---
title: "Keep the Aspidistra Flying"
author: "George Orwell"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Literature"
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/
cite: "George Orwell, Keep the Aspidistra Flying. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/"
---

# Keep the Aspidistra Flying

*George Orwell*

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> _Title:_ Keep the Aspidistra Flying
_Date of first publication:_ 1936
_Author:_ George Orwell (1903-1950)
_Date first posted:_ Nov. 14, 2018
_Date last updated:_ Nov. 14, 2018
Faded Page eBook #20181120

> This ebook was produced by: Delphine Lettau, Howard Ross & the online
Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

> GEORGE ORWELL

> _Keep the_
                              _Aspidistra_
                                _Flying_

> Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have
    not money, I am become as a sounding brass, or a tinkling
    cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand
    all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith,
    so that I could remove mountains, and have not money, I am
    nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and
    though I give my body to be burned, and have not money, it
    profiteth me nothing. Money suffereth long, and is kind; money
    envieth not; money vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth
    not behave unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily
    provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but
    rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all
    things, hopeth all things, endureth all things . . . And now
    abideth faith, hope, money, these three; but the greatest of
    these is money.

> I CORINTHIANS XIII (_adapted_)
                      Copyright 1936 by Eric Blair

> [The end of _Keep the Aspidistra Flying_ by George Orwell]

## Contents

1. [I](https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/1.md)
2. [II](https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/2.md)
3. [III](https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/3.md)
4. [IV](https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/4.md)
5. [V](https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/5.md)
6. [VI](https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/6.md)
7. [VII](https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/7.md)
8. [VIII](https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/8.md)
9. [IX](https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/9.md)
10. [X](https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/10.md)
11. [XI](https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/11.md)
12. [XII](https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/12.md)

## 1. I

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/1/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/1/#p-N

[¶0] The clock struck half past two. In the little office at the back of Mr
McKechnie's bookshop, Gordon—Gordon Comstock, last member of the
Comstock family, aged twenty-nine and rather moth-eaten already—lounged
across the table, pushing a fourpenny packet of Player's Weights open
and shut with his thumb.

[¶1] The ding-dong of another, remoter clock—from the Prince of Wales, the
other side of the street—rippled the stagnant air. Gordon made an
effort, sat upright and stowed his packet of cigarettes away in his
inside pocket. He was perishing for a smoke. However, there were only
four cigarettes left. Today was Wednesday and he had no money coming to
him till Friday. It would be too bloody to be without tobacco tonight as
well as all tomorrow.

[¶2] Bored in advance by tomorrow's tobaccoless hours, he got up and moved
towards the door—a small frail figure, with delicate bones and fretful
movements. His coat was out at elbow in the right sleeve and its middle
button was missing; his ready-made flannel trousers were stained and
shapeless. Even from above you could see that his shoes needed
re-soling.

[¶3] The money clinked in his trouser pocket as he got up. He knew the
precise sum that was there. Fivepence halfpenny—twopence halfpenny and
a Joey. He paused, took out the miserable little threepenny-bit and
looked at it. Beastly, useless thing! And bloody fool to have taken it!
It had happened yesterday, when he was buying cigarettes. 'Don't mind a
threepenny-bit, do you, sir?' the little bitch of a shop-girl had
chirped. And of course he had let her give it him. 'Oh no, not at all!'
he had said—fool, bloody fool!

[¶4] His heart sickened to think that he had only fivepence halfpenny in the
world, threepence of which couldn't even be spent. Because how can you
buy anything with a threepenny-bit? It isn't a coin, it's the answer to
a riddle. You look such a fool when you take it out of your pocket,
unless it's in among a whole handful of other coins. 'How much?' you
say. 'Threepence,' the shop-girl says. And then you feel all round your
pocket and fish out that absurd little thing, all by itself, sticking on
the end of your finger like a tiddleywink. The shop-girl sniffs. She
spots immediately that it's your last threepence in the world. You see
her glance quickly at it—she's wondering whether there's a piece of
Christmas pudding still sticking to it. And you stalk out with your nose
in the air, and can't ever go to that shop again. No! We won't spend our
Joey. Twopence halfpenny left—twopence halfpenny to last till Friday.

[¶5] This was the lonely after-dinner hour, when few or no customers were to
be expected. He was alone with seven thousand books. The small dark
room, smelling of dust and decayed paper, that gave on the office, was
filled to the brim with books, mostly aged and unsaleable. On the top
shelves near the ceiling the quarto volumes of extinct encyclopædias
slumbered on their sides in piles like the tiered coffins in common
graves. Gordon pushed aside the blue, dust-sodden curtains that served
as a doorway to the next room. This, better lighted than the other,
contained the lending library. It was one of those 'twopenny no-deposit'
libraries beloved of book-pinchers. No books in it except novels, of
course. And _what_ novels! But that too was a matter of course.

[¶6] Eight hundred strong, the novels lined the room on three sides
ceiling-high, row upon row of gaudy oblong backs, as though the walls
had been built of many-coloured bricks laid upright. They were arranged
alphabetically. Arlen, Burroughs, Deeping, Dell, Frankau, Galsworthy,
Gibbs, Priestley, Sapper, Walpole. Gordon eyed them with inert hatred.
At this moment he hated all books, and novels most of all. Horrible to
think of all that soggy, half-baked trash massed together in one place.
Pudding, suet pudding. Eight hundred slabs of pudding, walling him in—a
vault of puddingstone. The thought was oppressive. He moved on through
the open doorway into the front part of the shop. In doing so, he
smoothed his hair. It was an habitual movement. After all, there might
be girls outside the glass door. Gordon was not impressive to look at.
He was just five feet seven inches high, and because his hair was
usually too long he gave the impression that his head was a little too
big for his body. He was never quite unconscious of his small stature.
When he knew that anyone was looking at him he carried himself very
upright, throwing a chest, with a you-be-damned air which occasionally
deceived simple people.

[¶7] However, there was nobody outside. The front room, unlike the rest of
the shop, was smart and expensive-looking, and it contained about two
thousand books, exclusive of those in the window. On the right there was
a glass show-case in which children's books were kept. Gordon averted
his eyes from a beastly Rackhamesque dust-jacket; elvish children
tripping Wendily through a bluebell glade. He gazed out through the
glass door. A foul day, and the wind rising. The sky was leaden, the
cobbles of the street were slimy. It was St Andrew's day, the thirtieth
of November. McKechnie's stood on a corner, on a sort of shapeless
square where four streets converged. To the left, just within sight from
the door, stood a great elm-tree, leafless now, its multitudinous twigs
making sepia-coloured lace against the sky. Opposite, next to the Prince
of Wales, were tall hoardings covered with ads for patent foods and
patent medicines exhorting you to rot your guts with this or that
synthetic garbage. A gallery of monstrous doll-faces—pink vacuous
faces, full of goofy optimism. QT Sauce, Tru-weet Breakfast Crisps
('Kiddies clamour for their Breakfast Crisps'), Kangaroo Burgundy,
Vitamalt Chocolate, Bovex. Of them all, the Bovex one oppressed Gordon
the most. A spectacled rat-faced clerk, with patent-leather hair,
sitting at a café table grinning over a white mug of Bovex. 'Roland
Butta enjoys his meal with Bovex,' the legend ran.

[¶8] Gordon shortened the focus of his eyes. From the dust-dulled pane the
reflection of his own face looked back at him. Not a good face. Not
thirty yet, but moth-eaten already. Very pale, with bitter, ineradicable
lines. What people call a 'good' forehead—high, that is—but a small
pointed chin, so that the face as a whole was pear-shaped rather than
oval. Hair mouse-coloured and unkempt, mouth unamiable, eyes hazel
inclining to green. He lengthened the focus of his eyes again. He hated
mirrors nowadays. Outside, all was bleak and wintry. A tram, like a
raucous swan of steel, glided groaning over the cobbles, and in its wake
the wind swept a debris of trampled leaves. The twigs of the elm-tree
were swirling, straining eastward. The poster that advertised QT Sauce
was torn at the edge; a ribbon of paper fluttered fitfully like a tiny
pennant. In the side-street too, to the right, the naked poplars that
lined the pavement bowed sharply as the wind caught them. A nasty raw
wind. There was a threatening note in it as it swept over; the first
growl of winter's anger. Two lines of a poem struggled for birth in
Gordon's mind:

[¶9] Sharply the something wind—for instance, threatening wind? No, better,
menacing wind. The menacing wind blows over—no, sweeps over, say.

[¶10] The something poplars—yielding poplars? No, better, bending poplars.
Assonance between bending and menacing? No matter. The bending poplars,
newly bare. Good.

[¶11] _Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over_
                _The bending poplars, newly bare._

[¶12] Good. 'Bare' is a sod to rhyme; however, there's always 'air', which
every poet since Chaucer has been struggling to find rhymes for. But the
impulse died away in Gordon's mind. He turned the money over in his
pocket. Twopence halfpenny and a Joey—twopence halfpenny. His mind was
sticky with boredom. He couldn't cope with rhymes and adjectives. You
can't, with only twopence halfpenny in your pocket.

[¶13] His eyes refocused themselves upon the posters opposite. Foul, bloody
things. He had his private reasons for hating them. Mechanically he
re-read their slogans. 'Kangaroo Burgundy—the wine for Britons.' 'QT
Sauce Keeps Hubby Smiling.' 'Hike all day on a Slab of Vitamalt!' 'Are
you a Highbrow? Dandruff is the Reason.' 'Kiddies clamour for their
Breakfast Crisps.' 'Pyorrhea? Not me!' 'Roland Butta enjoys his meal
with Bovex.'

[¶14] Ha! A customer—potential, at any rate. Gordon stiffened himself.
Standing by the door, you could get an oblique view out of the front
window without being seen yourself. He looked the potential customer
over.

[¶15] A decentish middle-aged man, black suit, bowler hat, umbrella and
despatch-case—provincial solicitor or Town Clerk—keeking at the window
with large pale-coloured eyes. He wore a guilty look. Gordon followed
the direction of his eyes. Ah! So that was it! He had nosed out those D.
H. Lawrence first editions in the far corner. Pining for a bit of smut,
of course. He had heard of Lady Chatterley afar off. A bad face he had,
Gordon thought. Pale, heavy, downy, with bad contours. Welsh, by the
look of him—Nonconformist, anyway. He had the regular Dissenting
pouches round the corners of his mouth. At home, president of the local
Purity League or Seaside Vigilance Committee (rubber-soled slippers and
electric torch, spotting kissing couples along the beach parade), and
now up in town on the razzle. Gordon wished he would come in. Sell him a
copy of _Women in Love_. How it would disappoint him!

[¶16] But no! The Welsh solicitor had funked it. He tucked his umbrella under
his arm and moved off with righteously turned backside. But doubtless
tonight, when darkness hid his blushes, he'd slink into one of the
rubber-shops and buy _High Jinks in a Parisian Convent_, by Sadie
Blackeyes.

[¶17] Gordon turned away from the door and back to the bookshelves. In the
shelves to your left as you came out of the library the new and
nearly-new books were kept—a patch of bright colour that was meant to
catch the eye of anyone glancing through the glass door. Their sleek
unspotted backs seemed to yearn at you from the shelves. 'Buy me, buy
me!' they seemed to be saying. Novels fresh from the press—still
unravished brides, pining for the paper-knife to deflower them—and
review copies, like youthful widows, blooming still though virgin no
longer, and here and there, in sets of half a dozen, those pathetic
spinster-things, 'remainders', still guarding hopefully their long
preserv'd virginity. Gordon turned his eyes away from the 'remainders'.
They called up evil memories. The single wretched little book that he
himself had published, two years ago, had sold exactly a hundred and
fifty-three copies and then been 'remaindered'; and even as a
'remainder' it hadn't sold. He passed the new books by and paused in
front of the shelves which ran at right angles to them and which
contained more second-hand books.

[¶18] Over to the right were shelves of poetry. Those in front of him were
prose, a miscellaneous lot. Upwards and downwards they were graded, from
clean and expensive at eye-level to cheap and dingy at top and bottom.
In all bookshops there goes on a savage Darwinian struggle in which the
works of living men gravitate to eye-level and the works of dead men go
up or down—down to Gehenna or up to the throne, but always away from
any position where they will be noticed. Down in the bottom shelves the
'classics', the extinct monsters of the Victorian age, were quietly
rotting. Scott, Carlyle, Meredith, Ruskin, Pater, Stevenson—you could
hardly read the names upon their broad dowdy backs. In the top shelves,
almost out of sight, slept the pudgy biographies of dukes. Below those,
saleable still and therefore placed within reach, was 'religious'
literature—all sects and all creeds, lumped indiscriminately together.
_The World Beyond_, by the author of _Spirit Hands Have Touched Me_.
Dean Farrar's _Life of Christ_. _Jesus the First Rotarian._ Father
Hilaire Chestnut's latest book of RC propaganda. Religion always sells
provided it is soppy enough. Below, exactly at eye-level, was the
contemporary stuff. Priestley's latest. Dinky little books of reprinted
'middles'. Cheer-up 'humour' from Herbert and Knox and Milne. Some
highbrow stuff as well. A novel or two by Hemingway and Virginia Woolf.
Smart pseudo-Strachey predigested biographies. Snooty, refined books on
safe painters and safe poets by those moneyed young beasts who glide so
gracefully from Eton to Cambridge and from Cambridge to the literary
reviews.

[¶19] Dull-eyed, he gazed at the wall of books. He hated the whole lot of
them, old and new, highbrow and lowbrow, snooty and chirpy. The mere
sight of them brought home to him his own sterility. For here was he,
supposedly a 'writer', and he couldn't even 'write'! It wasn't merely a
question of not getting published; it was that he produced nothing, or
next to nothing. And all that tripe cluttering the shelves—well, at any
rate it existed; it was an achievement of sorts. Even the Dells and
Deepings do at least turn out their yearly acre of print. But it was the
snooty 'cultured' kind of books that he hated the worst. Books of
criticism and belles-lettres. The kind of thing that those moneyed young
beasts from Cambridge write almost in their sleep—and that Gordon
himself might have written if he had had a little more money. Money and
culture! In a country like England you can no more be cultured without
money than you can join the Cavalry Club. With the same instinct that
makes a child waggle a loose tooth, he took out a snooty-looking
volume—_Some Aspects of the Italian Baroque_—opened it, read a
paragraph and shoved it back with mingled loathing and envy. That
devastating omniscience! That noxious, horn-spectacled refinement! And
the money that such refinement means! For after all, what is there
behind it, except money? Money for the right kind of education, money
for influential friends, money for leisure and peace of mind, money for
trips to Italy. Money writes books, money sells them. Give me not
righteousness, O Lord, give me money, only money.

[¶20] He jingled the coins in his pocket. He was nearly thirty and had
accomplished nothing; only his miserable book of poems that had fallen
flatter than any pancake. And ever since, for two whole years, he had
been struggling in the labyrinth of a dreadful book that never got any
further, and which, as he knew in his moments of clarity, never would
get any further. It was the lack of money, simply the lack of money,
that robbed him of the power to 'write'. He clung to that as to an
article of faith. Money, money, all is money! Could you write even a
penny novelette without money to put heart in you? Invention, energy,
wit, style, charm—they've all got to be paid for in hard cash.

[¶21] Nevertheless, as he looked along the shelves he felt himself a little
comforted. So many of the books were faded and unreadable. After all,
we're all in the same boat. _Memento mori._ For you and for me and for
the snooty young men from Cambridge, the same oblivion waits—though
doubtless it'll wait rather longer for those snooty young men from
Cambridge. He looked at the time-dulled 'classics' near his feet. Dead,
all dead. Carlyle and Ruskin and Meredith and Stevenson—all are dead,
God rot them. He glanced over their faded titles. _Collected Letters of
Robert Louis Stevenson._ Ha, ha! That's good. _Collected Letters of
Robert Louis Stevenson!_ Its top edge was black with dust. Dust thou
art, to dust returnest. Gordon kicked Stevenson's buckram backside. Art
there, old false-penny? You're cold meat, if ever Scotchman was.

[¶22] Ping! The shop bell. Gordon turned round. Two customers, for the
library.

[¶23] A dejected, round-shouldered, lower-class woman, looking like a draggled
duck nosing among garbage, seeped in, fumbling with a rush basket. In
her wake hopped a plump little sparrow of a woman, red-cheeked,
middle-middle class, carrying under her arm a copy of _The Forsyte
Saga_—title outwards, so that passers-by could spot her for a highbrow.

[¶24] Gordon had taken off his sour expression. He greeted them with the
homey, family-doctor geniality reserved for library-subscribers.

[¶25] 'Good afternoon, Mrs Weaver. Good afternoon, Mrs Penn. What terrible
weather!'

[¶26] 'Shocking!' said Mrs Penn.

[¶27] He stood aside to let them pass. Mrs Weaver upset her rush basket and
spilled onto the floor a much-thumbed copy of Ethel M. Dell's _Silver
Wedding_. Mrs Penn's bright bird-eye lighted upon it. Behind Mrs
Weaver's back she smiled up at Gordon, archly, as highbrow to highbrow.
Dell! The lowness of it! The books these lower classes read!
Understandingly, he smiled back. They passed into the library, highbrow
to highbrow smiling.

[¶28] Mrs Penn laid _The Forsyte Saga_ on the table and turned her
sparrow-bosom upon Gordon. She was always very affable to Gordon. She
addressed him as Mister Comstock, shopwalker though he was, and held
literary conversations with him. There was the freemasonry of highbrows
between them.

[¶29] 'I hope you enjoyed _The Forsyte Saga_, Mrs Penn?'

[¶30] 'What a perfectly _marvellous_ achievement that book is, Mr Comstock! Do
you know that that makes the fourth time I've read it? An epic, a real
epic!'

[¶31] Mrs Weaver nosed among the books, too dim-witted to grasp that they were
in alphabetical order.

[¶32] 'I don't know what to 'ave this week, that I don't,' she mumbled through
untidy lips. 'My daughter she keeps on at me to 'ave a try at Deeping.
She's great on Deeping, my daughter is. But my son-in-law, now, 'e's
more for Burroughs. I don't know, I'm sure.'

[¶33] A spasm passed over Mrs Penn's face at the mention of Burroughs. She
turned her back markedly on Mrs Weaver.

[¶34] 'What I feel, Mr Comstock, is that there's something so _big_ about
Galsworthy. He's so broad, so universal, and yet at the same time so
thoroughly English in spirit, so _human_. His books are real _human_
documents.'

[¶35] 'And Priestley, too,' said Gordon. 'I think Priestley's such an awfully
fine writer, don't you?'

[¶36] 'Oh, he is! So big, so broad, so human! And so essentially English!'

[¶37] Mrs Weaver pursed her lips. Behind them were three isolated yellow
teeth.

[¶38] 'I think p'raps I can't do better'n 'ave another Dell,' she said. 'You
'ave got some more Dells, 'aven't you? I _do_ enjoy a good read of Dell,
I must say. I says to my daughter, I says, "You can keep your Deepings
and your Burroughses. Give me Dell," I says.'

[¶39] Ding Dong Dell! Dukes and dogwhips! Mrs Penn's eye signalled highbrow
irony. Gordon returned her signal. Keep in with Mrs Penn! A good, steady
customer.

[¶40] 'Oh, certainly, Mrs Weaver. We've got a whole shelf by Ethel M. Dell.
Would you like _The Desire of his Life_? Or perhaps you've read that.
Then what about _The Altar of Honour_?'

[¶41] 'I wonder whether you have Hugh Walpole's latest book?' said Mrs Penn.
'I feel in the mood this week for something epic, something _big_. Now
Walpole, you know, I consider a really _great_ writer, I put him second
only to Galsworthy. There's something so _big_ about him. And yet he's
so human with it.'

[¶42] 'And so essentially English,' said Gordon.

[¶43] 'Oh, of course! So essentially English!'

[¶44] 'I b'lieve I'll jest 'ave _The Way of an Eagle_ over again,' said Mrs
Weaver finally. 'You don't never seem to get tired of _The Way of an
Eagle_, do you, now?'

[¶45] 'It's certainly astonishingly popular,' said Gordon, diplomatically, his
eye on Mrs Penn.

[¶46] 'Oh, as_ton_ishingly!' echoed Mrs Penn, ironically, her eye on Gordon.

[¶47] He took their twopences and sent them happy away, Mrs Penn with
Walpole's _Rogue Herries_ and Mrs Weaver with _The Way of an Eagle._

[¶48] Soon he had wandered back to the other room and towards the shelves of
poetry. A melancholy fascination, those shelves had for him. His own
wretched book was there—skied, of course, high up among the unsaleable.
_Mice_, by Gordon Comstock; a sneaky little foolscap octavo, price three
and sixpence but now reduced to a bob. Of the thirteen BFs who had
reviewed it (and _The Times Lit. Supp._ had declared that it showed
'exceptional promise') not one had seen the none too subtle joke of that
title. And in the two years he had been at McKechnie's bookshop, not a
single customer, not a single one, had ever taken _Mice_ out of its
shelf.

[¶49] There were fifteen or twenty shelves of poetry. Gordon regarded them
sourly. Dud stuff, for the most part. A little above eye-level, already
on their way to heaven and oblivion, were the poets of yesteryear, the
stars of his earlier youth. Yeats, Davies, Housman, Thomas, De la Mare,
Hardy. Dead stars. Below them, exactly at eye-level, were the squibs of
the passing minute. Eliot, Pound, Auden, Campbell, Day Lewis, Spender.
Very damp squibs, that lot. Dead stars above, damp squibs below. Shall
we ever again get a writer worth reading? But Lawrence was all right,
and Joyce even better before he went off his coco-nut. And if we did get
a writer worth reading, should we know him when we saw him, so choked as
we are with trash?

[¶50] Ping! Shop bell. Gordon turned. Another customer.

[¶51] A youth of twenty, cherry-lipped, with gilded hair, tripped Nancifully
in. Moneyed, obviously. He had the golden aura of money. He hadn't been
in the shop before. Gordon assumed the gentlemanly-servile mien reserved
for new customers. He repeated the usual formula:

[¶52] 'Good afternoon. Can I do anything for you? Are you looking for any
particular book?'

[¶53] 'Oh, no, not weally.' An R-less Nancy voice. 'May I just _bwowse_? I
simply couldn't wesist your fwont window. I have such a tewwible
weakness for bookshops! So I just floated in—tee-hee!'

[¶54] Float out again, then, Nancy. Gordon smiled a cultured smile, as
booklover to booklover.

[¶55] 'Oh, please do. We like people to look round. Are you interested in
poetry, by any chance?'

[¶56] 'Oh, of course! I _adore_ poetwy!'

[¶57] Of course! Mangy little snob. There was a sub-artistic look about his
clothes. Gordon slid a 'slim' red volume from the poetry shelves.

[¶58] 'These are just out. They might interest you, perhaps. They're
translations—something rather out of the common. Translations from the
Bulgarian.'

[¶59] Very subtle, that. Now leave him to himself. That's the proper way with
customers. Don't hustle them; let them browse for twenty minutes or so;
then they get ashamed and buy something. Gordon moved to the door,
discreetly, keeping out of Nancy's way; yet casually, one hand in his
pocket, with the insouciant air proper to a gentleman.

[¶60] Outside, the slimy street looked grey and drear. From somewhere round
the corner came the clatter of hooves, a cold hollow sound. Caught by
the wind, the dark columns of smoke from the chimneys veered over and
rolled flatly down the sloping roofs. Ah!

[¶61] _Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over_
      _The bending poplars, newly bare,_
      _And the dark ribbons of the chimneys_
      _Veer downward_ tumty tumty (something like 'murky') _air_.

[¶62] Good. But the impulse faded. His eye fell again upon the ad-posters
across the street.

[¶63] He almost wanted to laugh at them, they were so feeble, so dead-alive,
so unappetising. As though anybody could be tempted by _those_! Like
succubi with pimply backsides. But they depressed him all the same. The
money-stink, everywhere the money-stink. He stole a glance at the Nancy,
who had drifted away from the poetry shelves and taken out a large
expensive book on the Russian ballet. He was holding it delicately
between his pink non-prehensile paws, as a squirrel holds a nut,
studying the photographs. Gordon knew his type. The moneyed 'artistic'
young man. Not an artist himself, exactly, but a hanger-on of the arts;
frequenter of studios, retailer of scandal. A nice-looking boy, though,
for all his Nancitude. The skin at the back of his neck was as
silky-smooth as the inside of a shell. You can't have a skin like that
under five hundred a year. A sort of charm he had, a glamour, like all
moneyed people. Money and charm; who shall separate them?

[¶64] Gordon thought of Ravelston, his charming, rich friend, editor of
_Antichrist_, of whom he was extravagantly fond, and whom he did not see
so often as once in a fortnight; and of Rosemary, his girl, who loved
him—adored him, so she said—and who, all the same, had never slept
with him. Money, once again; all is money. All human relationships must
be purchased with money. If you have no money, men won't care for you,
women won't love you; won't, that is, care for you or love you the last
little bit that matters. And how right they are, after all! For,
moneyless, you are unlovable. Though I speak with the tongues of men and
of angels. But then, if I haven't money, I _don't_ speak with the
tongues of men and of angels.

[¶65] He looked again at the ad-posters. He really hated them this time. That
Vitamalt one, for instance! 'Hike all day on a Slab of Vitamalt!' A
youthful couple, boy and girl, in clean-minded hiking kit, their hair
picturesquely tousled by the wind, climbing a stile against a Sussex
landscape. That girl's face! The awful bright tomboy cheeriness of it!
The kind of girl who goes in for Plenty of Clean Fun. Windswept. Tight
khaki shorts but that doesn't mean you can pinch her backside. And next
to them—Roland Butta. 'Roland Butta enjoys his meal with Bovex.' Gordon
examined the thing with the intimacy of hatred. The idiotic grinning
face, like the face of a self-satisfied rat, the slick black hair, the
silly spectacles. Roland Butta, heir of the ages; victor of Waterloo,
Roland Butta, Modern man as his masters want him to be. A docile little
porker, sitting in the money-sty, drinking Bovex.

[¶66] Faces passed, wind-yellowed. A tram boomed across the square, and the
clock over the Prince of Wales struck three. A couple of old creatures,
a tramp or beggar and his wife, in long greasy overcoats that reached
almost to the ground, were shuffling towards the shop. Book-pinchers, by
the look of them. Better keep an eye on the boxes outside. The old man
halted on the kerb a few yards away while his wife came to the door. She
pushed it open and looked up at Gordon, between grey strings of hair,
with a sort of hopeful malevolence.

[¶67] 'Ju buy books?' she demanded hoarsely.

[¶68] 'Sometimes. It depends what books they are.'

[¶69] 'I gossome _lovely_ books 'ere.'

[¶70] She came in, shutting the door with a clang. The Nancy glanced over his
shoulder distastefully and moved a step or two away, into the corner.
The old woman had produced a greasy little sack from under her overcoat.
She moved confidentially nearer to Gordon. She smelt of very, very old
breadcrusts.

[¶71] 'Will you 'ave 'em?' she said, clasping the neck of the sack. 'Only 'alf
a crown the lot.'

[¶72] 'What are they? Let me see them, please.'

[¶73] '_Lovely_ books, they are,' she breathed, bending over to open the sack
and emitting a sudden very powerful whiff of breadcrusts.

[¶74] 'Ere!' she said, and thrust an armful of filthy-looking books almost
into Gordon's face.

[¶75] They were an 1884 edition of Charlotte M. Yonge's novels, and had the
appearance of having been slept on for many years. Gordon stepped back,
suddenly revolted.

[¶76] 'We can't possibly buy those,' he said shortly.

[¶77] 'Can't buy 'em? _Why_ can't yer buy 'em?'

[¶78] 'Because they're no use to us. We can't sell that kind of thing.'

[¶79] 'Wotcher make me take 'em out o' me bag for, then?' demanded the old
woman ferociously.

[¶80] Gordon made a detour round her, to avoid the smell, and held the door
open, silently. No use arguing. You had people of this type coming into
the shop all day long. The old woman made off, mumbling, with
malevolence in the hump of her shoulders, and joined her husband. He
paused on the kerb to cough, so fruitily that you could hear him through
the door. A clot of phlegm, like a little white tongue, came slowly out
between his lips and was ejected into the gutter. Then the two old
creatures shuffled away, beetle-like in the long greasy overcoats that
hid everything except their feet.

[¶81] Gordon watched them go. They were just by-products. The throw-outs of
the money-god. All over London, by tens of thousands, draggled old
beasts of that description; creeping like unclean beetles to the grave.

[¶82] He gazed out at the graceless street. At this moment it seemed to him
that in a street like this, in a town like this, every life that is
lived must be meaningless and intolerable. The sense of disintegration,
of decay, that is endemic in our time, was strong upon him. Somehow it
was mixed up with the ad-posters opposite. He looked now with more
seeing eyes at those grinning yard-wide faces. After all, there was more
there than mere silliness, greed and vulgarity. Roland Butta grins at
you, seemingly optimistic, with a flash of false teeth. But what is
behind the grin? Desolation, emptiness, prophecies of doom. For can you
not see, if you know how to look, that behind that slick
self-satisfaction, that tittering fat-bellied triviality, there is
nothing but a frightful emptiness, a secret despair? The great
death-wish of the modern world. Suicide pacts. Heads stuck in gas-ovens
in lonely maisonettes. French letters and Amen Pills. And the
reverberations of future wars. Enemy aeroplanes flying over London; the
deep threatening hum of the propellers, the shattering thunder of the
bombs. It is all written in Roland Butta's face.

[¶83] More customers coming. Gordon stood back, gentlemanly-servile.

[¶84] The door-bell clanged. Two upper-middle-class ladies sailed noisily in.
One pink and fruity, thirty-fivish, with voluptuous bosom burgeoning
from her coat of squirrel-skin, emitting a super-feminine scent of Parma
violets; the other middle-aged, tough and curried—India, presumably.
Close behind them a dark, grubby, shy young man slipped through the
doorway as apologetically as a cat. He was one of the shop's best
customers—a flitting, solitary creature who was almost too shy to speak
and who by some strange manipulation kept himself always a day away from
a shave.

[¶85] Gordon repeated his formula:

[¶86] 'Good afternoon. Can I do anything for you? Are you looking for any
particular book?'

[¶87] Fruity-face overwhelmed him with a smile, but curry-face decided to
treat the question as an impertinence. Ignoring Gordon, she drew
fruity-face across to the shelves next the new books where the dog-books
and cat-books were kept. The two of them immediately began taking books
out of the shelves and talking loudly. Curry-face had the voice of a
drill-sergeant. She was no doubt a colonel's wife, or widow. The Nancy,
still deep in the big book on the Russian ballet, edged delicately away.
His face said that he would leave the shop if his privacy were disturbed
again. The shy young man had already found his way to the poetry
shelves. The two ladies were fairly frequent visitors to the shop. They
always wanted to see books about cats and dogs, but never actually
bought anything. There were two whole shelves of dog-books and
cat-books. 'Ladies' Corner', old McKechnie called it.

[¶88] Another customer arrived, for the library. An ugly girl of twenty,
hatless, in a white overall, with a sallow, blithering, honest face and
powerful spectacles that distorted her eyes. She was assistant at a
chemist's shop. Gordon put on his homey library manner. She smiled at
him, and with a gait as clumsy as a bear's followed him into the
library.

[¶89] 'What kind of book would you like this time, Miss Weeks?'

[¶90] 'Well'—she clutched the front of her overall. Her distorted,
black-treacle eyes beamed trustfully into his. 'Well, what I'd _really_
like's a good hot-stuff love story. You know—something _modern_.'

[¶91] 'Something modern? Something by Barbara Bedworthy, for instance? Have
you read _Almost a Virgin_?'

[¶92] 'Oh no, not her. She's too Deep. I can't bear Deep books. But I want
something—well, _you_ know—_modern_. Sex-problems and divorce and all
that. _You_ know.'

[¶93] 'Modern, but not Deep,' said Gordon, as lowbrow to lowbrow.

[¶94] He ranged among the hot-stuff modern love-stories. There were not less
than three hundred of them in the library. From the front room came the
voices of the two upper-middle-class ladies, the one fruity, the other
curried, disputing about dogs. They had taken out one of the dog-books
and were examining the photographs. Fruity-voice enthused over the
photograph of a Peke, the ickle angel pet, wiv his gweat big Soulful
eyes and his ickle black nosie—oh, so ducky-duck! But curry-voice—yes,
undoubtedly a colonel's widow—said Pekes were soppy. Give her dogs with
guts—dogs that would fight, she said; she hated these soppy lapdogs,
she said. 'You have no Soul, Bedelia, no Soul,' said fruity-voice
plaintively. The doorbell pinged again. Gordon handed the chemist's girl
_Seven Scarlet Nights_ and booked it on her ticket. She took a shabby
leather purse out of her overall pocket and paid him twopence.

[¶95] He went back to the front room. The Nancy had put his book back in the
wrong shelf and vanished. A lean, straight-nosed, brisk woman, with
sensible clothes and gold-rimmed pince-nez—schoolmarm possibly,
feminist certainly—came in and demanded Mrs Wharton-Beverley's history
of the suffrage movement. With secret joy Gordon told her that they
hadn't got it. She stabbed his male incompetence with gimlet eyes and
went out again. The thin young man stood apologetically in the corner,
his face buried in D. H. Lawrence's _Collected Poems_, like some
long-legged bird with its head buried under its wing.

[¶96] Gordon waited by the door. Outside, a shabby-genteel old man with a
strawberry nose and a khaki muffler round his throat was picking over
the books in the sixpenny box. The two upper-middle-class ladies
suddenly departed, leaving a litter of open books on the table.
Fruity-face cast reluctant backward glances at the dog-books, but
curry-face drew her away, resolute not to buy anything. Gordon held the
door open. The two ladies sailed noisily out, ignoring him.

[¶97] He watched their fur-coated upper-middle-class backs go down the street.
The old strawberry-nosed man was talking to himself as he pawed over the
books. A bit wrong in the head, presumably. He would pinch something if
he wasn't watched. The wind blew colder, drying the slime of the street.
Time to light up presently. Caught by a swirl of air, the torn strip of
paper on the QT Sauce advertisement fluttered sharply, like a piece of
washing on the line. Ah!

[¶98] _Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over_
               _The bending poplars, newly bare,_
               _And the dark ribbons of the chimneys_
               _Veer downward; flicked by whips of air,_
               _Torn posters flutter._

[¶99] Not bad, not bad at all. But he had no wish to go on—could not go on,
indeed. He fingered the money in his pocket, not chinking it, lest the
shy young man should hear. Twopence halfpenny. No tobacco all tomorrow.
His bones ached.

[¶100] A light sprang up in the Prince of Wales. They would be swabbing out the
bar. The old strawberry-nosed man was reading an Edgar Wallace out of
the twopenny box. A tram boomed in the distance. In the room upstairs Mr
McKechnie, who seldom came down to the shop, drowsed by the gas-fire,
white-haired and white-bearded, with snuff-box handy, over his
calf-bound folio of Middleton's _Travels in the Levant_.

[¶101] The thin young man suddenly realised that he was alone and looked up
guiltily. He was an habitué of bookshops, yet never stayed longer than
ten minutes in any one shop. A passionate hunger for books, and the fear
of being a nuisance, were constantly at war in him. After ten minutes in
any shop he would grow uneasy, feel himself _de trop_, and take to
flight, having bought something out of sheer nervousness. Without
speaking he held out the copy of Lawrence's poems and awkwardly
extracted three florins from his pocket. In handing them to Gordon he
dropped one. Both dived for it simultaneously; their heads bumped
against one another. The young man stood back, blushing sallowly.

[¶102] 'I'll wrap it up for you,' said Gordon.

[¶103] But the shy young man shook his head—he stammered so badly that he
never spoke when it was avoidable. He clutched his book to him and
slipped out with the air of having committed some disgraceful action.

[¶104] Gordon was alone. He wandered back to the door. The strawberry-nosed man
glanced over his shoulder, caught Gordon's eye and moved off, foiled. He
had been on the point of slipping Edgar Wallace into his pocket. The
clock over the Prince of Wales struck a quarter past three.

[¶105] Ding Dong! A quarter past three. Light up at half past. Four and
three-quarter hours till closing time. Five and a quarter hours till
supper. Twopence halfpenny in pocket. No tobacco tomorrow.

[¶106] Suddenly a ravishing, irresistible desire to smoke came over Gordon. He
had made up his mind not to smoke this afternoon. He had only four
cigarettes left. They must be saved for tonight, when he intended to
'write'; for he could no more 'write' without tobacco than without air.
Nevertheless, he had got to have a smoke. He took out his packet of
Player's Weights and extracted one of the dwarfish cigarettes. It was
sheer stupid indulgence; it meant half an hour off tonight's 'writing'
time. But there was no resisting it. With a sort of shameful joy he
sucked the papery smoke into his lungs.

[¶107] The reflection of his own face looked back at him from the greyish pane.
Gordon Comstock, author of _Mice; en l'an trentiesme de son eage_, and
moth-eaten already. Only twenty-six teeth left. However, Villon at the
same age was poxed, on his own showing. Let's be thankful for small
mercies.

[¶108] He watched the ribbon of torn paper whirling, fluttering on the QT Sauce
advertisement. Our civilisation is dying. It _must_ be dying. But it
isn't going to die in its bed. Presently the aeroplanes are coming.
Zoom—whizz—crash! The whole western world going up in a roar of high
explosives.

[¶109] He looked at the darkening street, at the greyish reflection of his face
in the pane, at the shabby figures shuffling past. Almost involuntarily
he repeated:

[¶110] '_C'est l'Ennui—l'œil chargé d'un pleur involontaire,_
         _Il rêve d'échafauds en fumant son houka!_'

[¶111] Money, money! Roland Butta! The humming of the aeroplanes and the crash
of the bombs.

[¶112] Gordon squinted up at the leaden sky. Those aeroplanes are coming. In
imagination he saw them coming now; squadron after squadron,
innumerable, darkening the sky like clouds of gnats. With his tongue not
quite against his teeth he made a buzzing, bluebottle-on-the-window-pane
sound to represent the humming of the aeroplanes. It was a sound which,
at that moment, he ardently desired to hear.

## 2. II

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/2/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/2/#p-N

[¶0] Gordon walked homeward against the rattling wind, which blew his hair
backward and gave him more of a 'good' forehead than ever. His manner
conveyed to the passers-by—at least, he hoped it did—that if he wore
no overcoat it was from pure caprice. His overcoat was up the spout for
fifteen shillings, as a matter of fact.

[¶1] Willowbed Road, NW, was not definitely slummy, only dingy and
depressing. There were real slums hardly five minutes' walk away.
Tenement houses where families slept five in a bed, and, when one of
them died, slept every night with the corpse until it was buried;
alleyways where girls of fifteen were deflowered by boys of sixteen
against leprous plaster walls. But Willowbed Road itself contrived to
keep up a kind of mingy, lower-middle-class decency. There was even a
dentist's brass plate on one of the houses. In quite two-thirds of them,
amid the lace curtains of the parlour window, there was a green card
with 'Apartments' on it in silver lettering, above the peeping foliage
of an aspidistra.

[¶2] Mrs Wisbeach, Gordon's landlady, specialised in 'single gentlemen'.
Bed-sitting-rooms, with gaslight laid on and find your own heating,
baths extra (there was a geyser), and meals in the tomb-dark dining-room
with the phalanx of clotted sauce-bottles in the middle of the table.
Gordon, who came home for his midday dinner, paid twenty-seven and six a
week.

[¶3] The gaslight shone yellow through the frosted transom above the door of
Number 31. Gordon took out his key and fished about in the keyhole—in
that kind of house the key never quite fits the lock. The darkish little
hallway—in reality it was only a passage—smelt of dishwater, cabbage,
rag mats and bedroom slops. Gordon glanced at the japanned tray on the
hall-stand. No letters, of course. He had told himself not to hope for a
letter, and nevertheless had continued to hope. A stale feeling, not
quite a pain, settled upon his breast. Rosemary might have written! It
was four days now since she had written. Moreover, there were a couple
of poems that he had sent out to magazines and had not yet had returned
to him. The one thing that made the evening bearable was to find a
letter waiting for him when he got home. But he received very few
letters—four or five in a week at the very most.

[¶4] On the left of the hall was the never-used parlour, then came the
staircase, and beyond that the passage ran down to the kitchen and to
the unapproachable lair inhabited by Mrs Wisbeach herself. As Gordon
came in, the door at the end of the passage opened a foot or so. Mrs
Wisbeach's face emerged, inspected him briefly but suspiciously, and
disappeared again. It was quite impossible to get in or out of the
house, at any time before eleven at night, without being scrutinised in
this manner. Just what Mrs Wisbeach suspected you of it was hard to say;
smuggling women into the house, possibly. She was one of those malignant
respectable women who keep lodging-houses. Age about forty-five, stout
but active, with a pink, fine-featured, horribly observant face,
beautiful grey hair and a permanent grievance.

[¶5] Gordon halted at the foot of the narrow stairs. Above, a coarse rich
voice was singing, 'Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?' A very fat man of
thirty-eight or -nine came round the angle of the stairs, with the light
dancing step peculiar to fat men, dressed in a smart grey suit, yellow
shoes, a rakish trilby hat and a belted blue overcoat of startling
vulgarity. This was Flaxman, the first-floor lodger and travelling
representative of the Queen of Sheba Toilet Requisites Co. He saluted
Gordon with a lemon-coloured glove as he came down.

[¶6] 'Hullo, chappie!' he said blithely. (Flaxman called everyone 'chappie'.)
'How's life with you?'

[¶7] 'Bloody,' said Gordon shortly.

[¶8] Flaxman had reached the bottom of the stairs. He threw a roly-poly arm
affectionately round Gordon's shoulders.

[¶9] 'Cheer up, old man, cheer up! You look like a bloody funeral. I'm off
down to the Crichton. Come on down and have a quick one.'

[¶10] 'I can't. I've got to work.'

[¶11] 'Oh, hell! Be matey, can't you? What's the good of mooning about up
here? Come on down to the Cri and we'll pinch the barmaid's bum.'

[¶12] Gordon wriggled free of Flaxman's arm. Like all small frail people, he
hated being touched. Flaxman merely grinned, with the typical fat man's
good humour. He was really horribly fat. He filled his trousers as
though he had been melted and then poured into them. But of course, like
other fat people, he never admitted to being fat. No fat person ever
uses the word 'fat' if there is any way of avoiding it. 'Stout' is the
word they use—or, better still, 'robust'. A fat man is never so happy
as when he is describing himself as 'robust'. Flaxman, at his first
meeting with Gordon, had been on the point of calling himself 'robust',
but something in Gordon's greenish eye had deterred him. He compromised
on 'stout' instead.

[¶13] 'I do admit, chappie,' he said, 'to being—well, just a wee bit on the
stout side. Nothing unwholesome, you know.' He patted the vague frontier
between his belly and his chest. 'Good firm flesh. I'm pretty nippy on
my feet, as a matter of fact. But—well, I suppose you might call me
_stout_.'

[¶14] 'Like Cortez,' Gordon suggested.

[¶15] 'Cortez? Cortez? Was that the chappie who was always wandering about in
the mountains in Mexico?'

[¶16] 'That's the fellow. He was stout, but he had eagle eyes.'

[¶17] 'Ah? Now that's funny. Because the wife said something rather like that
to me once. "George," she said, "you've got the most wonderful eyes in
the world. You've got eyes just like an eagle," she said. That would be
before she married me, you'll understand.'

[¶18] Flaxman was living apart from his wife at the moment. A little while
back the Queen of Sheba Toilet Requisites Co. had unexpectedly paid out
a bonus of thirty pounds to all its travellers, and at the same time
Flaxman and two others had been sent across to Paris to press the new
Sexapeal Naturetint lipstick on various French firms. Flaxman had not
thought it necessary to mention the thirty pounds to his wife. He had
had the time of his life on that Paris trip, of course. Even now, three
months afterwards, his mouth watered when he spoke of it. He used to
entertain Gordon with luscious descriptions. Ten days in Paris with
thirty quid that wifie hadn't heard about! Oh, boy! But unfortunately
there had been a leakage somewhere; Flaxman had got home to find
retribution awaiting him. His wife had broken his head with a cut-glass
whisky decanter, a wedding present which they had had for fourteen
years, and then fled to her mother's house, taking the children with
her. Hence Flaxman's exile in Willowbed Road. But he wasn't letting it
worry him. It would blow over, no doubt; it had happened several times
before.

[¶19] Gordon made another attempt to get past Flaxman and escape up the
stairs. The dreadful thing was that in his heart he was pining to go
with him. He needed a drink so badly—the mere mention of the Crichton
Arms had made him feel thirsty. But it was impossible, of course; he had
no money. Flaxman put an arm across the stairs, barring his way. He was
genuinely fond of Gordon. He considered him 'clever'—'cleverness', to
him, being a kind of amiable lunacy. Moreover, he detested being alone,
even for so short a time as it would take him to walk to the pub.

[¶20] 'Come on, chappie!' he urged. 'You want a Guinness to buck you up,
that's what you want. You haven't seen the new girl they've got in the
saloon bar yet. Oh, boy! There's a peach for you!'

[¶21] 'So that's why you're all dolled up, is it?' said Gordon, looking coldly
at Flaxman's yellow gloves.

