TWO WORLDS MONTHLY
Virgilian, Says Pedagogue,
Sophomore Plumps For Old
Mam Moses
—Call it, wait; the professor said,
opening his long lips wide to reflect.
Call it, let me see. Call it: deus
nobis haec obtia fecit.
—No, Stephen said, I call it A
Pisgah Sight of Palestine or The
Parable of The Plums.
—I see, the professor said.
He laughed richly.
—I see, he said again with new
pleasure. Moses and the promised
land. We gave him that idea, he
added to J. J. O’Molloy.
Horatio is Cynosure This Fair
June Day
J. J. O’Molloy sent a weary side-
long glance towards the statue and
held his peace.
—I see, the professor said.
He halted on sir John Gray’s
pavement island and peered aloft at
Nelson through the meshes of his
wry smile.
Diminished Digits Prove Too
Titillating for Frisky
Frumps. Anne Wimbles,
Flo Wangles—Yet Can
You Blame Them?
—Onehandled adulterer, he said
grimly. That tickles me I must
say.
—Tickled the old ones too, Myles
Crawford said, if the God Al-
mighty’s truth was known.
(ULYSSES began in Number One of Two Worlds Monthly.
The fourth instalment will appear in the next number.)
tsc;
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T986
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This Love Business______________________Francis	Page
A Nun’s Immortality_________________ Lord	Ramsgate
The Couple that Lived a Platonic Life Though
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My First Thirty Years  Gertrude Beasley
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