[¶22] 'You bet it is, chappie! Coo, what a peach! Ash blonde she is. And she
knows a thing or two, that girlie does. I gave her a stick of our
Sexapeal Naturetint last night. You ought to have seen her wag her
little bottom at me as she went past my table. Does she give me the
palpitations? Does she? Oh, boy!'

[¶23] Flaxman wriggled lasciviously. His tongue appeared between his lips.
Then, suddenly pretending that Gordon was the ash-blonde barmaid, he
seized him by the waist and gave him a tender squeeze. Gordon shoved him
away. For a moment the desire to go down to the Crichton Arms was so
ravishing that it almost overcame him. Oh, for a pint of beer! He seemed
almost to feel it going down his throat. If only he had had any money!
Even sevenpence for a pint. But what was the use? Twopence halfpenny in
pocket. You can't let other people buy your drinks for you.

[¶24] 'Oh, leave me alone, for God's sake!' he said irritably, stepping out of
Flaxman's reach, and went up the stairs without looking back.

[¶25] Flaxman settled his hat on his head and made for the front door, mildly
offended. Gordon reflected dully that it was always like this nowadays.
He was for ever snubbing friendly advances. Of course it was money that
was at the bottom of it, always money. You can't be friendly, you can't
even be civil, when you have no money in your pocket. A spasm of
self-pity went through him. His heart yearned for the saloon bar at the
Crichton; the lovely smell of beer, the warmth and bright lights, the
cheery voices, the clatter of glasses on the beer-wet bar. Money, money!
He went on, up the dark evil-smelling stairs. The thought of his cold
lonely bedroom at the top of the house was like a doom before him.

[¶26] On the second floor lived Lorenheim, a dark, meagre, lizard-like
creature of uncertain age and race, who made about thirty-five shillings
a week by touting vacuum-cleaners. Gordon always went very hurriedly
past Lorenheim's door. Lorenheim was one of those people who have not a
single friend in the world and who are devoured by a lust for company.
His loneliness was so deadly that if you so much as slowed your pace
outside his door he was liable to pounce out upon you and half drag,
half wheedle you in to listen to interminable paranoiac tales of girls
he had seduced and employers he had scored off. And his room was more
cold and squalid than even a lodging-house bedroom has any right to be.
There were always half-eaten bits of bread and margarine lying about
everywhere. The only other lodger in the house was an engineer of some
kind, employed on nightwork. Gordon only saw him occasionally—a massive
man with a grim, discoloured face, who wore a bowler hat indoors and
out.

[¶27] In the familiar darkness of his room, Gordon felt for the gas-jet and
lighted it. The room was medium-sized, not big enough to be curtained
into two, but too big to be sufficiently warmed by one defective
oil-lamp. It had the sort of furniture you expect in a top floor back.
White-quilted single bed; brown lino floor-covering; wash-hand-stand
with jug and basin of that cheap white ware which you can never see
without thinking of chamberpots. On the window-sill there was a sickly
aspidistra in a green-glazed pot.

[¶28] Up against this, under the window, there was a kitchen table with an
inkstained green cloth. This was Gordon's 'writing' table. It was only
after a bitter struggle that he had induced Mrs Wisbeach to give him a
kitchen table instead of the bamboo 'occasional' table—a mere stand for
the aspidistra—which she considered proper for a top floor back. And
even now there was endless nagging because Gordon would never allow his
table to be 'tidied up'. The table was in a permanent mess. It was
almost covered with a muddle of papers, perhaps two hundred sheets of
sermon paper, grimy and dog-eared, and all written on and crossed out
and written on again—a sort of sordid labyrinth of papers to which only
Gordon possessed the key. There was a film of dust over everything, and
there were several foul little trays containing tobacco ash and the
twisted stubs of cigarettes. Except for a few books on the mantelpiece,
this table, with its mess of papers, was the sole mark Gordon's
personality had left on the room.

[¶29] It was beastly cold. Gordon thought he would light the oil-lamp. He
lifted it—it felt very light; the spare oil can also was empty—no oil
till Friday. He applied a match; a dull yellow flame crept unwillingly
round the wick. It might burn for a couple of hours, with any luck. As
Gordon threw away the match his eye fell upon the aspidistra in its
grass-green pot. It was a peculiarly mangy specimen. It had only seven
leaves and never seemed to put forth any new ones. Gordon had a sort of
secret feud with the aspidistra. Many a time he had furtively attempted
to kill it—starving it of water, grinding hot cigarette-ends against
its stem, even mixing salt with its earth. But the beastly things are
practically immortal. In almost any circumstances they can preserve a
wilting, diseased existence. Gordon stood up and deliberately wiped his
kerosiny fingers on the aspidistra leaves.

[¶30] At this moment Mrs Wisbeach's voice rang shrewishly up the stairs:

[¶31] 'Mister Com-stock!'

[¶32] Gordon went to the door. 'Yes?' he called down.

[¶33] 'Your supper's been waiting for you this ten minutes. Why can't you come
down and have it, 'stead of keeping me waiting for the washing up?'

[¶34] Gordon went down. The dining-room was on the first floor, at the back,
opposite Flaxman's room. It was a cold, close-smelling room, twilit even
at midday. There were more aspidistras in it than Gordon had ever
accurately counted. They were all over the place—on the sideboard, on
the floor, on 'occasional' tables; in the window there was a sort of
florist's stand of them, blocking out the light. In the half-darkness,
with aspidistras all about you, you had the feeling of being in some
sunless aquarium amid the dreary foliage of water-flowers. Gordon's
supper was set out, waiting for him, in the circle of white light that
the cracked gas-jet cast upon the table cloth. He sat down with his back
to the fireplace (there was an aspidistra in the grate instead of a
fire) and ate his plate of cold beef and his two slices of crumbly white
bread, with Canadian butter, mousetrap cheese and Pan Yan pickle, and
drank a glass of cold but musty water.

[¶35] When he went back to his room the oil-lamp had got going, more or less.
It was hot enough to boil a kettle by, he thought. And now for the great
event of the evening—his illicit cup of tea. He made himself a cup of
tea almost every night, in the deadliest secrecy. Mrs Wisbeach refused
to give her lodgers tea with their supper, because she 'couldn't be
bothered with hotting up extra water', but at the same time making tea
in your bedroom was strictly forbidden. Gordon looked with disgust at
the muddled papers on the table. He told himself defiantly that he
wasn't going to do any work tonight. He would have a cup of tea and
smoke up his remaining cigarettes, and read _King Lear_ or _Sherlock
Holmes_. His books were on the mantelpiece beside the alarm
clock—Shakespeare in the Everyman edition, _Sherlock Holmes_, Villon's
poems, _Roderick Random_, _Les Fleurs du Mal_, a pile of French novels.
But he read nothing nowadays, except Shakespeare and _Sherlock Holmes_.
Meanwhile, that cup of tea.

[¶36] Gordon went to the door, pushed it ajar and listened. No sound of Mrs
Wisbeach. You had to be very careful; she was quite capable of sneaking
upstairs and catching you in the act. This tea-making was the major
household offence, next to bringing a woman in. Quietly he bolted the
door, dragged his cheap suitcase from under the bed and unlocked it.
From it he extracted a sixpenny Woolworth's kettle, a packet of Lyons'
tea, a tin of condensed milk, a teapot and a cup. They were all packed
in newspaper to prevent them from chinking.

[¶37] He had his regular procedure for making tea. First he half filled the
kettle with water from the jug and set it on the oil-stove. Then he
knelt down and spread out a piece of newspaper. Yesterday's tea-leaves
were still in the pot, of course. He shook them out onto the newspaper,
cleaned out the pot with his thumb and folded the leaves into a bundle.
Presently he would smuggle them downstairs. That was always the most
risky part—getting rid of the used tea-leaves. It was like the
difficulty murderers have in disposing of the body. As for the cup, he
always washed it in his hand basin in the morning. A squalid business.
It sickened him, sometimes. It was queer how furtively you had to live
in Mrs Wisbeach's house. You had the feeling that she was always
watching you; and indeed, she was given to tiptoeing up and downstairs
at all hours, in hope of catching the lodgers up to mischief. It was one
of those houses where you cannot even go to the WC in peace because of
the feeling that somebody is listening to you.

[¶38] Gordon unbolted the door again and listened intently. No one stirring.
Ah! A clatter of crockery far below. Mrs Wisbeach was washing up the
supper things. Probably safe to go down, then.

[¶39] He tiptoed down, clutching the damp bundle of tea-leaves against his
breast. The WC was on the second floor. At the angle of the stairs he
halted, listened a moment longer. Ah! Another clatter of crockery.

[¶40] All clear! Gordon Comstock, poet ('of exceptional promise', _The Times
Lit. Supp._ had said), hurriedly slipped into the WC, flung his
tea-leaves down the waste-pipe and pulled the plug. Then he hurried back
to his room, rebolted the door, and, with precautions against noise,
brewed himself a fresh pot of tea.

[¶41] The room was passably warm by now. The tea and a cigarette worked their
short-lived magic. He began to feel a little less bored and angry.
Should he do a spot of work after all? He ought to work, of course. He
always hated himself afterwards when he had wasted a whole evening. Half
unwillingly, he shoved his chair up to the table. It needed an effort
even to disturb that frightful jungle of papers. He pulled a few grimy
sheets towards him, spread them out and looked at them. God, what a
mess! Written on, scored out, written over, scored out again, till they
were like poor old hacked cancer-patients after twenty operations. But
the handwriting, where it was not crossed out, was delicate and
'scholarly'. With pain and trouble Gordon had acquired that 'scholarly'
hand, so different from the beastly copperplate they had taught him at
school.

[¶42] Perhaps he _would_ work; for a little while, anyway. He rummaged in the
litter of papers. Where was that passage he had been working on
yesterday? The poem was an immensely long one—that is, it was going to
be immensely long when it was finished—two thousand lines or so, in
rhyme royal, describing a day in London. _London Pleasures_, its name
was. It was a huge, ambitious project—the kind of thing that should
only be undertaken by people with endless leisure. Gordon had not
grasped that fact when he began the poem; he grasped it now, however.
How light-heartedly he had begun it, two years ago! When he had chucked
up everything and descended into the slime of poverty, the conception of
this poem had been at least a part of his motive. He had felt so
certain, then, that he was equal to it. But somehow, almost from the
start, _London Pleasures_ had gone wrong. It was too big for him, that
was the truth. It had never really progressed, it had simply fallen
apart into a series of fragments. And out of two years' work that was
all that he had to show—just fragments, incomplete in themselves and
impossible to join together. On every one of those sheets of paper there
was some hacked scrap of verse which had been written and rewritten and
rewritten over intervals of months. There were not five hundred lines
that you could say were definitely finished. And he had lost the power
to add to it any longer; he could only tinker with this passage or that,
groping now here, now there, in its confusion. It was no longer a thing
that he created, it was merely a nightmare with which he struggled.

[¶43] For the rest, in two whole years he had produced nothing except a
handful of short poems—perhaps a score in all. It was so rarely that he
could attain the peace of mind in which poetry, or prose for that
matter, has got to be written. The times when he 'could not' work grew
commoner and commoner. Of all types of human being, only the artist
takes it upon him to say that he 'cannot' work. But it is quite true;
there _are_ times when one cannot work. Money again, always money! Lack
of money means discomfort, means squalid worries, means shortage of
tobacco, means ever-present consciousness of failure—above all, it
means loneliness. How can you be anything but lonely on two quid a week?
And in loneliness no decent book was ever written. It was quite certain
that _London Pleasures_ would never be the poem he had conceived—it was
quite certain, indeed, that it would never even be finished. And in the
moments when he faced facts Gordon himself was aware of this.

[¶44] Yet all the same, and all the more for that very reason, he went on with
it. It was something to cling to. It was a way of hitting back at his
poverty and his loneliness. And after all, there were times when the
mood of creation returned, or seemed to return. It returned tonight, for
just a little while—just as long as it takes to smoke two cigarettes.
With smoke tickling his lungs, he abstracted himself from the mean and
actual world. He drove his mind into the abyss where poetry is written.
The gas-jet sang soothingly overhead. Words became vivid and momentous
things. A couplet, written a year ago and left as finished, caught his
eye with a note of doubt. He repeated it to himself, over and over. It
was wrong, somehow. It had seemed all right, a year ago; now, on the
other hand, it seemed subtly vulgar. He rummaged among the sheets of
foolscap till he found one that had nothing written on the back, turned
it over, wrote the couplet out anew, wrote a dozen different versions of
it, repeated each of them over and over to himself. Finally there was
none that satisfied him. The couplet would have to go. It was cheap and
vulgar. He found the original sheet of paper and scored the couplet out
with thick lines. And in doing this there was a sense of achievement, of
time not wasted, as though the destruction of much labour were in some
way an act of creation.

[¶45] Suddenly a double knock deep below made the whole house rattle. Gordon
started. His mind fled upwards from the abyss. The post! _London
Pleasures_ was forgotten.

[¶46] His heart fluttered. Perhaps Rosemary _had_ written. Besides, there were
those two poems he had sent to the magazines. One of them, indeed, he
had almost given up as lost; he had sent it to an American paper, the
_Californian Review_, months ago. Probably they wouldn't even bother to
send it back. But the other was with an English paper, the _Primrose
Quarterly_. He had wild hopes of that one. The _Primrose Quarterly_ was
one of those poisonous literary papers in which the fashionable Nancy
Boy and the professional Roman Catholic walk _bras dessus, bras
dessous_. It was also by a long way the most influential literary paper
in England. You were a made man once you had had a poem in it. In his
heart Gordon knew that the _Primrose Quarterly_ would never print his
poems. He wasn't up to their standard. Still, miracles sometimes happen;
or, if not miracles, accidents. After all, they'd had his poem six
weeks. Would they keep it six weeks if they didn't mean to accept it? He
tried to quell the insane hope. But at the worst there was a chance that
Rosemary had written. It was four whole days since she had written. She
wouldn't do it, perhaps, if she knew how it disappointed him. Her
letters—long, ill-spelt letters, full of absurd jokes and protestations
of love for him—meant far more to him than she could ever understand.
They were a reminder that there was still somebody in the world who
cared for him. They even made up for the times when some beast had sent
back one of his poems; and, as a matter of fact, the magazines always
did send back his poems, except _Antichrist_, whose editor, Ravelston,
was his personal friend.

[¶47] There was shuffling below. It was always some minutes before Mrs
Wisbeach brought the letters upstairs. She liked to paw them about, feel
them to see how thick they were, read their postmarks, hold them up to
the light and speculate on their contents, before yielding them to their
rightful owners. She exercised a sort of _droit du seigneur_ over
letters. Coming to her house, they were, she felt, at least partially
hers. If you had gone to the front door and collected your own letters
she would have resented it bitterly. On the other hand, she also
resented the labour of carrying them upstairs. You would hear her
footsteps very slowly ascending, and then, if there was a letter for
you, there would be loud aggrieved breathing on the landing—this to let
you know that you had put Mrs Wisbeach out of breath by dragging her up
all those stairs. Finally, with a little impatient grunt, the letters
would be shoved under your door.

[¶48] Mrs Wisbeach was coming up the stairs. Gordon listened. The footsteps
paused on the first floor. A letter for Flaxman. They ascended, paused
again on the second floor. A letter for the engineer. Gordon's heart
beat painfully. A letter, please God, a letter! More footsteps.
Ascending or descending? They were coming nearer, surely! Ah, no, no!
The sound grew fainter. She was going down again. The footsteps died
away. No letters.

[¶49] He took up his pen again. It was a quite futile gesture. She hadn't
written after all! The little beast! He had not the smallest intention
of doing any more work. Indeed, he could not. The disappointment had
taken all the heart out of him. Only five minutes ago his poem had still
seemed to him a living thing; now he knew it unmistakably for the
worthless tripe that it was. With a kind of nervous disgust he bundled
the scattered sheets together, stacked them in an untidy heap and dumped
them on the other side of the table, under the aspidistra. He could not
even bear to look at them any longer.

[¶50] He got up. It was too early to go to bed; at least, he was not in the
mood for it. He pined for a bit of amusement—something cheap and easy.
A seat in the pictures, cigarettes, beer. Useless! No money to pay for
any of them. He would read _King Lear_ and forget this filthy century.
Finally, however, it was _The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_ that he
took from the mantelpiece. _Sherlock Holmes_ was his favourite of all
books, because he knew it by heart. The oil in the lamp was giving out
and it was getting beastly cold. Gordon dragged the quilt from his bed,
wrapped it round his legs and sat down to read. His right elbow on the
table, his hands under his coat to keep them warm, he read through 'The
Adventure of the Speckled Band.' The little gas-mantle sighed above, the
circular flame of the oil-lamp burned low, a thin bracelet of fire,
giving out no more heat than a candle.

[¶51] Down in Mrs Wisbeach's lair the clock struck half past ten. You could
always hear it striking at night. Ping-ping, ping-ping—a note of doom!
The ticking of the alarm clock on the mantelpiece became audible to
Gordon again, bringing with it the consciousness of the sinister passage
of time. He looked about him. Another evening wasted. Hours, days, years
slipping by. Night after night, always the same. The lonely room, the
womanless bed; dust, cigarette ash, the aspidistra leaves. And he was
thirty, nearly. In sheer self-punishment he dragged forth a wad of
_London Pleasures_, spread out the grimy sheets and looked at them as
one looks at a skull for _a memento mori_. _London Pleasures_, by Gordon
Comstock, author of _Mice_. His _magnum opus_. The fruit (fruit,
indeed!) of two years' work—that labyrinthine mess of words! And
tonight's achievement—two lines crossed out; two lines backward instead
of forward.

[¶52] The lamp made a sound like a tiny hiccup and went out. With an effort
Gordon stood up and flung the quilt back onto his bed. Better get to
bed, perhaps, before it got any colder. He wandered over towards the
bed. But wait. Work tomorrow. Wind the clock, set the alarm. Nothing
accomplished, nothing done, has earned a night's repose.

[¶53] It was some time before he could find the energy to undress. For a
quarter of an hour, perhaps, he lay on the bed fully dressed, his hands
under his head. There was a crack on the ceiling that resembled the map
of Australia. Gordon contrived to work off his shoes and socks without
sitting up. He held up one foot and looked at it. A smallish, delicate
foot. Ineffectual, like his hands. Also, it was very dirty. It was
nearly ten days since he had had a bath. Becoming ashamed of the
dirtiness of his feet, he sagged into a sitting position and undressed
himself, throwing his clothes onto the floor. Then he turned out the gas
and slid between the sheets, shuddering, for he was naked. He always
slept naked. His last suit of pyjamas had gone west more than a year
ago.

[¶54] The clock downstairs struck eleven. As the first coldness of the sheets
wore off, Gordon's mind went back to the poem he had begun that
afternoon. He repeated in a whisper the single stanza that was finished:

[¶55] '_Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over_
               _The bending poplars, newly bare,_
               _And the dark ribbons of the chimneys_
               _Veer downward; flicked by whips of air,_
               _Torn posters flutter._'

[¶56] The octosyllables flicked to and fro. Click-click, click-click! The
awful, mechanical emptiness of it appalled him. It was like some futile
little machine ticking over. Rhyme to rhyme, click-click, click-click.
Like the nodding of a clockwork doll. Poetry! The last futility. He lay
awake, aware of his own futility, of his thirty years, of the blind
alley into which he had led his life.

[¶57] The clock struck twelve. Gordon had stretched his legs out straight. The
bed had grown warm and comfortable. The upturned beam of a car,
somewhere in the street parallel to Willowbed Road, penetrated the blind
and threw into silhouette a leaf of the aspidistra, shaped like
Agamemnon's sword.

## 3. III

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/3/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/3/#p-N

[¶0] 'Gordon Comstock' was a pretty bloody name, but then Gordon came of a
pretty bloody family. The 'Gordon' part of it was Scotch, of course. The
prevalence of such names nowadays is merely a part of the
Scotchification of England that has been going on these last fifty
years. 'Gordon', 'Colin', 'Malcolm', 'Donald'—these are the gifts of
Scotland to the world, along with golf, whisky, porridge and the works
of Barrie and Stevenson.

[¶1] The Comstocks belonged to the most dismal of all classes, the
middle-middle class, the landless gentry. In their miserable poverty
they had not even the snobbish consolation of regarding themselves as an
'old' family fallen on evil days, for they were not an 'old' family at
all, merely one of those families which rose on the wave of Victorian
prosperity and then sank again faster than the wave itself. They had had
at most fifty years of comparative wealth, corresponding with the
lifetime of Gordon's grandfather, Samuel Comstock—Gran'pa Comstock, as
Gordon was taught to call him, though the old man died four years before
he was born.

[¶2] Gran'pa Comstock was one of those people who even from the grave exert a
powerful influence. In life he was a tough old scoundrel. He plundered
the proletariat and the foreigner of fifty thousand pounds, he built
himself a redbrick mansion as durable as a pyramid, and he begot twelve
children, of whom eleven survived. Finally he died quite suddenly, of a
cerebral hæmorrhage. In Kensal Green his children placed over him a
monolith with the following inscription:

[¶3] In ever loving memory of
                        Samuel Ezekiel Comstock,
                A faithful husband, a tender father and
                       An upright and godly man,
                  Who was born on July 9th, 1828, and
                Departed this life September 5th, 1901,
                        This stone is erected by
                        His sorrowing children.
                    He sleeps in the arms of Jesus.

[¶4] No need to repeat the blasphemous comments which everyone who had known
Gran'pa Comstock made on that last sentence. But it is worth pointing
out that the chunk of granite on which it was inscribed weighed close on
five tons and was quite certainly put there with the intention, though
not the conscious intention, of making sure that Gran'pa Comstock
shouldn't get up from underneath it. If you want to know what a dead
man's relatives really think of him, a good rough test is the weight of
his tombstone.

[¶5] The Comstocks, as Gordon knew them, were a peculiarly dull, shabby,
dead-alive, ineffectual family. They lacked vitality to an extent that
was surprising. That was Gran'pa Comstock's doing, of course. By the
time when he died all his children were grown up and some of them were
middle-aged, and he had long ago succeeded in crushing out of them any
spirit they might ever have possessed. He had lain upon them as a garden
roller lies upon daisies, and there was no chance of their flattened
personalities ever expanding again. One and all they turned out
listless, gutless, unsuccessful sort of people. None of the boys had
proper professions, because Gran'pa Comstock had been at the greatest
pains to drive all of them into professions for which they were totally
unsuited. Only one of them—John, Gordon's father—had even braved
Gran'pa Comstock to the extent of getting married during the latter's
lifetime. It was impossible to imagine any of them making any sort of
mark in the world, or creating anything, or destroying anything, or
being happy, or vividly unhappy, or fully alive, or even earning a
decent income. They just drifted along in an atmosphere of semi-genteel
failure. They were one of those depressing families, so common among the
middle-middle classes, in which _nothing ever happens_.

[¶6] From his earliest childhood Gordon's relatives had depressed him
horribly. When he was a little boy he still had great numbers of uncles
and aunts living. They were all more or less alike—grey, shabby,
joyless people, all rather sickly in health and all perpetually harassed
by money-worries which fizzled along without ever reaching the
sensational explosion of bankruptcy. It was noticeable even then that
they had lost all impulse to reproduce themselves. Really vital people,
whether they have money or whether they haven't, multiply almost as
automatically as animals. Gran'pa Comstock, for instance, himself one of
a litter of twelve, had produced eleven progeny. Yet all those eleven
produced only two progeny between them, and those two—Gordon and his
sister Julia—had produced, by 1934, not even one. Gordon, last of the
Comstocks, was born in 1905, an unintended child; and thereafter, in
thirty long, long years, there was not a single birth in the family,
only deaths. And not only in the matter of marrying and begetting, but
in every possible way, _nothing ever happened_ in the Comstock family.
Every one of them seemed doomed, as though by a curse, to a dismal,
shabby, hole-and-corner existence. None of them ever _did_ anything.
They were the kind of people who in every conceivable activity, even if
it is only getting onto a bus, are automatically elbowed away from the
heart of things. All of them, of course, were hopeless fools about
money. Gran'pa Comstock had finally divided his money among them more or
less equally, so that each received, after the sale of the red-brick
mansion, round about five thousand pounds. And no sooner was Gran'pa
Comstock underground than they began to fritter their money away. None
of them had the guts to lose it in sensational ways such as squandering
it on women or at the races; they simply dribbled it away and dribbled
it away, the women in silly investments and the men in futile little
business ventures that petered out after a year or two, leaving a net
loss. More than half of them went unmarried to their graves. Some of the
women did make rather undesirable middle-aged marriages after their
father was dead, but the men, because of their incapacity to earn a
proper living, were the kind who 'can't afford' to marry. None of them,
except Gordon's Aunt Angela, ever had so much as a home to call their
own; they were the kind of people who live in godless 'rooms' and
tomb-like boarding-houses. And year after year they died off and died
off, of dingy but expensive little diseases that swallowed up the last
penny of their capital. One of the women, Gordon's Aunt Charlotte,
wandered off into the Mental Home at Clapham in 1916. The Mental Homes
of England, how chock-a-block they stand! And it is above all derelict
spinsters of the middle-middle classes who keep them going. By 1934 only
three of that generation survived; Aunt Charlotte already mentioned, and
Aunt Angela, who by some happy chance had been induced to buy a house
and a tiny annuity in 1912, and Uncle Walter, who dingily existed on the
few hundred pounds that were left out of his five thousand and by
running short-lived 'agencies' for this and that.

[¶7] Gordon grew up in the atmosphere of cut-down clothes and stewed neck of
mutton. His father, like the other Comstocks, was a depressed and
therefore depressing person, but he had some brains and a slight
literary turn. And seeing that his mind was of the literary type and he
had a shrinking horror of anything to do with figures, it had seemed
only natural to Gran'pa Comstock to make him into a chartered
accountant. So he practised, ineffectually, as a chartered accountant,
and was always buying his way into partnerships which were dissolved
after a year or two, and his income fluctuated, sometimes rising to five
hundred a year and sometimes falling to two hundred, but always with a
tendency to decrease. He died in 1922, aged only fifty-six, but worn
out—he had suffered from a kidney disease for a long time past.

[¶8] Since the Comstocks were genteel as well as shabby, it was considered
necessary to waste huge sums on Gordon's 'education'. What a fearful
thing it is, this incubus of 'education'! It means that in order to send
his son to the right kind of school (that is, a public school or an
imitation of one) a middle-class man is obliged to live for years on end
in a style that would be scorned by a jobbing plumber. Gordon was sent
to wretched, pretentious schools whose fees were round about £120 a
year. Even these fees, of course, meant fearful sacrifices at home.
Meanwhile Julia, who was five years older than he, received as nearly as
possible no education at all. She was, indeed, sent to one or two poor,
dingy little boarding schools, but she was 'taken away' for good when
she was sixteen. Gordon was 'the boy' and Julia was 'the girl', and it
seemed natural to everyone that 'the girl' should be sacrificed to 'the
boy'. Moreover, it had early been decided in the family that Gordon was
'clever'. Gordon, with his wonderful 'cleverness', was to win
scholarships, make a brilliant success in life and retrieve the family
fortunes—that was the theory, and no one believed in it more firmly
than Julia. Julia was a tall, ungainly girl, much taller than Gordon,
with a thin face and a neck just a little too long—one of those girls
who even at their most youthful remind one irresistibly of a goose. But
her nature was simple and affectionate. She was a self-effacing,
home-keeping, ironing, darning and mending kind of girl, a natural
spinster-soul. Even at sixteen she had 'old maid' written all over her.
She idolised Gordon. All through his childhood she watched over him,
nursed him, spoiled him, went in rags so that he might have the right
clothes to go to school in, saved up her wretched pocket-money to buy
him Christmas presents and birthday presents. And of course he repaid
her, as soon as he was old enough, by despising her because she was not
pretty and not 'clever'.

[¶9] Even at the third-rate schools to which Gordon was sent nearly all the
boys were richer than himself. They soon found out his poverty, of
course, and gave him hell because of it. Probably the greatest cruelty
one can inflict on a child is to send it to school among children richer
than itself. A child conscious of poverty will suffer snobbish agonies
such as a grown-up person can scarcely even imagine. In those days,
especially at his preparatory school, Gordon's life had been one long
conspiracy to keep his end up and pretend that his parents were richer
than they were. Ah, the humiliations of those days! That awful business,
for instance, at the beginning of each term, when you had to 'give in'
to the headmaster, publicly, the money you had brought back with you;
and the contemptuous, cruel sniggers from the other boys when, you
didn't 'give in' ten bob or more. And the time when the others found out
that Gordon was wearing a ready-made suit which had cost thirty-five
shillings! The times that Gordon dreaded most of all were when his
parents came down to see him. Gordon, in those days still a believer,
used actually to pray that his parents wouldn't come down to school. His
father, especially, was the kind of father you couldn't help being
ashamed of; a cadaverous, despondent man, with a bad stoop, his clothes
dismally shabby and hopelessly out of date. He carried about with him an
atmosphere of failure, worry and boredom. And he had such a dreadful
habit, when he was saying good-bye, of tipping Gordon half a crown right
in front of the other boys, so that everyone could see that it was only
half a crown and not, as it ought to have been, ten bob! Even twenty
years afterwards the memory of that school made Gordon shudder.

[¶10] The first effect of all this was to give him a crawling reverence for
money. In those days he actually hated his poverty-stricken
relatives—his father and mother, Julia, everybody. He hated them for
their dingy homes, their dowdiness, their joyless attitude to life,
their endless worrying and groaning over threepences and sixpences. By
far the commonest phrase in the Comstock household was, 'We can't afford
it.' In those days he longed for money as only a child can long. Why
_shouldn't_ one have decent clothes and plenty of sweets and go to the
pictures as often as one wanted to? He blamed his parents for their
poverty as though they had been poor on purpose. Why couldn't they be
like other boys' parents? They _preferred_ being poor, it seemed to him.
That is how a child's mind works.

[¶11] But as he grew older he grew—not less unreasonable, exactly, but
unreasonable in a different way. By this time he had found his feet at
school and was less violently oppressed. He was never very successful at
school—he did no work and won no scholarships—but he managed to
develop his brain along the lines that suited it. He read the books
which the headmaster denounced from the pulpit, and developed unorthodox
opinions about the C of E, patriotism and the Old Boys' tie. Also he
began writing poetry. He even, after a year or two, began to send poems
to the _Athenæum_, the _New Age_ and the _Weekly Westminster_; but they
were invariably rejected. Of course there were other boys of similar
type with whom he associated. Every public school has its small
self-conscious intelligentsia. And at that moment, in the years just
after the War, England was so full of revolutionary opinion that even
the public schools were infected by it. The young, even those who had
been too young to fight, were in a bad temper with their elders, as well
they might be; practically everyone with any brains at all was for the
moment a revolutionary. Meanwhile the old—those over sixty, say—were
running in circles like hens, squawking about 'subversive ideas'. Gordon
and his friends had quite an exciting time with their 'subversive
ideas'. For a whole year they ran an unofficial monthly paper called the
_Bolshevik_, duplicated with a jellygraph. It advocated Socialism, free
love, the dismemberment of the British Empire, the abolition of the Army
and Navy, and so on and so forth. It was great fun. Every intelligent
boy of sixteen is a Socialist. At that age one does not see the hook
sticking out of the rather stodgy bait.

[¶12] In a crude, boyish way, he had begun to get the hang of this
money-business. At an earlier age than most people he grasped that _all_
modern commerce is a swindle. Curiously enough, it was the
advertisements in the Underground stations that first brought it home to
him. He little knew, as the biographers say, that he himself would one
day have a job in an advertising firm. But there was more to it than the
mere fact that business is a swindle. What he realised, and more clearly
as time went on, was that money-worship has been elevated into a
religion. Perhaps it is the only real religion—the only really _felt_
religion—that is left to us. Money is what God used to be. Good and
evil have no meaning any longer except failure and success. Hence the
profoundly significant phrase, to _make good_. The decalogue has been
reduced to two commandments. One for the employers—the elect, the
money-priesthood as it were—'Thou shalt make money'; the other for the
employed—the slaves and underlings—'Thou shalt not lose thy job.' It
was about this time that he came across _The Ragged Trousered
Philanthropists_ and read about the starving carpenter who pawns
everything but sticks to his aspidistra. The aspidistra became a sort of
symbol for Gordon after that. The aspidistra, flower of England! It
ought to be on our coat of arms instead of the lion and the unicorn.
There will be no revolution in England while there are aspidistras in
the windows.

[¶13] He did not hate and despise his relatives now—or not so much, at any
rate. They still depressed him greatly—those poor old withering aunts
and uncles, of whom two or three had already died, his father, worn out
and spiritless, his mother, faded, nervy and 'delicate' (her lungs were
none too strong), Julia, already, at one-and-twenty, a dutiful, resigned
drudge who worked twelve hours a day and never had a decent frock. But
he grasped now what was the matter with them. It was not _merely_ the
lack of money. It was rather that, having no money, they still lived
mentally in the money-world—the world in which money is virtue and
poverty is crime. It was not poverty but the down-dragging of
_respectable_ poverty that had done for them. They had accepted the
money-code, and by that code they were failures. They had never had the
sense to lash out and just _live_, money or no money, as the lower
classes do. How right the lower classes are! Hats off to the factory lad
who with fourpence in the world puts his girl in the family way! At
least he's got blood and not money in his veins.

[¶14] Gordon thought it all out, in the naïve selfish manner of a boy. There
are two ways to live, he decided. You can be rich, or you can
deliberately refuse to be rich. You can possess money, or you can
despise money; the one fatal thing is to worship money and fail to get
it. He took it for granted that he himself would never be able to make
money. It hardly even occurred to him that he might have talents which
could be turned to account. That was what his schoolmasters had done for
him; they had rubbed it into him that he was a seditious little nuisance
and not likely to 'succeed' in life. He accepted this. Very well, then,
he would refuse the whole business of 'succeeding'; he would make it his
especial purpose _not_ to 'succeed'. Better to reign in hell than serve
in heaven; better to serve in hell than serve in heaven, for that
matter. Already, at sixteen, he knew which side he was on. He was
_against_ the money-god and all his swinish priesthood. He had declared
war on money; but secretly, of course.

[¶15] It was when he was seventeen that his father died, leaving about two
hundred pounds. Julia had been at work for some years now. During 1918
and 1919 she had worked in a Government office, and after that she took
a course of cookery and got a job in a nasty, ladylike little tea-shop
near Earl's Court Underground Station. She worked a seventy-two hour
week and was given her lunch and tea and twenty-five shillings; out of
this she contributed twelve shillings a week, often more, to the
household expenses. Obviously the best thing to do, now that Mr Comstock
was dead, would have been to take Gordon away from school, find him a
job and let Julia have the two hundred pounds to set up a tea-shop of
her own. But here the habitual Comstock folly about money stepped in.
Neither Julia nor her mother would hear of Gordon leaving school. With
the strange idealistic snobbishness of the middle classes, they were
willing to go to the workhouse sooner than let Gordon leave school
before the statutory age of eighteen. The two hundred pounds, or more
than half of it, must be used in completing Gordon's 'education'. Gordon
let them do it. He had declared war on money, but that did not prevent
him from being damnably selfish. Of course he dreaded this business of
going to work. What boy wouldn't dread it? Pen-pushing in some filthy
office—God! His uncles and aunts were already talking dismally about
'getting Gordon settled in life'. They saw everything in terms of 'good'
jobs. Young Smith had got such a 'good' job in a bank, and young Jones
had got such a 'good' job in an insurance office. It made him sick to
hear them. They seemed to want to see every young man in England nailed
down in the coffin of a 'good' job.

[¶16] Meanwhile, money had got to be earned. Before her marriage Gordon's
mother had been a music teacher, and even since then she had taken
pupils, sporadically, when the family were in lower water than usual.
She now decided that she would start giving lessons again. It was fairly
easy to get pupils in the suburbs—they were living in Acton—and with
the music fees and Julia's contribution they could probably 'manage' for
the next year or two. But the state of Mrs Comstock's lungs was now
something more than 'delicate'. The doctor who had attended her husband
before his death had put his stethoscope to her chest and looked
serious. He had told her to take care of herself, keep warm, eat
nourishing food, and, above all, avoid fatigue. The fidgeting, tiring
job of giving piano lessons was, of course, the worst possible thing for
her. Gordon knew nothing of this. Julia knew, however. It was a secret
between the two women, carefully kept from Gordon.

[¶17] A year went by. Gordon spent it rather miserably, more and more
embarrassed by his shabby clothes and lack of pocket-money, which made
girls an object of terror to him. However, the _New Age_ accepted one of
his poems that year. Meanwhile, his mother sat on comfortless piano
stools in draughty drawing-rooms, giving lessons at two shillings an
hour. And then Gordon left school, and fat, interfering Uncle Walter,
who had business connections in a small way, came forward and said that
a friend of a friend of his could get Gordon ever such a 'good' job in
the accounts department of a red lead firm. It was really a splendid
job—a wonderful opening for a young man. If Gordon buckled to work in
the right spirit he might be a Big Pot one of these days. Gordon's soul
squirmed. Suddenly, as weak people do, he stiffened, and, to the horror
of the whole family, refused even to try for the job.

[¶18] There were fearful rows, of course. They could not understand him. It
seemed to them a kind of blasphemy to refuse such a 'good' job when you
got the chance of it. He kept reiterating that he didn't want _that
kind_ of job. Then what _did_ he want? they all demanded. He wanted to
'write', he told them sullenly. But how could he possibly make a living
by 'writing'? they demanded again. And of course he couldn't answer. At
the back of his mind was the idea that he could somehow live by writing
poetry; but that was too absurd even to be mentioned. But at any rate,
he wasn't going into business, into the money-world. He would have a
job, but not a 'good' job. None of them had the vaguest idea what he
meant. His mother wept, even Julia 'went for' him, and all round him
there were uncles and aunts (he still had six or seven of them left)
feebly volleying and incompetently thundering. And after three days a
dreadful thing happened. In the middle of supper his mother was seized
by a violent fit of coughing, put her hand to her breast, fell forward
and began bleeding at the mouth.

[¶19] Gordon was terrified. His mother did not die, as it happened, but she
looked deathly as they carried her upstairs. Gordon rushed for the
doctor. For several days his mother lay at death's door. It was the
draughty drawing-rooms and the trudging to and fro in all weathers that
had done it. Gordon hung helplessly about the house, a dreadful feeling
of guilt mingling with his misery. He did not exactly know, but he half
divined, that his mother had killed herself in order to pay his school
fees. After this he could not go on opposing her any longer. He went to
Uncle Walter and told him that he would take that job in the red lead
firm, if they would give it him. So Uncle Walter spoke to his friend,
and the friend spoke to his friend, and Gordon was sent for and
interviewed by an old gentleman with badly fitting false teeth, and
finally was given a job, on probation. He started on twenty-five bob a
week. And with this firm he remained six years.

[¶20] They moved away from Acton and took a flat in a desolate red block of
flats somewhere in the Paddington district. Mrs Comstock had brought her
piano, and when she had got some of her strength back she gave
occasional lessons. Gordon's wages were gradually raised, and the three
of them 'managed', more or less. It was Julia and Mrs Comstock who did
most of the 'managing'. Gordon still had a boy's selfishness about
money. At the office he got on not absolutely badly. It was said of him
that he was worth his wages but wasn't the type that Makes Good. In a
way the utter contempt that he had for his work made things easier for
him. He could put up with this meaningless office-life, because he never
for an instant thought of it as permanent. Somehow, sometime, God knew
how or when, he was going to break free of it. After all, there was
always his 'writing'. Some day, perhaps, he might be able to make a
living of sorts by 'writing'; and you'd feel you were free of the
money-stink if you were a 'writer', would you not? The types he saw all
round him, especially the older men, made him squirm. That was what it
meant to worship the money-god! To settle down, to Make Good, to sell
your soul for a villa and an aspidistra! To turn into the typical little
bowler-hatted sneak—Strube's 'little man'—the little docile cit who
slips home by the six-fifteen to a supper of cottage pie and stewed
tinned pears, half an hour's listening-in to the BBC Symphony Concert,
and then perhaps a spot of licit sexual intercourse if his wife 'feels
in the mood!' What a fate! No, it isn't like that that one was meant to
live. One's got to get right out of it, out of the money-stink. It was a
kind of plot that he was nursing. He was as though dedicated to this war
against money. But it was still a secret. The people at the office never
suspected him of unorthodox ideas. They never even found out that he
wrote poetry—not that there was much to find out, for in six years he
had less than twenty poems printed in the magazines. To look at, he was
just the same as any other City clerk—just a soldier in the
strap-hanging army that sways eastward at morning, westward at night, in
the carriages of the Underground.

[¶21] He was twenty-four when his mother died. The family was breaking up.
Only four of the older generation of Comstocks were left now—Aunt
Angela, Aunt Charlotte, Uncle Walter and another uncle who died a year
later. Gordon and Julia gave up the flat. Gordon took a furnished room
in Doughty Street (he felt it vaguely literary, living in Bloomsbury),
and Julia moved to Earl's Court, to be near the shop. Julia was nearly
thirty now, and looked much older. She was thinner than ever, though
healthy enough, and there was grey in her hair. She still worked twelve
hours a day, and in six years her wages had only risen by ten shillings
a week. The horribly ladylike lady who kept the tea-shop was a
semi-friend as well as an employer, and thus could sweat and bully Julia
to the tune of 'dearest' and 'darling'. Four months after his mother's
death Gordon suddenly walked out of his job. He gave the firm no
reasons. They imagined that he was going to 'better himself',
and—luckily, as it turned out—gave him quite good references. He had
not even thought of looking for another job. He wanted to burn his
boats. From now on he would breathe free air, free of the money-stink.
He had not consciously waited for his mother to die before doing this;
still, it was his mother's death that had nerved him to it.

[¶22] Of course there was another and more desolating row in what was left of
the family. They thought Gordon must have gone mad. Over and over again
he tried, quite vainly, to explain to them why he would not yield
himself to the servitude of a 'good' job. 'But what are you going to
live on? What are you going to live on?' was what they all wailed at
him. He refused to think seriously about it. Of course, he still
harboured the notion that he could make a living of sorts by 'writing'.
By this time he had got to know Ravelston, editor of _Antichrist_, and
Ravelston, besides printing his poems, managed to get him books to
review occasionally. His literary prospects were not so bleak as they
had been six years ago. But still, it was not the desire to 'write' that
was his real motive. To get out of the money-world—that was what he
wanted. Vaguely he looked forward to some kind of moneyless, anchorite
existence. He had a feeling that if you genuinely despise money you can
keep going somehow, like the birds of the air. He forgot that the birds
of the air don't pay room-rent. The poet starving in a garret—but
starving, somehow, not uncomfortably—that was his vision of himself.

[¶23] The next seven months were devastating. They scared him and almost broke
his spirit. He learned what it means to live for weeks on end on bread
and margarine, to try to 'write' when you are half starved, to pawn your
clothes, to sneak trembling up the stairs when you owe three weeks' rent
and your landlady is listening for you. Moreover, in those seven months
he wrote practically nothing. The first effect of poverty is that it
kills thought. He grasped, as though it were a new discovery, that you
do not escape from money merely by being moneyless. On the contrary, you
are the hopeless slave of money until you have enough of it to live
on—a 'competence', as the beastly middle-class phrase goes. Finally he
was turned out of his room, after a vulgar row. He was three days and
four nights in the street. It was bloody. Three mornings, on the advice
of another man he met on the Embankment, he spent in Billingsgate,
helping to shove fish-barrows up the twisty little hills from
Billingsgate into Eastcheap. 'Twopence an up' was what you got, and the
work knocked hell out of your thigh muscles. There were crowds of people
on the same job, and you had to wait your turn; you were lucky if you
made eighteenpence between four in the morning and nine. After three
days of it Gordon gave up. What was the use? He was beaten. There was
nothing for it but to go back to his family, borrow some money and find
another job.

[¶24] But now, of course, there was no job to be had. For months he lived by
cadging on the family. Julia kept him going till the last penny of her
tiny savings was gone. It was abominable. Here was the outcome of all
his fine attitudes! He had renounced ambition, made war on money, and
all it led to was cadging from his sister! And Julia, he knew, felt his
failure far more than she felt the loss of her savings. She had had such
hopes of Gordon. He alone of all the Comstocks had had it in him to
'succeed'. Even now she believed that somehow, some day, he was going to
retrieve the family fortunes. He was so 'clever'—surely he could make
money if he tried! For two whole months Gordon stayed with Aunt Angela
in her little house at Highgate—poor, faded, mummified Aunt Angela, who
even for herself had barely enough to eat. All this time he searched
desperately for work. Uncle Walter could not help him. His influence in
the business world, never large, was now practically nil. At last,
however, in a quite unexpected way, the luck turned. A friend of a
friend of Julia's employer's brother managed to get Gordon a job in the
accounts department of the New Albion Publicity Company.

[¶25] The New Albion was one of those publicity firms which have sprung up
everywhere since the War—the fungi, as you might say, that sprout from
a decaying capitalism. It was a smallish rising firm and took every
class of publicity it could get. It designed a certain number of
large-scale posters for oatmeal stout, self-raising flour and so forth,
but its main line was millinery and cosmetic advertisements in the
women's illustrated papers, besides minor ads in the twopenny weeklies,
such as Whiterose Pills for Female Disorders, Your Horoscope Cast by
Professor Raratongo, The Seven Secrets of Venus, The Truth about Bad
Legs, Drink Habit conquered in Three Days, and Cyprolax Hair Lotion
Banishes all Unpleasant Intruders. There was a large staff of commercial
artists, of course. It was here that Gordon first made the acquaintance
of Rosemary. She was in the 'studio' and helped to design fashion
plates. It was a long time before he actually spoke to her. At first he
knew her merely as a remote personage, small, dark, with swift
movements, distinctly attractive but rather intimidating. When they
passed one another in the corridors she eyed him ironically, as though
she knew all about him and considered him a bit of a joke; nevertheless
she seemed to look at him a little oftener than was necessary. He had
nothing to do with her side of the business. He was in the accounts
department, a mere clerk on three quid a week.

[¶26] The interesting thing about the New Albion was that it was so completely
modern in spirit. There was hardly a soul in the firm who was not
perfectly well aware that publicity—advertising—is the dirtiest ramp
that capitalism has yet produced. In the red lead firm there had still
lingered certain notions of commercial honour and usefulness. But such
things would have been laughed at in the New Albion. Most of the
employees were the hard-boiled, Americanised, go-getting type—the type
to whom nothing in the world is sacred, except money. They had their
cynical code worked out. The public are swine; advertising is the
rattling of a stick inside a swill-bucket. And yet beneath their
cynicism there was the final naïveté, the blind worship of the
money-god. Gordon studied them unobtrusively. As before, he did his work
passably well and his fellow-employees looked down on him. Nothing had
changed in his inner mind. He still despised and repudiated the
money-code. Somehow, sooner or later, he was going to escape from it;
even now, after his late fiasco, he still plotted escape. He was _in_
the money-world, but not _of_ it. As for the types about him, the little
bowler-hatted worms who never turned, and the go-getters, the American
business-college gutter-crawlers, they rather amused him than not. He
liked studying their slavish keep-your-job mentality. He was the chiel
amang them takin' notes.

[¶27] One day a curious thing happened. Somebody chanced to see a poem of
Gordon's in a magazine, and put it about that they 'had a poet in the
office'. Of course Gordon was laughed at, not ill-naturedly, by the
other clerks. They nicknamed him 'the bard' from that day forth. But
though amused, they were also faintly contemptuous. It confirmed all
their ideas about Gordon. A fellow who wrote poetry wasn't exactly the
type to Make Good. But the thing had an unexpected sequel. About the
time when the clerks grew tired of chaffing Gordon, Mr Erskine, the
managing director, who had hitherto taken only the minimum notice of
him, suddenly sent for him and interviewed him.

[¶28] Mr Erskine was a large, slow-moving man with a broad, healthy,
expressionless face. From his appearance and the slowness of his speech
you would have guessed with confidence that he had something to do with
either agriculture or cattle-breeding. His wits were as slow as his
movements, and he was the kind of man who never hears of anything until
everybody else has stopped talking about it. How such a man came to be
in charge of an advertising agency, only the strange gods of capitalism
know. But he was quite a likeable person. He had not that sniffish,
buttoned-up spirit that usually goes with an ability to make money. And
in a way his fat-wittedness stood him in good stead. Being insensible to
popular prejudice, he could assess people on their merits; consequently,
he was rather good at choosing talented employees. The news that Gordon
had written poems, so far from shocking him, vaguely impressed him. They
wanted literary talent in the New Albion. Having sent for Gordon, he
studied him in a somnolent, sidelong way and asked him a number of
inconclusive questions. He never listened to Gordon's answers, but
punctuated his questions with a noise that sounded like 'Hm, hm, hm.'
Wrote poetry, did he? Oh yes? Hm. And had it printed in the papers? Hm,
hm. Suppose they paid you for that kind of thing? Not much, eh? No,
suppose not. Hm, hm. Poetry? Hm. A bit difficult, that must be. Getting
the lines the same length, and all that. Hm, hm. Write anything else?
Stories, and so forth? Hm. Oh yes? Very interesting. Hm!

[¶29] Then, without further questions, he promoted Gordon to a special post as
secretary—in effect, apprentice—to Mr Clew, the New Albion's head
copywriter. Like every other advertising agency, the New Albion was
constantly in search of copywriters with a touch of imagination. It is a
curious fact, but it is much easier to find competent draughtsmen than
to find people who can think of slogans like 'QT Sauce Keeps Hubby
Smiling' and 'Are you a Highbrow? Dandruff is the Reason.' Gordon's
wages were not raised for the moment, but the firm had their eye on him.
With luck he might be a full-fledged copywriter in a year's time. It was
an unmistakable chance to Make Good.

[¶30] For six months he was working with Mr Clew. Mr Clew was a harassed man
of about forty, with wiry hair into which he often plunged his fingers.
He worked in a stuffy little office whose walls were entirely papered
with his past triumphs in the form of posters. He took Gordon under his
wing in a friendly way, showed him the ropes and was even ready to
listen to his suggestions. At that time they were working on a line of
magazine ads for April Dew, the great new deodorant which the Queen of
Sheba Toilet Requisites Co. (this was Flaxman's firm, curiously enough)
were putting on the market. Gordon started on the job with secret
loathing. But now there was a quite unexpected development. It was that
Gordon showed, almost from the start, a remarkable talent for
copy-writing. He could compose an ad as though he had been born to it.
The vivid phrase that sticks and rankles, the neat little para. that
packs a world of lies into a hundred words—they came to him almost
unsought. He had always had a gift for words, but this was the first
time he had used it successfully. Mr Clew thought him very promising.
Gordon watched his own development, first with surprise, then with
amusement, and finally with a kind of horror. _This_, then, was what he
was coming to! Writing lies to tickle the money out of fools' pockets!
There was a beastly irony, too, in the fact that he, who wanted to be a
'writer', should score his sole success in writing ads for deodorants.
However, that was less unusual than he imagined. Most copywriters, they
say, are novelists _manqués_; or is it the other way about?

[¶31] The Queen of Sheba were very pleased with their ads. Mr Erskine also was
pleased. Gordon's wages were raised by ten shillings a week. And it was
now that Gordon grew frightened. Money was getting him after all. He was
sliding down, down, into the money-sty. A little more and he would be
stuck in it for life. It is queer how these things happen. You set your
face against success, you swear never to Make Good—you honestly believe
that you couldn't Make Good even if you wanted to; and then something
happens along, some mere chance, and you find yourself Making Good
almost automatically. He saw that now or never was the time to escape.
He had got to get out of it—out of the money-world, irrevocably, before
he was too far involved.

[¶32] But this time he wasn't going to be starved into submission. He went to
Ravelston and asked his help. He told him that he wanted some kind of
job; not a 'good' job, but a job that would keep his body without wholly
buying his soul. Ravelston understood perfectly. The distinction between
a job and a 'good' job did not have to be explained to him; nor did he
point out to Gordon the folly of what he was doing. That was the great
thing about Ravelston. He could always see another person's point of
view. It was having money that did it, no doubt; for the rich can afford
to be intelligent. Moreover, being rich himself, he could find jobs for
other people. After only a fortnight he told Gordon of something that
might suit him. A Mr McKechnie, a rather dilapidated second-hand
bookseller with whom Ravelston dealt occasionally, was looking for an
assistant. He did not want a trained assistant who would expect full
wages; he wanted somebody who looked like a gentleman and could talk
about books—somebody to impress the more bookish customers. It was the
very reverse of a 'good' job. The hours were long, the pay was
wretched—two pounds a week—and there was no chance of advancement. It
was a blind-alley job. And, of course, a blind-alley job was the very
thing Gordon was looking for. He went and saw Mr McKechnie, a sleepy,
benign old Scotchman with a red nose and a white beard stained by snuff,
and was taken on without demur. At this time, too, his volume of poems,
_Mice_, was going to press. The seventh publisher to whom he had sent it
had accepted it. Gordon did not know that this was Ravelston's doing.
Ravelston was a personal friend of the publisher. He was always
arranging this kind of thing, stealthily, for obscure poets. Gordon
thought the future was opening before him. He was a made man—or, by
Smilesian, aspidistral standards, _un_made.

[¶33] He gave them a month's notice at the office. It was a painful business
altogether. Julia, of course, was more distressed than ever at this
second abandonment of a 'good' job. By this time Gordon had got to know
Rosemary. She did not try to prevent him from throwing up his job. It
was against her code to interfere—'You've got to live your own life,'
was always her attitude. But she did not in the least understand why he
was doing it. The thing that most upset him, curiously enough, was his
interview with Mr Erskine. Mr Erskine was genuinely kind. He did not
want Gordon to leave the firm, and said so frankly. With a sort of
elephantine politeness he refrained from calling Gordon a young fool. He
did, however, ask him why he was leaving. Somehow, Gordon could not
bring himself to avoid answering or to say—the only thing Mr Erskine
would have understood—that he was going after a better-paid job. He
blurted out shamefacedly that he 'didn't think business suited him' and
that he 'wanted to go in for writing'. Mr Erskine was non-committal.
Writing, eh? Hm. Much money in that sort of thing nowadays? Not much,
eh? Hm. No, suppose not. Hm. Gordon, feeling and looking ridiculous,
mumbled that he had 'got a book just coming out'. A book of poems, he
added, with difficulty in pronouncing the word. Mr Erskine regarded him
sidelong before remarking:

[¶34] 'Poetry, eh? Hm. Poetry? Make a living out of that sort of thing, do you
think?'

[¶35] 'Well—not a living, exactly. But it would help.'

[¶36] 'Hm—well! You know best, I expect. If you want a job any time, come
back to us. I dare say we could find room for you. We can do with your
sort here. Don't forget.'

[¶37] Gordon left with a hateful feeling of having behaved perversely and
ungratefully. But he had got to do it; he had got to get out of the
money-world. It was queer. All over England young men were eating their
hearts out for lack of jobs, and here was he, Gordon, to whom the very
word 'job' was faintly nauseous, having jobs thrust unwanted upon him.
It was an example of the fact that you can get anything in this world if
you genuinely don't want it. Moreover, Mr Erskine's words stuck in his
mind. Probably he had meant what he said. Probably there _would_ be a
job waiting for Gordon if he chose to go back. So his boats were only
half burned. The New Albion was a doom before him as well as behind.

[¶38] But how happy he had been, just at first, in Mr McKechnie's bookshop!
For a little while—a very little while—he had the illusion of being
really out of the money-world. Of course the book-trade was a swindle,
like all other trades; but how different a swindle! Here was no hustling
and Making Good, no gutter-crawling. No go-getter could put up for ten
minutes with the stagnant air of the book-trade. As for the work, it was
very simple. It was mainly a question of being in the shop ten hours a
day. Mr McKechnie wasn't a bad old stick. He was a Scotchman, of course,
but Scottish is as Scottish does. At any rate he was reasonably free
from avarice—his most distinctive trait seemed to be laziness. He was
also a teetotaller and belonged to some Nonconformist sect or other, but
this did not affect Gordon. Gordon had been at the shop about a month
when _Mice_ was published. No less than thirteen papers reviewed it! And
_The Times Lit. Supp._ said that it showed 'exceptional promise'. It was
not till months later that he realised what a hopeless failure _Mice_
had really been.

[¶39] And it was only now, when he was down to two quid a week and had
practically cut himself off from the prospect of earning more, that he
grasped the real nature of the battle he was fighting. The devil of it
is that the glow of renunciation never lasts. Life on two quid a week
ceases to be a heroic gesture and becomes a dingy habit. Failure is as
great a swindle as success. He had thrown up his 'good' job and
renounced 'good' jobs for ever. Well, that was necessary. He did not
want to go back on it. But it was no use pretending that because his
poverty was self-imposed he had escaped the ills that poverty drags in
its train. It was not a question of hardship. You don't suffer real
physical hardship on two quid a week, and if you did it wouldn't matter.
It is in the brain and the soul that lack of money damages you. Mental
deadness, spiritual squalor—they seem to descend upon you inescapably
when your income drops below a certain point. Faith, hope, money—only a
saint could have the first two without having the third.

[¶40] He was growing more mature. Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine. He
had reached the age when the future ceases to be a rosy blur and becomes
actual and menacing. The spectacle of his surviving relatives depressed
him more and more. As he grew older he felt himself more akin to them.
That was the way he was going! A few years more, and he would be like
that, just like that! He felt this even with Julia, whom he saw oftener
than his uncle and aunt. In spite of various resolves never to do it
again, he still borrowed money off Julia periodically. Julia's hair was
greying fast; there was a deep line scored down each of her thin red
cheeks. She had settled her life into a routine in which she was not
unhappy. There was her work at the shop, her 'sewing' at nights in her
Earl's Court bed-sitting-room (second floor, back, nine bob a week
unfurnished), her occasional forgatherings with spinster friends as
lonely as herself. It was the typical submerged life of the penniless
unmarried woman; she accepted it, hardly realising that her destiny
could ever have been different. Yet in her way she suffered, more for
Gordon than for herself. The gradual decay of the family, the way they
had died off and died off and left nothing behind, was a sort of tragedy
in her mind. Money, money! 'None of us ever seems to make any money!'
was her perpetual lament. And of them all, Gordon alone had had the
chance to make money; and Gordon had chosen not to. He was sinking
effortless into the same rut of poverty as the others. After the first
row was over, she was too decent to 'go for' him again because he had
thrown up his job at the New Albion. But his motives were quite
meaningless to her. In her wordless feminine way she knew that the sin
against money is the ultimate sin.

[¶41] And as for Aunt Angela and Uncle Walter—oh dear, oh dear! What a
couple! It made Gordon feel ten years older every time he looked at
them.

[¶42] Uncle Walter, for example. Uncle Walter was very depressing. He was
sixty-seven, and what with his various 'agencies' and the dwindling
remnants of his patrimony his income might have been nearly three pounds
a week. He had a tiny little cabin of an office off Cursitor Street, and
he lived in a very cheap boarding-house in Holland Park. That was quite
according to precedent; all the Comstock men drifted naturally into
boarding-houses. When you looked at poor old uncle, with his large
tremulous belly, his bronchitic voice, his broad, pale, timidly pompous
face, rather like Sargent's portrait of Henry James, his entirely
hairless head, his pale, pouchy eyes and his ever-drooping moustache, to
which he tried vainly to give an upward twirl—when you looked at him,
you found it totally impossible to believe that he had ever been young.
Was it conceivable that such a being had ever felt life tingle in his
veins? Had he ever climbed a tree, taken a header off a spring-board, or
been in love? Had he ever had a brain in working order? Even back in the
early 'nineties, when he was arithmetically young, had he ever made any
kind of stab at life? A few furtive half-hearted frolics, perhaps. A few
whiskies in dull bars, a visit or two to the Empire promenade, a little
whoring on the QT; the sort of dingy, drabby fornications that you can
imagine happening between Egyptian mummies after the museum is closed
for the night. And after that the long, long quiet years of business
failure, loneliness, and stagnation in godless boarding-houses.

[¶43] And yet uncle in his old age was probably not unhappy. He had one hobby
of never-failing interest, and that was his diseases. He suffered, by
his own account, from every disease in the medical dictionary, and was
never weary of talking about them. Indeed, it seemed to Gordon that none
of the people in his uncle's boarding-house—he had been there
occasionally—ever did talk about anything except their diseases. All
over the darkish drawing-room, ageing, discoloured people sat about in
couples, discussing symptoms. Their conversation was like the dripping
of stalactite to stalagmite. Drip, drip. 'How is your lumbago?' says
stalactite to stalagmite. 'I find my Kruschen Salts are doing me good,'
says stalagmite to stalactite. Drip, drip, drip.

[¶44] And then there was Aunt Angela, aged sixty-nine. Gordon tried not even
to think of Aunt Angela oftener than he could help.

[¶45] Poor, dear, good, kind, depressing Aunt Angela! Poor, shrivelled,
parchment-yellow, skin-and-bone Aunt Angela! There in her miserable
little semi-detached house in Highgate—Briarbrae, its name was—there
in her palace in the northern mountains, there dwelleth she, Angela the
Ever-virgin, of whom no man either living or among the shades can say
truly that upon her lips he hath pressed the dear caresses of a lover.
All alone she dwelleth, and all day long she fareth to and fro, and in
her hand is the feather-mop fashioned from the tail feathers of the
contumacious turkey, and with it she polisheth the dark-leaved
aspidistras and flicketh the hated dust from the resplendent
never-to-be-used Crown Derby china tea-service. And ever and anon she
comforteth her dear heart with draughts of the dark brown tea, both
Flowery Orange and Pekoe Points, which the small-bearded sons of
Coromandel have ferried to her across the wine-dark sea. Poor, dear,
good, kind, but on the whole unlovable Aunt Angela! Her annuity was
ninety-eight pounds a year (thirty-eight bob a week, but she retained
the middle-class habit of thinking of her income as a yearly and not a
weekly thing), and out of that, twelve and sixpence a week went on house
rates. She would probably have starved occasionally if Julia had not
smuggled her packets of cakes and bread and butter from the
shop—always, of course, presented as 'Just a few little things that it
seemed a pity to throw away,' with the solemn pretence that Aunt Angela
didn't really need them.

[¶46] Yet she too had her pleasures, poor old auntie. She had become a great
novel-reader in her old age, the public library being only ten minutes'
walk from Briarbrae. During his lifetime, on some whim or other, Gran'pa
Comstock had forbidden his daughters to read novels. Consequently,
having only begun to read novels in 1902, Aunt Angela was always a
couple of decades behind the current mode in fiction. But she plodded
along in the rear, faint yet pursuing. In the nineteen-hundreds she was
still reading Rhoda Broughton and Mrs Henry Wood. In the War years she
discovered Hall Caine and Mrs Humphrey Ward. In the nineteen-twenties
she was reading Silas Hocking and H. Seton Merriman, and by the
nineteen-thirties she had almost, but not quite, caught up with W. B.
Maxwell and William J. Locke. Further she would never get. As for the
post-War novelists, she had heard of them afar off, with their
immorality and their blasphemies and their devastating 'cleverness'. But
she would never live to read them. Walpole we know, and Hichens we read,
but Hemingway, who are you?

[¶47] Well, this was 1934, and that was what was left of the Comstock family.
Uncle Walter, with his 'agencies' and his diseases. Aunt Angela, dusting
the Crown Derby china tea-service in Briarbrae. Aunt Charlotte, still
preserving a vague, vegetable existence in the Mental Home. Julia,
working a seventy-two-hour week and doing her 'sewing' at nights by the
tiny gas-fire in her bed-sitting-room. Gordon, nearly thirty, earning
two quid a week in a fool's job, and struggling, as the sole
demonstrable object of his existence, with a dreadful book that never
got any further.

[¶48] Possibly there were some other, more distantly related Comstocks, for
Gran'pa Comstock had been one of a family of twelve. But if any survived
they had grown rich and lost touch with their poor relations; for money
is thicker than blood. As for Gordon's branch of the family, the
combined income of the five of them, allowing for the lump sum that had
been paid down when Aunt Charlotte entered the Mental Home, might have
been six hundred a year. Their combined ages were two hundred and
sixty-three years. None of them had ever been out of England, fought in
war, been in prison, ridden a horse, travelled in an aeroplane, got
married or given birth to a child. There seemed no reason why they
should not continue in the same style until they died. Year in, year
out, _nothing ever happened_ in the Comstock family.

## 4. IV

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/4/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/4/#p-N

[¶0] '_Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over_
                _The bending poplars, newly bare._'

[¶1] As a matter of fact, though, there was not a breath of wind that
afternoon. It was almost as mild as spring. Gordon repeated to himself
the poem he had begun yesterday, in a cadenced whisper, simply for the
pleasure of the sound of it. He was pleased with the poem at this
moment. It was a good poem—or would be when it was finished, anyway. He
had forgotten that last night it had almost made him sick.

[¶2] The plane trees brooded motionless, dimmed by faint wreaths of mist. A
tram boomed in the valley far below. Gordon walked up Malkin Hill,
rustling instep-deep through the dry, drifted leaves. All down the
pavement they were strewn, crinkly and golden, like the rustling flakes
of some American breakfast cereal; as though the queen of Brobdingnag
had upset her packet of Tru-weet Breakfast Crisps down the hillside.

[¶3] Jolly, the windless winter days! Best time of all the year—or so Gordon
thought at this moment. He was as happy as you can be when you haven't
smoked all day and have only three-halfpence and a Joey in the world.
This was Thursday, early-closing day and Gordon's afternoon off. He was
going to the house of Paul Doring, the critic, who lived in Coleridge
Grove and gave literary tea-parties.

[¶4] It had taken him an hour or more to get himself ready. Social life is so
complicated when your income is two quid a week. He had had a painful
shave in cold water immediately after dinner. He had put on his best
suit—three years old but just passable when he remembered to press the
trousers under his mattress. He had turned his collar inside out and
tied his tie so that the torn place didn't show. With the point of a
match he had scraped enough blacking from the tin to polish his shoes.
He had even borrowed a needle from Lorenheim and darned his socks—a
tedious job, but better than inking the places where your ankle shows
through. Also he had procured an empty Gold Flake packet and put into it
a single cigarette extracted from the penny-in-the-slot-machine. That
was just for the look of the thing. You can't, of course, go to other
people's houses with _no_ cigarettes. But if you have even one it's all
right, because when people see one cigarette in a packet they assume
that the packet has been full. It is fairly easy to pass the thing off
as an accident.

[¶5] 'Have a cigarette?' you say casually to someone.

[¶6] 'Oh—thanks.'

[¶7] You push the packet open and then register surprise. 'Hell! I'm down to
my last. And I could have sworn I had a full packet.'

[¶8] 'Oh, I won't take your last. Have one of _mine_,' says the other.

[¶9] 'Oh—thanks.'

[¶10] And after that, of course, your host and hostess press cigarettes upon
you. But you must have _one_ cigarette, just for honour's sake.

[¶11] _Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over._ He would finish that poem
presently. He could finish it whenever he chose. It was queer, how the
mere prospect of going to a literary tea-party bucked him up. When your
income is two quid a week you at least aren't jaded by too much human
contact. Even to see the inside of somebody else's house is a kind of
treat. A padded armchair under your bum, and tea and cigarettes and the
smell of women—you learn to appreciate such things when you are starved
of them. In practice, though, Doring's parties never in the least
resembled what Gordon looked forward to. Those wonderful, witty, erudite
conversations that he imagined beforehand—they never happened or began
to happen. Indeed there was never anything that could properly be called
conversation at all; only the stupid clacking that goes on at parties
everywhere, in Hampstead or Hong Kong. No one really worth meeting ever
came to Doring's parties. Doring was such a very mangy lion himself that
his followers were hardly even worthy to be called jackals. Quite half
of them were those hen-witted middle-aged women who have lately escaped
from good Christian homes and are trying to be literary. The star
exhibits were troops of bright young things who dropped in for half an
hour, formed circles of their own and talked sniggeringly about other
bright young things to whom they referred by nicknames. For the most
part Gordon found himself hanging about on the edges of conversations.
Doring was kind in a slap-dash way and introduced him to everybody as
'Gordon Comstock—_you_ know; the poet. He wrote that dashed clever book
of poems called _Mice_. _You_ know.' But Gordon had never yet
encountered anybody who _did_ know. The bright young things summed him
up at a glance and ignored him. He was thirtyish, moth-eaten and
obviously penniless. And yet, in spite of the invariable disappointment,
how eagerly he looked forward to those literary tea-parties! They were a
break in his loneliness, anyway. That is the devilish thing about
poverty, the ever-recurrent thing—loneliness. Day after day with never
an intelligent person to talk to; night after night back to your godless
room, always alone. Perhaps it sounds rather fun if you are rich and
sought-after; but how different it is when you do it from necessity!

[¶12] _Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over._ A stream of cars hummed easily
up the hill. Gordon eyed them without envy. Who wants a car, anyway? The
pink doll-faces of upper-class women gazed at him through the car
window. Bloody nit-witted lapdogs. Pampered bitches dozing on their
chains. Better the lone wolf than the cringing dog. He thought of the
Tube stations at early morning. The black hordes of clerks scurrying
underground like ants into a hole; swarms of little ant-like men, each
with despatch-case in right hand, newspaper in left hand, and the fear
of the sack like a maggot in his heart. How it eats at them, that secret
fear! Especially on winter days, when they hear the menace of the wind.
Winter, the sack, the workhouse, the Embankment benches! Ah!

[¶13] _Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over_
             _The bending poplars, newly bare,_
             _And the dark ribbons of the chimneys_
             _Veer downward; flicked by whips of air,_

[¶14] _Torn posters flutter; coldly sound_
             _The boom of trams and the rattle of hooves,_
             _And the clerks who hurry to the station_
             _Look, shuddering, over the eastern rooves,_

[¶15] _Thinking_——

[¶16] What do they think? Winter's coming. Is my job safe? The sack means the
workhouse. Circumcise ye your foreskins, saith the Lord. Suck the
blacking off me boss's boots. Yes!

[¶17] _Thinking each one, 'Here comes the winter!_
              _Please God I keep my job this year!'_
              _And bleakly, as the cold strikes through_
              _Their entrails like an icy spear,_

[¶18] _They think_——

[¶19] 'Think' again. No matter. What do they think? Money, money! Rent, rates,
taxes, school-bills, season tickets, boots for the children. And the
life insurance policy and the skivvy's wages. And, my God, suppose the
wife gets in the family way again! And did I laugh loud enough when the
boss made that joke yesterday? And the next instalment on the vacuum
cleaner.

[¶20] Neatly, taking a pleasure in his neatness, with the sensation of
dropping piece after piece of a jigsaw puzzle into place, he fashioned
another stanza:

[¶21] _They think of rent, rates, season tickets,_
             _Insurance, coal, the skivvy's wages,_
             _Boots, school-bills, and the next instalment_
             _Upon the two twin beds from Drage's._

[¶22] Not bad, not bad at all. Finish it presently. Four or five more stanzas.
Ravelston would print it.

[¶23] A starling sat in the naked boughs of a plane tree, crooning
self-pitifully as starlings do on warm winter days when they believe
spring is in the air. At the foot of the tree a huge sandy cat sat
motionless, mouth open, gazing upwards with rapt desire, plainly
expecting that the starling would drop into its mouth. Gordon repeated
to himself the four finished stanzas of his poem. It was _good_. Why had
he thought last night that it was mechanical, weak and empty? He was a
poet. He walked more upright, arrogantly almost, with the pride of a
poet. Gordon Comstock, author of _Mice_. 'Of exceptional promise,' _The
Times Lit. Supp._ had said. Author also of _London Pleasures_. For that
too would be finished quite soon. He knew now that he could finish it
when he chose. Why had he ever despaired of it? Three months it might
take; soon enough to come out in the summer. In his mind's eye he saw
the 'slim' white buckram shape of _London Pleasures_; the excellent
paper, the wide margins, the good Caslon type, the refined dust-jacket.
And the reviews in all the best papers. 'An outstanding
achievement'—_The Times Lit. Supp._ 'A welcome relief from the Sitwell
school'—_Scrutiny_.

[¶24] Coleridge Grove was a damp, shadowy, secluded road, a blind alley and
therefore void of traffic. Literary associations of the wrong kind
(Coleridge was rumoured to have lived there for six weeks in the summer
of 1821) hung heavy upon it. You could not look at its antique decaying
houses, standing back from the road in dank gardens under heavy trees,
without feeling an atmosphere of outmoded 'culture' envelop you. In some
of those houses, undoubtedly, Browning Societies still nourished, and
ladies in art serge sat at the feet of extinct poets talking about
Swinburne and Walter Pater. In spring the gardens were sprinkled with
purple and yellow crocuses, and later with harebells, springing up in
little Wendy rings among the anæmic grass; and even the trees, it seemed
to Gordon, played up to their environment and twisted themselves into
whimsy Rackhamesque attitudes. It was queer that a prosperous hack
critic like Paul Doring should live in such a place. For Doring was an
astonishingly bad critic. He reviewed novels for the _Sunday Post_ and
discovered the great English novel with Walpolean regularity once a
fortnight. You would have expected him to live in a flat on Hyde Park
Corner. Perhaps it was a kind of penance that he had imposed upon
himself, as though by living in the refined discomfort of Coleridge
Grove he propitiated the injured gods of literature.

[¶25] Gordon came round the corner, turning over in his mind a line from
_London Pleasures_. And then suddenly he stopped short. There was
something wrong about the look of the Dorings' gate. What was it? Ah, of
course! There were no cars waiting outside.

[¶26] He paused, walked on a step or two and stopped again, like a dog that
smells danger. It was all wrong. There _ought_ to be some cars. There
were always quite a lot of people at the Dorings' parties, and half of
them came in cars. Why had nobody else arrived? Could he be too early?
But no! They had said half past three and it was at least twenty to
four.

[¶27] He hastened towards the gate. Already he felt practically sure that the
party _had_ been put off. A chill like the shadow of a cloud had fallen
across him. Suppose the Dorings weren't at home! Suppose the party had
been put off! And this thought, though it dismayed him, did not strike
him as in the least improbable. It was his special bugbear, the especial
childish dread he carried about with him, to be invited to people's
houses and then find them not at home. Even when there was no doubt
about the invitation he always half expected that there would be some
hitch or other. He was never quite certain of his welcome. He took it
for granted that people would snub him and forget about him. Why not,
indeed? He had no money. When you have no money your life is one long
series of snubs.

[¶28] He swung the iron gate open. It creaked with a lonely sound. The dank
mossy path was bordered with chunks of some Rackhamesque pinkish stone.
Gordon inspected the house-front narrowly. He was so used to this kind
of thing. He had developed a sort of Sherlock Holmes technique for
finding out whether a house was inhabited or not. Ah! Not much doubt
about it this time. The house had a deserted look. No smoke coming from
the chimneys, no windows lighted. It must be getting darkish
indoors—surely they would have lighted the lamps? And there was not a
single footmark on the steps; that settled it. Nevertheless with a sort
of desperate hope he tugged at the bell. An old-fashioned wire bell, of
course. In Coleridge Grove it would have been considered low and
unliterary to have an electric bell.

[¶29] Clang, clang, clang! went the bell.

[¶30] Gordon's last hope vanished. No mistaking the hollow clangour of a bell
echoing through an empty house. He seized the handle again and gave it a
wrench that almost broke the wire. A frightful, clamorous peal answered
him. But it was useless, quite useless. Not a foot stirred within. Even
the servants were out. At this moment he became aware of a lace cap,
some dark hair and a pair of youthful eyes regarding him furtively from
the basement of the house next door. It was a servant-girl who had come
out to see what all the noise was about. She caught his eye and gazed
into the middle distance. He looked a fool and knew it. One always does
look a fool when one rings the bell of an empty house. And suddenly it
came to him that that girl knew all about him—knew that the party had
been put off and that everyone except Gordon had been told of it—knew
that it was because he had no money that he wasn't worth the trouble of
telling. _She_ knew. Servants always know.

[¶31] He turned and made for the gate. Under the servant's eye he had to
stroll casually away, as though this were a small disappointment that
scarcely mattered. But he was trembling so with anger that it was
difficult to control his movements. The sods! The bloody sods! To have
played a trick like that on him! To have invited him, and then changed
the day and not even bothered to tell him! There might be other
explanations—he just refused to think of them. The sods, the bloody
sods! His eye fell upon one of the Rackhamesque chunks of stone. How
he'd love to pick that thing up and bash it through the window! He
grasped the rusty gate-bar so hard that he hurt his hand and almost tore
it. The physical pain did him good. It counteracted the agony at his
heart. It was not merely that he had been cheated of an evening spent in
human company, though that was much. It was the feeling of helplessness,
of insignificance, of being set aside, ignored—a creature not worth
worrying about. They'd changed the day and hadn't even bothered to tell
him. Told everybody else, but not him. That's how people treat you when
you've no money! Just wantonly, cold-bloodedly insult you. It was likely
enough, indeed, that the Dorings had honestly forgotten, meaning no
harm; it was even possible that he himself had mistaken the date. But
no! He wouldn't think of it. The Dorings had done it on purpose. Of
_course_ they had done it on purpose! Just hadn't troubled to tell him,
because he had no money and consequently didn't matter. The sods!

[¶32] He walked rapidly away. There was a sharp pain in his breast. Human
contact, human voices! But what was the good of wishing? He'd have to
spend the evening alone, as usual. His friends were so few and lived so
far away. Rosemary would still be at work; besides, she lived at the
back of beyond, in West Kensington, in a women's hostel guarded by
female dragons. Ravelston lived nearer, in the Regent's Park district.
But Ravelston was a rich man and had many engagements; the chances were
always against his being at home. Gordon could not even ring him up,
because he hadn't the necessary two pennies; only three halfpence and
the Joey. Besides, how could he go and see Ravelston when he had no
money? Ravelston would be sure to say 'Let's go to a pub,' or something!
He couldn't let Ravelston pay for his drinks. His friendship with
Ravelston was only possible on the understanding that he paid his share
of everything.

[¶33] He took out his single cigarette and lighted it. It gave him no pleasure
to smoke, walking fast; it was a mere reckless gesture. He did not take
much notice of where he was going. All he wanted was to tire himself, to
walk and walk till the stupid physical fatigue had obliterated the
Dorings' snub. He moved roughly southward—through the wastes of Camden
Town, down Tottenham Court Road. It had been dark for some time now. He
crossed Oxford Street, threaded through Covent Garden, found himself in
the Strand and crossed the river by Waterloo Bridge. With night the cold
had descended. As he walked his anger grew less violent, but his mood
could not fundamentally improve. There was a thought that kept haunting
him—a thought from which he fled, but which was not to be escaped. It
was the thought of his poems. His empty, silly, futile poems! How could
he ever have believed in them? To think that actually he had imagined,
so short a time ago, that even _London Pleasures_ might one day come to
something! It made him sick to think of his poems now. It was like
remembering last night's debauch. He knew in his bones that he was no
good and his poems were no good. _London Pleasures_ would never be
finished. If he lived to be a thousand he would never write a line worth
reading. Over and over, in self-hatred, he repeated those four stanzas
of the poem he had been making up. Christ, what tripe! Rhyme to
rhyme—tinkle, tinkle, tinkle! Hollow as an empty biscuit tin. _That_
was the kind of muck he had wasted his life on.

[¶34] He had walked a long way, five or seven miles perhaps. His feet were hot
and swollen from the pavements. He was somewhere in Lambeth, in a slummy
quarter where the narrow, puddled streets plunged into blackness at
fifty yards' distance. The few lamps, mist-ringed, hung like isolated
stars, illumining nothing save themselves. He was getting devilishly
hungry. The coffee-shops tempted him with their steamy windows and their
chalked signs: 'Good Cup of Tea, 2d. No Urns Used.' But it was no use,
he couldn't spend his Joey. He went under some echoing railway arches
and up the alley on to Hungerford Bridge. On the miry water, lit by the
glare of skysigns, the muck of East London was racing inland. Corks,
lemons, barrel-staves, a dead dog, hunks of bread. Gordon walked along
the Embankment to Westminster. The wind made the plane trees rattle.
_Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over._ He winced. That tripe again!
Even now, though it was December, a few poor draggled old wrecks were
settling down on the benches, tucking themselves up in sort of parcels
of newspaper. Gordon looked at them callously. On the bum, they called
it. He would come to it himself some day. Better so, perhaps? He never
felt any pity for the genuine poor. It is the black-coated poor, the
middle-middle class, who need pitying.

[¶35] He walked up to Trafalgar Square. Hours and hours to kill. The National
Gallery? Ah, shut long ago, of course. It would be. It was a quarter
past seven. Three, four, five hours before he could sleep. He walked
seven times round the square, slowly. Four times clockwise, three times
widdershins. His feet were sore and most of the benches were empty, but
he would not sit down. If he halted for an instant the longing for
tobacco would come upon him. In the Charing Cross Road the tea-shops
called like sirens. Once the glass door of a Lyons swung open, letting
out a wave of hot cake-scented air. It almost overcame him. After all,
why _not_ go in? You could sit there for nearly an hour. A cup of tea
twopence, two buns a penny each. He had fourpence halfpenny, counting
the Joey. But no! That bloody Joey! The girl at the cash desk would
titter. In a vivid vision he saw the girl at the cash desk, as she
handled his threepenny-bit, grin sidelong at the girl behind the
cake-counter. They'd _know_ it was your last threepence. No use. Shove
on. Keep moving.

[¶36] In the deadly glare of the Neon lights the pavements were densely
crowded. Gordon threaded his way, a small shabby figure, with pale face
and unkempt hair. The crowd slid past him; he avoided and was avoided.
There is something horrible about London at night; the coldness, the
anonymity, the aloofness. Seven million people, sliding to and fro,
avoiding contact, barely aware of one another's existence, like fish in
an aquarium tank. The street swarmed with pretty girls. By scores they
streamed past him, their faces averted or unseeing; cold
nymph-creatures, dreading the eyes of the male. It was queer how many of
them seemed to be alone, or with another girl. Far more women alone than
women with men, he noted. That too was money. How many girls alive
wouldn't be manless sooner than take a man who's moneyless?

[¶37] The pubs were open, oozing sour whiffs of beer. People were trickling by
ones and twos into the picture-houses. Gordon halted outside a great
garish picture-house, under the weary eye of the commissionaire, to
examine the photographs. Greta Garbo in _The Painted Veil_. He yearned
to go inside, not for Greta's sake, but just for the warmth and the
softness of the velvet seat. He hated the pictures, of course, seldom
went there even when he could afford it. Why encourage the art that is
destined to replace literature? But still, there is a kind of soggy
attraction about it. To sit on the padded seat in the warm smoke-scented
darkness, letting the flickering drivel on the screen gradually
overwhelm you—feeling the waves of its silliness lap you round till you
seem to drown, intoxicated, in a viscous sea—after all, it's the kind
of drug we need. The right drug for friendless people. As he approached
the Palace Theatre a tart on sentry-go under the porch marked him down,
stepped forward and stood in his path. A short, stocky Italian girl,
very young, with big black eyes. She looked agreeable, and, what tarts
so seldom are, merry. For a moment he checked his step, even allowed
himself to catch her eye. She looked up at him, ready to break out into
a broad-lipped smile. Why not stop and talk to her? She looked as though
she might understand him. But no! No money! He looked away and
side-stepped her with the cold haste of a man whom poverty makes
virtuous. How furious she'd be if he stopped and then she found he had
no money! He pressed on. Even to talk costs money.

[¶38] Up Tottenham Court Road and Camden Road it was a dreary drudge. He
walked slower, dragging his feet a little. He had done ten miles over
pavements. More girls streamed past, unseeing. Girls alone, girls with
youths, girls with other girls, girls alone. Their cruel youthful eyes
went over him and through him as though he had not existed. He was too
tired to resent it. His shoulders surrendered to their weariness; he
slouched, not trying any longer to preserve his upright carriage and his
you-be-damned air. They flee from me that sometime did me seek. How
could you blame them? He was thirty, moth-eaten and without charm. Why
should any girl ever look at him again?

[¶39] He reflected that he must go home at once if he wanted any food—for Ma
Wisbeach refused to serve meals after nine o'clock. But the thought of
his cold womanless bedroom sickened him. To climb the stairs, light the
gas, flop down at the table with hours to kill and nothing to do,
nothing to read, nothing to smoke—no, _not_ endurable. In Camden Town
the pubs were full and noisy, though this was only Thursday. Three
women, red-armed, squat as the beer mugs in their hands, stood outside a
pub door, talking. From within came hoarse voices, fag-smoke, the fume
of beer. Gordon thought of the Crichton Arms. Flaxman might be there.
Why not risk it? A half of bitter, threepence halfpenny. He had
fourpence halfpenny counting the Joey. After all, a Joey _is_ legal
tender.

[¶40] He felt dreadfully thirsty already. It had been a mistake to let himself
think of beer. As he approached the Crichton, he heard voices singing.
The great garish pub seemed to be more brightly lighted than usual.
There was a concert or something going on inside. Twenty ripe male
voices were chanting in unison:

[¶41] '_Fo-or_ ree's _a jorrigoo' fellow_,
                  _For_ ree's _a jorrigoo' fellow_,

[¶42] _For_ ree's _a jorrigoo' fe-ELL-OW—_
                  _And toori oori us!_'

[¶43] At least, that was what it sounded like. Gordon drew nearer, pierced by
a ravishing thirst. The voices were so soggy, so infinitely beery. When
you heard them you saw the scarlet faces of prosperous plumbers. There
was a private room behind the bar where the Buffaloes held their secret
conclaves. Doubtless it was they who were singing. They were giving some
kind of commemorative booze to their president, secretary, Grand
Herbivore or whatever he is called. Gordon hesitated outside the saloon
bar. Better go to the public bar, perhaps. Draught beer in the public,
bottled beer in the saloon. He went round to the other side of the pub.
The beer-choked voices followed him:

[¶44] '_With a toori oori ay._
                  _An' a toori oori ay!_

[¶45] _'Fo-or_ ree's _a jorrigoo' fellow_,
                  _For_ ree's _a jorrigoo' fellow_——'

[¶46] He felt quite faint for a moment. But it was fatigue and hunger as well
as thirst. He could picture the cosy room where those Buffaloes were
singing; the roaring fire, the big shiny table, the bovine photographs
on the wall. Could picture also, as the singing ceased, twenty scarlet
faces disappearing into pots of beer. He put his hand into his pocket
and made sure that the threepenny-bit was still there. After all, why
not? In the public bar, who would comment? Slap the Joey down on the bar
and pass it off as a joke. 'Been saving that up from the Christmas
pudding—ha, ha!' Laughter all round. Already he seemed to have the
metallic taste of draught beer on his tongue.

[¶47] He fingered the tiny disc, irresolute. The Buffaloes had tuned up again:

[¶48] '_With a toori oori ay,_
                 _An' a toori oori ay!_

[¶49] '_Fo-or_ ree's _a jorrigoo' fellow_——'

[¶50] Gordon moved back to the saloon bar. The window was frosted, and also
steamy from the heat inside. Still, there were chinks where you could
see through. He peeped in. Yes, Flaxman was there.

[¶51] The saloon bar was crowded. Like all rooms seen from the outside, it
looked ineffably cosy. The fire that blazed in the grate danced,
mirrored, in the brass spittoons. Gordon thought he could almost smell
the beer through the glass. Flaxman was propping up the bar with two
fish-faced pals who looked like insurance-touts of the better type. One
elbow on the bar, his foot on the rail, a beer-streaked glass in the
other hand, he was swapping backchat with the blonde cutie barmaid. She
was standing on a chair behind the bar, ranging the bottled beer and
talking saucily over her shoulder. You couldn't hear what they were
saying, but you could guess. Flaxman let fall some memorable witticism.
The fish-faced men bellowed with obscene laughter. And the blonde cutie,
tittering down at him, half shocked and half delighted, wriggled her
neat little bum.

[¶52] Gordon's heart sickened. To be in there, just to be in there! In the
warmth and light, with people to talk to, with beer and cigarettes and a
girl to flirt with! After all, why _not_ go in? You could borrow a bob
off Flaxman. Flaxman would lend it you all right. He pictured Flaxman's
careless assent—'What ho, chappie! How's life? What? A bob? Sure! Take
two. Catch, chappie!'—and the florin flicked along the beer-wet bar.
Flaxman was a decent sort, in his way.

[¶53] Gordon put his hand against the swing door. He even pushed it open a few
inches. The warm fog of smoke and beer slipped through the crack. A
familiar, reviving smell; nevertheless as he smelled it his nerve failed
him. No! Impossible to go in. He turned away. He couldn't go shoving
into that saloon bar with only fourpence halfpenny in his pocket. Never
let other people buy your drinks for you! The first commandment of the
moneyless. He made off, down the dark pavement.

[¶54] '_For_ ree's _a jorrigoo' fe-ELL-OW_—
                 _And toori oori us!_

[¶55] '_With a toori oori ay!_
                 _An' a_——'

[¶56] The voices, diminishing with distance, rolled after him, bearing faint
tidings of beer. Gordon took the threepenny-bit from his pocket and sent
it skimming away into the darkness.

[¶57] He was going home, if you could call it 'going'. At any rate he was
gravitating in that direction. He did not want to go home, but he had
got to sit down. His legs ached and his feet were bruised, and that vile
bedroom was the sole place in London where he had purchased the right to
sit down. He slipped in quietly, but, as usual, not quite so quietly
that Mrs Wisbeach failed to hear him. She gave him a brief nosy glance
round the corner of her door. It would be a little after nine. She might
get him a meal if he asked her. But she would grizzle and make a favour
of it, and he would go to bed hungry sooner than face that.

[¶58] He started up the stairs. He was halfway up the first flight when a
double knock behind him made him jump. The post! Perhaps a letter from
Rosemary!

[¶59] Forced from outside, the letter flap lifted, and with an effort, like a
heron regurgitating a flatfish, vomited a bunch of letters onto the mat.
Gordon's heart bounded. There were six or seven of them. Surely among
all that lot there must be one for himself! Mrs Wisbeach, as usual, had
darted from her lair at the sound of the postman's knock. As a matter of
fact, in two years Gordon had never once succeeded in getting hold of a
letter before Mrs Wisbeach laid hands on it. She gathered the letters
jealously to her breast, and then, holding them up one at a time,
scanned their addresses. From her manner you could gather that she
suspected each one of them of containing a writ, an improper love letter
or an ad for Amen Pills.

[¶60] 'One for you, Mr Comstock,' she said sourly, handing him a letter.

[¶61] His heart shrank and paused in its beat. A long-shaped envelope. Not
from Rosemary, therefore. Ah! It was addressed in his own handwriting.
From the editor of a paper, then. He had two poems 'out' at present. One
with the _Californian Review_, the other with the _Primrose Quarterly_.
But this wasn't an American stamp. And the _Primrose_ had had his poem
at least six weeks! Good God, supposing they'd accepted it!

[¶62] He had forgotten Rosemary's existence. He said 'Thanks!', stuck the
letter in his pocket and started up the stairs with outward calm, but no
sooner was he out of Mrs Wisbeach's sight than he bounded up three steps
at a time. He had got to be alone to open that letter. Even before he
reached the door he was feeling for his matchbox, but his fingers were
trembling so that in lighting the gas he chipped the mantle. He sat
down, took the letter from his pocket, and then quailed. For a moment he
could not nerve himself to open it. He held it up to the light and felt
it to see how thick it was. His poem had been two sheets. Then, tailing
himself a fool, he ripped the envelope open. Out tumbled his own poem,
and with it a neat—oh, so neat!—little printed slip of imitation
parchment:

[¶63] The Editor regrets that he is unable to make use of the enclosed
    contribution.

[¶64] The slip was decorated with a design of funereal laurel leaves.

[¶65] Gordon gazed at the thing with wordless hatred. Perhaps no snub in the
world is so deadly as this, because none is so unanswerable. Suddenly he
loathed his own poem and was acutely ashamed of it. He felt it the
weakest, silliest poem ever written. Without looking at it again he tore
it into small bits and flung them into the wastepaper basket. He would
put that poem out of mind for ever. The rejection slip, however, he did
not tear up yet. He fingered it, feeling its loathly sleekness. Such an
elegant little thing, printed in admirable type. You could tell at a
glance that it came from a 'good' magazine—a snooty highbrow magazine
with the money of a publishing house behind it. Money, money! Money and
culture! It was a stupid thing that he had done. Fancy sending a poem to
a paper like the _Primrose_! As though they'd accept poems from people
like _him_. The mere fact that the poem wasn't typed would tell them
what kind of person he was. He might as well have dropped a card on
Buckingham Palace. He thought of the people who wrote for the
_Primrose_; a coterie of moneyed highbrows—those sleek, refined young
animals who suck in money and culture with their mother's milk. The idea
of trying to horn in among that pansy crowd! But he cursed them all the
same. The sods! The bloody sods! 'The Editor regrets!' Why be so bloody
mealy-mouthed about it? Why not say outright, 'We don't want your bloody
poems. We only take poems from chaps we were at Cambridge with. You
proletarians keep your distance'? The bloody, hypocritical sods!

[¶66] At last he crumpled up the rejection slip, threw it away and stood up.
Better get to bed while he had the energy to undress. Bed was the only
place that was warm. But wait. Wind the clock, set the alarm. He went
through the familiar action with a sense of deadly staleness. His eye
fell upon the aspidistra. Two years he had inhabited this vile room; two
mortal years in which nothing had been accomplished. Seven hundred
wasted days, all ending in the lonely bed. Snubs, failures, insults, all
of them unavenged. Money, money, all is money! Because he had no money
the Dorings snubbed him, because he had no money the _Primrose_ had
turned down his poem, because he had no money Rosemary wouldn't sleep
with him. Social failure, artistic failure, sexual failure—they are all
the same. And lack of money is at the bottom of them all.

[¶67] He must hit back at somebody or something. He could not go to bed with
that rejection slip as the last thing in his mind. He thought of
Rosemary. It was five days now since she had written. If there had been
a letter from her this evening even that rap over the knuckles from the
_Primrose Quarterly_ would have mattered less. She declared that she
loved him, and she wouldn't sleep with him, wouldn't even write to him!
She was the same as all the others. She despised him and forgot about
him because he had no money and therefore didn't matter. He would write
her an enormous letter, telling her what it felt like to be ignored and
insulted, making her see how cruelly she had treated him.

[¶68] He found a clean sheet of paper and wrote in the top right-hand corner:

[¶69] 31 Willowbed Road, NW, December 1st, 9.30 p.m.

[¶70] But having written that much, he found that he could write no more. He
was in the defeated mood when even the writing of a letter is too great
an effort. Besides, what was the use? She would never understand. No
woman ever understands. But he must write something. Something to wound
her—that was what he most wanted, at this moment. He meditated for a
long time, and at last wrote, exactly in the middle of the sheet:

[¶71] You have broken my heart.

[¶72] No address, no signature. Rather neat it looked, all by itself, there in
the middle of the sheet, in his small 'scholarly' handwriting. Almost
like a little poem in itself. This thought cheered him up a little.

[¶73] He stuck the letter in an envelope and then went out and posted it at
the post office on the corner, spending his last three halfpence on a
penny stamp and a halfpenny stamp out of the slot machine.

## 5. V

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/5/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/5/#p-N

[¶0] 'We're printing that poem of yours in next month's _Antichrist_,' said
Ravelston from his first-floor window.

[¶1] Gordon, on the pavement below, affected to have forgotten the poem
Ravelston was speaking about; he remembered it intimately, of course, as
he remembered all his poems.

[¶2] 'Which poem?' he said.

[¶3] 'The one about the dying prostitute. We thought it was rather
successful.'

[¶4] Gordon laughed a laugh of gratified conceit, and managed to pass it off
as a laugh of sardonic amusement.

[¶5] 'Aha! A dying prostitute! That's rather what you might call one of my
subjects. I'll do you one about an aspidistra next time.'

[¶6] Ravelston's over-sensitive, boyish face, framed by nice dark-brown hair,
drew back a little from the window.

[¶7] 'It's intolerably cold,' he said. 'You'd better come up and have some
food, or something.'

[¶8] 'No, you come down. I've had dinner. Let's go to a pub and have some
beer.'

[¶9] 'All right, then. Half a minute while I get my shoes on.'

[¶10] They had been talking for some minutes, Gordon on the pavement,
Ravelston leaning out of the window above. Gordon had announced his
arrival not by knocking at the door but by throwing a pebble against the
window pane. He never, if he could help it, set foot inside Ravelston's
flat. There was something in the atmosphere of the flat that upset him
and made him feel mean, dirty and out of place. It was so
overwhelmingly, though unconsciously, upper-class. Only in the street or
in a pub could he feel himself approximately Ravelston's equal. It would
have astonished Ravelston to learn that his four-roomed flat, which he
thought of as a poky little place, had this effect upon Gordon. To
Ravelston, living in the wilds of Regent's Park was practically the same
thing as living in the slums; he had chosen to live there, _en bon
socialiste_, precisely as your social snob will live in a mews in
Mayfair for the sake of the 'W1' on his notepaper. It was part of a
lifelong attempt to escape from his own class and become, as it were, an
honorary member of the proletariat. Like all such attempts, it was
foredoomed to failure. No rich man ever succeeds in disguising himself
as a poor man; for money, like murder, will out.

[¶11] On the street door there was a brass plate inscribed:

[¶12] P. W. H. Ravelston
                               ANTICHRIST

[¶13] Ravelston lived on the first floor, and the editorial offices of
_Antichrist_ were downstairs. _Antichrist_ was a middle- to highbrow
monthly, Socialist in a vehement but ill-defined way. In general, it
gave the impression of being edited by an ardent Nonconformist who had
transferred his allegiance from God to Marx, and in doing so had got
mixed up with a gang of _vers libre_ poets. This was not really
Ravelston's character; merely he was softer-hearted than an editor ought
to be, and consequently was at the mercy of his contributors.
Practically anything got printed in _Antichrist_ if Ravelston suspected
that its author was starving.

[¶14] Ravelston appeared a moment later, hatless and pulling on a pair of
gauntlet gloves. You could tell him at a glance for a rich young man. He
wore the uniform of the moneyed intelligentsia; an old tweed coat—but
it was one of those coats which have been made by a good tailor and grow
more aristocratic as they grow older—very loose grey flannel bags, a
grey pullover, much-worn brown shoes. He made a point of going
everywhere, even to fashionable houses and expensive restaurants, in
these clothes, just to show his contempt for upper-class conventions; he
did not fully realise that it is only the upper classes who can do these
things. Though he was a year older than Gordon he looked much younger.
He was very tall, with a lean, wide-shouldered body and the typical
lounging grace of the upper-class youth. But there was something
curiously apologetic in his movements and in the expression of his face.
He seemed always in the act of stepping out of somebody else's way. When
expressing an opinion he would rub his nose with the back of his left
forefinger. The truth was that in every moment of his life he was
apologising, tacitly, for the largeness of his income. You could make
him uncomfortable as easily by reminding him that he was rich as you
could make Gordon by reminding him that he was poor.

[¶15] 'You've had dinner, I gather?' said Ravelston, in his rather Bloomsbury
voice.

[¶16] 'Yes, ages ago. Haven't you?'

[¶17] 'Oh, yes, certainly. Oh, quite!'

[¶18] It was twenty past eight and Gordon had had no food since midday.
Neither had Ravelston. Gordon did not know that Ravelston was hungry,
but Ravelston knew that Gordon was hungry, and Gordon knew that
Ravelston knew it. Nevertheless, each saw good reason for pretending not
to be hungry. They seldom or never had meals together. Gordon would not
let Ravelston buy his meals for him, and for himself he could not afford
to go to restaurants, not even to a Lyons or an ABC. This was Monday and
he had five and ninepence left. He might afford a couple of pints at a
pub, but not a proper meal. When he and Ravelston met it was always
agreed, with silent manœuvrings, that they should do nothing that
involved spending money, beyond the shilling or so one spends in a pub.
In this way the fiction was kept up that there was no serious difference
in their incomes.

[¶19] Gordon sidled closer to Ravelston as they started down the pavement. He
would have taken his arm, only of course one can't do that kind of
thing. Beside Ravelston's taller, comelier figure he looked frail,
fretful and miserably shabby. He adored Ravelston and was never quite at
ease in his presence. Ravelston had not merely a charm of manner, but
also a kind of fundamental decency, a graceful attitude to life, which
Gordon scarcely encountered elsewhere. Undoubtedly it was bound up with
the fact that Ravelston was rich. For money buys all virtues. Money
suffereth long and is kind, is not puffed up, doth not behave unseemly,
seeketh not her own. But in some ways Ravelston was not even like a
moneyed person. The fatty degeneration of the spirit which goes with
wealth had missed him, or he had escaped it by a conscious effort.
Indeed his whole life was a struggle to escape it. It was for this
reason that he gave up his time and a large part of his income to
editing an unpopular Socialist monthly. And apart from _Antichrist_,
money flowed from him in all directions. A tribe of cadgers ranging from
poets to pavement-artists browsed upon him unceasingly. For himself he
lived upon eight hundred a year or thereabouts. Even of this income he
was acutely ashamed. It was not, he realised, exactly a proletarian
income; but he had never learned to get along on less. Eight hundred a
year was a minimum living wage to him, as two pounds a week was to
Gordon.

[¶20] 'How is your work getting on?' said Ravelston presently.

[¶21] 'Oh, as usual. It's a drowsy kind of job. Swapping backchat with old
hens about Hugh Walpole. I don't object to it.'

[¶22] 'I meant your own work—your writing. Is _London Pleasures_ getting on
all right?'

[¶23] 'Oh, Christ! Don't speak of it. It's turning my hair grey.'

[¶24] 'Isn't it going forward at all?'

[¶25] 'My books don't go forward. They go backward.'

[¶26] Ravelston sighed. As editor of _Antichrist_, he was so used to
encouraging despondent poets that it had become a second nature to him.
He did not need telling why Gordon 'couldn't' write, and why all poets
nowadays 'can't' write, and why when they do write it is something as
arid as the rattling of a pea inside a big drum. He said with
sympathetic gloom:

[¶27] 'Of course I admit this isn't a hopeful age to write poetry in.'

[¶28] 'You bet it isn't.'

[¶29] Gordon kicked his heel against the pavement. He wished that _London
Pleasures_ had not been mentioned. It brought back to him the memory of
his mean, cold bedroom and the grimy papers littered under the
aspidistra. He said abruptly:

[¶30] 'This writing business! What b——s it all is! Sitting in a corner
torturing a nerve which won't even respond any longer. And who wants
poetry nowadays? Training performing fleas would be useful by
comparison.'

[¶31] 'Still, you oughtn't to let yourself be discouraged. After all, you do
produce something, which is more than one can say for a lot of poets
nowadays. There was _Mice_, for instance.'

[¶32] 'Oh, _Mice_! It makes me spew to think of it.'

[¶33] He thought with loathing of that sneaky little foolscap octavo. Those
forty or fifty drab, dead little poems, each like a little abortion in
its labelled jar. 'Exceptional promise,' _The Times Lit. Supp._ had
said. A hundred and fifty-three copies sold and the rest remaindered. He
had one of those movements of contempt and even horror which every
artist has at times when he thinks of his own work.

[¶34] 'It's dead,' he said. 'Dead as a blasted fœtus in a bottle.'

[¶35] 'Oh, well, I suppose that happens to most books. You can't expect an
enormous sale for poetry nowadays. There's too much competition.'

[¶36] 'I didn't mean that. I meant the poems themselves are dead. There's no
life in them. Everything I write is like that. Lifeless, gutless. Not
necessarily ugly or vulgar; but dead—just dead.' The word 'dead'
re-echoed in his mind, setting up its own train of thought. He added:
'My poems are dead because I'm dead. You're dead. We're all dead. Dead
people in a dead world.'

[¶37] Ravelston murmured agreement, with a curious air of guilt. And now they
were off upon their favourite subject—Gordon's favourite subject,
anyway; the futility, the bloodiness, the deathliness of modern life.
They never met without talking for at least half an hour in this vein.
But it always made Ravelston feel rather uncomfortable. In a way, of
course, he knew—it was precisely this that _Antichrist_ existed to
point out—that life under a decaying capitalism is deathly and
meaningless. But this knowledge was only theoretical. You can't really
_feel_ that kind of thing when your income is eight hundred a year. Most
of the time, when he wasn't thinking of coal-miners, Chinese
junk-coolies and the unemployed in Middlesbrough, he felt that life was
pretty good fun. Moreover, he had the naïve belief that in a little
while Socialism is going to put things right. Gordon always seemed to
him to exaggerate. So there was subtle disagreement between them, which
Ravelston was too good-mannered to press home.

[¶38] But with Gordon it was different. Gordon's income was two pounds a week.
Therefore the hatred of modern life, the desire to see our
money-civilisation blown to hell by bombs, was a thing he genuinely
felt. They were walking southward, down a darkish, meanly decent
residential street with a few shuttered shops. From a hoarding on the
blank end of a house the yard-wide face of Roland Butta simpered, pallid
in the lamplight. Gordon caught a glimpse of a withering aspidistra in a
lower window. London! Mile after mile of mean lonely houses, let off in
flats and single rooms; not homes, not communities, just clusters of
meaningless lives drifting in a sort of drowsy chaos to the grave! He
saw men as corpses walking. The thought that he was merely objectifying
his own inner misery hardly troubled him. His mind went back to
Wednesday afternoon, when he had desired to hear the enemy aeroplanes
zooming over London. He caught Ravelston's arm and paused to gesticulate
at the Roland Butta poster.

[¶39] 'Look at that bloody thing up there! Look at it, just look at it!
Doesn't it make you spew?'

[¶40] 'It's æsthetically offensive, I grant. But I don't see that it matters
very greatly.'

[¶41] 'Of course it matters—having the town plastered with things like that.'

[¶42] 'Oh, well, it's merely a temporary phenomenon. Capitalism in its last
phase. I doubt whether it's worth worrying about.'

[¶43] 'But there's more in it than that. Just look at that fellow's face
gaping down at us! You can see our whole civilisation written there. The
imbecility, the emptiness, the desolation! You can't look at it without
thinking of French letters and machine-guns. Do you know that the other
day I was actually wishing war would break out? I was longing for
it—praying for it, almost.'

[¶44] 'Of course, the trouble is, you see, that about half the young men in
Europe are wishing the same thing.'

[¶45] 'Let's hope they are. Then perhaps it'll happen.'

[¶46] 'My dear old chap, no! Once is enough, surely.'

[¶47] Gordon walked on, fretfully. 'This life we live nowadays! It's not life,
it's stagnation, death-in-life. Look at all these bloody houses, and the
meaningless people inside them! Sometimes I think we're all corpses.
Just rotting upright.'

[¶48] 'But where you make your mistake, don't you see, is in talking as if all
this was incurable. This is only something that's got to happen before
the proletariat take over.'

[¶49] 'Oh, Socialism! Don't talk to me about Socialism.'

[¶50] 'You ought to read Marx, Gordon, you really ought. Then you'd realise
that this is only a phase. It can't go on for ever.'

[¶51] 'Can't it? It _feels_ as if it was going on for ever.'

[¶52] 'It's merely that we're at a bad moment. We've got to die before we can
be reborn, if you take my meaning.'

[¶53] 'We're dying right enough. I don't see much signs of our being reborn.'

[¶54] Ravelston rubbed his nose. 'Oh, well, we must have faith, I suppose. And
hope.'

[¶55] 'We must have money, you mean,' said Gordon gloomily.

[¶56] 'Money?'

[¶57] 'It's the price of optimism. Give me five quid a week and _I'd_ be a
Socialist, I dare say.'

[¶58] Ravelston looked away, discomfited. This money-business! Everywhere it
came up against you! Gordon wished he had not said it. Money is the one
thing you must never mention when you are with people richer than
yourself. Or if you do, then it must be money in the abstract, money
with a big 'M', not the actual concrete money that's in your pocket and
isn't in mine. But the accursed subject drew him like a magnet. Sooner
or later, especially when he had a few drinks inside him, he invariably
began talking with self-pitiful detail about the bloodiness of life on
two quid a week. Sometimes, from sheer nervous impulse to say the wrong
thing, he would come out with some squalid confession—as, for instance,
that he had been without tobacco for two days, or that his underclothes
were in holes and his overcoat up the spout. But nothing of that sort
should happen tonight, he resolved. They veered swiftly away from the
subject of money and began talking in a more general way about
Socialism. Ravelston had been trying for years to convert Gordon to
Socialism, without even succeeding in interesting him in it. Presently
they passed a low-looking pub on a corner in a side-street. A sour cloud
of beer seemed to hang about it. The smell revolted Ravelston. He would
have quickened his pace to get away from it. But Gordon paused, his
nostrils tickled.

[¶59] 'Christ! I could do with a drink,' he said.

[¶60] 'So could I,' said Ravelston gallantly.

[¶61] Gordon shoved open the door of the public bar, Ravelston following.
Ravelston persuaded himself that he was fond of pubs, especially
low-class pubs. Pubs are genuinely proletarian. In a pub you can meet
the working class on equal terms—or that's the theory, anyway. But in
practice Ravelston never went into a pub unless he was with somebody
like Gordon, and he always felt like a fish out of water when he got
there. A foul yet coldish air enveloped them. It was a filthy, smoky
room, low-ceilinged, with a sawdusted floor and plain deal tables ringed
by generations of beer-pots. In one corner four monstrous women with
breasts the size of melons were sitting drinking porter and talking with
bitter intensity about someone called Mrs Croop. The landlady, a tall
grim woman with a black fringe, looking like the madame of a brothel,
stood behind the bar, her powerful forearms folded, watching a game of
darts which was going on between four labourers and a postman. You had
to duck under the darts as you crossed the room. There was a moment's
hush and people glanced inquisitively at Ravelston. He was so obviously
a gentleman. They didn't see his type very often in the public bar.

[¶62] Ravelston pretended not to notice that they were staring at him. He
lounged towards the bar, pulling off a glove to feel for the money in
his pocket. 'What's yours?' he said casually.

[¶63] But Gordon had already shoved his way ahead and was tapping a shilling
on the bar. Always pay for the first round of drinks! It was his point
of honour. Ravelston made for the only vacant table. A navvy leaning on
the bar turned on his elbow and gave him a long, insolent stare. 'A ——
toff!' he was thinking. Gordon came back balancing two pint glasses of
dark common ale. They were thick cheap glasses, thick as jam jars
almost, and dim and greasy. A thin yellow froth was subsiding on the
beer. The air was thick with gunpowdery tobacco-smoke. Ravelston caught
sight of a well-filled spittoon near the bar and averted his eyes. It
crossed his mind that this beer had been sucked up from some
beetle-ridden cellar through yards of slimy tube, and that the glasses
had never been washed in their lives, only rinsed in beery water. Gordon
was very hungry. He could have done with some bread and cheese, but to
order any would have been to betray the fact that he had had no dinner.
He took a deep pull at his beer and lighted a cigarette, which made him
forget his hunger a little. Ravelston also swallowed a mouthful or so
and set the glass gingerly down. It was typical London beer, sickly and
yet leaving a chemical after-taste. Ravelston thought of the wines of
Burgundy. They went on arguing about Socialism.

[¶64] 'You know, Gordon, it's really time you started reading Marx,' said
Ravelston, less apologetically than usual, because the vile taste of the
beer had annoyed him.

[¶65] 'I'd sooner read Mrs Humphry Ward,' said Gordon.

[¶66] 'But don't you see, your attitude is so unreasonable. You're always
tirading against Capitalism, and yet you won't accept the only possible
alternative. One can't put things right in a hole-and-corner way. One's
got to accept either Capitalism or Socialism. There's no way out of it.'

[¶67] 'I tell you I can't be bothered with Socialism. The very thought of it
makes me yawn.'

[¶68] 'But what's your objection to Socialism, anyway?'

[¶69] 'There's only one objection to Socialism, and that is that nobody wants
it.'

[¶70] 'Oh, surely it's rather absurd to say that!'

[¶71] 'That's to say, nobody who could see what Socialism would really mean.'

[¶72] 'But what _would_ Socialism mean, according to your idea of it?'

[¶73] 'Oh! Some kind of Aldous Huxley _Brave New World_; only not so amusing.
Four hours a day in a model factory, tightening up bolt number 6003.
Rations served out in greaseproof paper at the communal kitchen.
Community-hikes from Marx Hostel to Lenin Hostel and back. Free
abortion-clinics on all the corners. All very well in its way, of
course. Only we don't want it.'

[¶74] Ravelston sighed. Once a month, in _Antichrist_, he repudiated this
version of Socialism. 'Well, what _do_ we want, then?'

[¶75] 'God knows. All we know is what we don't want. That's what's wrong with
us nowadays. We're stuck, like Buridan's donkey. Only there are three
alternatives instead of two, and all three of them make us spew.
Socialism's only one of them.'

[¶76] 'And what are the other two?'

[¶77] 'Oh, I suppose suicide and the Catholic Church.'

[¶78] Ravelston smiled, anticlerically shocked. 'The Catholic Church! Do you
consider that an alternative?'

[¶79] 'Well, it's a standing temptation to the intelligentsia, isn't it?'

[¶80] 'Not what _I_ should call the intelligentsia. Though there was Eliot, of
course,' Ravelston admitted.

[¶81] 'And there'll be plenty more, you bet. I dare say it's fairly cosy under
Mother Church's wing. A bit insanitary, of course—but you'd feel safe
there, anyway.'

[¶82] Ravelston rubbed his nose reflectively. 'It seems to me that's only
another form of suicide.'

[¶83] 'In a way. But so's Socialism. At least it's a counsel of despair. But I
couldn't commit suicide, real suicide. It's too meek and mild. I'm not
going to give up my share of earth to anyone else. I'd want to do in a
few of my enemies first.'

[¶84] Ravelston smiled again. 'And who are your enemies?'

[¶85] 'Oh, anyone with over five hundred a year.'

[¶86] A momentary uncomfortable silence fell. Ravelston's income, after
payment of income tax, was probably two thousand a year. This was the
kind of thing Gordon was always saying. To cover the awkwardness of the
moment, Ravelston took up his glass, steeled himself against the
nauseous taste and swallowed about two-thirds of his beer—enough, at
any rate, to give the impression that he had finished it.

[¶87] 'Drink up!' he said with would-be heartiness. 'It's time we had the
other half of that.'

[¶88] Gordon emptied his glass and let Ravelston take it. He did not mind
letting Ravelston pay for the drinks now. He had paid the first round
and honour was satisfied. Ravelston walked self-consciously to the bar.
People began staring at him again as soon as he stood up. The navvy,
still leaning against the bar over his untouched pot of beer, gazed at
him with quiet insolence. Ravelston resolved that he would drink no more
of this filthy common ale.

[¶89] 'Two double whiskies, would you, please?' he said apologetically.

[¶90] The grim landlady stared. 'What?' she said.

[¶91] 'Two double whiskies, please.'

[¶92] 'No whisky 'ere. We don't sell spirits. Beer 'ouse, we are.'

[¶93] The navvy smiled flickeringly under his moustache. '—— ignorant toff!'
he was thinking. 'Asking for whisky in a —— beer 'ouse!' Ravelston's
pale face flushed slightly. He had not known till this moment that some
of the poorer pubs cannot afford a spirit licence.

[¶94] 'Bass, then, would you? Two pint bottles of Bass.'

[¶95] There were no pint bottles. They had to have four half pints. It was a
very poor house. Gordon took a deep, satisfying swallow of Bass. More
alcoholic than the draught beer, it fizzed and prickled in his throat,
and because he was hungry it went a little to his head. He felt at once
more philosophic and more self-pitiful. He had made up his mind not to
begin belly-aching about his poverty; but now he was going to begin
after all. He said abruptly:

[¶96] 'This is all b——s that we've been talking.'

[¶97] 'What's all b——s?'

[¶98] 'All this about Socialism and Capitalism and the state of the modern
world and God knows what. I don't give a —— for the state of the
modern world. If the whole of England was starving except myself and the
people I care about, I wouldn't give a damn.'

[¶99] 'Don't you exaggerate just a little?'

[¶100] 'No. All this talk we make—we're only objectifying our own feelings.
It's all dictated by what we've got in our pockets. I go up and down
London saying it's a city of the dead, and our civilisation's dying, and
I wish war would break out, and God knows what; and all it means is that
my wages are two quid a week and I wish they were five.'

[¶101] Ravelston, once again reminded obliquely of his income, stroked his nose
slowly with the knuckle of his left forefinger.

[¶102] 'Of course, I'm with you up to a point. After all, it's only what Marx
said. Every ideology is a reflection of economic circumstances.'

[¶103] 'Ah, but you only understand it out of Marx! You don't know what it
means to have to crawl along on two quid a week. It isn't a question of
hardship—it's nothing so decent as hardship. It's the bloody, sneaking,
squalid meanness of it. Living alone for weeks on end because when
you've no money you've no friends. Calling yourself a writer and never
even producing anything because you're always too washed out to write.
It's a sort of filthy sub-world one lives in. A sort of spiritual
sewer.'

[¶104] He had started now. They were never together long without Gordon
beginning to talk in this strain. It was the vilest manners. It
embarrassed Ravelston horribly. And yet somehow Gordon could not help
it. He had got to retail his troubles to somebody, and Ravelston was the
only person who understood. Poverty, like every other dirty wound, has
got to be exposed occasionally. He began to talk in obscene detail of
his life in Willowbed Road. He dilated on the smell of slops and
cabbage, the clotted sauce-bottles in the dining-room, the vile food,
the aspidistras. He described his furtive cups of tea and his trick of
throwing the used tea-leaves down the WC. Ravelston, guilty and
miserable, sat staring at his glass and revolving it slowly between his
hands. Against his right breast he could feel, a square accusing shape,
the pocket-book in which, as he knew, eight pound notes and two ten-bob
notes nestled against his fat green cheque-book. How awful these details
of poverty are! Not that what Gordon was describing was real poverty. It
was at worst the fringe of poverty. But what of the real poor? What of
the unemployed in Middlesbrough, seven in a room on twenty-five bob a
week? When there are people living like that, how dare one walk the
world with pound notes and cheque-books in one's pocket?

[¶105] 'It's bloody,' he murmured several times, impotently. In his heart he
wondered—it was his invariable reaction—whether Gordon would accept a
tenner if you offered to lend it to him.

[¶106] They had another drink, which Ravelston again paid for, and went out
into the street. It was almost time to part. Gordon never spent more
than an hour or two with Ravelston. One's contacts with rich people,
like one's visits to high altitudes, must always be brief. It was a
moonless, starless night, with a damp wind blowing. The night air, the
beer and the watery radiance of the lamps induced in Gordon a sort of
dismal clarity. He perceived that it is quite impossible to explain to
any rich person, even to anyone so decent as Ravelston, the essential
bloodiness of poverty. For this reason it became all the more important
to explain it. He said suddenly:

[¶107] 'Have you read Chaucer's _Man of Lawe's Tale_?'

[¶108] 'The _Man of Lawe's Tale_? Not that I remember. What's it about?'

[¶109] 'I forget. I was thinking of the first six stanzas. Where he talks about
poverty. The way it gives everyone the right to stamp on you! The way
everyone _wants_ to stamp on you! It makes people _hate_ you, to know
that you've no money. They insult you just for the pleasure of insulting
you and knowing that you can't hit back.'

[¶110] Ravelston was pained. 'Oh, no, surely not! People aren't so bad as all
that.'

[¶111] 'Ah, but you don't know the things that happen!'

[¶112] Gordon did not want to be told that 'people aren't so bad'. He clung
with a sort of painful joy to the notion that because he was poor
everyone must _want_ to insult him. It fitted in with his philosophy of
life. And suddenly, with the feeling that he could not stop himself, he
was talking of the thing that had been rankling in his mind for two days
past—the snub he had had from the Dorings on Thursday. He poured the
whole story out quite shamelessly. Ravelston was amazed. He could not
understand what Gordon was making such a fuss about. To be disappointed
at missing a beastly literary tea-party seemed to him absurd. He would
not have gone to a literary tea-party if you had paid him. Like all rich
people, he spent far more time in avoiding human society than in seeking
it. He interrupted Gordon:

[¶113] 'Really, you know, you ought not to take offence so easily. After all, a
thing like that doesn't really matter.'

[¶114] 'It isn't the thing itself that matters, it's the spirit behind it. The
way they snub you as a matter of course, just because you've got no
money.'

[¶115] 'But quite possibly it was all a mistake, or something. Why should
anyone want to snub you?'

[¶116] '"If thou be poure, thy brother hateth thee,"' quoted Gordon perversely.

[¶117] Ravelston, deferential even to the opinions of the dead, rubbed his
nose. 'Does Chaucer say that? Then I'm afraid I disagree with Chaucer.
People don't hate you, exactly.'

[¶118] 'They do. And they're quite right to hate you. You _are_ hateful. It's
like those ads for Listerine. "Why is he always alone? Halitosis is
ruining his career." Poverty is spiritual halitosis.'

[¶119] Ravelston sighed. Undoubtedly Gordon was perverse. They walked on,
arguing, Gordon vehemently, Ravelston deprecatingly. Ravelston was
helpless against Gordon in an argument of this kind. He felt that Gordon
exaggerated, and yet he never liked to contradict him. How could he? He
was rich and Gordon was poor. And how can you argue about poverty with
someone who is genuinely poor?

[¶120] 'And then the way women treat you when you've no money!' Gordon went on.
'That's another thing about this accursed money-business—women!'

[¶121] Ravelston nodded rather gloomily. This sounded to him more reasonable
than what Gordon had been saying before. He thought of Hermione Slater,
his own girl. They had been lovers two years but had never bothered to
get married. It was 'too much fag', Hermione always said. She was rich,
of course, or rather her people were. He thought of her shoulders, wide,
smooth and young, that seemed to rise out of her clothes like a mermaid
rising from the sea; and her skin and hair, which were somehow warm and
sleepy, like a wheatfield in the sun. Hermione always yawned at the
mention of Socialism, and refused even to read _Antichrist_. 'Don't talk
to me about the lower classes,' she used to say. 'I hate them. They
_smell_.' And Ravelston adored her.

[¶122] 'Of course women _are_ a difficulty,' he admitted.

[¶123] 'They're more than a difficulty, they're a bloody curse. That is, if
you've got no money. A woman hates the sight of you if you've got no
money.'

[¶124] 'I think that's putting it a little too strongly. Things aren't so crude
as all that.'

[¶125] Gordon did not listen. 'What rot it is to talk about Socialism or any
other ism when women are what they are! The only thing a woman ever
wants is money; money for a house of her own and two babies and Drage
furniture and an aspidistra. The only sin they can imagine is not
wanting to grab money. No woman ever judges a man by anything except his
income. Of course she doesn't put it to herself like that. She says he's
_such a nice man_—meaning that he's got plenty of money. And if you
haven't got money you aren't _nice_. You're dishonoured, somehow. You've
sinned. Sinned against the aspidistra.'

[¶126] 'You talk a great deal about aspidistras,' said Ravelston.

[¶127] 'They're a dashed important subject,' said Gordon.

[¶128] Ravelston rubbed his nose and looked away uncomfortably.

[¶129] 'Look here, Gordon, you don't mind my asking—have you got a girl of
your own?'

[¶130] 'Oh, Christ! Don't speak of her!'

[¶131] He began, nevertheless, to talk about Rosemary. Ravelston had never met
Rosemary. At this moment Gordon could not even remember what Rosemary
was like. He could not remember how fond he was of her and she of him,
how happy they always were together on the rare occasions when they
could meet, how patiently she put up with his almost intolerable ways.
He remembered nothing save that she would not sleep with him and that it
was now a week since she had even written. In the dank night air, with
beer inside him, he felt himself a forlorn, neglected creature. Rosemary
was 'cruel' to him—that was how he saw it. Perversely, for the mere
pleasure of tormenting himself and making Ravelston uncomfortable, he
began to invent an imaginary character for Rosemary. He built up a
picture of her as a callous creature who was amused by him and yet half
despised him, who played with him and kept him at arm's length, and who
would nevertheless fall into his arms if only he had a little more
money. And Ravelston, who had never met Rosemary, did not altogether
disbelieve him. He broke in:

[¶132] 'But I say, Gordon, look here. This girl, Miss—Miss Waterlow, did you
say her name was?—Rosemary; doesn't she care for you at all, really?'

[¶133] Gordon's conscience pricked him, though not very deeply. He could not
say that Rosemary did not care for him.

[¶134] 'Oh, yes, she does care for me. In her own way, I dare say she cares for
me quite a lot. But not enough, don't you see. She can't, while I've got
no money. It's all money.'

[¶135] 'But surely money isn't so important as all that? After all, there _are_
other things.'

[¶136] 'What other things? Don't you see that a man's whole personality is
bound up with his income? His personality _is_ his income. How can you
be attractive to a girl when you've got no money? You can't wear decent
clothes, you can't take her out to dinner or to the theatre or away for
week-ends, you can't carry a cheery, interesting atmosphere about with
you. And it's rot to say that kind of thing doesn't matter. It does. If
you haven't got money there isn't even anywhere where you can meet.
Rosemary and I never meet except in the streets or in picture galleries.
She lives in some foul women's hostel, and my bitch of a landlady won't
allow women in the house. Wandering up and down beastly wet
streets—that's what Rosemary associates me with. Don't you see how it
takes the gilt off everything?'

[¶137] Ravelston was distressed. It must be pretty bloody when you haven't even
the money to take your girl out. He tried to nerve himself to say
something, and failed. With guilt, and also with desire, he thought of
Hermione's body, naked, like a ripe warm fruit. With any luck she would
have dropped in at the flat this evening. Probably she was waiting for
him now. He thought of the unemployed in Middlesbrough. Sexual
starvation is awful among the unemployed. They were nearing the flat. He
glanced up at the windows. Yes, they were lighted up. Hermione must be
there. She had her own latchkey.

[¶138] As they approached the flat Gordon edged closer to Ravelston. Now the
evening was ending, and he must part from Ravelston, whom he adored, and
go back to his foul lonely bedroom. And all evenings ended in this way;
the return through dark streets to the lonely room, the womanless bed.
And Ravelston would say 'Come up, won't you?' and Gordon, in duty bound,
would say, 'No.' Never stay too long with those you love—another
commandment of the moneyless.

[¶139] They halted at the foot of the steps. Ravelston laid his gloved hand on
one of the iron spearheads of the railing.

[¶140] 'Come up, won't you!' he said without conviction.

[¶141] 'No, thanks. It's time I was getting back.'

[¶142] Ravelston's fingers tightened round the spearhead. He pulled as though
to go up, but did not go. Uncomfortably, looking over Gordon's head into
the distance, he said:

[¶143] 'I say, Gordon, look here. You won't be offended if I say something?'

[¶144] 'What?'

[¶145] 'I say, you know. I hate that business about you and your girl. Not
being able to take her out, and all that. It's bloody, that kind of
thing.'

[¶146] 'Oh, it's nothing, really.'

[¶147] As soon as he heard Ravelston say that it was 'bloody', he knew that he
had been exaggerating. He wished that he had not talked in that silly
self-pitiful way. One says these things, with the feeling that one
cannot help saying them, and afterwards one is sorry.

[¶148] 'I dare say I exaggerate,' he said.

[¶149] 'I say, Gordon, look here. Let me lend you ten quid. Take the girl out
to dinner a few times. Or away for the week-end, or something. It might
make all the difference. I hate to think——'

[¶150] Gordon frowned bitterly, almost fiercely. He had stepped a pace back, as
though from a threat or an insult. The terrible thing was that the
temptation to say 'Yes' had almost overwhelmed him. There was so much
that ten quid would do! He had a fleeting vision of Rosemary and himself
at a restaurant table—a bowl of grapes and peaches, a bowing hovering
waiter, a wine bottle dark and dusty in its wicker cradle.

[¶151] 'No fear!' he said.

[¶152] 'I do wish you would. I tell you I'd _like_ to lend it you.'

[¶153] 'Thanks. But I prefer to keep my friends.'

[¶154] 'Isn't that rather—well, rather a bourgeois kind of thing to say?'

[¶155] 'Do you think it would be _borrowing_ if I took ten quid off you! I
couldn't pay it back in ten years.'

[¶156] 'Oh, well! It wouldn't matter so very much.' Ravelston looked away. Out
it had got to come—the disgraceful, hateful admission that he found
himself forced so curiously often to make! 'You know, I've got quite a
lot of money.'

[¶157] 'I know you have. That's exactly why I won't borrow off you.'

[¶158] 'You know, Gordon, sometimes you're just a little bit—well,
pig-headed.'

[¶159] 'I dare say. I can't help it.'

[¶160] 'Oh, well! Good night, then.'

[¶161] 'Good night.'

[¶162] Ten minutes later Ravelston rode southward in a taxi, with Hermione. She
had been waiting for him, asleep or half asleep in one of the monstrous
armchairs in front of the sitting-room fire. Whenever there was nothing
particular to do, Hermione always fell asleep as promptly as an animal,
and the more she slept the healthier she became. As he came across to
her she woke and stretched herself with voluptuous, sleepy writhings,
half smiling, half yawning up at him, one cheek and bare arm rosy in the
firelight. Presently she mastered her yawns to greet him:

[¶163] 'Hullo, Philip! Where have you been all this time? I've been waiting
ages.'

[¶164] 'Oh, I've been out with a fellow. Gordon Comstock. I don't expect you
know him. The poet.'

[¶165] 'Poet! How much did he borrow off you?'

[¶166] 'Nothing. He's not that kind of person. He's rather a fool about money,
as a matter of fact. But he's very gifted in his way.'

[¶167] 'You and your poets! You look tired, Philip. What time did you have
dinner?'

[¶168] 'Well—as a matter of fact I didn't have any dinner.'

[¶169] 'Didn't have any dinner! Why?'

[¶170] 'Oh, well, you see—I don't know if you'll understand. It was a kind of
accident. It was like this.'

[¶171] He explained. Hermione burst out laughing and dragged herself into a
more upright position.

[¶172] 'Philip! You _are_ a silly old ass! Going without your dinner, just so
as not to hurt that little beast's feelings! You must have some food at
once. And of course your char's gone home. Why don't you keep some
proper servants, Philip? I hate this hole-and-corner way you live. We'll
go out and have supper at Modigliani's.'

[¶173] 'But it's after ten. They'll be shut.'

[¶174] 'Nonsense! They're open till two. I'll ring up for a taxi. I'm not going
to have you starving yourself.'

[¶175] In the taxi she lay against him, still half asleep, her head pillowed on
his breast. He thought of the unemployed in Middlesbrough, seven in a
room on twenty-five bob a week. But the girl's body was heavy against
him, and Middlesbrough was very far away. Also he was damnably hungry.
He thought of his favourite corner table at Modigliani's, and of that
vile pub with its hard benches, stale beer-stink and brass spittoons.
Hermione was sleepily lecturing him.

[¶176] 'Philip, why do you have to live in such a dreadful way?'

[¶177] 'But I don't live in a dreadful way.'

[¶178] 'Yes, you do. Pretending you're poor when you're not, and living in that
poky flat with no servants, and going about with all these beastly
people.'

[¶179] 'What beastly people?'

[¶180] 'Oh, people like this poet friend of yours. All those people who write
for your paper. They only do it to cadge from you. Of course I know
you're a Socialist. So am I. I mean we're all Socialists nowadays. But I
don't see why you have to give all your money away and make friends with
the lower classes. You can be a Socialist _and_ have a good time, that's
what I say.'

[¶181] 'Hermione, dear, please don't call them the lower classes!'

[¶182] 'Why not? They _are_ the lower classes, aren't they?'

[¶183] 'It's such a hateful expression. Call them the working class, can't
you?'

[¶184] 'The working class, if you like, then. But they smell just the same.'

[¶185] 'You oughtn't to say that kind of thing,' he protested weakly.

[¶186] 'Do you know, Philip, sometimes I think you _like_ the lower classes.'

[¶187] 'Of course I like them.'

[¶188] 'How disgusting. How absolutely disgusting.'

[¶189] She lay quiet, content to argue no longer, her arms round him, like a
sleepy siren. The woman-scent breathed out of her, a powerful wordless
propaganda against all altruism and all justice. Outside Modigliani's
they had paid off the taxi and were moving for the door when a big, lank
wreck of a man seemed to spring up from the paving-stones in front of
them. He stood across their path like some fawning beast, with dreadful
eagerness and yet timorously, as though afraid that Ravelston would
strike him. His face came close up to Ravelston's—a dreadful face,
fish-white and scrubby-bearded to the eyes. The words 'A cup of tea,
guv'nor!' were breathed through carious teeth. Ravelston shrank from him
in disgust. He could not help it. His hand moved automatically to his
pocket. But in the same instant Hermione caught him by the arm and
hauled him inside the restaurant.

[¶190] 'You'd give away every penny you've got if I let you,' she said.

[¶191] They went to their favourite table in the corner. Hermione played with
some grapes, but Ravelston was very hungry. He ordered the grilled
rumpsteak he had been thinking of, and half a bottle of Beaujolais. The
fat, white-haired Italian waiter, an old friend of Ravelston's brought
the smoking steak. Ravelston cut it open. Lovely, its red-blue heart! In
Middlesbrough the unemployed huddle in frowzy beds, bread and marg. and
milkless tea in their bellies. He settled down to his steak with all the
shameful joy of a dog with a stolen leg of mutton.

[¶192] Gordon walked rapidly homewards. It was cold. The fifth of
December—real winter now. Circumcise ye your foreskins, saith the Lord.
The damp wind blew spitefully through the naked trees. _Sharply the
menacing wind sweeps over._ The poem he had begun on Wednesday, of which
six stanzas were now finished, came back into his mind. He did not
dislike it at this moment. It was queer how talking with Ravelston
always bucked him up. The mere contact with Ravelston seemed to reassure
him somehow. Even when their talk had been unsatisfactory, he came away
with the feeling that, after all, he wasn't quite a failure. Half aloud
he repeated the six finished stanzas. They were not bad, not bad at all.

[¶193] But intermittently he was going over in his mind the things he had said
to Ravelston. He stuck to everything he had said. The humiliation of
poverty! That's what they can't understand and won't understand. Not
hardship—you don't suffer hardship on two quid a week, and if you did
it wouldn't matter—but just humiliation, the awful, bloody humiliation.
The way it gives everyone the right to stamp on you. The way everyone
_wants_ to stamp on you. Ravelston wouldn't believe it. He had too much
decency, that was why. He thought you could be poor and still be treated
like a human being. But Gordon knew better. He went into the house
repeating to himself that he knew better.

[¶194] There was a letter waiting for him on the hall tray. His heart jumped.
All letters excited him nowadays. He went up the stairs three at a time,
shut himself in and lit the gas. The letter was from Doring.

[¶195] DEAR COMSTOCK,—What a pity you didn't turn up on Saturday.
    There were some people I wanted you to meet. We did tell you it
    was Saturday and not Thursday this time, didn't we? My wife says
    she's certain she told you. Anyway, we're having another party
    on the twenty-third, a sort of before-Christmas party, about the
    same time. Won't you come then? Don't forget the date this time.

[¶196] Yours
                                                            PAUL DORING.

[¶197] A painful convulsion happened below Gordon's ribs. So Doring was
pretending that it was all a mistake—was pretending not to have
insulted him! True, he could not actually have gone there on Saturday,
because on Saturday he had to be at the shop; still, it was the
intention that counted.

[¶198] His heart sickened as he re-read the words 'Some people I wanted you to
meet.' Just like his bloody luck! He thought of the people he might have
met—editors of highbrow magazines, for instance. They might have given
him books to review or asked to see his poems or Lord knew what. For a
moment he was dreadfully tempted to believe that Doring had spoken the
truth. Perhaps after all they _had_ told him it was Saturday and not
Thursday. Perhaps if he searched his memory he might remember about
it—might even find the letter itself lying about among his muddle of
papers. But no! He wouldn't think of it. He fought down the temptation.
The Dorings _had_ insulted him on purpose. He was poor, therefore they
had insulted him. If you are poor, people will insult you. It was his
creed. Stick to it!

[¶199] He went across to the table, tearing Doring's letter into small bits.
The aspidistra stood in its pot, dull green, ailing, pathetic in its
sickly ugliness. As he sat down, he pulled it towards him and looked at
it meditatively. There was the intimacy of hatred between the aspidistra
and him. 'I'll beat you yet, you b——,' he whispered to the dusty
leaves.

[¶200] Then he rummaged among his papers until he found a clean sheet, took his
pen and wrote in his small, neat hand, right in the middle of the sheet:

[¶201] DEAR DORING,—With reference to your letter: Go and ——
    yourself.

[¶202] Yours truly
                                                        GORDON COMSTOCK.

[¶203] He stuck it into an envelope, addressed it and at once went out to get
stamps from the slot machine. Post it tonight: these things look
different in the morning. He dropped it into the pillar-box. So there
was another friend gone west.

## 6. VI

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/6/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/6/#p-N

[¶0] This woman business! What a bore it is! What a pity we can't cut it
right out, or at least be like the animals—minutes of ferocious lust
and months of icy chastity. Take a cock pheasant, for example. He jumps
up on the hens' backs without so much as a with your leave or by your
leave. And no sooner is it over than the whole subject is out of his
mind. He hardly even notices his hens any longer; he ignores them, or
simply pecks them if they come too near his food. He is not called upon
to support his offspring, either. Lucky pheasant! How different from the
lord of creation, always on the hop between his memory and his
conscience!

[¶1] Tonight Gordon wasn't even pretending to do any work. He had gone out
again immediately after supper. He walked southward, rather slowly,
thinking about women. It was a mild, misty night, more like autumn than
winter. This was Tuesday and he had four and fourpence left. He could go
down to the Crichton if he chose. Doubtless Flaxman and his pals were
already boozing there. But the Crichton, which had seemed like paradise
when he had no money, bored and disgusted him when it was in his power
to go there. He hated the stale, beery place, and the sights, sounds,
smells, all so blatantly and offensively male. There were no women
there; only the barmaid with her lewd smile which seemed to promise
everything and promised nothing.

[¶2] Women, women! The mist that hung motionless in the air turned the
passers-by into ghosts at twenty yards' distance; but in the little
pools of light about the lamp-posts there were glimpses of girls' faces.
He thought of Rosemary, of women in general, and of Rosemary again. All
afternoon he had been thinking of her. It was with a kind of resentment
that he thought of her small, strong body, which he had never yet seen
naked. How damned unfair it is that we are filled to the brim with these
tormenting desires and then forbidden to satisfy them! Why should one,
merely because one has no money, be deprived of _that_? It seems so
natural, so necessary, so much a part of the inalienable rights of a
human being. As he walked down the dark street, through the cold yet
languorous air, there was a strangely hopeful feeling in his breast. He
half believed that somewhere ahead in the darkness a woman's body was
waiting for him. But also he knew that no woman was waiting, not even
Rosemary. It was eight days now since she had even written to him. The
little beast! Eight whole days without writing! When she knew how much
her letters meant to him! How manifest it was that she didn't care for
him any longer, that he was merely a nuisance to her with his poverty
and his shabbiness and his everlasting pestering of her to say she loved
him! Very likely she would never write again. She was sick of him—sick
of him because he had no money. What else could you expect? He had no
hold over her. No money, therefore no hold. In the last resort, what
holds a woman to a man, except money?

[¶3] A girl came down the pavement alone. He passed her in the light of the
lamp-post. A working-class girl, eighteen years old it might be,
hatless, with wildrose face. She turned her head quickly when she saw
him looking at her. She dreaded to meet his eyes. Beneath the thin silky
raincoat she was wearing, belted at the waist, her youthful flanks
showed supple and trim. He could have turned and followed her, almost.
But what was the use? She'd only run away or call a policeman. My golden
locks time hath to silver turned, he thought. He was thirty and
moth-eaten. What woman worth having would ever look at him again?

[¶4] This woman business! Perhaps you'd feel differently about it if you were
married? But he had taken an oath against marriage long ago. Marriage is
only a trap set for you by the money-god. You grab the bait; snap goes
the trap; and there you are, chained by the leg to some 'good' job till
they cart you to Kensal Green. And what a life! Licit sexual intercourse
in the shade of the aspidistra. Pram-pushing and sneaky adulteries. And
the wife finding you out and breaking the cut-glass whisky decanter over
your head.

[¶5] Nevertheless he perceived that in a way it is necessary to marry. If
marriage is bad, the alternative is worse. For a moment he wished that
he were married; he pined for the difficulty of it, the reality, the
pain. And marriage must be indissoluble, for better for worse, for
richer for poorer, till death do you part. The old Christian
ideal—marriage tempered by adultery. Commit adultery if you must, but
at any rate have the decency to _call_ it adultery. None of that
American soulmate slop. Have your fun and then sneak home, juice of the
forbidden fruit dripping from your whiskers, and take the consequences.
Cut-glass whisky decanters broken over your head, nagging, burnt meals,
children crying, clash and thunder of embattled mothers-in-law. Better
that, perhaps, than horrible freedom? You'd know, at least, that it was
real life that you were living.

[¶6] But anyway, how can you marry on two quid a week? Money, money, always
money! The devil of it is, that outside marriage, no decent relationship
with a woman is possible. His mind moved backwards, over his ten years
of adult life. The faces of women flowed through his memory. Ten or a
dozen of them there had been. Tarts, also. _Comme au long d'un cadavre
un cadavre étendu._ And even when they were not tarts it had been
squalid, always squalid. Always it had started in a sort of cold-blooded
wilfulness and ended in some mean, callous desertion. That, too, was
money. Without money, you can't be straightforward in your dealings with
women. For without money, you can't pick and choose, you've got to take
what women you can get; and then, necessarily, you've got to break free
of them. Constancy, like all other virtues, has got to be paid for in
money. And the mere fact that he had rebelled against the money code and
wouldn't settle down in the prison of a 'good' job—a thing no woman
will ever understand—had brought a quality of impermanence, of
deception, into all his affairs with women. Abjuring money, he ought to
have abjured women too. Serve the money-god, or do without women—those
are the only alternatives. And both were equally impossible.

[¶7] From the side-street just ahead, a shaft of white light cut through the
mist, and there was a bellowing of street hawkers. It was Luton Road,
where they have the open-air market two evenings a week. Gordon turned
to his left, into the market. He often came this way. The street was so
crowded that you could only with difficulty thread your way down the
cabbage-littered alley between the stalls. In the glare of hanging
electric bulbs, the stuff on the stalls glowed with fine lurid
colours—hacked, crimson chunks of meat, piles of oranges and green and
white broccoli, stiff, glassy-eyed rabbits, live eels looping in enamel
troughs, plucked fowls hanging in rows, sticking out their naked breasts
like guardsmen naked on parade. Gordon's spirits revived a little. He
liked the noise, the bustle, the vitality. Whenever you see a
street-market you know that there's hope for England yet. But even here
he felt his solitude. Girls were thronging everywhere, in knots of four
or five, prowling desirously about the stalls of cheap underwear and
swapping backchat and screams of laughter with the youths who followed
them. None had eyes for Gordon. He walked among them as though
invisible, save that their bodies avoided him when he passed them. Ah,
look there! Involuntarily he paused. Over a pile of art-silk undies on a
stall, three girls were bending, intent, their faces close
together—three youthful faces, flower-like in the harsh light,
clustering side by side like a truss of blossom on a Sweet William or
phlox. His heart stirred. No eyes for him, of course! One girl looked
up. Ah! Hurriedly, with an offended air, she looked away again. A
delicate flush like a wash of aquarelle flooded her face. The hard,
sexual stare in his eyes had frightened her. They flee from me that
sometime did me seek! He walked on. If only Rosemary were here! He
forgave her now for not writing to him. He could forgive her anything,
if only she were here. He knew now how much she meant to him, because
she alone of all women in the world was willing to save him from the
humiliation of his loneliness.

[¶8] At this moment he looked up, and saw something that made his heart jump.
He changed the focus of his eyes abruptly. For a moment he thought he
was imagining it. But no! It _was_ Rosemary!

[¶9] She was coming down the alley between the stalls, twenty or thirty yards
away. It was as though his desire had called her into being. She had not
seen him yet. She came towards him, a small debonair figure, picking her
way nimbly through the crowd and the muck underfoot, her face scarcely
visible because of a flat black hat which she wore cocked down over her
eyes like a Harrow boy's straw hat. He started towards her and called
her name.

[¶10] 'Rosemary! Hi, Rosemary!'

[¶11] A blue-aproned man thumbing codfish on a stall turned to stare at him.
Rosemary did not hear him because of the din. He called again.

[¶12] 'Rosemary! I say, Rosemary!'

[¶13] They were only a few yards apart now. She started and looked up.

[¶14] 'Gordon! What are you doing here?'

[¶15] 'What are _you_ doing here?'

[¶16] 'I was coming to see you.'

[¶17] 'But how did you know I was here?'

[¶18] 'I didn't. I always come this way. I get out of the tube at Camden
Town.'

[¶19] Rosemary sometimes came to see Gordon at Willowbed Road. Mrs Wisbeach
would inform him sourly that 'there was a young woman to see him', and
he would come downstairs and they would go out for a walk in the
streets. Rosemary was never allowed indoors, not even into the hall.
That was a rule of the house. You would have thought 'young women' were
plague-rats by the way Mrs Wisbeach spoke of them. Gordon took Rosemary
by the upper arm and made to pull her against him.

[¶20] 'Rosemary! Oh, what a joy to see you again! I was so vilely lonely. Why
didn't you come before?'

[¶21] She shook off his hand and stepped back out of his reach. Under her
slanting hat-brim she gave him a glance that was intended to be angry.

[¶22] 'Let me go, now! I'm very angry with you. I very nearly didn't come
after that beastly letter you sent me.'

[¶23] 'What beastly letter?'

[¶24] 'You know very well.'

[¶25] 'No, I don't. Oh, well, let's get out of this. Somewhere where we can
talk. This way.'

[¶26] He took her arm, but she shook him off again, continuing, however, to
walk at his side. Her steps were quicker and shorter than his. And
walking beside him she had the appearance of something extremely small,
nimble and young, as though he had had some lively little animal, a
squirrel for instance, frisking at his side. In reality she was not very
much smaller than Gordon, and only a few months younger. But no one
would ever have described Rosemary as a spinster of nearly thirty, which
in fact she was. She was a strong, agile girl, with stiff black hair, a
small triangular face and very pronounced eyebrows. It was one of those
small, peaky faces, full of character, which one sees in
sixteenth-century portraits. The first time you saw her take her hat off
you got a surprise, for on her crown three white hairs glittered among
the black ones like silver wires. It was typical of Rosemary that she
never bothered to pull the white hairs out. She still thought of herself
as a very young girl, and so did everybody else. Yet if you looked
closely the marks of time were plain enough on her face.

[¶27] Gordon walked more boldly with Rosemary at his side. He was proud of
her. People were looking at her, and therefore at him as well. He was no
longer invisible to women. As always, Rosemary was rather nicely
dressed. It was a mystery how she did it on four pounds a week. He liked
particularly the hat she was wearing—one of those flat felt hats which
were then coming into fashion and which caricatured a clergyman's shovel
hat. There was something essentially frivolous about it. In some way
difficult to be described, the angle at which it was cocked forward
harmonised appealingly with the curve of Rosemary's behind.

[¶28] 'I like your hat,' he said.

[¶29] In spite of herself, a small smile flickered at the corner of her mouth.

[¶30] 'It _is_ rather nice,' she said, giving the hat a little pat with her
hand.

[¶31] She was still pretending to be angry, however. She took care that their
bodies should not touch. As soon as they had reached the end of the
stalls and were in the main street she stopped and faced him sombrely.

[¶32] 'What do you mean by writing me letters like that?' she said.

[¶33] 'Letters like what?'

[¶34] 'Saying I'd broken your heart.'

[¶35] 'So you have.'

[¶36] 'It looks like it, doesn't it!'

[¶37] 'I don't know. It certainly feels like it.'

[¶38] The words were spoken half jokingly, and yet they made her look more
closely at him—at his pale, wasted face, his uncut hair, his general
down-at-heel, neglected appearance. Her heart softened instantly, and
yet she frowned. Why _won't_ he take care of himself? was the thought in
her mind. They had moved closer together. He took her by the shoulders.
She let him do it, and, putting her small arms round him, squeezed him
very hard, partly in affection, partly in exasperation.

[¶39] 'Gordon, you _are_ a miserable creature!' she said.

[¶40] 'Why am I a miserable creature?'

[¶41] 'Why can't you look after yourself properly? You're a perfect scarecrow.
Look at these awful old clothes you're wearing!'

[¶42] 'They're suited to my station. One can't dress decently on two quid a
week, you know.'

[¶43] 'But surely there's no need to go about looking like a rag-bag? Look at
this button on your coat, broken in half!'

[¶44] She fingered the broken button, and then suddenly lifted his discoloured
Woolworth's tie aside. In some feminine way she had divined that he had
no buttons on his shirt.

[¶45] 'Yes, _again_! Not a single button. You are awful, Gordon!'

[¶46] 'I tell you I can't be bothered with things like that. I've got a soul
above buttons.'

[¶47] 'But why not give them to _me_ and let me sew them on for you? And, oh,
Gordon! You haven't even shaved today. How absolutely beastly of you.
You might at least take the trouble to shave every morning.'

[¶48] 'I can't afford to shave every morning,' he said perversely.

[¶49] 'What _do_ you mean, Gordon? It doesn't cost money to shave, does it?'

[¶50] 'Yes, it does. Everything costs money. Cleanness, decency, energy,
self-respect—everything. It's all money. Haven't I told you that a
million times?'

[¶51] She squeezed his ribs again—she was surprisingly strong—and frowned up
at him, studying his face as a mother looks at some peevish child of
which she is unreasonably fond.

[¶52] '_What_ a fool I am!' she said.

[¶53] 'In what way a fool?'

[¶54] 'Because I'm so fond of you.'

[¶55] 'Are you fond of me?'

[¶56] 'Of course I am. You know I am. I adore you. It's idiotic of me.'

[¶57] 'Then come somewhere where it's dark. I want to kiss you.'

[¶58] 'Fancy being kissed by a man who hasn't even shaved!'

[¶59] 'Well, that'll be a new experience for you.'

[¶60] 'No, it won't, Gordon. Not after knowing _you_ for two years.'

[¶61] 'Oh, well, come on, anyway.'

[¶62] They found an almost dark alley between the backs of houses. All their
lovemaking was done in such places. The only place where they could ever
be private was the streets. He pressed her shoulders against the rough
damp bricks of the wall. She turned her face readily up to his and clung
to him with a sort of eager violent affection, like a child. And yet all
the while, though they were body to body, it was as though there were a
shield between them. She kissed him as a child might have done, because
she knew that he expected to be kissed. It was always like this. Only at
very rare moments could he awake in her the beginnings of physical
desire; and these she seemed afterwards to forget, so that he always had
to begin at the beginning over again. There was something defensive in
the feeling of her small, shapely body. She longed to know the meaning
of physical love, but also she dreaded it. It would destroy her youth,
the youthful, sexless world in which she chose to live.

[¶63] He parted his mouth from hers in order to speak to her.

[¶64] 'Do you love me?' he said.

[¶65] 'Of course, silly. Why do you always ask me that?'

[¶66] 'I like to hear you say it. Somehow I never feel sure of you till I've
heard you say it.'

[¶67] 'But why?'

[¶68] 'Oh, well, you might have changed your mind. After all, I'm not exactly
the answer to a maiden's prayer. I'm thirty, and moth-eaten at that.'

[¶69] 'Don't be so absurd, Gordon! Anyone would think you were a hundred, to
hear you talk. You know I'm the same age as you are.'

[¶70] 'Yes, but not moth-eaten.'

[¶71] She rubbed her cheek against his, feeling the roughness of his day-old
beard. Their bellies were close together. He thought of the two years he
had wanted her and never had her. With his lips almost against her ear
he murmured:

[¶72] 'Are you _ever_ going to sleep with me?'

[¶73] 'Yes, some day I will. Not now. Some day.'

[¶74] 'It's always "some day". It's been "some day" for two years now.'

[¶75] 'I know. But I can't help it.'

[¶76] He pressed her back against the wall, pulled off the absurd flat hat and
buried his face in her hair. It was tormenting to be so close to her and
all for nothing. He put a hand under her chin and lifted her small face
up to his, trying to distinguish her features in the almost complete
darkness.

[¶77] 'Say you will, Rosemary. There's a dear! Do!'

[¶78] 'You know I'm going to _some_ time.'

[¶79] 'Yes, but not _some_ time—now. I don't mean this moment, but soon. When
we get an opportunity. Say you will!'

[¶80] 'I can't. I can't promise.'

[¶81] 'Say "yes," Rosemary. _Please_ do!'

[¶82] 'No.'

[¶83] Still stroking her invisible face, he quoted:

[¶84] '_Veuillez le dire donc selon_
                  _Que vous estes benigne et doulche,_
                  _Car ce doulx mot n'est pas si long_
                  _Qu'il vous face mal en la bouche._'

[¶85] 'What does that mean?'

[¶86] He translated it.

[¶87] 'I can't, Gordon. I just can't.'

[¶88] 'Say "yes," Rosemary, there's a dear. Surely it's as easy to say "yes"
as "no"?'

[¶89] 'No, it isn't. It's easy enough for you. You're a man. It's different
for a woman.'

[¶90] 'Say "yes," Rosemary! "Yes"—it's such an easy word. Go on, now; say it.
"Yes!"'

[¶91] 'Anyone would think you were teaching a parrot to talk, Gordon.'

[¶92] 'Oh, damn! Don't make jokes about it.'

[¶93] It was not much use arguing. Presently they came out into the street and
walked on, southward. Somehow, from Rosemary's swift, neat movements,
from her general air of a girl who knows how to look after herself and
who yet treats life mainly as a joke, you could make a good guess at her
upbringing and her mental background. She was the youngest child of one
of those huge hungry families which still exist here and there in the
middle classes. There had been fourteen children all told—the father
was a country solicitor. Some of Rosemary's sisters were married, some
of them were schoolmistresses or running typing bureaux; the brothers
were farming in Canada, on tea-plantations in Ceylon, in obscure
regiments of the Indian Army. Like all women who have had an eventful
girlhood, Rosemary wanted to remain a girl. That was why, sexually, she
was so immature. She had kept late into life the high-spirited sexless
atmosphere of a big family. Also she had absorbed into her very bones
the code of fair play and live-and-let-live. She was profoundly
magnanimous, quite incapable of spiritual bullying. From Gordon, whom
she adored, she put up with almost anything. It was the measure of her
magnanimity that never once, in the two years that she had known him,
had she blamed him for not attempting to earn a proper living.

[¶94] Gordon was aware of all this. But at the moment he was thinking of other
things. In the pallid circles of light about the lamp-posts, beside
Rosemary's smaller, trimmer figure, he felt graceless, shabby and dirty.
He wished very much that he had shaved that morning. Furtively he put a
hand into his pocket and felt his money, half afraid—it was a recurrent
fear with him—that he might have dropped a coin. However, he could feel
the milled edge of a florin, his principal coin at the moment. Four and
fourpence left. He couldn't possibly take her out to supper, he
reflected. They'd have to trail dismally up and down the streets, as
usual, or at best go to a Lyons for a coffee. Bloody! How can you have
any fun when you've got no money? He said broodingly:

[¶95] 'Of course it all comes back to money.'

[¶96] This remark came out of the blue. She looked up at him in surprise.

[¶97] 'What do you mean, it all comes back to money?'

[¶98] 'I mean the way nothing ever goes right in my life. It's always money,
money, money that's at the bottom of everything. And especially between
me and you. That's why you don't really love me. There's a sort of film
of money between us. I can feel it every time I kiss you.'

[¶99] 'Money! What _has_ money got to do with it, Gordon?'

[¶100] 'Money's got to do with everything. If I had more money you'd love me
more.'

[¶101] 'Of course, I wouldn't! Why should I?'

[¶102] 'You couldn't help it. Don't you see that if I had more money I'd be
more worth loving? Look at me now! Look at my face, look at these
clothes I'm wearing, look at everything else about me. Do you suppose
I'd be like that if I had two thousand a year? If I had more money I
should be a different person.'

[¶103] 'If you were a different person I shouldn't love you.'

[¶104] 'That's nonsense, too. But look at it like this. If we were married
would you sleep with me?'

[¶105] 'What questions you do ask! Of course I would. Otherwise, where would be
the sense of being married?'

[¶106] 'Well, then, suppose I was decently well off, _would_ you marry me?'

[¶107] 'What's the good of talking about it, Gordon? You know we can't afford
to marry.'

[¶108] 'Yes, but _if_ we could. Would you?'

[¶109] 'I don't know. Yes, I would, I dare say.'

[¶110] 'There you are, then! That's what I said—money!'

[¶111] 'No, Gordon, no! That's not fair! You're twisting my words round.'

[¶112] 'No, I'm not. You've got this money-business at the bottom of your
heart. Every woman's got it. You wish I was in a _good_ job now, don't
you?'

[¶113] 'Not in the way you mean it. I'd like you to be earning more
money—yes.'

[¶114] 'And you think I ought to have stayed on at the New Albion, don't you?
You'd like me to go back there now and write slogans for QT Sauce and
Tru-weet Breakfast Crisps. Wouldn't you?'

[¶115] 'No, I wouldn't. I _never_ said that.'

[¶116] 'You thought it, though. It's what any woman would think.'

[¶117] He was being horribly unfair, and he knew it. The one thing Rosemary had
never said, the thing she was probably incapable of saying, was that he
ought to go back to the New Albion. But for the moment he did not even
want to be fair. His sexual disappointment still pricked him. With a
sort of melancholy triumph he reflected that, after all, he was right.
It was money that stood between them. Money, money, all is money! He
broke into a half-serious tirade:

[¶118] 'Women! What nonsense they make of all our ideas! Because one can't keep
free of women, and every woman makes one pay the same price. "Chuck away
your decency and make more money"—that's what women say. "Chuck away
your decency, suck the blacking off the boss's boots and buy me a better
fur coat than the woman next door." Every man you can see has got some
blasted woman hanging round his neck like a mermaid, dragging him down
and down—down to some beastly little semi-detached villa in Putney,
with Drage furniture and a portable radio and an aspidistra in the
window. It's women who make all progress impossible. Not that I believe
in progress,' he added rather unsatisfactorily.

[¶119] 'What absolute _nonsense_ you do talk, Gordon! As though women were to
blame for everything!'

[¶120] 'They are to blame, finally. Because it's the women who really believe
in the money-code. The men obey it; they have to, but they don't believe
in it. It's the women who keep it going. The women and their Putney
villas and their fur coats and their babies and their aspidistras.'

[¶121] 'It is _not_ the women, Gordon! Women didn't invent money, did they?'

[¶122] 'It doesn't matter who invented it, the point is that it's women who
worship it. A woman's got a sort of mystical feeling towards money. Good
and evil in a woman's mind mean simply money and no money. Look at you
and me. You won't sleep with me, simply and solely because I've got no
money. Yes, that _is_ the reason. (He squeezed her arm to silence her.)
You admitted it only a minute ago. And if I had a decent income you'd go
to bed with me tomorrow. It's not because you're mercenary. You don't
want me to _pay_ you for sleeping with me. It's not so crude as that.
But you've got that deep-down mystical feeling that somehow a man
without money isn't worthy of you. He's a weakling, a sort of
half-man—that's how you feel. Hercules, god of strength and god of
money—you'll find that in Lemprière. It's women who keep all
mythologies going. Women!'

[¶123] 'Women!' echoed Rosemary on a different note. 'I hate the way men are
always talking about _women_. "_Women_ do this," and "_Women_ do
that"—as though all women were exactly the same!'

[¶124] 'Of course all women are the same! What does any woman want except a
safe income and two babies and a semi-detached villa in Putney with an
aspidistra in the window?'

[¶125] 'Oh, you and your aspidistras!'

[¶126] 'On the contrary, _your_ aspidistras. You're the sex that cultivates
them.'

[¶127] She squeezed his arm and burst out laughing. She was really
extraordinarily good-natured. Besides, what he was saying was such
palpable nonsense that it did not even exasperate her. Gordon's
diatribes against women were in reality a kind of perverse joke; indeed,
the whole sex-war is at bottom only a joke. For some reason it is great
fun to pose as a feminist or an anti-feminist according to your sex. As
they walked on they began a violent argument upon the eternal and
idiotic question of Man versus Woman. The moves in this argument—for
they had it as often as they met—were always very much the same. Men
are brutes and women are soulless, and women have always been kept in
subjection and they jolly well ought to be kept in subjection, and look
at Patient Griselda and look at Lady Astor, and what about polygamy and
Hindu widows, and what about Mother Pankhurst's piping days when every
decent woman wore mousetraps on her garters and couldn't look at a man
without feeling her right hand itch for a castrating knife? Gordon and
Rosemary never grew tired of this kind of thing. Each laughed with
delight at the other's absurdities. There was a merry war between them.
Even as they disputed, arm in arm, they pressed their bodies delightedly
together. They were very happy. Indeed, they adored one another. Each
was to the other a standing joke and an object infinitely precious.
Presently a red and blue haze of Neon lights appeared in the distance.
They had reached the beginning of the Tottenham Court Road. Gordon put
his arm round her waist and turned her to the right, down a darkish
side-street. They were so happy together that they had got to kiss. They
stood clasped together under the lamp-post, still laughing, two enemies
breast to breast. She rubbed her cheek against his.

[¶128] 'Gordon, you are such a dear old ass! I can't help loving you, scrubby
jaw and all.'

[¶129] 'Do you really?'

[¶130] 'Really and truly.'

[¶131] Her arms still round him, she leaned a little backwards, pressing her
belly against his with a sort of innocent voluptuousness.

[¶132] 'Life _is_ worth living, isn't it, Gordon?'

[¶133] 'Sometimes.'

[¶134] 'If only we could meet a bit oftener! Sometimes I don't see you for
weeks together.'

[¶135] 'I know. It's bloody. If you knew how I hate my evenings alone!'

[¶136] 'One never seems to have time for anything. I don't even leave that
beastly office till nearly seven. What do you do with yourself on
Sundays, Gordon?'

[¶137] 'Oh, God! Moon about and look miserable, like everyone else.'

[¶138] 'Why not let's go out for a walk in the country sometimes. Then we could
have all day together. Next Sunday, for instance?'

[¶139] The words chilled him. They brought back the thought of money, which he
had succeeded in putting out of his mind for half an hour past. A trip
into the country would cost money, far more than he could possibly
afford. He said in a non-committal tone that transferred the whole thing
to the realm of abstraction:

[¶140] 'Of course, it's not too bad in Richmond Park on Sundays. Or even on
Hampstead Heath. Especially if you go in the mornings before the crowds
get there.'

[¶141] 'Oh, but let's go right out into the country! Somewhere in Surrey, for
instance, or to Burnham Beeches. It's so lovely at this time of year,
with all the dead leaves on the ground, and you can walk all day and
hardly meet a soul. We'll walk for miles and miles and have dinner at a
pub. It would be such fun. Do let's!'

[¶142] Blast! The money-business was coming back. A trip even as far as Burnham
Beeches would cost all of ten bob. He did some hurried mental
arithmetic. Five bob he might manage, and Julia would 'lend' him five;
_give_ him five, that was. At the same moment he remembered his oath,
constantly renewed and always broken, not to 'borrow' money off Julia.
He said in the same casual tone as before:

[¶143] 'It _would_ be rather fun. I should think we might manage it. I'll let
you know later in the week, anyway.'

[¶144] They came out of the side-street, still arm in arm. There was a pub on
the corner. Rosemary stood on tiptoe, and, clinging to Gordon's arm to
support herself, managed to look over the frosted lower half of the
window.

[¶145] 'Look, Gordon, there's a clock in there. It's nearly half past nine.
Aren't you getting frightfully hungry?'

[¶146] 'No,' he said, instantly and untruthfully.

[¶147] 'I am. I'm simply starving. Let's go and have something to eat
somewhere.'

[¶148] Money again! One moment more, and he must confess that he had only four
and fourpence in the world—four and fourpence to last till Friday.

[¶149] 'I couldn't eat anything,' he said. 'I might manage a drink, I dare say.
Let's go and have some coffee or something. I expect we'll find a Lyons
open.'

[¶150] 'Oh, don't let's go to a Lyons! I know such a nice little Italian
restaurant, only just down the road. We'll have Spaghetti Napolitaine
and a bottle of red wine. I adore spaghetti. Do let's!'

[¶151] His heart sank. It was no good. He would have to own up. Supper at the
Italian restaurant could not possibly cost less than five bob for the
two of them. He said almost sullenly:

[¶152] 'It's about time I was getting home, as a matter of fact.'

[¶153] 'Oh, Gordon! Already? Why?'

[¶154] 'Oh, well! If you _must_ know, I've only got four and fourpence in the
world. And it's got to last till Friday.'

[¶155] Rosemary stopped short. She was so angry that she pinched his arm with
all her strength, meaning to hurt him and punish him.

[¶156] 'Gordon, you _are_ an ass! You're a perfect idiot! You're the most
unspeakable idiot I've ever seen!'

[¶157] 'Why am I an idiot?'

[¶158] 'Because what does it matter whether you've got any money? I'm asking
_you_ to have supper with _me_.'

[¶159] He freed his arm from hers and stood away from her. He did not want to
look her in the face.

[¶160] 'What! Do you think I'd go to a restaurant and let you pay for my food?'

[¶161] 'But why not?'

[¶162] 'Because one can't do that sort of thing. It isn't done.'

[¶163] 'It "isn't done"! You'll be saying it's "not cricket" in another moment.
_What_ "isn't done"?'

[¶164] 'Letting you pay for my meals. A man pays for a woman, a woman doesn't
pay for a man.'

[¶165] 'Oh, Gordon! Are we living in the reign of Queen Victoria?'

[¶166] 'Yes, we are, as far as that kind of thing's concerned. Ideas don't
change so quickly.'

[¶167] 'But _my_ ideas have changed.'

[¶168] 'No, they haven't. You think they have, but they haven't. You've been
brought up as a woman, and you can't help behaving like a woman, however
much you don't want to.'

[¶169] 'But what do you mean by _behaving like a woman_, anyway?'

[¶170] 'I tell you every woman's the same when it comes to a thing like this. A
woman despises a man who's dependent on her and sponges on her. She may
say she doesn't, she may _think_ she doesn't, but she does. She can't
help it. If I let you pay for my meals _you_'d despise me.'

[¶171] He had turned away. He knew how abominably he was behaving. But somehow
he had got to say these things. The feeling that people—even
Rosemary—_must_ despise him for his poverty was too strong to be
overcome. Only by rigid, jealous independence could he keep his
self-respect. Rosemary was really distressed this time. She caught his
arm and pulled him round, making him face her. With an insistent
gesture, angrily and yet demanding to be loved, she pressed her breast
against him.

[¶172] 'Gordon! I won't let you say such things. How can you say I'd ever
despise you?'

[¶173] 'I tell you you couldn't help it if I let myself sponge on you.'

[¶174] 'Sponge on me! What expressions you do use! How is it sponging on me to
let me pay for your supper just for once?'

[¶175] He could feel the small breasts, firm and round, just beneath his own.
She looked up at him, frowning and yet not far from tears. She thought
him perverse, unreasonable, cruel. But her physical nearness distracted
him. At this moment all he could remember was that in two years she had
never yielded to him. She had starved him of the one thing that
mattered. What was the good of pretending that she loved him when in the
last essential she recoiled? He added with a kind of deadly joy:

[¶176] 'In a way you do despise me. Oh, yes, I know you're fond of me. But
after all, you can't take me quite seriously. I'm a kind of joke to you.
You're fond of me, and yet I'm not quite your equal—that's how you
feel.'

[¶177] It was what he had said before, but with this difference, that now he
meant it, or said it as if he meant it. She cried out with tears in her
voice:

[¶178] 'I don't, Gordon, I don't! You _know_ I don't!'

[¶179] 'You do. That's why you won't sleep with me. Didn't I tell you that
before?'

[¶180] She looked up at him an instant longer, and then buried her face in his
breast as suddenly as though ducking from a blow. It was because she had
burst into tears. She wept against his breast, angry with him, hating
him, and yet clinging to him like a child. It was the childish way in
which she clung to him, as a mere male breast to weep on, that hurt him
most. With a sort of self-hatred he remembered the other women who in
just this same way had cried against his breast. It seemed the only
thing he could do with women, to make them cry. With his arm round her
shoulders he caressed her clumsily, trying to console her.

[¶181] 'You've gone and made me cry!' she whimpered in self-contempt.

[¶182] 'I'm sorry! Rosemary, dear one! Don't cry, _please_ don't cry.'

[¶183] 'Gordon, dearest! _Why_ do you have to be so beastly to me?'

[¶184] 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Sometimes I can't help it.'

[¶185] 'But why? Why?'

[¶186] She had got over her crying. Rather more composed, she drew away from
him and felt for something to wipe her eyes. Neither of them had a
handkerchief. Impatiently, she wrung the tears out of her eyes with her
knuckles.

[¶187] 'How silly we always are! Now, Gordon, _be_ nice for once. Come along to
the restaurant and have some supper and let me pay for it.'

[¶188] 'No.'

[¶189] 'Just this once. Never mind about the old money-business. Do it just to
please me.'

[¶190] 'I tell you I can't do that kind of thing. I've got to keep my end up.'

[¶191] 'But what do you mean, keep your end up?'

[¶192] 'I've made war on money, and I've got to keep the rules. The first rule
is never to take charity.'

[¶193] 'Charity! Oh, Gordon, I _do_ think you're silly!'

[¶194] She squeezed his ribs again. It was a sign of peace. She did not
understand him, probably never would understand him; yet she accepted
him as he was, hardly even protesting against his unreasonableness. As
she put her face up to be kissed he noticed that her lips were salt. A
tear had trickled here. He strained her against him. The hard defensive
feeling had gone out of her body. She shut her eyes and sank against him
and into him as though her bones had grown weak, and her lips parted and
her small tongue sought for his. It was very seldom that she did that.
And suddenly, as he felt her body yielding, he seemed to know with
certainty that their struggle was ended. She was his now when he chose
to take her. And yet perhaps she did not fully understand what it was
that she was offering; it was simply an instinctive movement of
generosity, a desire to reassure him—to smooth away that hateful
feeling of being unlovable and unloved. She said nothing of this in
words. It was the feeling of her body that seemed to say it. But even if
this had been the time and the place he could not have taken her. At
this moment he loved her but did not desire her. His desire could only
return at some future time when there was no quarrel fresh in his mind
and no consciousness of four and fourpence in his pocket to daunt him.

[¶195] Presently they separated their mouths, though still clinging closely
together.

[¶196] 'How stupid it is, the way we quarrel, isn't it, Gordon? When we meet so
seldom.'

[¶197] 'I know. It's all my fault. I can't help it. Things rub me up. It's
money at the bottom of it. Always money.'

[¶198] 'Oh, money! You let it worry you too much, Gordon.'

[¶199] 'Impossible. It's the only thing worth worrying about.'

[¶200] 'But, anyway, we _will_ go out into the country next Sunday, won't we?
To Burnham Beeches or somewhere. It would be so nice if we could.'

[¶201] 'Yes, I'd love to. We'll go early and be out all day. I'll raise the
train fares somehow.'

[¶202] 'But you'll let me pay my own fare, won't you?'

[¶203] 'No, I'd rather I paid them. But we'll go, anyway.'

[¶204] 'And you really won't let me pay for your supper—just this once, just
to show you trust me?'

[¶205] 'No, I can't. I'm sorry. I've told you why.'

[¶206] 'Oh, dear! I suppose we shall have to say good night. It's getting
late.'

[¶207] They stayed talking a long time, however, so long that Rosemary got no
supper after all. She had to be back at her lodgings by eleven, or the
she-dragons were angry. Gordon went up to the top of the Tottenham Court
Road and took the tram. It was a penny cheaper than taking the bus. On
the wooden seat upstairs he was wedged against a small dirty Scotchman
who read the football finals and oozed beer. Gordon was very happy.
Rosemary was going to be his mistress. _Sharply the menacing wind sweeps
over._ To the music of the tram's booming he whispered the seven
completed stanzas of his poem. Nine stanzas there would be in all. It
was _good_. He believed in it and in himself. He was a poet. Gordon
Comstock, author of _Mice_. Even in _London Pleasures_ he once again
believed.

[¶208] He thought of Sunday. They were to meet at nine o'clock at Paddington
Station. Ten bob or so it would cost; he would raise the money if he had
to pawn his shirt. And she was going to become his mistress; this very
Sunday, perhaps, if the right chance offered itself. Nothing had been
said. Only, somehow, it was agreed between them.

[¶209] Please God it kept fine on Sunday! It was deep winter now. What luck if
it turned out one of those splendid windless days—one of those days
that might almost be summer, when you can lie for hours on the dead
bracken and never feel cold! But you don't get many days like that; a
dozen at most in every winter. As likely as not it would rain. He
wondered whether they would get a chance to do it after all. They had
nowhere to go, except the open air. There are so many pairs of lovers in
London with 'nowhere to go'; only the streets and the parks, where there
is no privacy and it is always cold. It is not easy to make love in a
cold climate when you have no money. The 'never the time and the place'
motif is not made enough of in novels.

## 7. VII

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/7/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/7/#p-N

[¶0] The plumes of the chimneys floated perpendicular against skies of smoky
rose.

[¶1] Gordon caught the 27 bus at ten past eight. The streets were still
locked in their Sunday sleep. On the doorsteps the milk bottles waited
ungathered like little white sentinels. Gordon had fourteen shillings in
hand—thirteen and nine, rather, because the bus fare was threepence.
Nine bob he had set aside from his wages—God knew what that was going
to mean, later in the week!—and five he had borrowed from Julia.

[¶2] He had gone round to Julia's place on Thursday night. Julia's room in
Earl's Court, though only a second-floor back, was not just a vulgar
bedroom like Gordon's. It was a bed-sitting with the accent on the
sitting. Julia would have died of starvation sooner than put up with
such squalor as Gordon lived in. Indeed every one of her scraps of
furniture, collected over intervals of years, represented a period of
semi-starvation. There was a divan bed that could very nearly be
mistaken for a sofa, and a little round fumed oak table, and two
'antique' hardwood chairs, and an ornamental footstool and a
chintz-covered armchair—Drage's: thirteen monthly payments—in front of
the tiny gas-fire; and there were various brackets with framed photos of
father and mother and Gordon and Aunt Angela, and a birchwood
calendar—somebody's Christmas present—with 'It's a long lane that has
no turning' done on it in pokerwork. Julia depressed Gordon horribly. He
was always telling himself that he ought to go and see her oftener; but
in practice he never went near her except to 'borrow' money.

[¶3] When Gordon had given three knocks—three knocks for second floor—Julia
took him up to her room and knelt down in front of the gas-fire.

[¶4] 'I'll light the fire again,' she said. 'You'd like a cup of tea,
wouldn't you?'

[¶5] He noted the 'again'. The room was beastly cold—no fire had been
lighted in it this evening. Julia always 'saved gas' when she was alone.
He looked at her long narrow back as she knelt down. How grey her hair
was getting! Whole locks of it were quite grey. A little more, and it
would be 'grey hair' _tout court_.

[¶6] 'You like your tea strong, don't you?' breathed Julia, hovering over the
tea-caddy with tender, goose-like movements.

[¶7] Gordon drank his cup of tea standing up, his eye on the birchwood
calendar. Out with it! Get it over! Yet his heart almost failed him. The
meanness of this hateful cadging! What would it all tot up to, the money
he had 'borrowed' from her in all these years?

[¶8] 'I say, Julia, I'm damned sorry—I hate asking you; but look here——'

[¶9] 'Yes, Gordon?' she said quietly. She knew what was coming.

[¶10] 'Look here, Julia, I'm damned sorry, but could you lend me five bob?'

[¶11] 'Yes, Gordon, I expect so.'

[¶12] She sought out the small, worn black leather purse that was hidden at
the bottom of her linen drawer. He knew what she was thinking. It meant
less for Christmas presents. That was the great event of her life
nowadays—Christmas and the giving of presents: hunting through the
glittering streets, late at night after the tea-shop was shut, from one
bargain counter to another, picking out the trash that women are so
curiously fond of. Handkerchief sachets, letter racks, teapots, manicure
sets, birchwood calendars with mottoes in pokerwork. All through the
year she was scraping from her wretched wages for 'So and so's Christmas
present', or 'So and so's birthday present.' And had she not, last
Christmas, because Gordon was 'fond of poetry', given him the _Selected
Poems_ of Sir John Drinkwater in green morocco, which he had sold for
half a crown? Poor Julia! Gordon made off with his five bob as soon as
he decently could. Why is it that one can't borrow from a rich friend
and can from a half-starved relative? But one's family, of course,
'don't count'.

[¶13] On the top of the bus he did mental arithmetic. Thirteen and nine in
hand. Two day-returns to Slough, five bob. Bus fares, say two bob more,
seven bob. Bread and cheese and beer at a pub, say a bob each, nine bob.
Tea, eighteen-pence each, twelve bob. A bob for cigarettes, thirteen
bob. That left ninepence for emergencies. They would manage all right.
And how about the rest of the week? Not a penny for tobacco! But he
refused to let it worry him. Today would be worth it, anyway.

[¶14] Rosemary met him on time. It was one of her virtues that she was never
late, and even at this hour of the morning she was bright and debonair.
She was rather nicely dressed, as usual. She was wearing her mock-shovel
hat again, because he had said he liked it. They had the station
practically to themselves. The huge grey place, littered and deserted,
had a blowsy, unwashed air, as though it were still sleeping off a
Saturday night debauch. A yawning porter in need of a shave told them
the best way to get to Burnham Beeches, and presently they were in a
third-class smoker, rolling westward, and the mean wilderness of London
was opening out and giving way to narrow sooty fields defiled with ads
for Carter's Little Liver Pills. The day was very still and warm.
Gordon's prayer had come true. It was one of those windless days which
you can hardly tell from summer. You could feel the sun behind the mist;
it would break through presently, with any luck. Gordon and Rosemary
were profoundly and rather absurdly happy. There was a sense of wild
adventure in getting out of London, with the long day in 'the country'
stretching out ahead of them. It was months since Rosemary and a year
since Gordon had set foot in 'the country'. They sat close together with
the _Sunday Times_ open across their knees; they did not read it,
however, but watched the fields and cows and houses and the empty goods
trucks and great sleeping factories rolling past. Both of them enjoyed
the railway journey so much that they wished it had been longer.

[¶15] At Slough they got out and travelled to Farnham Common in an absurd
chocolate-coloured bus with no top. Slough was still half asleep.
Rosemary remembered the way now that they had got to Farnham Common. You
walked down a rutted road and came out on to stretches of fine, wet,
tussocky grass dotted with little naked birches. The beech woods were
beyond. Not a bough or a blade was stirring. The trees stood like ghosts
in the still, misty air. Both Rosemary and Gordon exclaimed at the
loveliness of everything. The dew, the stillness, the satiny stems of
the birches, the softness of the turf under your feet! Nevertheless, at
first they felt shrunken and out of place, as Londoners do when they get
outside London. Gordon felt as though he had been living underground for
a long time past. He felt etiolated and unkempt. He slipped behind
Rosemary as they walked, so that she should not see his lined,
colourless face. Also, they were out of breath before they had walked
far, because they were only used to London walking, and for the first
half hour they scarcely talked. They plunged into the woods and started
westward, with not much idea of where they were making for—anywhere, so
long as it was away from London. All round them the beech-trees soared,
curiously phallic with their smooth skin-like bark and their flutings at
the base. Nothing grew at their roots, but the dried leaves were strewn
so thickly that in the distance the slopes looked like folds of
copper-coloured silk. Not a soul seemed to be awake. Presently Gordon
came level with Rosemary. They walked on hand in hand, swishing through
the dry coppery leaves that had drifted into the ruts. Sometimes they
came out on to stretches of road where they passed huge desolate
houses—opulent country houses, once, in the carriage days, but now
deserted and unsaleable. Down the road the mist-dimmed hedges wore that
strange purplish brown, the colour of brown madder, that naked brushwood
takes on in winter. There were a few birds about—jays, sometimes,
passing between the trees with dipping flight, and pheasants that
loitered across the road with long tails trailing, almost as tame as
hens, as though knowing they were safe on Sunday. But in half an hour
Gordon and Rosemary had not passed a human being. Sleep lay upon the
countryside. It was hard to believe that they were only twenty miles out
of London.

[¶16] Presently they had walked themselves into trim. They had got their
second wind and the blood glowed in their veins. It was one of those
days when you feel you could walk a hundred miles if necessary.
Suddenly, as they came out on to the road again, the dew all down the
hedge glittered with a diamond flash. The sun had pierced the clouds.
The light came slanting and yellow across the fields, and delicate
unexpected colours sprang out in everything, as though some giant's
child had been let loose with a new paintbox. Rosemary caught Gordon's
arm and pulled him against her.

[¶17] 'Oh, Gordon, what a _lovely_ day!'

[¶18] 'Lovely.'

[¶19] 'And, oh, look, look! Look at all the rabbits in that field!'

[¶20] Sure enough, at the other end of the field, innumerable rabbits were
browsing, almost like a flock of sheep. Suddenly there was a flurry
under the hedge. A rabbit had been lying there. It leapt from its nest
in the grass with a flirt of dew and dashed away down the field, its
white tail lifted. Rosemary threw herself into Gordon's arms. It was
astonishingly warm, as warm as summer. They pressed their bodies
together in a sort of sexless rapture, like children. Here in the open
air he could see the marks of time quite clearly upon her face. She was
nearly thirty, and looked it, and he was nearly thirty, and looked more;
and it mattered nothing. He pulled off the absurd flat hat. The three
white hairs gleamed on her crown. At the moment he did not wish them
away. They were part of her and therefore lovable.

[¶21] 'What fun to be here alone with you! I'm so glad we came!'

[¶22] 'And, oh, Gordon, to think we've got all day together! And it might so
easily have rained. How lucky we are!'

[¶23] 'Yes. We'll burn a sacrifice to the immortal gods, presently.'

[¶24] They were extravagantly happy. As they walked on they fell into absurd
enthusiasms over everything they saw: over a jay's feather that they
picked up, blue as lapis lazuli; over a stagnant pool like a jet mirror,
with boughs reflected deep down in it; over the fungi that sprouted from
the trees like monstrous horizontal ears. They discussed for a long time
what would be the best epithet to describe a beech-tree. Both agreed
that beeches look more like sentient creatures than other trees. It is
because of the smoothness of their bark, probably, and the curious
limb-like way in which the boughs sprout from the trunk. Gordon said
that the little knobs on the bark were like the nipples of breasts and
that the sinuous upper boughs, with their smooth sooty skin, were like
the writhing trunks of elephants. They argued about similes and
metaphors. From time to time they quarrelled vigorously, according to
their custom. Gordon began to tease her by finding ugly similes for
everything they passed. He said that the russet foliage of the hornbeams
was like the hair of Burne-Jones maidens, and that the smooth tentacles
of the ivy that wound about the trees were like the clinging arms of
Dickens heroines. Once he insisted upon destroying some mauve toadstools
because he said they reminded him of a Rackham illustration and he
suspected fairies of dancing round them. Rosemary called him a soulless
pig. She waded through a bed of drifted beech leaves that rustled about
her, knee-deep, like a weightless red-gold sea.

[¶25] 'Oh, Gordon, these leaves! Look at them with the sun on them! They're
like gold. They really are like gold.'

[¶26] 'Fairy gold. You'll be going all Barrie in another moment. As a matter
of fact, if you want an exact simile, they're just the colour of tomato
soup.'

[¶27] 'Don't be a pig, Gordon! Listen how they rustle. "Thick as autumnal
leaves that strow the brooks in Vallombrosa."'

[¶28] 'Or like one of those American breakfast cereals. Tru-weet Breakfast
Crisps. "Kiddies clamour for their Breakfast Crisps."'

[¶29] 'You are a beast!'

[¶30] She laughed. They walked on hand in hand, swishing ankle-deep through
the leaves and declaiming:

[¶31] 'Thick as the Breakfast Crisps that strow the plates In Welwyn
    Garden City!'

[¶32] It was great fun. Presently they came out of the wooded area. There were
plenty of people abroad now, but not many cars if you kept away from the
main roads. Sometimes they heard church bells ringing and made detours
to avoid the churchgoers. They began to pass through straggling villages
on whose outskirts pseudo-Tudor villas stood sniffishly apart, amid
their garages, their laurel shrubberies and their raw-looking lawns. And
Gordon had some fun railing against the villas and the godless
civilisation of which they were part—a civilisation of stockbrokers and
their lip-sticked wives, of golf, whisky, ouija-boards and Aberdeen
terriers called Jock. So they walked another four miles or so, talking
and frequently quarrelling. A few gauzy clouds were drifting across the
sky, but there was hardly a breath of wind.

[¶33] They were growing rather footsore and more and more hungry. Of its own
accord the conversation began to turn upon food. Neither of them had a
watch, but when they passed through a village they saw that the pubs
were open, so that it must be after twelve o'clock. They hesitated
outside a rather low-looking pub called the Bird in Hand. Gordon was for
going in; privately he reflected that in a pub like that your bread and
cheese and beer would cost you a bob at the very most. But Rosemary said
that it was a nasty-looking place, which indeed it was, and they went
on, hoping to find a pleasanter pub at the other end of the village.
They had visions of a cosy bar-parlour, with an oak settle and perhaps a
stuffed pike in a glass case on the wall.

[¶34] But there were no more pubs in the village, and presently they were in
open country again, with no houses in sight and not even any signposts.
Gordon and Rosemary began to be alarmed. At two the pubs would shut, and
then there would be no food to be had, except perhaps a packet of
biscuits from some village sweet-shop. At this thought a ravening hunger
took possession of them. They toiled exhaustedly up an enormous hill,
hoping to find a village on the other side. There was no village, but
far below a dark green river wound, with what seemed quite like a large
town scattered along its edge and a grey bridge crossing it. They did
not even know what river it was—it was the Thames, of course.

[¶35] 'Thank God!' said Gordon. 'There must be plenty of pubs down there. We'd
better take the first one we can find.'

[¶36] 'Yes, do let's. I'm starving.'

[¶37] But when they neared the town it seemed strangely quiet. Gordon wondered
whether the people were all at church or eating their Sunday dinners,
until he realised that the place was quite deserted. It was
Crickham-on-Thames, one of those riverside towns which live for the
boating season and go into hibernation for the rest of the year. It
straggled along the bank for a mile or more, and it consisted entirely
of boat-houses and bungalows, all of them shut up and empty. There were
no signs of life anywhere. At last, however, they came upon a fat,
aloof, red-nosed man, with a ragged moustache, sitting on a camp-stool
beside a jar of beer on the towpath. He was fishing with a twenty-foot
roach pole, while on the smooth green water two swans circled about his
float, trying to steal his bait as often as he pulled it up.

[¶38] 'Can you tell us where we can get something to eat?' said Gordon.

[¶39] That fat man seemed to have been expecting this question and to derive a
sort of private pleasure from it. He answered without looking at Gordon.

[¶40] '_You_ won't get nothing to eat. Not here you won't,' he said.

[¶41] 'But dash it! Do you mean to say there isn't a pub in the whole place?
We've walked all the way from Farnham Common.'

[¶42] The fat man sniffed and seemed to reflect, still keeping his eye on his
float.

[¶43] 'I dessay you might try the Ravenscroft Hotel,' he said. 'About half a
mile along, that is. I dessay they'd give you something; that is, they
would if they was open.'

[¶44] 'But _are_ they open?'

[¶45] 'They might be and they might not,' said the fat man comfortably.

[¶46] 'And can you tell us what time it is?' said Rosemary.

[¶47] 'It's jest gone ten parse one.'

[¶48] The two swans followed Gordon and Rosemary a little way along the
towpath, evidently expecting to be fed. There did not seem much hope
that the Ravenscroft Hotel would be open. The whole place had that
desolate fly-blown air of pleasure resorts in the off-season. The
woodwork of the bungalows was cracking, the white paint was peeling off,
the dusty windows showed bare interiors. Even the slot machines that
were dotted along the bank were out of order. There seemed to be another
bridge at the other end of the town. Gordon swore heartily.

[¶49] 'What bloody fools we were not to go into that pub when we had the
chance!'

[¶50] 'Oh, dear! I'm simply _starving_. Had we better turn back, do you
think?'

[¶51] 'It's no use, there were no pubs the way we came. We must keep on. I
suppose the Ravenscroft Hotel's on the other side of that bridge. If
that's a main road there's just a chance it'll be open. Otherwise we're
sunk.'

[¶52] They dragged their way as far as the bridge. They were thoroughly
footsore now. But behold! here at last was what they wanted, for just
beyond the bridge, down a sort of private road, stood a biggish,
smartish hotel, its back lawns running down to the river. It was
obviously open. Gordon and Rosemary started eagerly towards it, and then
paused, daunted.

[¶53] 'It looks frightfully expensive,' said Rosemary.

[¶54] It did look expensive. It was a vulgar pretentious place, all gilt and
white paint—one of those hotels which have overcharging and bad service
written on every brick. Beside the drive, commanding the road, a
snobbish board announced in gilt lettering:

[¶55] THE RAVENSCROFT HOTEL
                         Open to Non-residents.
                         LUNCHEONS—TEAS—DINNERS
                      DANCE HALL AND TENNIS COURTS
                          Parties catered for.

[¶56] Two gleaming two-seater cars were parked in the drive. Gordon quailed.
The money in his pocket seemed to shrink to nothing. This was the very
opposite to the cosy pub they had been looking for. But he was very
hungry. Rosemary tweaked at his arm.

[¶57] 'It looks a beastly place. I vote we go on.'

[¶58] 'But we've got to get some food. It's our last chance. We shan't find
another pub.'

[¶59] 'The food's always so disgusting in these places. Beastly cold beef that
tastes as if it had been saved up from last year. And they charge you
the earth for it.'

[¶60] 'Oh, well, we'll just order bread and cheese and beer. It always costs
about the same.'

[¶61] 'But they hate you doing that. They'll try to bully us into having a
proper lunch, you'll see. We must be firm and just say bread and
cheese.'

[¶62] 'All right, we'll be firm. Come on.'

[¶63] They went in, resolved to be firm. But there was an expensive smell in
the draughty hallway—a smell of chintz, dead flowers, Thames water and
the rinsings of wine bottles. It was the characteristic smell of a
riverside hotel. Gordon's heart sank lower. He knew the type of place
this was. It was one of those desolate hotels which exist all along the
motor roads and are frequented by stockbrokers airing their whores on
Sunday afternoons. In such places you are insulted and overcharged
almost as a matter of course. Rosemary shrank nearer to him. She too was
intimidated. They saw a door marked 'Saloon' and pushed it open,
thinking it must be the bar. It was not a bar, however, but a large,
smart, chilly room with corduroy-upholstered chairs and settees. You
could have mistaken it for an ordinary drawing-room except that all the
ashtrays advertised White Horse whisky. And round one of the tables the
people from the cars outside—two blond, flat-headed, fattish men,
over-youthfully dressed, and two disagreeable elegant young women—were
sitting, having evidently just finished lunch. A waiter, bending over
their table, was serving them with liqueurs.

[¶64] Gordon and Rosemary had halted in the doorway. The people at the table
were already eyeing them with offensive upper-middle-class eyes. Gordon
and Rosemary looked tired and dirty, and they knew it. The notion of
ordering bread and cheese and beer had almost vanished from their minds.
In such a place as this you couldn't possibly say 'Bread and cheese and
beer'; 'Lunch' was the only thing you could say. There was nothing for
it but 'Lunch' or flight. The waiter was almost openly contemptuous. He
had summed them up at a glance as having no money; but also he had
divined that it was in their minds to fly and was determined to stop
them before they could escape.

[¶65] 'Sare?' he demanded, lifting his tray off the table.

[¶66] Now for it! Say 'Bread and cheese and beer', and damn the consequences!
Alas! his courage was gone. 'Lunch' it would have to be. With a
seeming-careless gesture he thrust his hand into his pocket. He was
feeling his money to make sure that it was still there. Seven and
elevenpence left, he knew. The waiter's eye followed the movement;
Gordon had a hateful feeling that the man could actually see through the
cloth and count the money in his pocket. In a tone as lordly as he could
make it, he remarked:

[¶67] 'Can we have some lunch, please?'

[¶68] 'Luncheon, sare? Yes, sare. Zees way.'

[¶69] The waiter was a black-haired young man with a very smooth,
well-featured, sallow face. His dress clothes were excellently cut, and
yet unclean-looking, as though he seldom took them off. He looked like a
Russian prince; probably he was an Englishman and had assumed a foreign
accent because this was proper in a waiter. Defeated, Rosemary and
Gordon followed him to the dining-room, which was at the back, giving on
the lawn. It was exactly like an aquarium. It was built entirely of
greenish glass, and it was so damp and chilly that you could almost have
fancied yourself under water. You could both see and smell the river
outside. In the middle of each of the small round tables there was a
bowl of paper flowers, but at one side, to complete the aquarium effect,
there was a whole florist's stand of evergreens, palms and aspidistras
and so forth, like dreary water-plants. In summer such a room might be
pleasant enough; at present, when the sun had gone behind a cloud, it
was merely dank and miserable. Rosemary was almost as much afraid of the
waiter as Gordon was. As they sat down and he turned away for a moment
she made a face at his back.

[¶70] 'I'm going to pay for my own lunch,' she whispered to Gordon, across the
table.

[¶71] 'No, you're not.'

[¶72] 'What a horrible place! The food's sure to be filthy. I do wish we
hadn't come.'

[¶73] 'Sh!'

[¶74] The waiter had come back with a flyblown printed menu. He handed it to
Gordon and stood over him with the menacing air of a waiter who knows
that you have not much money in your pocket. Gordon's heart pounded. If
it was a _table d'hôte_ lunch at three and sixpence or even half a
crown, they were sunk. He set his teeth and looked at the menu. Thank
God! It was _à la carte_. The cheapest thing on the list was cold beef
and salad for one and sixpence. He said, or rather mumbled:

[¶75] 'We'll have some cold beef, please.'

[¶76] The waiter's delicate black eyebrows lifted. He feigned surprise.

[¶77] '_Only ze_ cold beef, sare?'

[¶78] 'Yes, that'll do to go on with, anyway.'

[¶79] 'But you will not have _anysing_ else, sare?'

[¶80] 'Oh, well. Bring us some bread, of course. And butter.'

[¶81] 'But no soup to start wiz, sare?'

[¶82] 'No. No soup.'

[¶83] 'Nor any fish, sare? _Only_ ze cold beef?'

[¶84] 'Do we want any fish, Rosemary? I don't think we do. No. No fish.'

[¶85] 'Nor any sweet to follow, sare? Only ze cold beef?'

[¶86] Gordon had difficulty in controlling his features. He thought he had
never hated anyone so much as he hated this waiter.

[¶87] 'We'll tell you afterwards if we want anything else,' he said.

[¶88] 'And you will drink sare?'

[¶89] Gordon had meant to ask for beer, but he hadn't the courage now. He had
got to win back his prestige after this affair of the cold beef.

[¶90] 'Bring me the wine list,' he said flatly.

[¶91] Another flyblown list was produced. All the wines looked impossibly
expensive. However, at the very top of the list there was some nameless
table claret at two and nine a bottle. Gordon made hurried calculations.
He could just manage two and nine. He indicated the wine with his
thumbnail.

[¶92] 'Bring us a bottle of this,' he said.

[¶93] The waiter's eyebrows rose again. He essayed a stroke of irony.

[¶94] 'You will have ze _whole_ bottle, sare? You would not prefare ze half
bottle?'

[¶95] 'A whole bottle,' said Gordon coldly.

[¶96] All in a single delicate movement of contempt the waiter inclined his
head, shrugged his left shoulder and turned away. Gordon could not stand
it. He caught Rosemary's eye across the table. Somehow or other they had
got to put that waiter in his place! In a moment the waiter came back,
carrying the bottle of cheap wine by the neck, and half concealing it
behind his coat tails, as though it were something a little indecent or
unclean. Gordon had thought of a way to avenge himself. As the waiter
displayed the bottle he put out a hand, felt it, and frowned.

[¶97] 'That's not the way to serve red wine,' he said.

[¶98] Just for a moment the waiter was taken aback. 'Sare?' he said.

[¶99] 'It's stone cold. Take the bottle away and warm it.'

[¶100] 'Very good, sare.'

[¶101] But it was not really a victory. The waiter did not look abashed. Was
the wine worth warming? his raised eyebrow said. He bore the bottle away
with easy disdain, making it quite clear to Rosemary and Gordon that it
was bad enough to order the cheapest wine on the list without making
this fuss about it afterwards.

[¶102] The beef and salad were corpse-cold and did not seem like real food at
all. They tasted like water. The rolls, also, though stale, were damp.
The reedy Thames water seemed to have got into everything. It was no
surprise that when the wine was opened it tasted like mud. But it was
alcoholic, that was the great thing. It was quite a surprise to find how
stimulating it was, once you had got it past your gullet and into your
stomach. After drinking a glass and a half Gordon felt very much better.
The waiter stood by the door, ironically patient, his napkin over his
arm, trying to make Gordon and Rosemary uncomfortable by his presence.
At first he succeeded, but Gordon's back was towards him, and he
disregarded him and presently almost forgot him. By degrees their
courage returned. They began to talk more easily and in louder voices.

[¶103] 'Look,' said Gordon. 'Those swans have followed us all the way up here.'

[¶104] Sure enough, there were the two swans sailing vaguely to and fro over
the dark green water. And at this moment the sun burst out again and the
dreary aquarium of a dining-room was flooded with pleasant greenish
light. Gordon and Rosemary felt suddenly warm and happy. They began
chattering about nothing, almost as though the waiter had not been
there, and Gordon took up the bottle and poured out two more glasses of
wine. Over their glasses their eyes met. She was looking at him with a
sort of yielding irony. 'I'm your mistress,' her eyes said; 'what a
joke!' Their knees were touching under the small table; momentarily she
squeezed his knee between her own. Something leapt inside him; a warm
wave of sensuality and tenderness crept up his body. He had remembered!
She was his girl, his mistress. Presently, when they were alone, in some
hidden place in the warm, windless air, he would have her naked body all
for his own at last. True, all the morning he had known this, but
somehow the knowledge had been unreal. It was only now that he grasped
it. Without words said, with a sort of bodily certainty, he knew that
within an hour she would be in his arms, naked. As they sat there in the
warm light, their knees touching, their eyes meeting, they felt as
though already everything had been accomplished. There was deep intimacy
between them. They could have sat there for hours, just looking at one
another and talking of trivial things that had meanings for them and for
nobody else. They did sit there for twenty minutes or more. Gordon had
forgotten the waiter—had even forgotten, momentarily, the disaster of
being let in for this wretched lunch that was going to strip him of
every penny he had. But presently the sun went in, the room grew grey
again, and they realised that it was time to go.

[¶105] 'The bill,' said Gordon, turning half round.

[¶106] The waiter made a final effort to be offensive.

[¶107] 'Ze bill, sare? But you do not wish any coffee, sare?'

[¶108] 'No, no coffee. The bill.'

[¶109] The waiter retired and came back with a folded slip on a salver. Gordon
opened it. Six and threepence—and he had exactly seven and elevenpence
in the world! Of course he had known approximately what the bill must
be, and yet it was a shock now that it came. He stood up, felt in his
pocket and took out all his money. The sallow young waiter, his salver
on his arm, eyed the handful of money; plainly he divined that it was
all Gordon had. Rosemary also had got up and come round the table. She
pinched Gordon's elbow; this was a signal that she would like to pay her
share. Gordon pretended not to notice. He paid the six and threepence,
and, as he turned away, dropped another shilling onto the salver. The
waiter balanced it for a moment on his hand, flicked it over and then
slipped it into his waistcoat pocket with the air of covering up
something unmentionable.

[¶110] As they went down the passage, Gordon felt dismayed, helpless—dazed,
almost. All his money gone at a single swoop! It was a ghastly thing to
happen. If only they had not come to this accursed place! The whole day
was ruined now—and all for the sake of a couple of plates of cold beef
and a bottle of muddy wine! Presently there would be tea to think about,
and he had only six cigarettes left, and there were the bus fares back
to Slough and God knew what else; and he had just eightpence to pay for
the lot! They got outside the hotel feeling as if they had been kicked
out and the door slammed behind them. All the warm intimacy of a moment
ago was gone. Everything seemed different now that they were outside.
Their blood seemed to grow suddenly cooler in the open air. Rosemary
walked ahead of him, rather nervous, not speaking. She was half
frightened now by the thing she had resolved to do. He watched her
strong delicate limbs moving. There was her body that he had wanted so
long; but now when the time had come it only daunted him. He wanted her
to be his, he wanted to _have had_ her, but he wished it were over and
done with. It was an effort—a thing he had got to screw himself up to.
It was strange that that beastly business of the hotel bill could have
upset him so completely. The easy carefree mood of the morning was
shattered; in its place there had come back the hateful, harassing,
familiar thing—worry about money. In a minute he would have to own up
that he had only eightpence left; he would have to borrow money off her
to get them home; it would be squalid and shameful. Only the wine inside
him kept up his courage. The warmth of the wine, and the hateful feeling
of having only eightpence left, warred together in his body, neither
getting the better of the other.

[¶111] They walked rather slowly, but soon they were away from the river and on
higher ground again. Each searched desperately for something to say and
could think of nothing. He came level with her, took her hand and wound
her fingers within his own. Like that they felt better. But his heart
beat painfully, his entrails were constricted. He wondered whether she
felt the same.

[¶112] 'There doesn't seem to be a soul about,' she said at last.

[¶113] 'It's Sunday afternoon. They're all asleep under the aspidistra, after
roast beef and Yorkshire.'

[¶114] There was another silence. They walked on fifty yards or so. With
difficulty mastering his voice, he managed to say:

[¶115] 'It's extraordinarily warm. We might sit down for a bit if we can find a
place.'

[¶116] 'Yes, all right. If you like.'

[¶117] Presently they came to a small copse on the left of the road. It looked
dead and empty, nothing growing under the naked trees. But at the corner
of the copse, on the far side, there was a great tangled patch of sloe
or blackthorn bushes. He put his arm round her without saying anything
and turned her in that direction. There was a gap in the hedge with some
barbed wire strung across it. He held the wire up for her and she
slipped nimbly under it. His heart leapt again. How supple and strong
she was! But as he climbed over the wire to follow her, the
eightpence—a sixpence and two pennies—clinked in his pocket, daunting
him anew.

[¶118] When they got to the bushes they found a natural alcove. On three sides
were beds of thorn, leafless but impenetrable, and on the other side you
looked downhill over a sweep of naked ploughed fields. At the bottom of
the hill stood a low-roofed cottage, tiny as a child's toy, its chimneys
smokeless. Not a creature was stirring anywhere. You could not have been
more alone than in such a place. The grass was the fine mossy stuff that
grows under trees.

[¶119] 'We ought to have brought a mackintosh,' he said. He had knelt down.

[¶120] 'It doesn't matter. The ground's fairly dry.'

[¶121] He pulled her to the ground beside him, kissed her, pulled off the flat
felt hat, lay upon her breast to breast, kissed her face all over. She
lay under him, yielding rather than responding. She did not resist when
his hand sought her breasts. But in her heart she was still frightened.
She would do it—oh, yes! she would keep her implied promise, she would
not draw back; but all the same she was frightened. And at heart he too
was half reluctant. It dismayed him to find how little, at this moment,
he really wanted her. The money-business still unnerved him. How can you
make love when you have only eightpence in your pocket and are thinking
about it all the time? Yet in a way he wanted her. Indeed, he could not
do without her. His life would be a different thing when once they were
really lovers. For a long time he lay on her breast, her head turned
sideways, his face against her neck and hair, attempting nothing
further.

[¶122] Then the sun came out again. It was getting low in the sky now. The warm
light poured over them as though a membrane across the sky had broken.
It had been a little cold on the grass, really, with the sun behind the
clouds; but now once again it was almost as warm as summer. Both of them
sat up to exclaim at it.

[¶123] 'Oh, Gordon, look! Look how the sun's lighting everything up!'

[¶124] As the clouds melted away a widening yellow beam slid swiftly across the
valley, gilding everything in its path. Grass that had been dull green
shone suddenly emerald. The empty cottage below sprang out into warm
colours, purply-blue of tiles, cherry-red of brick. Only the fact that
no birds were singing reminded you that it was winter. Gordon put his
arm round Rosemary and pulled her hard against him. They sat cheek to
cheek, looking down the hill. He turned her round and kissed her.

[¶125] 'You do like me, don't you?'

[¶126] 'Adore you, silly.'

[¶127] 'And you're going to be nice to me, aren't you?'

[¶128] 'Nice to you?'

[¶129] 'Let me do what I want with you?'

[¶130] 'Yes, I expect so.'

[¶131] 'Anything?'

[¶132] 'Yes, all right. Anything.'

[¶133] He pressed her back upon the grass. It was quite different now. The
warmth of the sun seemed to have got into their bones. 'Take your
clothes off, there's a dear,' he whispered. She did it readily enough.
She had no shame before him. Besides, it was so warm and the place was
so solitary that it did not matter how many clothes you took off. They
spread her clothes out and made a sort of bed for her to lie on. Naked,
she lay back, her hands behind her head, her eyes shut, smiling
slightly, as though she had considered everything and were at peace in
her mind. For a long time he knelt and gazed at her body. Its beauty
startled him. She looked much younger naked than with her clothes on.
Her face, thrown back, with eyes shut, looked almost childish. He moved
closer to her. Once again the coins clinked in his pocket. Only
eightpence left! Trouble coming presently. But he wouldn't think of it
now. Get on with it, that's the great thing, get on with it and damn the
future! He put an arm beneath her and laid his body to hers.

[¶134] 'May I?—now?'

[¶135] 'Yes. All right.'

[¶136] 'You're not frightened?'

[¶137] 'No.'

[¶138] 'I'll be as gentle as I can with you.'

[¶139] 'It doesn't matter.'

[¶140] A moment later:

[¶141] 'Oh, Gordon, no! No, no, no!'

[¶142] 'What? What is it?'

[¶143] 'No, Gordon, no! You mustn't! _No!_'

[¶144] She put her hands against him and pushed him violently back. Her face
looked remote, frightened almost hostile. It was terrible to feel her
push him away at such a moment. It was as though cold water had been
dashed all over him. He fell back from her, dismayed, hurriedly
re-arranging his clothes.

[¶145] 'What is it? What's the matter?'

[¶146] 'Oh, Gordon! I thought you—oh, dear!'

[¶147] She threw her arm over her face and rolled over on her side, away from
him, suddenly ashamed.

[¶148] 'What is it?' he repeated.

[¶149] 'How could you be so _thoughtless_?'

[¶150] 'What do you mean—thoughtless?'

[¶151] 'Oh! you know what I mean!'

[¶152] His heart shrank. He did know what she meant; but he had never thought
of it till this moment. And of course—oh, yes!—he ought to have
thought of it. He stood up and turned away from her. Suddenly he knew
that he could go no further with this business. In a wet field on a
Sunday afternoon—and in mid-winter at that! Impossible! It had seemed
so right, so natural only a minute ago; now it seemed merely squalid and
ugly.

[¶153] 'I didn't expect _this_,' he said bitterly.

[¶154] 'But I couldn't help it, Gordon! You ought to have—you know.'

[¶155] 'You don't think I go in for that kind of thing, do you?'

[¶156] 'But what else can we do? I can't have a baby, can I?'

[¶157] 'You must take your chance.'

[¶158] 'Oh, Gordon, how impossible you are!'

[¶159] She lay looking up at him, her face full of distress, too overcome for
the moment even to remember that she was naked. His disappointment had
turned to anger. There you are, you see! Money again! Even in the most
secret action of your life you don't escape it; you've still got to
spoil everything with filthy cold-blooded precautions for money's sake.
Money, money, always money! Even in the bridal bed, the finger of the
money-god intruding! In the heights or in the depths, he is there. He
walked a pace or two up and down, his hands in his pockets.

[¶160] 'Money again, you see!' he said. 'Even at a moment like this it's got
the power to stand over us and bully us. Even when we're alone and miles
from anywhere, with not a soul to see us.'

[¶161] 'What's _money_ got to do with it?'

[¶162] 'I tell you it'd never even enter your head to worry about a baby if it
wasn't for the money. You'd _want_ the baby if it wasn't for that. You
say you "can't" have a baby. What do you mean, you "can't" have a baby?
You mean you daren't; because you'd lose your job and I've got no money
and all of us would starve. This birth-control business! It's just
another way they've found out of bullying us. And you want to acquiesce
in it, apparently.'

[¶163] 'But what am I to do, Gordon? What am I to do?'

[¶164] At this moment the sun disappeared behind the clouds. It became
perceptibly colder. After all, the scene was grotesque—the naked woman
lying in the grass, the dressed man standing moodily by with his hands
in his pockets. She'd catch her death of cold in another moment, lying
there like that. The whole thing was absurd and indecent.

[¶165] 'But what else am I to do?' she repeated.

[¶166] 'I should think you might start by putting your clothes on,' he said
coldly.

[¶167] He had only said it to avenge his irritation; but its result was to make
her so painfully and obviously embarrassed that he had to turn his back
on her. She had dressed herself in a very few moments. As she knelt
lacing up her shoes he heard her sniff once or twice. She was on the
point of crying and was struggling to restrain herself. He felt horribly
ashamed. He would have liked to throw himself on his knees beside her,
put his arms round her and ask her pardon. But he could do nothing of
the kind; the scene had left him lumpish and awkward. It was with
difficulty that he could command his voice even for the most banal
remark.

[¶168] 'Are you ready?' he said flatly.

[¶169] 'Yes.'

[¶170] They went back to the road, climbed through the wire and started down
the hill without another word. Fresh clouds were rolling across the sun.
It was getting much colder. Another hour and the early dusk would have
fallen. They reached the bottom of the hill and came in sight of the
Ravenscroft Hotel, scene of their disaster.

[¶171] 'Where are we going?' said Rosemary in a small sulky voice.

[¶172] 'Back to Slough, I suppose. We must cross the bridge and have a look at
the signposts.'

[¶173] They scarcely spoke again till they had gone several miles. Rosemary was
embarrassed and miserable. A number of times she edged closer to him,
meaning to take his arm, but he edged away from her; and so they walked
abreast with almost the width of the road between them. She imagined
that she had offended him mortally. She supposed that it was because of
his disappointment—because she had pushed him away at the critical
moment—that he was angry with her; she would have apologised if he had
given her a quarter of a chance. But as a matter of fact he was scarcely
thinking of this any longer. His mind had turned away from that side of
things. It was the money-business that was troubling him now—the fact
that he had only eightpence in his pocket. In a very little while he
would have to confess it. There would be the bus fares from Farnham to
Slough, and tea in Slough, and cigarettes, and more bus fares and
perhaps another meal when they got back to London; and just eightpence
to cover the lot! He would have to borrow from Rosemary after all. And
that was so damned humiliating. It is hateful to have to borrow money
off someone you have just been quarrelling with. What nonsense it made
of all his fine attitudes! There was he, lecturing her, putting on
superior airs, pretending to be shocked because she took contraception
for granted; and the next moment turning round and asking her for money!
But there you are, you see, that's what money can do. There is no
attitude that money or the lack of it cannot puncture.

[¶174] By half past four it was almost completely dark. They tramped along
misty roads where there was no illumination save the cracks of cottage
windows and the yellow beam of an occasional car. It was getting beastly
cold, too, but they had walked four miles and the exercise had warmed
them. It was impossible to go on being unsociable any longer. They began
to talk more easily, and by degrees they edged closer together. Rosemary
took Gordon's arm. Presently she stopped him and swung him round to face
her.

[¶175] 'Gordon, _why_ are you so beastly to me?'

[¶176] 'How am I beastly to you?'

[¶177] 'Coming all this way without speaking a word!'

[¶178] 'Oh, well!'

[¶179] 'Are you still angry with me because of what happened just now?'

[¶180] 'No. I was never angry with you. _You're_ not to blame.'

[¶181] She looked up at him, trying to divine the expression of his face in the
almost pitch darkness. He drew her against him, and, as she seemed to
expect it, tilted her face back and kissed her. She clung to him
eagerly; her body melted against his. She had been waiting for this, it
seemed.

[¶182] 'Gordon, you do love me, don't you?'

[¶183] 'Of course I do.'

[¶184] 'Things went wrong somehow. I couldn't help it. I got frightened
suddenly.'

[¶185] 'It doesn't matter. Another time it'll be all right.'

[¶186] She was lying limp against him, her head on his breast. He could feel
her heart beating. It seemed to flutter violently, as though she were
taking some decision.

[¶187] 'I don't care,' she said indistinctly, her face buried in his coat.

[¶188] 'Don't care about what?'

[¶189] 'The baby. I'll risk it. You can do what you like with me.'

[¶190] At these surrendering words a weak desire raised itself in him and died
away at once. He knew why she had said it. It was not because, at this
moment, she really wanted to be made love to. It was from a mere
generous impulse to let him know that she loved him and would take a
dreaded risk rather than disappoint him.

[¶191] 'Now?' he said.

[¶192] 'Yes, if you like.'

[¶193] He considered. He so wanted to be sure that she was his! But the cold
night air flowed over them. Behind the hedges the long grass would be
wet and chill. This was not the time or the place. Besides, that
business of the eightpence had usurped his mind. He was not in the mood
any longer.

[¶194] 'I can't,' he said finally.

[¶195] 'You can't! But, Gordon! I thought——'

[¶196] 'I know. But it's all different now.'

[¶197] 'You're still upset?'

[¶198] 'Yes. In a way.'

[¶199] 'Why?'

[¶200] He pushed her a little away from him. As well have the explanation now
as later. Nevertheless he was so ashamed that he mumbled rather than
said:

[¶201] 'I've got a beastly thing to say to you. It's been worrying me all the
way along.'

[¶202] 'What is it?'

[¶203] 'It's this. Can you lend me some money? I'm absolutely cleaned out. I
had just enough for today, but that beastly hotel bill upset everything.
I've only eightpence left.'

[¶204] Rosemary was amazed. She broke right out of his arms in her amazement.

[¶205] 'Only eightpence left! What _are_ you talking about? What does it matter
if you've only eightpence left?'

[¶206] 'Don't I tell you I shall have to borrow money off you in another
minute? You'll have to pay for your own bus fares, and my bus fares, and
your tea and Lord knows what. And I asked you to come out with me!
You're supposed to be my guest. It's bloody.'

[¶207] 'Your _guest_! Oh, Gordon! Is _that_ what's been worrying you all this
time?'

[¶208] 'Yes.'

[¶209] 'Gordon, you _are_ a baby! How can you let yourself be worried by a
thing like that? As though I minded lending you money! Aren't I always
telling you I want to pay my share when we go out together?'

[¶210] 'Yes, and you know how I hate your paying. We had that out the other
night.'

[¶211] 'Oh, how absurd, how absurd you are! Do you think there's anything to be
ashamed of in having no money?'

[¶212] 'Of course there is! It's the only thing in the world there _is_ to be
ashamed of.'

[¶213] 'But what's it got to do with you and me making love, anyway? I don't
understand you. First you want to and then you don't want to. What's
money got to do with it?'

[¶214] 'Everything.'

[¶215] He wound her arm in his and started down the road. She would never
understand. Nevertheless he had got to explain.

[¶216] 'Don't you understand that one isn't a full human being—that one
doesn't _feel_ a human being—unless one's got money in one's pocket?'

[¶217] 'No. I think that's just silly.'

[¶218] 'It isn't that I don't want to make love to you. I do. But I tell you I
can't make love to you when I've only eightpence in my pocket. At least
when you know I've only eightpence. I just can't do it. It's physically
impossible.'

[¶219] 'But why? Why?'

[¶220] 'You'll find it in Lemprière,' he said obscurely.

[¶221] That settled it. They talked no more about it. For the second time he
had behaved grossly badly and yet had made her feel as if it were she
who was in the wrong. They walked on. She did not understand him; on the
other hand, she forgave him everything. Presently they reached Farnham
Common, and, after a wait at the cross road, got a bus to Slough. In the
darkness, as the bus loomed near, Rosemary found Gordon's hand and
slipped half a crown into it, so that he might pay the fares and not be
shamed in public by letting a woman pay for him.

[¶222] For his own part Gordon would sooner have walked to Slough and saved the
bus fares, but he knew Rosemary would refuse. In Slough, also, he was
for taking the train straight back to London, but Rosemary said
indignantly that she wasn't going to go without her tea, so they went to
a large, dreary, draughty hotel near the station. Tea, with little
wilting sandwiches and rock cakes like balls of putty, was two shillings
a head. It was torment to Gordon to let her pay for his food. He sulked,
ate nothing, and, after a whispered argument, insisted on contributing
his eightpence towards the cost of the tea.

[¶223] It was seven o'clock when they took the train back to London. The train
was full of tired hikers in khaki shorts. Rosemary and Gordon did not
talk much. They sat close together, Rosemary with her arm twined through
his, playing with his hand, Gordon looking out of the window. People in
the carriage eyed them, wondering what they had quarrelled about. Gordon
watched the lamp-starred darkness streaming past. So the day to which he
had looked forward was ended. And now back to Willowbed Road, with a
penniless week ahead. For a whole week, unless some miracle happened, he
wouldn't even be able to buy himself a cigarette. What a bloody fool he
had been! Rosemary was not angry with him. By the pressure of her hand
she tried to make it clear to him that she loved him. His pale
discontented face, turned half away from her, his shabby coat and his
unkempt mouse-coloured hair that wanted cutting more than ever, filled
her with profound pity. She felt more tenderly towards him than she
would have done if everything had gone well, because in her feminine way
she grasped that he was unhappy and that life was difficult for him.

[¶224] 'See me home, will you?' she said as they got out at Paddington.

[¶225] 'If you don't mind walking. I haven't got the fare.'

[¶226] 'But let _me_ pay the fare. Oh, dear! I suppose you won't. But how are
you going to get home yourself?'

[¶227] 'Oh, I'll walk. I know the way. It's not so very far.'

[¶228] 'I hate to think of your walking all that way. You look so tired. Be a
dear and let me pay your fare home. _Do!_'

[¶229] 'No. You've paid quite enough for me already.'

[¶230] 'Oh, dear! You are so silly!'

[¶231] They had halted at the entrance to the Underground. He took her hand. 'I
suppose we must say good-bye for the present,' he said.

[¶232] 'Good-bye, Gordon dear. Thanks ever so much for taking me out. It was
such fun this morning.'

[¶233] 'Ah, this morning! It was different then.' His mind went back to the
morning hours, when they had been alone on the road together and there
was still money in his pocket. Compunction seized him. On the whole he
had behaved badly. He pressed her hand a little tighter. 'You're not
angry with me, are you?'

[¶234] 'No, silly, of course not.'

[¶235] 'I didn't mean to be beastly to you. It was the money. It's always the
money.'

[¶236] 'Never mind, it'll be better next time. We'll go to some better place.
We'll go down to Brighton for the week-end, or something.'

[¶237] 'Perhaps, when I've got the money. You will write soon, won't you?'

[¶238] 'Yes.'

[¶239] 'Your letters are the only things that keep me going. Tell me when
you'll write, so that I can have your letter to look forward to.'

[¶240] 'I'll write tomorrow night and post it on Tuesday. Then you'll get it
last post on Tuesday night.'

[¶241] 'Then good-bye, Rosemary dear.'

[¶242] 'Good-bye, Gordon darling.'

[¶243] He left her at the booking-office. When he had gone twenty yards he felt
a hand laid on his arm. He turned sharply. It was Rosemary. She thrust a
packet of twenty Gold Flake, which she had bought at the tobacco kiosk,
into his coat pocket and ran back to the Underground before he could
protest.

[¶244] He trailed homeward through the wastes of Marylebone and Regent's Park.
It was the fag-end of the day. The streets were dark and desolate, with
that strange listless feeling of Sunday night when people are more tired
after a day of idleness than after a day of work. It was vilely cold,
too. The wind had risen when the night fell. _Sharply the menacing wind
sweeps over._ Gordon was footsore, having walked a dozen or fifteen
miles, and also hungry. He had had little food all day. In the morning
he had hurried off without a proper breakfast, and the lunch at the
Ravenscroft Hotel wasn't the kind of meal that did you much good; since
then he had had no solid food. However, there was no hope of getting
anything when he got home. He had told Mother Wisbeach that he would be
away all day.

[¶245] When he reached the Hampstead Road he had to wait on the kerb to let a
stream of cars go past. Even here everything seemed dark and gloomy, in
spite of the glaring lamps and the cold glitter of the jewellers'
windows. The raw wind pierced his thin clothes, making him shiver.
_Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over The bending poplars, newly bare._
He had finished that poem, all except the last two lines. He thought
again of those hours this morning—the empty misty roads, the feeling of
freedom and adventure, of having the whole day and the whole country
before you in which to wander at will. It was having money that did it,
of course. Seven and elevenpence he had had in his pocket this morning.
It had been a brief victory over the money-god; a morning's apostasy, a
holiday in the groves of Ashtaroth. But such things never last. Your
money goes and your freedom with it. Circumcise ye your foreskins, saith
the Lord. And back we creep, duly snivelling.

[¶246] Another shoal of cars swam past. One in particular caught his eye, a
long slender thing, elegant as a swallow, all gleaming blue and silver;
a thousand guineas it would have cost, he thought. A blue-clad chauffeur
sat at the wheel, upright, immobile, like some scornful statue. At the
back, in the pink-lit interior, four elegant young people, two youths
and two girls, were smoking cigarettes and laughing. He had a glimpse of
sleek bunny-faces; faces of ravishing pinkness and smoothness, lit by
that peculiar inner glow that can never be counterfeited, the soft warm
radiance of money.

[¶247] He crossed the road. No food tonight. However, there was still oil in
the lamp, thank God; he would have a secret cup of tea when he got back.
At this moment he saw himself and his life without saving disguises.
Every night the same—back to the cold lonely bedroom and the grimy,
littered sheets of the poem that never got any further. It was a blind
alley. He would never finish _London Pleasures_, he would never marry
Rosemary, he would never set his life in order. He would only drift and
sink, drift and sink, like the others of his family; but worse than
them—down, down into some dreadful sub-world that as yet he could only
dimly imagine. It was what he had chosen when he declared war on money.
Serve the money-god or go under; there is no other rule.

[¶248] Something deep below made the stone street shiver. The Tube-train,
sliding through middle earth. He had a vision of London, of the western
world; he saw a thousand million slaves toiling and grovelling about the
throne of money. The earth is ploughed, ships sail, miners sweat in
dripping tunnels underground, clerks hurry for the eight-fifteen with
the fear of the boss eating at their vitals. And even in bed with their
wives they tremble and obey. Obey whom? The money-priesthood, the
pink-faced masters of the world. The Upper Crust. A welter of sleek
young rabbits in thousand-guinea motor cars, of golfing stockbrokers and
cosmopolitan financiers, of Chancery lawyers and fashionable Nancy boys,
of bankers, newspaper peers, novelists of all four sexes, American
pugilists, lady aviators, film stars, bishops, titled poets and Chicago
gorillas.

[¶249] When he had gone another fifty yards the rhyme for the final stanza of
his poem occurred to him. He walked homeward, repeating the poem to
himself:

[¶250] '_Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over_
             _The bending poplars, newly bare,_
             _And the dark ribbons of the chimneys_
             _Veer downward; flicked by whips of air,_

[¶251] _Torn posters flutter; coldly sound_
             _The boom of trams and the rattle of hooves,_
             _And the clerks who hurry to the station_
             _Look, shuddering, over the eastern rooves,_

[¶252] _Thinking, each one, "Here comes the winter!_
             _Please God I keep my job this year!"_
             _And bleakly, as the cold strikes through_
             _Their entrails like an icy spear,_

[¶253] _They think of rent, rates, season tickets,_
             _Insurance, coal, the skivvy's wages,_
             _Boots, school-bills and the next instalment_
             _Upon the two twin beds from Drage's._

[¶254] _For if in careless summer days_
             _In groves of Ashtaroth we whored,_
             _Repentant now, when winds blow cold,_
             _We kneel before our rightful lord;_

[¶255] _The lord of all, the money-god,_
             _Who rules us blood and hand and brain,_
             _Who gives the roof that stops the wind,_
             _And, giving, takes away again;_

[¶256] _Who spies with jealous, watchful care,_
             _Our thoughts, our dreams, our secret ways,_
             _Who picks our words and cuts our clothes,_
             _And maps the pattern of our days;_

[¶257] _Who chills our anger, curbs our hope,_
             _And buys our lives and pays with toys,_
             _Who claims as tribute broken faith,_
             _Accepted insults, muted joys;_

[¶258] _Who binds with chains the poet's wit,_
             _The navvy's strength, the soldier's pride,_
             _And lays the sleek, estranging shield_
             _Between the lover and his bride._'

## 8. VIII

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/8/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/8/#p-N

[¶0] As the clock struck one Gordon slammed the shop door to and hurried,
almost ran, to the branch of the Westminster Bank down the street.

[¶1] With a half-conscious gesture of caution he was clutching the lapel of
his coat, holding it tight against him. In there, stowed away in his
right-hand inner pocket, was an object whose very existence he partly
doubted. It was a stout blue envelope with an American stamp; in the
envelope was a cheque for fifty dollars; and the cheque was made out to
'Gordon Comstock'!

[¶2] He could feel the square shape of the envelope outlined against his body
as clearly as though it had been red hot. All the morning he had felt it
there, whether he touched it or whether he did not; he seemed to have
developed a special patch of sensitiveness in the skin below his right
breast. As often as once in ten minutes he had taken the cheque out of
its envelope and anxiously examined it. After all, cheques are tricky
things. It would be frightful if there turned out to be some hitch about
the date or the signature. Besides, he might lose it—it might even
vanish of its own accord like fairy gold.

[¶3] The cheque had come from the _Californian Review_, that American
magazine to which, weeks or months ago, he had despairingly sent a poem.
He had almost forgotten about the poem, it had been so long away, until
this morning their letter had come sailing out of the blue. And what a
letter! No English editor ever writes letters like that. They were 'very
favorably impressed' by his poem. They would 'endeavor' to include it in
their next number. Would he 'favor' them by showing them some more of
his work? (Would he? Oh, boy!—as Flaxman would say.) And the cheque had
come with it. It seemed the most monstrous folly, in this year of blight
1934, that anyone should pay fifty dollars for a poem. However, there it
was; and there was the cheque, which looked perfectly genuine however
often he inspected it.

[¶4] He would have no peace of mind till the cheque was cashed—for quite
possibly the bank would refuse it—but already a stream of visions was
flowing through his mind. Visions of girls' faces, visions of cobwebby
claret bottles and quart pots of beer, visions of a new suit and his
overcoat out of pawn, visions of a week-end at Brighton with Rosemary,
visions of the crisp, crackling five-pound note which he was going to
give to Julia. Above all, of course, that fiver for Julia. It was almost
the first thing he had thought of when the cheque came. Whatever else he
did with the money, he must give Julia half of it. It was only the
barest justice, considering how much he had 'borrowed' from her in all
these years. All the morning the thought of Julia and the money he owed
her had been cropping up in his mind at odd moments. It was a vaguely
distasteful thought, however. He would forget about it for half an hour
at a time, would plan a dozen ways of spending his ten pounds to the
uttermost farthing, and then suddenly he would remember about Julia.
Good old Julia! Julia should have her share. A fiver at the very least.
Even that was not a tenth of what he owed her. For the twentieth time,
with a faint malaise, he registered the thought: five quid for Julia.

[¶5] The bank made no trouble about the cheque. Gordon had no banking
account, but they knew him well, for Mr McKechnie banked there. They had
cashed editors' cheques for Gordon before. There was only a minute's
consultation, and then the cashier came back.

[¶6] 'Notes, Mr Comstock?'

[¶7] 'One five pound and the rest pounds, please.'

[¶8] The flimsy luscious fiver and the five clean pound notes slid rustling
under the brass rail. And after them the cashier pushed a little pile of
half-crowns and pennies. In lordly style Gordon shot the coins into his
pocket without even counting them. That was a bit of backsheesh. He had
only expected ten pounds for fifty dollars. The dollar must be above
par. The five-pound note, however, he carefully folded up and stowed
away in the American envelope. That was Julia's fiver. It was
sacrosanct. He would post it to her presently.

[¶9] He did not go home for dinner. Why chew leathery beef in the aspidistral
dining-room when he had ten quid in pocket—five quid, rather? (He kept
forgetting that half the money was already mortgaged to Julia.) For the
moment he did not bother to post Julia's five pounds. This evening would
be soon enough. Besides, he rather enjoyed the feeling of it in his
pocket. It was queer how different you felt with all that money in your
pocket. Not opulent, merely, but reassured, revivified, reborn. He felt
a different person from what he had been yesterday. He _was_ a different
person. He was no longer the downtrodden wretch who made secret cups of
tea over the oil stove at 31 Willowbed Road. He was Gordon Comstock, the
poet, famous on both sides of the Atlantic. Publications: _Mice_ (1932),
_London Pleasures_ (1935). He thought with perfect confidence of _London
Pleasures_ now. In three months it should see the light. Demy octavo,
white buckram covers. There was nothing that he did not feel equal to
now that his luck had turned.

[¶10] He strolled into the Prince of Wales for a bite of food. A cut off the
joint and two veg., one and twopence, a pint of pale ale ninepence,
twenty Gold Flakes a shilling. Even after that extravagance he still had
well over ten pounds in hand—or rather, well over five pounds.
Beer-warmed, he sat and meditated on the things you can do with five
pounds. A new suit, a week-end in the country, a day-trip to Paris, five
rousing drunks, ten dinners in Soho restaurants. At this point it
occurred to him that he and Rosemary and Ravelston must certainly have
dinner together tonight. Just to celebrate his stroke of luck; after
all, it isn't every day that ten pounds—five pounds—drops out of the
sky into your lap. The thought of the three of them together, with good
food and wine and money no object, took hold of him as something not to
be resisted. He had just a tiny twinge of caution. Mustn't spend _all_
his money, of course. Still, he could afford a quid—two quid. In a
couple of minutes he had got Ravelston on the pub phone.

[¶11] 'Is that you, Ravelston? I say, Ravelston! Look here, you've got to have
dinner with me tonight.'

[¶12] From the other end of the line Ravelston faintly demurred. 'No, dash it!
You have dinner with _me_.' But Gordon overbore him. Nonsense! Ravelston
had got to have dinner with _him_ tonight. Unwillingly, Ravelston
assented. All right, yes, thanks; he'd like it very much. There was a
sort of apologetic misery in his voice. He guessed what had happened.
Gordon had got hold of money from somewhere and was squandering it
immediately; as usual, Ravelston felt he hadn't the right to interfere.
Where should they go? Gordon was demanding. Ravelston began to speak in
praise of those jolly little Soho restaurants where you get such a
wonderful dinner for half a crown. But the Soho restaurants sounded
beastly as soon as Ravelston mentioned them. Gordon wouldn't hear of it.
Nonsense! They must go somewhere decent. Let's do it all regardless, was
his private thought; might as well spend two quid—three quid, even.
Where did Ravelston generally go? Modigliani's, admitted Ravelston. But
Modigliani's was very—but no! not even over the phone could Ravelston
frame that hateful word 'expensive'. How remind Gordon of his poverty?
Gordon mightn't care for Modigliani's, he euphemistically said. But
Gordon was satisfied. Modigliani's? Right you are—half-past eight.
Good! After all, if he spent even three quid on the dinner he'd still
have two quid to buy himself a new pair of shoes and a vest and a pair
of pants.

[¶13] He had fixed it up with Rosemary in another five minutes. The New Albion
did not like their employees being rung up on the phone, but it did not
matter once in a way. Since that disastrous Sunday journey, five days
ago, he had heard from her once but had not seen her. She answered
eagerly when she heard whose voice it was. Would she have dinner with
him tonight? Of course! What fun! And so in ten minutes the whole thing
was settled. He had always wanted Rosemary and Ravelston to meet, but
somehow had never been able to contrive it. These things are so much
easier when you've got a little money to spend.

[¶14] The taxi bore him westward through the darkling streets. A three-mile
journey—still, he could afford it. Why spoil the ship for a ha'porth of
tar? He had dropped that notion of spending only two pounds tonight. He
would spend three pounds, three pounds ten—four pounds if he felt like
it. Slap up and regardless—that was the idea. And, oh! by the way!
Julia's fiver. He hadn't sent it yet. No matter. Send it first thing in
the morning. Good old Julia! She should have her fiver.

[¶15] How voluptuous were the taxi cushions under his bum! He lolled this way
and that. He had been drinking, of course—had had two quick ones, or
possibly three, before coming away. The taxi-driver was a stout
philosophic man with a weatherbeaten face and a knowing eye. He and
Gordon understood one another. They had palled up in the bar where
Gordon was having his quick ones. As they neared the West End the
taximan drew up, unbidden, at a discreet pub on a corner. He knew what
was in Gordon's mind. Gordon could do with a quick one. So could the
taximan. But the drinks were on Gordon—that too was understood.

[¶16] 'You anticipate my thoughts,' said Gordon, climbing out.

[¶17] 'Yes, sir.'

[¶18] 'I could just about do with a quick one.'

[¶19] 'Thought you might, sir.'

[¶20] 'And could you manage one yourself, do you think?'

[¶21] 'Where there's a will there's a way,' said the taximan.

[¶22] 'Come inside,' said Gordon.

[¶23] They leaned matily on the brass-edged bar, elbow to elbow, lighting two
of the taximan's cigarettes. Gordon felt witty and expansive. He would
have liked to tell the taximan the history of his life. The
white-aproned barman hastened towards them.

[¶24] 'Yessir?' said the barman.

[¶25] 'Gin,' said Gordon.

[¶26] 'Make it two,' said the taximan.

[¶27] More matily than ever, they clinked glasses.

[¶28] 'Many happy returns,' said Gordon.

[¶29] 'Your birthday today, sir?'

[¶30] 'Only metaphorically. My re-birthday, so to speak.'

[¶31] 'I never had much education,' said the taximan.

[¶32] 'I was speaking in parables,' said Gordon.

[¶33] 'English is good enough for me,' said the taximan.

[¶34] 'It was the tongue of Shakespeare,' said Gordon.

[¶35] 'Literary gentleman, are you, sir, by any chance?'

[¶36] 'Do I look as moth-eaten as all that?'

[¶37] 'Not moth-eaten, sir. Only intellectual-like.'

[¶38] 'You're quite right. A poet.'

[¶39] 'Poet! It takes all sorts to make a world, don't it now?' said the
taximan.

[¶40] 'And a bloody good world it is,' said Gordon.

[¶41] His thoughts moved lyrically tonight. They had another gin and presently
went back to the taxi all but arm in arm, after yet another gin. That
made five gins Gordon had had this evening. There was an ethereal
feeling in his veins; the gin seemed to be flowing there, mingled with
his blood. He lay back in the corner of the seat, watching the great
blazing sky-signs swim across the bluish dark. The evil red and blue of
the Neon lights pleased him at this moment. How smoothly the taxi
glided! More like a gondola than a car. It was having money that did
that. Money greased the wheels. He thought of the evening ahead of him;
good food, good wine, good talk—above all, no worrying about money. No
damned niggling with sixpences and 'We can't afford this' and 'We can't
afford that!' Rosemary and Ravelston would try to stop him being
extravagant. But he would shut them up. He'd spend every penny he had if
he felt like it. Ten whole quid to bust! At least, five quid. The
thought of Julia passed flickeringly through his mind and disappeared
again.

[¶42] He was quite sober when they got to Modigliani's. The monstrous
commissionaire, like a great glittering waxwork with the minimum of
joints, stepped stiffly forward to open the taxi door. His grim eye
looked askance at Gordon's clothes. Not that you were expected to
'dress' at Modigliani's. They were tremendously Bohemian at
Modigliani's, of course; but there are ways and ways of being Bohemian,
and Gordon's way was the wrong way. Gordon did not care. He bade the
taximan an affectionate farewell, and tipped him half a crown over his
fare, whereat the commissionaire's eye looked a little less grim. At
this moment Ravelston emerged from the doorway. The commissionaire knew
Ravelston, of course. He lounged out on to the pavement, a tall
distinguished figure, aristocratically shabby, his eye rather moody. He
was worrying already about the money this dinner was going to cost
Gordon.

[¶43] 'Ah, there you are, Gordon!'

[¶44] 'Hullo, Ravelston! Where's Rosemary?'

[¶45] 'Perhaps she's waiting inside. I don't know her by sight, you know. But
I say, Gordon, look here! Before we go in, I just wanted——'

[¶46] 'Ah, look, there she is!'

[¶47] She was coming towards them, swift and debonair. She threaded her way
through the crowd with the air of some neat little destroyer gliding
between large clumsy cargo-boats. And she was nicely dressed, as usual.
The sub-shovel hat was cocked at its most provocative angle. Gordon's
heart stirred. There was a girl for you! He was proud that Ravelston
should see her. She was very gay tonight. It was written all over her
that she was not going to remind herself or Gordon of their last
disastrous encounter. Perhaps she laughed and talked just a little too
vivaciously as Gordon introduced them and they went inside. But
Ravelston had taken a liking to her immediately. Indeed, everyone who
met her did take a liking to Rosemary. The inside of the restaurant
overawed Gordon for a moment. It was so horribly, artistically smart.
Dark gate-leg tables, pewter candlesticks, pictures by modern French
painters on the walls. One, a street scene, looked like a Utrillo.
Gordon stiffened his shoulders. Damn it, what was there to be afraid of?
The five-pound note was tucked away in its envelope in his pocket. It
was Julia's five pounds, of course; he wasn't going to spend it. Still,
its presence gave him moral support. It was a kind of talisman. They
were making for the corner table—Ravelston's favourite table—at the
far end. Ravelston took Gordon by the arm and drew him a little back,
out of Rosemary's hearing.

[¶48] 'Gordon, look here!'

[¶49] 'What?'

[¶50] 'Look here, you're going to have dinner with _me_ tonight.'

[¶51] 'Bosh! This is on me.'

[¶52] 'I do wish you would. I hate to see you spending all that money.'

[¶53] 'We won't talk about money tonight,' said Gordon.

[¶54] 'Fifty-fifty, then,' pleaded Ravelston.

[¶55] 'It's on me,' said Gordon firmly.

[¶56] Ravelston subsided. The fat, white-haired Italian waiter was bowing and
smiling beside the corner table. But it was at Ravelston, not at Gordon,
that he smiled. Gordon sat down with the feeling that he must assert
himself quickly. He waved away the menu which the waiter had produced.

[¶57] 'We must settle what we're going to drink first,' he said.

[¶58] 'Beer for me,' said Ravelston, with a sort of gloomy haste. 'Beer's the
only drink I care about.'

[¶59] 'Me too,' echoed Rosemary.

[¶60] 'Oh, rot! We've got to have some wine. What do you like, red or white?
Give me the wine list,' he said to the waiter.

[¶61] 'Then let's have a plain Bordeaux. Médoc or St Julien or something,'
said Ravelston.

[¶62] 'I adore St Julien,' said Rosemary, who thought she remembered that St
Julien was always the cheapest wine on the list.

[¶63] Inwardly, Gordon damned their eyes. There you are, you see! They were in
league against him already. They were trying to prevent him from
spending his money. There was going to be that deadly, hateful
atmosphere of 'You can't afford it' hanging over everything. It made him
all the more anxious to be extravagant. A moment ago he would have
compromised on Burgundy. Now he decided that they must have something
really expensive—something fizzy, something with a kick in it.
Champagne? No, they'd never let him have champagne. Ah!

[¶64] 'Have you got any Asti?' he said to the waiter.

[¶65] The waiter suddenly beamed, thinking of his corkage. He had grasped now
that Gordon and not Ravelston was the host. He answered in the peculiar
mixture of French and English which he affected.

[¶66] 'Asti, sir? Yes, sir. Very nice Asti! Asti Spumanti. _Très fin! Très
vif!_'

[¶67] Ravelston's worried eye sought Gordon's across the table. You can't
afford it! his eye pleaded.

[¶68] 'Is that one of those fizzy wines?' said Rosemary.

[¶69] 'Very fizzy, madame. Very lively wine. _Très vif._ Pop!' His fat hands
made a gesture, picturing cascades of foam.

[¶70] 'Asti,' said Gordon, before Rosemary could stop him.

[¶71] Ravelston looked miserable. He knew that the Asti would cost Gordon ten
or fifteen shillings a bottle. Gordon pretended not to notice. He began
talking about Stendhal—association with Duchesse de Sanseverina and her
'_force vin d'Asti_'. Along came the Asti in a pail of ice—a mistake,
that, as Ravelston could have told Gordon. Out came the cork. Pop! The
wild wine foamed into the wide flat glasses. Mysteriously the atmosphere
of the table changed. Something had happened to all three of them. Even
before it was drunk the wine had worked its magic. Rosemary had lost her
nervousness, Ravelston his worried preoccupation with the expense,
Gordon his defiant resolve to be extravagant. They were eating anchovies
and bread and butter, fried sole, roast pheasant with bread sauce and
chipped potatoes; but principally they were drinking and talking. And
how brilliantly they were talking—or so it seemed to them, anyway! They
talked about the bloodiness of modern life and the bloodiness of modern
books. What else is there to talk about nowadays? As usual (but, oh! how
differently, now that there was money in his pocket and he didn't really
believe what he was saying) Gordon descanted on the deadness, the
dreadfulness of the age we live in. French letters and machine-guns!
Roland Butta and the _Daily Mail_! It was a bone-deep truth when he
walked the streets with a couple of coppers in his pocket; but it was a
joke at this moment. It was great fun—it is fun when you have good food
and good wine inside you—to demonstrate that we live in a dead and
rotting world. He was being witty at the expense of modern literature;
they were all being witty. With the fine scorn of the unpublished Gordon
knocked down reputation after reputation. Shaw, Yeats, Eliot, Joyce,
Huxley, Lewis, Hemingway—each with a careless phrase or two was
shovelled into the dustbin. What fun it all was, if only it could last!
And of course, at this particular moment, Gordon believed that it
_could_ last. Of the first bottle of Asti, Gordon drank three glasses,
Ravelston two, Rosemary one. Gordon became aware that a girl at the
table opposite was watching him. A tall elegant girl with a shell-pink
skin and wonderful, almond-shaped eyes. Rich, obviously; one of the
moneyed intelligentsia. She thought him interesting—was wondering who
he was. Gordon found himself manufacturing special witticisms for her
benefit. And he _was_ being witty, there was no doubt about that. That
too was money. Money greasing the wheels—wheels of thought as well as
wheels of taxis.

[¶72] But somehow the second bottle of Asti was not such a success as the
first. To begin with there was uncomfortableness over its ordering.
Gordon beckoned to the waiter.

[¶73] 'Have you got another bottle of this?'

[¶74] The waiter beamed fatly. 'Yes, sir! _Mais certainement, monsieur!_'

[¶75] Rosemary frowned and tapped Gordon's foot under the table. 'No, Gordon,
_no_! You're not to.'

[¶76] 'Not to what?'

[¶77] 'Order another bottle. We don't want it.'

[¶78] 'Oh, bosh! Get us another bottle, waiter.'

[¶79] 'Yes, sir.'

[¶80] Ravelston rubbed his nose. With eyes too guilty to meet Gordon's he
looked at his wine glass. 'Look here, Gordon. Let _me_ stand this
bottle. I'd like to.'

[¶81] 'Bosh!' repeated Gordon.

[¶82] 'Get half a bottle, then,' said Rosemary.

[¶83] 'A whole bottle, waiter,' said Gordon.

[¶84] After that nothing was the same. They still talked, laughed, argued, but
things were not the same. The elegant girl at the table opposite had
ceased watching Gordon. Somehow, Gordon wasn't being witty any longer.
It is almost always a mistake to order a second bottle. It is like
bathing for a second time on a summer day. However warm the day is,
however much you have enjoyed your first bathe, you are always sorry for
it if you go in a second time. The magic had departed from the wine. It
seemed to foam and sparkle less, it was merely a clogging sourish liquid
which you gulped down half in disgust and half in hopes of getting drunk
the quicker. Gordon was now definitely though secretly drunk. One half
of him was drunk and the other half sober. He was beginning to have that
peculiar blurred feeling, as though your features had swollen and your
fingers grown thicker, which you have in the second stage of
drunkenness. But the sober half of him was still in command to outward
appearance, anyway. The conversation grew more and more tedious. Gordon
and Ravelston talked in the detached uncomfortable manner of people who
have had a little scene and are not going to admit it. They talked about
Shakespeare. The conversation tailed off into a long discussion about
the meaning of Hamlet. It was very dull. Rosemary stifled a yawn. While
Gordon's sober half talked, his drunken half stood aside and listened.
Drunken half was very angry. They'd spoiled his evening, damn them! with
their arguing about that second bottle. All he wanted now was to be
properly drunk and have done with it. Of the six glasses in the second
bottle he drank four—for Rosemary refused more wine. But you couldn't
do much on this weak stuff. Drunken half clamoured for more drink, and
more, and more. Beer by the quart and the bucket! A real good rousing
drunk! And by God! he was going to have it later on. He thought of the
five-pound note stowed away in his inner pocket. He still had that to
blue, anyway.

[¶85] The musical clock that was concealed somewhere in Modigliani's interior
struck ten.

[¶86] 'Shall we shove off?' said Gordon.

[¶87] Ravelston's eyes looked pleadingly, guiltily across the table. Let me
share the bill! his eyes said. Gordon ignored him.

[¶88] 'I vote we go to the Café Imperial,' he said.

[¶89] The bill failed to sober him. A little over two quid for the dinner,
thirty bob for the wine. He did not let the others see the bill, of
course, but they saw him paying. He threw four pound notes onto the
waiter's salver and said casually, 'Keep the change.' That left him with
about ten bob besides the fiver. Ravelston was helping Rosemary on with
her coat; as she saw Gordon throw the notes to the waiter her lips
parted in dismay. She had had no idea that the dinner was going to cost
anything like four pounds. It horrified her to see him throwing money
about like that. Ravelston looked gloomy and disapproving. Gordon damned
their eyes again. Why did they have to keep on worrying? He could afford
it, couldn't he? He still had that fiver. But by God, it wouldn't be his
fault if he got home with a penny left!

[¶90] But outwardly he was quite sober, and much more subdued than he had been
half an hour ago. 'We'd better have a taxi to the Café Imperial,' he
said.

[¶91] 'Oh, let's walk!' said Rosemary. 'It's only a step.'

[¶92] 'No, we'll have a taxi.'

[¶93] They got into the taxi and were driven away, Gordon sitting next to
Rosemary. He had half a mind to put his arm round her, in spite of
Ravelston's presence. But at that moment a swirl of cold night air came
in at the window and blew against Gordon's forehead. It gave him a
shock. It was like one of those moments in the night when suddenly from
deep sleep you are broad awake and full of some dreadful realisation—as
that you are doomed to die, for instance, or that your life is a
failure. For perhaps a minute he was cold sober. He knew all about
himself and the awful folly he was committing—knew that he had
squandered five pounds on utter foolishness and was now going to
squander the other five that belonged to Julia. He had a fleeting but
terribly vivid vision of Julia, with her thin face and her greying hair,
in the cold of her dismal bed-sitting room. Poor, good Julia! Julia who
had been sacrificed to him all her life, from whom he had borrowed pound
after pound after pound; and now he hadn't even the decency to keep her
fiver intact! He recoiled from the thought; he fled back into his
drunkenness as into a refuge. Quick, quick, we're getting sober! Booze,
more booze! Recapture that first fine careless rapture! Outside, the
multi-coloured window of an Italian grocery, still open, swam towards
them. He tapped sharply on the glass. The taxi drew up. Gordon began to
climb out across Rosemary's knees.

[¶94] 'Where are you going, Gordon?'

[¶95] 'To recapture that first fine careless rapture,' said Gordon, on the
pavement.

[¶96] 'What?'

[¶97] 'It's time we laid in some more booze. The pubs'll be shutting in half
an hour.'

[¶98] 'No, Gordon, no! You're not to get anything more to drink. You've had
quite enough already.'

[¶99] 'Wait!'

[¶100] He came out of the shop nursing a litre bottle of Chianti. The grocer
had taken the cork out for him and put it in loosely again. The others
had grasped now that he was drunk—that he must have been drinking
before he met them. It made them both embarrassed. They went into the
Café Imperial, but the chief thought in both their minds was to get
Gordon away and to bed as quickly as possible. Rosemary whispered behind
Gordon's back, '_Please_ don't let him drink any more!' Ravelston nodded
gloomily. Gordon was marching ahead of them to a vacant table, not in
the least troubled by the stares everyone was casting at the wine-bottle
which he carried on his arm. They sat down and ordered coffee, and with
some difficulty Ravelston restrained Gordon from ordering brandy as
well. All of them were ill at ease. It was horrible in the great garish
café, stuffily hot and deafeningly noisy with the jabber of several
hundred voices, the clatter of plates and glasses and the intermittent
squalling of the band. All three of them wanted to get away. Ravelston
was still worrying about the expense, Rosemary was worried because
Gordon was drunk, Gordon was restless and thirsty. He had wanted to come
here, but he was no sooner here than he wanted to escape. Drunken half
was clamouring for a bit of fun. And drunken half wasn't going to be
kept in check much longer. Beer, beer! cried drunken half. Gordon hated
this stuffy place. He had visions of a pub taproom with great oozy
barrels and quart pots topped with foam. He kept an eye on the clock. It
was nearly half past ten and the pubs even in Westminster would shut at
eleven. Mustn't miss his beer! The bottle of wine was for afterwards,
when the pubs were shut. Rosemary was sitting opposite him, talking to
Ravelston, uncomfortably but with a sufficient pretence that she was
enjoying herself and there was nothing the matter. They were still
talking in a rather futile way about Shakespeare. Gordon hated
Shakespeare. As he watched Rosemary talking there came over him a
violent, perverse desire for her. She was leaning forward, her elbows on
the table; he could see her small breasts clearly through her dress. It
came to him with a kind of shock, a catch of the breath, which once
again almost sobered him, that he had seen her naked. She was his girl!
He could have her whenever he wanted her! And by God, he was going to
have her tonight! Why not? It was a fitting end to the evening. They
would find a place easily enough; there are plenty of hotels round
Shaftesbury Avenue where they don't ask questions if you can pay the
bill. He still had his fiver. He felt for her foot under the table,
meaning to imprint a delicate caress upon it, and only succeeded in
treading on her toe. She drew her foot away from him.

[¶101] 'Let's get out of this,' he said abruptly, and at once stood up.

[¶102] 'Oh, let's!' said Rosemary with relief.

[¶103] They were in Regent Street again. Down on the left Piccadilly Circus
blazed, a horrible pool of light. Rosemary's eyes turned towards the bus
stop opposite.

[¶104] 'It's half past ten,' she said doubtfully. 'I've got to be back by
eleven.'

[¶105] 'Oh, rot! Let's look for a decent pub. I mustn't miss my beer.'

[¶106] 'Oh, no, Gordon! No more pubs tonight. I couldn't drink any more. Nor
ought you.'

[¶107] 'It doesn't matter. Come this way.'

[¶108] He took her by the arm and began to lead her down towards the bottom of
Regent Street, holding her rather tight as though afraid she would
escape. For the moment he had forgotten about Ravelston. Ravelston
followed, wondering whether he ought to leave them to themselves or
whether he ought to stay and keep an eye on Gordon. Rosemary hung back,
not liking the way Gordon was pulling at her arm.

[¶109] 'Where are you taking me, Gordon?'

[¶110] 'Round the corner where it's dark. I want to kiss you.'

[¶111] 'I don't think I want to be kissed.'

[¶112] 'Of course you do.'

[¶113] 'No!'

[¶114] 'Yes!'

[¶115] She let him take her. Ravelston waited on the corner by the Regent
Palace, uncertain what to do. Gordon and Rosemary disappeared round the
corner and were almost immediately in darker, narrower streets. The
appalling faces of tarts, like skulls coated with pink powder, peered
meaningly from several doorways. Rosemary shrank from them. Gordon was
rather amused.

[¶116] 'They think you're one of them,' he explained to her.

[¶117] He stood his bottle on the pavement, carefully, against the wall, then
suddenly seized her and twisted her backwards. He wanted her badly, and
he did not want to waste time over preliminaries. He began to kiss her
face all over, clumsily but very hard. She let him do it for a moment,
but it frightened her; his face, so close to hers, looked pale, strange
and distracted. He smelt very strongly of wine. She struggled, turning
her face away so that he was only kissing her hair and neck.

[¶118] 'Gordon, you mustn't!'

[¶119] 'Why mustn't I?'

[¶120] 'What are you doing?'

[¶121] 'What do you suppose I'm doing?'

[¶122] He shoved her back against the wall, and with the careful, preoccupied
movements of a drunken man, tried to undo the front of her dress. It was
of a kind that did not undo, as it happened. This time she was angry.
She struggled violently, fending his hand aside.

[¶123] 'Gordon, stop that at once!'

[¶124] 'Why?'

[¶125] 'If you do it again I'll smack your face.'

[¶126] 'Smack my face! Don't you come the Girl Guide with me.'

[¶127] 'Let me go, will you!'

[¶128] 'Think of last Sunday,' he said lewdly.

[¶129] 'Gordon, if you go on I'll hit you, honestly I will.'

[¶130] 'Not you.'

[¶131] He thrust his hand right into the front of her dress. The movement was
curiously brutal, as though she had been a stranger to him. She grasped
that from the expression of his face. She was not Rosemary to him any
longer, she was just a girl, a girl's body. That was the thing that
upset her. She struggled and managed to free herself from him. He came
after her again and clutched her arm. She smacked his face as hard as
she could and dodged neatly out of his reach.

[¶132] 'What did you do that for?' he said, feeling his cheek but not hurt by
the blow.

[¶133] 'I'm not going to stand that sort of thing. I'm going home. You'll be
different tomorrow.'

[¶134] 'Rot! You come along with me. You're going to bed with me.'

[¶135] 'Good night!' she said, and fled up the dark side-street.

[¶136] For a moment he thought of following her, but found his legs too heavy.
It did not seem worth while, anyway. He wandered back to where Ravelston
was still waiting, looking moody and alone, partly because he was
worried about Gordon and partly because he was trying not to notice two
hopeful tarts who were on patrol just behind him. Gordon looked properly
drunk, Ravelston thought. His hair was tumbling over his forehead, one
side of his face was very pale and on the other there was a red smudge
where Rosemary had slapped him. Ravelston thought this must be the flush
of drunkenness.

[¶137] 'What have you done with Rosemary?' he said.

[¶138] 'She's gone,' said Gordon, with a wave of his hand which was meant to
explain everything. 'But the night's still young.'

[¶139] 'Look here, Gordon, it's time you were in bed.'

[¶140] 'In bed, yes. But not alone.'

[¶141] He stood on the kerb gazing out into the hideous midnight-noon. For a
moment he felt quite deathly. His face was burning. His whole body had a
dreadful, swollen, fiery feeling. His head in particular seemed on the
point of bursting. Somehow the baleful light was bound up with his
sensations. He watched the sky-signs flicking on and off, glaring red
and blue, arrowing up and down—the awful, sinister glitter of a doomed
civilisation, like the still blazing lights of a sinking ship. He caught
Ravelston's arm and made a gesture that comprehended the whole of
Piccadilly Circus.

[¶142] 'The lights down in hell will look just like that.'

[¶143] 'I shouldn't wonder.'

[¶144] Ravelston was looking out for a disengaged taxi. He must get Gordon home
and to bed without further delay. Gordon wondered whether he was in joy
or in agony. That burning, bursting feeling was dreadful. The sober half
of him was not dead yet. Sober half still knew with ice-cold clarity
what he had done and what he was doing. He had committed follies for
which tomorrow he would feel like killing himself. He had squandered
five pounds in senseless extravagance, he had robbed Julia, he had
insulted Rosemary. And tomorrow—oh, tomorrow, we'll be sober! Go home,
go home! cried sober half. —— to you! said drunken half
contemptuously. Drunken half was still clamouring for a bit of fun. And
drunken half was the stronger. A fiery clock somewhere opposite caught
his eye. Twenty to eleven. Quick, before the pubs are shut! _Haro! la
gorge m'ard!_ Once again his thoughts moved lyrically. He felt a hard
round shape under his arm, discovered that it was the Chianti bottle,
and tweaked out the cork. Ravelston was waving to a taxi-driver without
managing to catch his eye. He heard a shocked squeal from the tarts
behind. Turning, he saw with horror that Gordon had upended the bottle
and was drinking from it.

[¶145] 'Hi! Gordon!'

[¶146] He sprang towards him and forced his arm down. A gout of wine went down
Gordon's collar.

[¶147] 'For God's sake be careful! You don't want the police to get hold of
you, do you?'

[¶148] 'I want a drink,' complained Gordon.

[¶149] 'But dash it! You can't start drinking here.'

[¶150] 'Take me to a pub,' said Gordon.

[¶151] Ravelston rubbed his nose helplessly. 'Oh, God! I suppose that's better
than drinking on the pavement. Come on, we'll go to a pub. You shall
have your drink there.'

[¶152] Gordon recorked his bottle carefully. Ravelston shepherded him across
the circus, Gordon clinging to his arm, but not for support, for his
legs were still quite steady. They halted on the island, then managed to
find a gap in the traffic and went down the Haymarket.

[¶153] In the pub the air seemed wet with beer. It was all a mist of beer shot
through with the sickly tang of whisky. Along the bar a press of men
seethed, downing with Faust-like eagerness their last drinks before
eleven should sound its knell. Gordon slid easily through the crowd. He
was not in a mood to worry about a few jostlings and elbowings. In a
moment he had fetched up at the bar between a stout commercial traveller
drinking Guinness and a tall, lean, decayed-major type of man with
droopy moustaches, whose entire conversation seemed to consist of 'What
ho!' and 'What, what!' Gordon threw half a crown onto the beer-wet bar.

[¶154] 'A quart of bitter, please!'

[¶155] 'No quart pots here!' cried the harassed barmaid, measuring pegs of
whisky with one eye on the clock.

[¶156] 'Quart pots on the top shelf, Effie!' shouted the landlord over his
shoulder, from the other side of the bar.

[¶157] The barmaid hauled the beer-handle three times hurriedly. The monstrous
glass pot was set before him. He lifted it. What a weight! A pint of
pure water weighs a pound and a quarter. Down with it! Swish—gurgle! A
long, long sup of beer flowed gratefully down his gullet. He paused for
breath, and felt a little sickish. Come on, now for another.
Swish—gurgle! It almost choked him this time. But stick it out, stick
it out! Through the cascade of beer that poured down his throat and
seemed to drown his ears he heard the landlord's shout: 'Last orders,
gentlemen, please!' For a moment he removed his face from the pot,
gasped and got his breath back. Now for the last. Swish—gurgle! A-a-ah!
Gordon set down the pot. Emptied in three gulps—not bad. He clattered
it on the bar.

[¶158] 'Hi! Give me the other half of that—quick!'

[¶159] 'What ho!' said the major.

[¶160] 'Coming it a bit, aren't you?' said the commercial traveller.

[¶161] Ravelston, further down the bar and hemmed in by several men, saw what
Gordon was doing. He called to him, 'Hi, Gordon!', frowned and shook his
head, too shy to say in front of everybody, 'Don't drink any more.'
Gordon settled himself on his legs. He was still steady, but consciously
steady. His head seemed to have swollen to an immense size, his whole
body had the same horrible, swollen, fiery feeling as before. Languidly
he lifted the refilled beer-pot. He did not want it now. Its smell
nauseated him. It was just a hateful, pale yellow, sickly-tasting
liquid. Like urine, almost! That bucketful of stuff to be forced down
into his bursting guts—horrible! But come on, no flinching! What else
are we here for? Down with it! Here she is so near my nose, So tip her
up and down she goes. Swish—gurgle!

[¶162] In the same moment something dreadful happened. His gullet had shut up
of its own accord, or the beer had missed his mouth. It was pouring all
over him, a tidal wave of beer. He was drowning in beer like lay-brother
Peter in the _Ingoldsby Legends_. Help! He tried to shout, choked, and
let fall the beer-pot. There was a flurry all round him. People were
leaping aside to avoid the jet of beer. Crash! went the pot. Gordon
stood rocking. Men, bottles, mirrors were going round and round. He was
falling, losing consciousness. But dimly visible before him was a black
upright shape, sole point of stability in a reeling world—the
beer-handle. He clutched it, swung, held tight. Ravelston started
towards him.

[¶163] The barmaid leaned indignantly over the bar. The roundabout world slowed
down and stopped. Gordon's brain was quite clear.

[¶164] 'Here! What are you hanging on to the beer-handle for?'

[¶165] 'All over my bloody trousers!' cried the commercial traveller.

[¶166] 'What am I hanging on to the beer-handle for?'

[¶167] '_Yes!_ What are you hanging on to the beer-handle for?'

[¶168] Gordon swung himself sideways. The elongated face of the major peered
down at him, with wet moustaches drooping.

[¶169] 'She says, "What am I hanging on to the beer-handle for?'"

[¶170] 'What ho! What?'

[¶171] Ravelston had forced his way between several men and reached him. He put
a strong arm round Gordon's waist and hoisted him to his feet.

[¶172] 'Stand up, for God's sake! You're drunk.'

[¶173] 'Drunk?' said Gordon.

[¶174] Everyone was laughing at them. Ravelston's pale face flushed.

[¶175] 'Two and three those mugs cost,' said the barmaid bitterly.

[¶176] 'And what about my bloody trousers?' said the commercial traveller.

[¶177] 'I'll pay for the mug,' said Ravelston. He did so. 'Now come on out of
it. You're drunk.'

[¶178] He began to shepherd Gordon towards the door, one arm round his
shoulder, the other holding the Chianti bottle, which he had taken from
him earlier. Gordon freed himself. He could walk with perfect
steadiness. He said in a dignified manner:

[¶179] 'Drunk, did you say I was?'

[¶180] Ravelston took his arm again. 'Yes, I'm afraid you are. Decidedly.'

[¶181] 'Swan swam across the sea, well swam swan,' said Gordon.

[¶182] 'Gordon, you _are_ drunk. The sooner you're in bed the better.'

[¶183] 'First cast out the beam that is in thine own eye before thou castest
out the mote that is in thy brother's,' said Gordon.

[¶184] Ravelston had got him out onto the pavement by this time. 'We'd better
get hold of a taxi,' he said, looking up and down the street.

[¶185] There seemed to be no taxis about, however. The people were streaming
noisily out of the pub, which was on the point of closing. Gordon felt
better in the open air. His brain had never been clearer. The red
satanic gleam of a Neon light, somewhere in the distance, put a new and
brilliant idea into his head. He plucked at Ravelston's arm.

[¶186] 'Ravelston! I say, Ravelston!'

[¶187] 'What?'

[¶188] 'Let's pick up a couple of tarts.'

[¶189] In spite of Gordon's drunken state, Ravelston was scandalised. 'My dear
old chap! You can't do that kind of thing.'

[¶190] 'Don't be so damned upper-class. Why not?'

[¶191] 'But how could you, dash it! After you've just said good night to
Rosemary—a really charming girl like that!'

[¶192] 'At night all cats are grey,' said Gordon, with the feeling that he
voiced a profound and cynical wisdom.

[¶193] Ravelston decided to ignore this remark. 'We'd better walk up to
Piccadilly Circus,' he said. 'There'll be plenty of taxis there.'

[¶194] The theatres were emptying. Crowds of people and streams of cars flowed
to and fro in the frightful corpse-light. Gordon's brain was
marvellously clear. He knew what folly and evil he had committed and was
about to commit. And yet after all it hardly seemed to matter. He saw as
something far, far away, like something seen through the wrong end of
the telescope, his thirty years, his wasted life, the blank future,
Julia's five pounds, Rosemary. He said with a sort of philosophic
interest:

[¶195] 'Look at the Neon lights! Look at those awful blue ones over the rubber
shop. When I see those lights I know that I'm a damned soul.'

[¶196] 'Quite,' said Ravelston, who was not listening. 'Ah, there's a taxi!' He
signalled. 'Damn! He didn't see me. Wait here a second.'

[¶197] He left Gordon by the Tube station and hurried across the street. For a
little while Gordon's mind receded into blankness. Then he was aware of
two hard yet youthful faces, like the faces of young predatory animals,
that had come close up to his own. They had blackened eyebrows and hats
that were like vulgarer versions of Rosemary's. He was exchanging
badinage with them. This seemed to him to have been going on for several
minutes.

[¶198] 'Hullo, Dora! Hullo, Barbara! (He knew their names, it seemed.) And how
are you? And how's old England's winding-sheet?'

[¶199] 'Oo—haven't you got a cheek, just!'

[¶200] 'And what are you up to at this time of night?'

[¶201] 'Oo—jes' strolling around.'

[¶202] 'Like a lion, seeking whom he may devour?'

[¶203] 'Oo—you haven't half got a cheek! Hasn't he got a cheek, Barbara? You
_have_ got a cheek!'

[¶204] Ravelston had caught the taxi and brought it round to where Gordon was
standing. He stepped out, saw Gordon between the two girls, and stood
aghast.

[¶205] 'Gordon! Oh, my God! What the devil have you been doing?'

[¶206] 'Let me introduce you. Dora and Barbara,' said Gordon.

[¶207] For a moment Ravelston looked almost angry. As a matter of fact,
Ravelston was incapable of being properly angry. Upset, pained,
embarrassed—yes; but not angry. He stepped forward with a miserable
effort not to notice the two girls' existence. Once he noticed them the
game was up. He took Gordon by the arm and would have bundled him into
the taxi.

[¶208] 'Come on, Gordon, for God's sake! Here's the taxi. We'll go straight
home and put you to bed.'

[¶209] Dora caught Gordon's other arm and hauled him out of reach as though he
had been a stolen handbag.

[¶210] 'What bloody business is it of yours?' she cried ferociously.

[¶211] 'You don't want to insult these two ladies, I hope?' said Gordon.

[¶212] Ravelston faltered, stepped back, rubbed his nose. It was a moment to be
firm; but Ravelston had never in his life been firm. He looked from Dora
to Gordon, from Gordon to Barbara. That was fatal. Once he had looked
them in the face he was lost. Oh, God! What could he do? They were human
beings—he couldn't insult them. The same instinct that sent his hand
into his pocket at the very sight of a beggar made him helpless at this
moment. The poor, wretched girls! He hadn't the heart to send them
packing into the night. Suddenly he realised that he would have to go
through with this abominable adventure into which Gordon had led him.
For the first time in his life he was let in for going home with a tart.

[¶213] 'But dash it all!' he said feebly.

[¶214] '_Allons-y_,' said Gordon.

[¶215] The taximan had taken his direction at a nod from Dora. Gordon slumped
into the corner seat and seemed immediately to sink into some immense
abyss from which he rose again more gradually and with only partial
consciousness of what he had been doing. He was gliding smoothly through
darkness starred with lights. Or were the lights moving and he
stationary? It was like being on the ocean bottom, among the luminous,
gliding fishes. The fancy returned to him that he was a damned soul in
hell. The landscape in hell would be just like this. Ravines of cold
evil-coloured fire, with darkness all above. But in hell there would be
torment. Was this torment? He strove to classify his sensations. The
momentary lapse into unconsciousness had left him weak, sick, shaken;
his forehead seemed to be splitting. He put out a hand. It encountered a
knee, a garter and a small soft hand which sought mechanically for his.
He became aware that Ravelston, sitting opposite, was tapping his toe
urgently and nervously.

[¶216] 'Gordon! Gordon! Wake up!'

[¶217] 'What?'

[¶218] 'Gordon! Oh, damn! _Causons en français. Qu'est-ce que tu as fait?
Crois-tu que je veux coucher avec une sale_—oh, damnation!'

[¶219] 'Oo—parley-voo francey!' squealed the girls.

[¶220] Gordon was mildly amused. Do Ravelston good, he thought. A parlour
Socialist going home with a tart! The first genuinely proletarian action
of his life. As though aware of this thought, Ravelston subsided into
his corner in silent misery, sitting as far away from Barbara as
possible. The taxi drew up at a hotel in a side-street; a dreadful,
shoddy, low place it was. The 'hotel' sign over the door looked
skew-eyed. The windows were almost dark, but the sound of singing, boozy
and dreary, trickled from within. Gordon staggered out of the taxi and
felt for Dora's arm. Give us a hand, Dora. Mind the step. What ho!

[¶221] A smallish, darkish, smelly hallway, lino-carpeted, mean, uncared-for
and somehow impermanent. From a room somewhere on the left the singing
swelled, mournful as a church organ. A cross-eyed, evil-looking
chambermaid appeared from nowhere. She and Dora seemed to know one
another. What a mug! No competition there. From the room on the left a
single voice took up the song with would-be facetious emphasis:

[¶222] '_The man that kisses a pretty girl_
                  _And goes and tells his mother,_
                  _Ought to have his lips cut off,_
                  _Ought to_——'

[¶223] It tailed away, full of the ineffable, undisguisable sadness of
debauchery. A very young voice it sounded. The voice of some poor boy
who in his heart only wanted to be at home with his mother and sisters,
playing hunt-the-slipper. There was a party of young fools in there, on
the razzle with whisky and girls. The tune reminded Gordon. He turned to
Ravelston as he came in, Barbara following.

[¶224] 'Where's my Chianti?' he said.

[¶225] Ravelston gave him the bottle. His face looked pale, harassed, hunted,
almost. With guilty restless movements he kept himself apart from
Barbara. He could not touch her or even look at her, and yet to escape
was beyond him. His eyes sought Gordon's. 'For the love of God can't we
get out of it somehow?' they signalled. Gordon frowned at him. Stick it
out! No flinching! He took Dora's arm again. Come on, Dora! Now for
those stairs. Ah! Wait a moment.

[¶226] Her arm round his waist, supporting him, Dora drew him aside. Down the
darkish, smelly stairs a young woman came mincingly, buttoning on a
glove; after her a bald, middle-aged man in evening clothes, black
overcoat and white silk muffler, his opera hat in his hand. He walked
past them with small mean mouth tightened, pretending not to see them. A
family man, by the guilty look in his eye. Gordon watched the gas-light
gleam on the back of his bald head. His predecessor. In the same bed,
probably. The mantle of Elisha. Now then, Dora, up we go! Ah, these
stairs! _Difficilis ascensus Averni._ That's right, here we are! 'Mind
the step,' said Dora. They were on the landing. Black and white lino
like a chessboard. White-painted doors. A smell of slops and a fainter
smell of stale linen.

[¶227] We this way, you that. At the other door Ravelston halted, his fingers
on the handle. He could not—no, he _could_ not do it. He could not
enter that dreadful room. For the last time his eyes, like those of a
dog about to be whipped, turned upon Gordon. 'Must I, must I?' his eyes
said. Gordon eyed him sternly. Stick it out, Regulus! March to your
doom! _Atqui sciebat quae sibi Barbara._ It is a far, far more
proletarian thing that you do. And then with startling suddenness
Ravelston's face cleared. An expression of relief, almost of joy, stole
over it. A wonderful thought had occurred to him. After all, you could
always pay the girl without actually doing anything! Thank God! He set
his shoulders, plucked up courage, went in. The door shut.

[¶228] So here we are. A mean, dreadful room. Lino on the floor, gas-fire, huge
double bed with sheets vaguely dingy. Over the bed a framed coloured
picture from _La Vie Parisienne_. A mistake, that. Sometimes the
originals don't compare so well. And, by Jove! on the bamboo table by
the window, positively an aspidistra! Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?
But come here, Dora. Let's have a look at you.

[¶229] He seemed to be lying on the bed. He could not see very well. Her
youthful, rapacious face, with blackened eyebrows, leaned over him as he
sprawled there.

[¶230] 'How about my present?' she demanded, half wheedling, half menacing.

[¶231] Never mind that now. To work! Come here. Not a bad mouth. Come here.
Come closer. Ah!

[¶232] No. No use. Impossible. The will but not the way. The spirit is willing
but the flesh is weak. Try again. No. The booze, it must be. See
Macbeth. One last try. No, no use. Not this evening, I'm afraid.

[¶233] All right, Dora, don't you worry. You'll get your two quid all right. We
aren't paying by results.

[¶234] He made a clumsy gesture. 'Here, give us that bottle. That bottle off
the dressing-table.'

[¶235] Dora brought it. Ah, that's better. That at least doesn't fail. With
hands that had swollen to monstrous size he upended the Chianti bottle.
The wine flowed down his throat, bitter and choking, and some of it went
up his nose. It overwhelmed him. He was slipping, sliding, falling off
the bed. His head met the floor. His legs were still on the bed. For a
while he lay in this position. Is this the way to live? Down below the
youthful voices were still mournfully singing:

[¶236] '_For tonight we'll merry be,_
                   _For tonight we'll merry be,_
                   _For tonight we'll merry be-e-e—_
                   _Tomorrow we'll be so-ober!_'

## 9. IX

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/9/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/9/#p-N

[¶0] And, by Jove, tomorrow we _were_ sober!

[¶1] Gordon emerged from some long, sickly dream to the consciousness that
the books in the lending library were the wrong way up. They were all
lying on their sides. Moreover, for some reason their backs had turned
white—white and shiny, like porcelain.

[¶2] He opened his eyes a little wider and moved an arm. Small rivulets of
pain, seemingly touched off by the movement, shot through his body at
unexpected places—down the calves of his legs, for instance, and up
both sides of his head. He perceived that he was lying on his side, with
a hard smooth pillow under his cheek and a coarse blanket scratching his
chin and pushing its hairs into his mouth. Apart from the minor pains
that stabbed him every time he moved, there was a large, dull sort of
pain which was not localised but which seemed to hover all over him.

[¶3] Suddenly he flung off the blanket and sat up. He was in a police cell.
At this moment a frightful spasm of nausea overcame him. Dimly
perceiving a WC in the corner, he crept towards it and was violently
sick, three or four times.

[¶4] After that, for several minutes, he was in agonising pain. He could
scarcely stand on his feet, his head throbbed as though it were going to
burst, and the light seemed like some scalding white liquid pouring into
his brain through the sockets of his eyes. He sat on the bed holding his
head between his hands. Presently, when some of the throbbing had died
down, he had another look about him. The cell measured about twelve feet
long by six wide and was very high. The walls were all of white
porcelain bricks, horribly white and clean. He wondered dully how they
cleaned as high up as the ceiling. Perhaps with a hose, he reflected. At
one end there was a little barred window, very high up, and at the other
end, over the door, an electric bulb let into the wall and protected by
a stout grating. The thing he was sitting on was not actually a bed, but
a shelf with one blanket and a canvas pillow. The door was of steel,
painted green. In the door there was a little round hole with a flap on
the outside.

[¶5] Having seen this much he lay down and pulled the blanket over him again.
He had no further curiosity about his surroundings. As to what had
happened last night, he remembered everything—at least, he remembered
everything up to the time when he had gone with Dora into the room with
the aspidistra. God knew what had happened after that. There had been
some kind of bust-up and he had landed in the clink. He had no notion of
what he had done; it might be murder for all he knew. In any case he did
not care. He turned his face to the wall and pulled the blanket over his
head to shut out the light.

[¶6] After a long time the spyhole in the door was pushed aside. Gordon
managed to turn his head round. His neck-muscles seemed to creak.
Through the spyhole he could see a blue eye and a semi-circle of pink
chubby cheek.

[¶7] ''Ja do with a cup of tea?' a voice said.

[¶8] Gordon sat up and instantly felt very sick again. He took his head
between his hands and groaned. The thought of a cup of hot tea appealed
to him, but he knew it would make him sick if it had sugar in it.

[¶9] 'Please,' he said.

[¶10] The police constable opened a partition in the top half of the door and
passed in a thick white mug of tea. It had sugar in it. The constable
was a solid rosy young man of about twenty-five, with a kind face, white
eye-lashes and a tremendous chest. It reminded Gordon of the chest of a
carthorse. He spoke with a good accent but with vulgar turns of speech.
For a minute or so he stood regarding Gordon.

[¶11] 'You weren't half bad last night,' he said finally.

[¶12] 'I'm bad now.'

[¶13] 'You was worse last night, though. What you go and hit the sergeant
for?'

[¶14] 'Did I hit the sergeant?'

[¶15] 'Did you? Coo! He wasn't half wild. He turns to me and he says—holding
his ear he was, like this—he says, "Now, if that man wasn't too drunk
to stand, I'd knock his block off." It's all gone down on your charge
sheet. Drunk and disorderly. You'd only ha' bin drunk and incapable if
you hadn't of hit the sergeant.'

[¶16] 'Do you know what I shall get for this?'

[¶17] 'Five quid or fourteen days. You'll go up before Mr Croom. Lucky for you
it wasn't Mr Walker. He'd give you a month without the option, Mr Walker
would. Very severe on the drunks he is. Teetotaller.'

[¶18] Gordon had drunk some of the tea. It was nauseatingly sweet but its
warmth made him feel stronger. He gulped it down. At this moment a
nasty, snarling sort of voice—the sergeant whom Gordon had hit, no
doubt—yelped from somewhere outside:

[¶19] 'Take that man out and get him washed. Black Maria leaves at half past
nine.'

[¶20] The constable hastened to open the cell door. As soon as Gordon stepped
outside he felt worse than ever. This was partly because it was much
colder in the passage than in the cell. He walked a step or two, and
then suddenly his head was going round and round. 'I'm going to be
sick!' he cried. He was falling—he flung out a hand and stopped himself
against the wall. The constable's strong arm went round him. Across the
arm, as over a rail, Gordon sagged, doubled up and limp. A jet of vomit
burst from him. It was the tea, of course. There was a gutter running
along the stone floor. At the end of the passage the moustachio'd
sergeant, in tunic without a belt, stood with his hand on his hip,
looking on disgustedly.

[¶21] 'Dirty little tyke,' he muttered, and turned away.

[¶22] 'Come on, old chap,' said the constable. 'You'll be better in half a
mo'.'

[¶23] He half led, half dragged Gordon to a big stone sink at the end of the
passage and helped him to strip to the waist. His gentleness was
astonishing. He handled Gordon almost like a nurse handling a child.
Gordon had recovered enough strength to sluice himself with the ice-cold
water and rinse his mouth out. The constable gave him a torn towel to
dry himself with and then led him back to the cell.

[¶24] 'Now you sit quiet till the Black Maria comes. And take my tip—when you
go up to the court, you plead guilty and say you won't do it again. Mr
Croom won't be hard on you.'

[¶25] 'Where are my collar and tie?' said Gordon.

[¶26] 'We took 'em away last night. You'll get 'em back before you go up to
court. We had a bloke hung himself with his tie, once.'

[¶27] Gordon sat down on the bed. For a little while he occupied himself by
calculating the number of porcelain bricks in the walls, then sat with
his elbows on his knees, his head between his hands. He was still aching
all over; he felt weak, cold, jaded and, above all, bored. He wished
that boring business of going up to the court could be avoided somehow.
The thought of being put into some jolting vehicle and taken across
London to hang about in chilly cells and passages, and of having to
answer questions and be lectured by magistrates, bored him
indescribably. All he wanted was to be left alone. But presently there
was the sound of several voices further down the passage, and then of
feet approaching. The partition in the door was opened.

[¶28] 'Couple of visitors for you,' the constable said.

[¶29] Gordon was bored by the very thought of visitors. Unwillingly he looked
up, and saw Flaxman and Ravelston looking in upon him. How they had got
there together was a mystery, but Gordon felt not the faintest curiosity
about it. They bored him. He wished they would go away.

[¶30] 'Hullo, chappie!' said Flaxman.

[¶31] '_You_ here?' said Gordon with a sort of weary offensiveness.

[¶32] Ravelston looked miserable. He had been up since the very early morning,
looking for Gordon. This was the first time he had seen the interior of
a police cell. His face shrank with disgust as he looked at the chilly
white-tiled place with its shameless WC in the corner. But Flaxman was
more accustomed to this kind of thing. He cocked a practised eye at
Gordon.

[¶33] 'I've seen 'em worse,' he said cheerfully. 'Give him a prairie oyster
and he'd buck up something wonderful. D'you know what your eyes look
like, chappie?' he added to Gordon. 'They look as if they'd been taken
out and poached.'

[¶34] 'I was drunk last night,' said Gordon, his head between his hands.

[¶35] 'I gathered something of the kind, old chappie.'

[¶36] 'Look here, Gordon,' said Ravelston, 'we came to bail you out, but it
seems we're too late. They're taking you up to court in a few minutes'
time. This is a bloody show. It's a pity you didn't give them a false
name when they brought you here last night.'

[¶37] 'Did I tell them my name?'

[¶38] 'You told them everything. I wish to God I hadn't let you out of my
sight. You slipped out of that house somehow and into the street.'

[¶39] 'Wandering up and down Shaftesbury Avenue, drinking out of a bottle,'
said Flaxman appreciatively. 'But you oughtn't to have hit the sergeant,
old chappie! That was a bit of bloody foolishness. And I don't mind
telling you Mother Wisbeach is on your track. When your pal here came
round this morning and told her you'd been for a night on the tiles, she
took on as if you'd done a bloody murder.'

[¶40] 'And look here, Gordon,' said Ravelston.

[¶41] There was the familiar note of discomfort in his face. It was something
about money, as usual. Gordon looked up. Ravelston was gazing into the
distance.

[¶42] 'Look here.'

[¶43] 'What?'

[¶44] 'About your fine. You'd better leave that to me. I'll pay it.'

[¶45] 'No, you won't.'

[¶46] 'My dear old chap! They'll send you to jail if I don't.'

[¶47] 'Oh, hell! I don't care.'

[¶48] He did not care. At this moment he did not care if they sent him to
prison for a year. Of course he couldn't pay his fine himself. He knew
without even needing to look that he had no money left. He would have
given it all to Dora, or more probably she would have pinched it. He lay
down on the bed again and turned his back on the others. In the sulky,
sluggish state that he was in, his sole desire was to get rid of them.
They made a few more attempts to talk to him, but he would not answer,
and presently they went away. Flaxman's voice boomed cheerfully down the
passage. He was giving Ravelston minute instructions as to how to make a
prairie oyster.

[¶49] The rest of that day was very beastly. Beastly was the ride in the Black
Maria, which, inside, was like nothing so much as a miniature public
lavatory, with tiny cubicles down each side, into which you were locked
and in which you had barely room to sit down. Beastlier yet was the long
wait in one of the cells adjoining the magistrate's court. This cell was
an exact replica of the cell at the police station, even to having
precisely the same number of porcelain bricks. But it differed from the
police-station cell in being repulsively dirty. It was cold, but the air
was so fetid as to be almost unbreathable. Prisoners were coming and
going all the time. They would be thrust into the cell, taken out after
an hour or two to go up to the court, and then perhaps brought back
again to wait while the magistrate decided upon their sentence or fresh
witnesses were sent for. There were always five or six men in the cell,
and there was nothing to sit on except the plank bed. And the worst was
that nearly all of them used the WC—there, publicly, in the tiny cell.
They could not help it. There was nowhere else to go. And the plug of
the beastly thing did not even pull properly.

[¶50] Until the afternoon Gordon felt sick and weak. He had had no chance to
shave, and his face was hatefully scrubby. At first he merely sat on the
corner of the plank bed, at the end nearest the door, as far away from
the WC as he could get, and took no notice of the other prisoners. They
bored and disgusted him; later, as his headache wore off, he observed
them with a faint interest. There was a professional burglar, a lean
worried-looking man with grey hair, who was in a terrible stew about
what would happen to his wife and kids if he were sent to jail. He had
been arrested for 'loitering with intent to enter'—a vague offence for
which you generally get convicted if there are previous convictions
against you. He kept walking up and down, flicking the fingers of his
right hand with a curious nervous gesture, and exclaiming against the
unfairness of it. There was also a deaf mute who stank like a ferret,
and a small middle-aged Jew with a fur-collared overcoat, who had been
buyer to a large firm of kosher butchers. He had bolted with
twenty-seven pounds, gone to Aberdeen, of all places, and spent the
money on tarts. He too had a grievance, for he said his case ought to
have been tried in the rabbi's court instead of being turned over to the
police. There was also a publican who had embezzled his Christmas club
money. He was a big, hearty, prosperous-looking man of about
thirty-five, with a loud red face and a loud blue overcoat—the sort of
man who, if he were not a publican, would be a bookie. His relatives had
paid back the embezzled money, all except twelve pounds, but the club
members had decided to prosecute. There was something in this man's eyes
that troubled Gordon. He carried everything off with a swagger, but all
the while there was that blank, staring look in his eyes; he would fall
into a kind of reverie at every gap in the conversation. It was somehow
rather dreadful to see him. There he was, still in his smart clothes,
with the splendour of a publican's life only a month or two behind him;
and now he was ruined, probably for ever. Like all London publicans he
was in the claw of the brewer, he would be sold up and his furniture and
fittings seized, and when he came out of jail he would never have a pub
or a job again.

[¶51] The morning wore on with dismal slowness. You were allowed to
smoke—matches were forbidden, but the constable on duty outside would
give you a light through the trap in the door. Nobody had any cigarettes
except the publican, who had his pockets full of them and distributed
them freely. Prisoners came and went. A ragged dirty man who claimed to
be a coster 'up' for obstruction was put into the cell for half an hour.
He talked a great deal, but the others were deeply suspicious of him;
when he was taken out again they all declared he was a 'split'. The
police, it was said, often put a 'split' into the cells, disguised as a
prisoner, to pick up information. Once there was great excitement when
the constable whispered through the trap that a murderer, or would-be
murderer, was being put into the cell next door. He was a youth of
eighteen who had stabbed his 'tart' in the belly, and she was not
expected to live. Once the trap opened and the tired, pale face of a
clergyman looked in. He saw the burglar, said wearily, '_You_ here
again, Jones?' and went away again. Dinner, so-called, was served out at
about twelve o'clock. All you got was a cup of tea and two slices of
bread and marg. You could have food sent in, though, if you could pay
for it. The publican had a good dinner sent in in covered dishes; but he
had no appetite for it, and gave most of it away. Ravelston was still
hanging about the court, waiting for Gordon's case to come on, but he
did not know the ropes well enough to have food sent in to Gordon.
Presently the burglar and the publican were taken away, sentenced, and
brought back to wait till the Black Maria should take them off to jail.
They each got nine months. The publican questioned the burglar about
what prison was like. There was a conversation of unspeakable obscenity
about the lack of women there.

[¶52] Gordon's case came on at half past two, and it was over so quickly that
it seemed preposterous to have waited all that time for it. Afterwards
he could remember nothing about the court except the coat-of-arms over
the magistrate's chair. The magistrate was dealing with the drunks at
the rate of two a minute. To the tune of
'John-Smith-drunk-and-incapable-drunk?-yes-six-shillings-move-on-_next_!'
they filed past the railings of the dock, precisely like a crowd taking
tickets at a booking-office. Gordon's case, however, took two minutes
instead of thirty seconds, because he had been disorderly and the
sergeant had to testify that Gordon had struck him on the ear and called
him a —— bastard. There was also a mild sensation in the court because
Gordon, when questioned at the police station, had described himself as
a poet. He must have been very drunk to say a thing like that. The
magistrate looked at him suspiciously.

[¶53] 'I see you call yourself a _poet_. _Are_ you a poet?'

[¶54] 'I write poetry,' said Gordon sulkily.

[¶55] 'Hm! Well, it doesn't seem to teach you to behave yourself, does it? You
will pay five pounds or go to prison for fourteen days. _Next!_'

[¶56] And that was all. Nevertheless, somewhere at the back of the court a
bored reporter had pricked up his ears.

[¶57] On the other side of the court there was a room where a police sergeant
sat with a large ledger, entering up the drunks' fines and taking
payment. Those who could not pay were taken back to the cells. Gordon
had expected this to happen to himself. He was quite resigned to going
to prison. But when he emerged from the court it was to find that
Ravelston was waiting there and had already paid his fine for him.
Gordon did not protest. He allowed Ravelston to pack him into a taxi and
take him back to the flat in Regent's Park. As soon as they got there
Gordon had a hot bath; he needed one, after the beastly contaminating
grime of the last twelve hours. Ravelston lent him a razor, lent him a
clean shirt and pyjamas and socks and underclothes, even went out of
doors and bought him a toothbrush. He was strangely solicitous about
Gordon. He could not rid himself of a guilty feeling that what had
happened last night was mainly his own fault; he ought to have put his
foot down and taken Gordon home as soon as he showed signs of being
drunk. Gordon scarcely noticed what was being done for him. Even the
fact that Ravelston had paid his fine failed to trouble him. For the
rest of that afternoon he lay in one of the armchairs in front of the
fire, reading a detective story. About the future he refused to think.
He grew sleepy very early. At eight o'clock he went to bed in the spare
bedroom and slept like a log for nine hours.

[¶58] It was not till next morning that he began to think seriously about his
situation. He woke in the wide caressing bed, softer and warmer than any
bed he had ever slept in, and began to grope about for his matches. Then
he remembered that in places like this you didn't need matches to get a
light, and felt for the electric switch that hung on a cord at the
bedhead. Soft light flooded the room. There was a syphon of soda water
on the bed-table. Gordon discovered that even after thirty-six hours
there was still a vile taste in his mouth. He had a drink and looked
about him.

[¶59] It was a queer feeling, lying there in somebody else's pyjamas in
somebody else's bed. He felt that he had no business here—that this
wasn't the sort of place where he belonged. There was a sense of guilt
in lying here in luxury when he was ruined and hadn't a penny in the
world. For he was ruined right enough, there was no doubt about that. He
seemed to know with perfect certainty that his job was lost. God knew
what was going to happen next. The memory of that stupid dull debauch
rolled back upon him with beastly vividness. He could recall everything,
from his first pink gin before he started out to Dora's peach-coloured
garters. He squirmed when he thought of Dora. _Why_ does one do these
things? Money again, always money! The rich don't behave like that. The
rich are graceful even in their vices. But if you have no money you
don't even know how to spend it when you get it. You just splurge it
frantically away, like a sailor in a bawdy-house his first night ashore.

[¶60] He had been in the clink, twelve hours. He thought of the cold faecal
stench of that cell at the police court. A foretaste of future days. And
everyone would know that he had been in the clink. With luck it might be
kept from Aunt Angela and Uncle Walter, but Julia and Rosemary probably
knew already. With Rosemary it didn't matter so much, but Julia would be
ashamed and miserable. He thought of Julia. Her long thin back as she
bent over the tea-caddy; her good, goose-like, defeated face. She had
never lived. From childhood she had been sacrificed to him—to Gordon,
to 'the boy'. It might be a hundred quid he had 'borrowed' from her in
all these years; and then even five quid he couldn't spare her. Five
quid he had set aside for her, and then spent it on a tart!

[¶61] He turned out the light and lay on his back, wide awake. At this moment
he saw himself with frightful clarity. He took a sort of inventory of
himself and his possessions. Gordon Comstock, last of the Comstocks,
thirty years old, with twenty-six teeth left; with no money and no job;
in borrowed pyjamas in a borrowed bed; with nothing before him except
cadging and destitution, and nothing behind him except squalid
fooleries. His total wealth a puny body and two cardboard suitcases full
of worn-out clothes.

[¶62] At seven Ravelston was awakened by a tap on his door. He rolled over and
said sleepily, 'Hullo?' Gordon came in, a dishevelled figure almost lost
in the borrowed silk pyjamas. Ravelston roused himself, yawning.
Theoretically he got up at the proletarian hour of seven. Actually he
seldom stirred until Mrs Beaver, the charwoman, arrived at eight. Gordon
pushed the hair out of his eyes and sat down on the foot of Ravelston's
bed.

[¶63] 'I say, Ravelston, this is bloody. I've been thinking things over.
There's going to be hell to pay.'

[¶64] 'What?'

[¶65] 'I shall lose my job. McKechnie can't keep me on after I've been in the
clink. Besides, I ought to have been at work yesterday. Probably the
shop wasn't opened all day.'

[¶66] Ravelston yawned. 'It'll be all right, I think. That fat chap—what's
his name? Flaxman—rang McKechnie up and told him you were down with
'flu. He made it pretty convincing. He said your temperature was a
hundred and three. Of course your landlady knows. But I don't suppose
she'd tell McKechnie.'

[¶67] 'But suppose it's got into the papers!'

[¶68] 'Oh, lord! I suppose that might happen. The char brings the papers up at
eight. But do they report drunk cases? Surely not?'

[¶69] Mrs Beaver brought the _Telegraph_ and the _Herald_. Ravelston sent her
out for the _Mail_ and the _Express_. They searched hurriedly through
the police-court news. Thank God! it hadn't 'got into the papers' after
all. There was no reason why it should, as a matter of fact. It was not
as if Gordon had been a racing motorist or a professional footballer.
Feeling better, Gordon managed to eat some breakfast, and after
breakfast Ravelston went out. It was agreed that he should go up to the
shop, see Mr McKechnie, give him further details of Gordon's illness and
find out how the land lay. It seemed quite natural to Ravelston to waste
several days in getting Gordon out of his scrape. All the morning Gordon
hung about the flat, restless and out of sorts, smoking cigarettes in an
endless chain. Now that he was alone, hope had deserted him. He knew by
profound instinct that Mr McKechnie would have heard about his arrest.
It wasn't the kind of thing you could keep dark. He had lost his job,
and that was all about it.

[¶70] He lounged across to the window and looked out. A desolate day; the
whitey-grey sky looked as if it could never be blue again; the naked
trees wept slowly into the gutters. Down a neighbouring street the cry
of the coalman echoed mournfully. Only a fortnight to Christmas now.
Jolly to be out of work at this time of year! But the thought, instead
of frightening him, merely bored him. The peculiar lethargic feeling,
the stuffy heaviness behind the eyes, that one has after a fit of
drunkenness, seemed to have settled upon him permanently. The prospect
of searching for another job bored him even more than the prospect of
poverty. Besides, he would never find another job. There are no jobs to
be had nowadays. He was going down, down into the sub-world of the
unemployed—down, down into God knew what workhouse depths of dirt and
hunger and futility. And chiefly he was anxious to get it over with as
little fuss and effort as possible.

[¶71] Ravelston came back at about one o'clock. He pulled his gloves off and
threw them into a chair. He looked tired and depressed. Gordon saw at a
glance that the game was up.

[¶72] 'He's heard, of course?' he said.

[¶73] 'Everything, I'm afraid.'

[¶74] 'How? I suppose that cow of a Wisbeach woman went and sneaked to him?'

[¶75] 'No. It was in the paper after all. The local paper. He got it out of
that.'

[¶76] 'Oh, hell! I'd forgotten that.'

[¶77] Ravelston produced from his coat pocket a folded copy of _The Hampstead
and Camden Town Messenger_. It was one that they took in at the shop
because Mr McKechnie advertised in it—Gordon had forgotten that. He
opened it. Gosh! What a splash! It was all over the middle page.

[¶78] BOOKSELLER'S ASSISTANT FINED.
                     MAGISTRATE'S SEVERE STRICTURE.
                         'DISGRACEFUL FRACAS.'

[¶79] There were nearly two columns of it. Gordon had never been so famous
before and never would be again. They must have been very hard up for a
bit of news. But these local papers have a curious notion of patriotism.
They are so avid for local news that a bicycle-accident in the Harrow
Road will occupy more space than a European crisis, and such items of
news as 'Hampstead Man on Murder Charge' or 'Dismembered Baby in Cellar
in Camberwell' are displayed with positive pride.

[¶80] Ravelston described his interview with Mr McKechnie. Mr McKechnie, it
seemed, was torn between his rage against Gordon and his desire not to
offend such a good customer as Ravelston. But of course, after a thing
like that, you could hardly expect him to take Gordon back. These
scandals were bad for trade, and besides, he was justly angry at the
lies Flaxman had told him over the phone. But he was angriest of all at
the thought of _his_ assistant being drunk and disorderly. Ravelston
said that the drunkenness seemed to anger him in a way that was
peculiar. He gave the impression that he would almost have preferred
Gordon to pinch money out of the till. Of course, he was a teetotaller
himself. Gordon had sometimes wondered whether he wasn't also a secret
drinker, in the traditional Scottish style. His nose was certainly very
red. But perhaps it was snuff that did it. Anyway, that was that. Gordon
was in the soup, full fathom five.

[¶81] 'I suppose the Wisbeach will stick to my clothes and things,' he said.
'I'm not going round there to fetch them. Besides, I owe her a week's
rent.'

[¶82] 'Oh, don't you worry about that. I'll see to your rent and everything.'

[¶83] 'My dear chap, I can't let you pay my rent!'

[¶84] 'Oh, dash it!' Ravelston's face grew faintly pink. He looked miserably
into the distance, and then said what he had to say all in a sudden
burst: 'Look here, Gordon, we must get this settled. You've just got to
stay here till this business has blown over. I'll see you through about
money and all that. You needn't think you're being a nuisance, because
you're not. And anyway, it's only till you get another job.'

[¶85] Gordon moved moodily away from him, his hands in his pockets. He had
foreseen all this, of course. He knew that he ought to refuse, he
_wanted_ to refuse, and yet he had not quite the courage.

[¶86] 'I'm not going to sponge on you like that,' he said sulkily.

[¶87] 'Don't use such expressions, for God's sake! Besides, where could you go
if you didn't stay here?'

[¶88] 'I don't know—into the gutter, I suppose. It's where I belong. The
sooner I get there the better.'

[¶89] 'Rot! You're going to stay here till you've found another job.'

[¶90] 'But there isn't a job in the world. It might be a year before I found a
job. I don't _want_ a job.'

[¶91] 'You mustn't talk like that. You'll find a job right enough. Something's
bound to turn up. And for God's sake don't talk about _sponging_ on me.
It's only an arrangement between friends. If you really want to, you can
pay it all back when you've got the money.'

[¶92] 'Yes—_when_!'

[¶93] But in the end he let himself be persuaded. He had known that he would
let himself be persuaded. He stayed on at the flat, and allowed
Ravelston to go round to Willowbed Road and pay his rent and recover his
two cardboard suitcases; he even allowed Ravelston to 'lend' him a
further two pounds for current expenses. His heart sickened while he did
it. He was living on Ravelston—sponging on Ravelston. How could there
ever be real friendship between them again? Besides, in his heart he
didn't want to be helped. He only wanted to be left alone. He was headed
for the gutter; better to reach the gutter quickly and get it over. Yet
for the time being he stayed, simply because he lacked the courage to do
otherwise.

[¶94] But as for this business of getting a job, it was hopeless from the
start. Even Ravelston, though rich, could not manufacture jobs out of
nothing. Gordon knew beforehand that there were no jobs going begging in
the book trade. During the next three days he wore his shoes out
traipsing from bookseller to bookseller. At shop after shop he set his
teeth, marched in, demanded to see the manager, and three minutes later
marched out again with his nose in the air. The answer was always the
same—no jobs vacant. A few booksellers were taking on an extra man for
the Christmas rush, but Gordon was not the type they were looking for.
He was neither smart nor servile; he wore shabby clothes and spoke with
the accent of a gentleman. Besides, a few questions always brought it
out that he had been sacked from his last job for drunkenness. After
only three days he gave it up. He knew it was no use. It was only to
please Ravelston that he had even been pretending to look for work.

[¶95] In the evening he trailed back to the flat, footsore and with his nerves
on edge from a series of snubs. He was making all his journeys on foot,
to economise Ravelston's two pounds. When he got back Ravelston had just
come up from the office and was sitting in one of the armchairs in front
of the fire, with some long galley-proofs over his knee. He looked up as
Gordon came in.

[¶96] 'Any luck?' he said as usual.

[¶97] Gordon did not answer. If he had answered it would have been with a
stream of obscenities. Without even looking at Ravelston he went
straight into his bedroom, kicked off his shoes and flung himself on the
bed. He hated himself at this moment. Why had he come back? What right
had he to come back and sponge on Ravelston when he hadn't even the
intention of looking for a job any longer? He ought to have stayed out
in the streets, slept in Trafalgar Square, begged—anything. But he
hadn't the guts to face the streets as yet. The prospect of warmth and
shelter had tugged him back. He lay with his hands beneath his head, in
a mixture of apathy and self-hatred. After about half an hour he heard
the door-bell ring and Ravelston get up to answer it. It was that bitch
Hermione Slater, presumably. Ravelston had introduced Gordon to Hermione
a couple of days ago, and she had treated him like dirt. But a moment
later there was a knock at the bedroom door.

[¶98] 'What is it?' said Gordon.

[¶99] 'Somebody's come to see you,' said Ravelston.

[¶100] 'To see _me_?'

[¶101] 'Yes. Come on into the other room.'

[¶102] Gordon swore and rolled sluggishly off the bed. When he got to the other
room he found that the visitor was Rosemary. He had been half expecting
her, of course, but it wearied him to see her. He knew why she had come;
to sympathise with him, to pity him, to reproach him—it was all the
same. In his despondent, bored mood he did not want to make the effort
of talking to her. All he wanted was to be left alone. But Ravelston was
glad to see her. He had taken a liking to her in their single meeting
and thought she might cheer Gordon up. He made a transparent pretext to
go downstairs to the office, leaving the two of them together.

[¶103] They were alone, but Gordon made no move to embrace her. He was standing
in front of the fire, round-shouldered, his hands in his coat pockets,
his feet thrust into a pair of Ravelston's slippers which were much too
big for him. She came rather hesitantly towards him, not yet taking off
her hat or her coat with the lamb-skin collar. It hurt her to see him.
In less than a week his appearance had deteriorated strangely. Already
he had that unmistakable, seedy, lounging look of a man who is out of
work. His face seemed to have grown thinner, and there were rings round
his eyes. Also it was obvious that he had not shaved that day.

[¶104] She laid her hand on his arm, rather awkwardly, as a woman does when it
is she who has to make the first embrace.

[¶105] 'Gordon——'

[¶106] 'Well?'

[¶107] He said it almost sulkily. The next moment she was in his arms. But it
was she who had made the first movement, not he. Her head was on his
breast, and behold! she was struggling with all her might against the
tears that almost overwhelmed her. It bored Gordon dreadfully. He seemed
so often to reduce her to tears! And he didn't want to be cried over; he
only wanted to be left alone—alone to sulk and despair. As he held her
there, one hand mechanically caressing her shoulder, his main feeling
was boredom. She had made things more difficult for him by coming here.
Ahead of him were dirt, cold, hunger, the streets, the workhouse and the
jail. It was against _that_ that he had got to steel himself. And he
could steel himself, if only she would leave him alone and not come
plaguing him with these irrelevant emotions.

[¶108] He pushed her a little way from him. She had recovered herself quickly,
as she always did.

[¶109] 'Gordon, my dear one! Oh, I'm so sorry, so sorry!'

[¶110] 'Sorry about what?'

[¶111] 'You losing your job and everything. You look so unhappy.'

[¶112] 'I'm not unhappy. Don't pity me, for God's sake.'

[¶113] He disengaged himself from her arms. She pulled her hat off and threw it
into a chair. She had come here with something definite to say. It was
something she had refrained from saying all these years—something that
it had seemed to her a point of chivalry not to say. But now it had got
to be said, and she would come straight out with it. It was not in her
nature to beat about the bush.

[¶114] 'Gordon, will you do something to please me?'

[¶115] 'What?'

[¶116] 'Will you go back to the New Albion?'

[¶117] So that was it! Of course he had foreseen it. She was going to start
nagging at him like all the others. She was going to add herself to the
band of people who worried him and badgered him to 'get on'. But what
else could you expect? It was what any woman would say. The marvel was
that she had never said it before. Go back to the New Albion! It had
been the sole significant action of his life, leaving the New Albion. It
was his religion, you might say, to keep out of that filthy money-world.
Yet at this moment he could not remember with any clarity the motives
for which he had left the New Albion. All he knew was that he would
never go back, not if the skies fell, and that the argument he foresaw
bored him in advance.

[¶118] He shrugged his shoulders and looked away. 'The New Albion wouldn't take
me back,' he said shortly.

[¶119] 'Yes, they would. You remember what Mr Erskine said. It's not so long
ago—only two years. And they're always on the look-out for good
copywriters. Everyone at the office says so. I'm sure they'd give you a
job if you went and asked them. And they'd pay you at least four pounds
a week.'

[¶120] 'Four pounds a week! Splendid! I could afford to keep an aspidistra on
that, couldn't I?'

[¶121] 'No, Gordon, don't joke about it now.'

[¶122] 'I'm not joking. I'm serious.'

[¶123] 'You mean you won't go back to them—not even if they offered you a
job?'

[¶124] 'Not in a thousand years. Not if they paid me fifty pounds a week.'

[¶125] 'But why? Why?'

[¶126] 'I've told you why,' he said wearily.

[¶127] She looked at him helplessly. After all, it was no use. There was this
money-business standing in the way—these meaningless scruples which she
had never understood but which she had accepted merely because they were
his. She felt all the impotence, the resentment of a woman who sees an
abstract idea triumphing over common sense. How maddening it was, that
he should let himself be pushed into the gutter by a thing like that!
She said almost angrily:

[¶128] 'I don't understand you, Gordon, I really don't. Here you are out of
work, you may be starving in a little while for all you know; and yet
when there's a good job which you can have almost for the asking, you
won't take it.'

[¶129] 'No, you're quite right. I won't.'

[¶130] 'But you must have _some_ kind of job, mustn't you?'

[¶131] 'A job, but not a _good_ job. I've explained that God knows how often. I
dare say I'll get a job of sorts sooner or later. The same kind of job
as I had before.'

[¶132] 'But I don't believe you're even _trying_ to get a job, are you?'

[¶133] 'Yes, I am. I've been out all today seeing booksellers.'

[¶134] 'And you didn't even shave this morning!' she said, changing her ground
with feminine swiftness.

[¶135] He felt his chin. 'I don't believe I did, as a matter of fact.'

[¶136] 'And then you expect people to give you a job! Oh, Gordon!'

[¶137] 'Oh, well, what does it matter? It's too much fag to shave every day.'

[¶138] 'You're letting yourself go to pieces,' she said bitterly. 'You don't
seem to _want_ to make any effort. You want to sink—just _sink_!'

[¶139] 'I don't know—perhaps. I'd sooner sink than rise.'

[¶140] There were further arguments. It was the first time she had ever spoken
to him like this. Once again the tears came into her eyes, and once
again she fought them back. She had come here swearing to herself that
she would not cry. The dreadful thing was that her tears, instead of
distressing him, merely bored him. It was as though he _could_ not care,
and yet at his very centre there was an inner heart that cared because
he could not care. If only she would leave him alone! Alone, alone! Free
from the nagging consciousness of his failure; free to sink, as she
said, down, down into quiet worlds where money and effort and moral
obligation did not exist. Finally he got away from her and went back to
the spare bedroom. It was definitely a quarrel—the first really deadly
quarrel they had ever had. Whether it was to be final he did not know.
Nor did he care, at this moment. He locked the door behind him and lay
on the bed smoking a cigarette. He must get out of this place, and
quickly! Tomorrow morning he would clear out. No more sponging on
Ravelston! No more blackmail to the gods of decency! Down, down, into
the mud—down to the streets, the workhouse and the jail. It was only
there that he could be at peace.

[¶141] Ravelston came upstairs to find Rosemary alone and on the point of
departure. She said good-bye and then suddenly turned to him and laid
her hand on his arm. She felt that she knew him well enough now to take
him into her confidence.

[¶142] 'Mr Ravelston, please—_will_ you try and persuade Gordon to get a job?'

[¶143] 'I'll do what I can. Of course it's always difficult. But I expect we'll
find him a job of sorts before long.'

[¶144] 'It's so dreadful to see him like this! He goes absolutely to pieces.
And all the time, you see, there's a job he could quite easily get if he
wanted it—a really _good_ job. It's not that he can't, it's simply that
he won't.'

[¶145] She explained about the New Albion. Ravelston rubbed his nose.

[¶146] 'Yes. As a matter of fact I've heard all about that. We talked it over
when he left the New Albion.'

[¶147] 'But you don't think he was right to leave them?' she said, promptly
divining that Ravelston _did_ think Gordon right.

[¶148] 'Well—I grant you it wasn't very wise. But there's a certain amount of
truth in what he says. Capitalism's corrupt and we ought to keep outside
it—that's his idea. It's not practicable, but in a way it's sound.'

[¶149] 'Oh, I dare say it's all right as a theory! But when he's out of work
and when he could get this job if he chose to ask for it—_surely_ you
don't think he's right to refuse?'

[¶150] 'Not from a commonsense point of view. But in principle—well, yes.'

[¶151] 'Oh, in principle! We can't afford principles, people like us. _That's_
what Gordon doesn't seem to understand.'

[¶152] Gordon did not leave the flat next morning. One resolves to do these
things, one _wants_ to do them; but when the time comes, in the cold
morning light, they somehow don't get done. He would stay just one day
more, he told himself; and then again it was 'just one day more', until
five whole days had passed since Rosemary's visit, and he was still
lurking there, living on Ravelston, with not even a flicker of a job in
sight. He still made some pretence of searching for work, but he only
did it to save his face. He would go out and loaf for hours in public
libraries, and then come home to lie on the bed in the spare bedroom,
dressed except for his shoes, smoking endless cigarettes. And for all
that inertia and the fear of the streets still held him there, those
five days were awful, damnable, unspeakable. There is nothing more
dreadful in the world than to live in somebody else's house, eating his
bread and doing nothing in return for it. And perhaps it is worst of all
when your benefactor won't for a moment admit that he is your
benefactor. Nothing could have exceeded Ravelston's delicacy. He would
have perished rather than admit that Gordon was sponging on him. He had
paid Gordon's fine, he had paid his arrears of rent, he had kept him for
a week and he had 'lent' him two pounds on top of that; but it was
nothing, it was a mere arrangement between friends, Gordon would do the
same for him another time. From time to time Gordon made feeble efforts
to escape, which always ended in the same way.

[¶153] 'Look here, Ravelston, I can't stay here any longer. You've kept me long
enough. I'm going to clear out tomorrow morning.'

[¶154] 'But my dear old chap! Do be sensible. You haven't——' But no! Not even
now, when Gordon was openly on the rocks, could Ravelston say, 'You
haven't got any money.' One can't say things like that. He compromised:
'Where are you going to live, anyway?'

[¶155] 'God knows—I don't care. There are common lodging-houses and places.
I've got a few bob left.'

[¶156] 'Don't be such an ass. You'd much better stay here till you've found a
job.'

[¶157] 'But it might be months, I tell you. I can't live on you like this.'

[¶158] 'Rot, my dear chap! I like having you here.'

[¶159] But of course, in his inmost heart, he didn't really like having Gordon
there. How should he? It was an impossible situation. There was a
tension between them all the time. It is always so when one person is
living on another. However delicately it is disguised, charity is still
horrible; there is a malaise, almost a secret hatred, between the giver
and the receiver. Gordon knew that his friendship with Ravelston would
never be the same again. Whatever happened afterwards, the memory of
this evil time would be between them. The feeling of his dependent
position, of being in the way, unwanted, a nuisance, was with him night
and day. At meals he would scarcely eat, he would not smoke Ravelston's
cigarettes, but bought himself cigarettes out of his few remaining
shillings. He would not even light the gas-fire in his bedroom. He would
have made himself invisible if he could. Every day, of course, people
were coming and going at the flat and at the office. All of them saw
Gordon and grasped his status. Another of Ravelston's pet scroungers,
they all said. He even detected a gleam of professional jealousy in one
or two of the hangers-on of _Antichrist_. Three times during that week
Hermione Slater came. After his first encounter with her he fled from
the flat as soon as she appeared; on one occasion, when she came at
night, he had to stay out of doors till after midnight. Mrs Beaver, the
charwoman, had also 'seen through' Gordon. She knew his type. He was
another of these good-for nothing young 'writing gentlemen' who sponged
on poor Mr Ravelston. So in none too subtle ways she made things
uncomfortable for Gordon. Her favourite trick was to rout him out with
broom and pan—'Now, Mr Comstock, I've got to do this room out, _if_ you
please'—from whichever room he had settled down in.

[¶160] But in the end, unexpectedly and through no effort of his own, Gordon
did get a job. One morning a letter came for Ravelston from Mr
McKechnie. Mr McKechnie had relented—not to the extent of taking Gordon
back, of course, but to the extent of helping him to find another job.
He said that a Mr Cheeseman, a bookseller in Lambeth, was looking for an
assistant. From what he said it was evident that Gordon could get the
job if he applied for it; it was equally evident that there was some
snag about the job. Gordon had vaguely heard of Mr Cheeseman—in the
book trade everybody knows everybody else. In his heart the news bored
him. He didn't really want this job. He didn't want ever to work again;
all he wanted was to sink, sink, effortless, down into the mud. But he
couldn't disappoint Ravelston after all Ravelston had done for him. So
the same morning he went down to Lambeth to enquire about the job.

[¶161] The shop was in the Waterloo Road. It was a poky, mean-looking shop, and
the name over it, in faded gilt, was not Cheeseman but Eldridge. In the
window, however, there were some valuable calf folios, and some
sixteenth-century maps which Gordon thought must be worth money.
Evidently Mr Cheeseman specialised in 'rare' books. Gordon plucked up
his courage and went in.

[¶162] As the doorbell ping'd, a tiny, evil-looking creature, with a sharp nose
and heavy black eyebrows, emerged from the office behind the shop. He
looked up at Gordon with a kind of nosy malice. When he spoke it was in
an extraordinary clipped manner, as though he were biting each word in
half before it escaped from him. 'Ot c'n I do f'yer?'—that
approximately was what it sounded like. Gordon explained why he had
come. Mr Cheeseman shot a meaning glance at him and answered in the same
clipped manner as before:

[¶163] 'Oh, eh? Comstock, eh? Come 'is way. Got mi office back here. Bin
'specting you.'

[¶164] Gordon followed him. Mr Cheeseman was a rather sinister little man,
almost small enough to be called a dwarf, with very black hair, and
slightly deformed. As a rule a dwarf, when malformed, has a full-sized
torso and practically no legs. With Mr Cheeseman it was the other way
about. His legs were of normal length, but the top half of his body was
so short that his buttocks seemed to sprout almost immediately below his
shoulder blades. This gave him, in walking, a resemblance to a pair of
scissors. He had the powerful bony shoulders of the dwarf, the large
ugly hands, and the sharp nosing movements of the head. His clothes had
that peculiar hardened, shiny texture of clothes that are very old and
very dirty. They were just going into the office when the doorbell
ping'd again, and a customer came in, holding out a book from the
sixpenny box outside and half a crown. Mr Cheeseman did not take the
change out of the till—apparently there was no till—but produced a
very greasy wash-leather purse from some secret place under his
waistcoat. He handled the purse, which was almost lost in his big hands,
in a peculiarly secretive way, as though trying to hide it from sight.

[¶165] 'I like t'keep mi money i' mi pocket,' he explained, with an upward
glance, as they went into the office.

[¶166] It was apparent that Mr Cheeseman clipped his words from a notion that
words cost money and ought not to be wasted. In the office they had a
talk, and Mr Cheeseman extorted from Gordon the confession that he had
been sacked for drunkenness. As a matter of fact he knew all about this
already. He had heard about Gordon from Mr McKechnie, whom he had met at
an auction a few days earlier. He had pricked up his ears when he heard
the story, for he was on the look-out for an assistant, and clearly an
assistant who had been sacked for drunkenness would come at reduced
wages. Gordon saw that his drunkenness was going to be used as a weapon
against him. Yet Mr Cheeseman did not seem absolutely unfriendly. He
seemed to be the kind of person who will cheat you if he can, and bully
you if you give him the chance, but who will also regard you with a
contemptuous good-humour. He took Gordon into his confidence, talked of
conditions in the trade and boasted with much chuckling of his own
astuteness. He had a peculiar chuckle, his mouth curving upwards at the
corners and his large nose seeming about to disappear into it.

[¶167] Recently, he told Gordon, he had had an idea for a profitable side-line.
He was going to start a twopenny library; but it would have to be quite
separate from the shop, because anything so low-class would frighten
away the book-lovers who came to the shop in search of 'rare' books. He
had taken premises a little distance away, and in the lunch-hour he took
Gordon to see them. They were further down the dreary street, between a
fly-blown ham-and-beef shop and a smartish undertaker. The ads in the
undertaker's window caught Gordon's eye. It seems you can get
underground for as little as two pounds ten nowadays. You can even get
buried on the hire-purchase. There was also an ad for
cremations—'Reverent, Sanitary and Inexpensive.'

[¶168] The premises consisted of a single narrow room—a mere pipe of a room
with a window as wide as itself, furnished with a cheap desk, one chair
and a card index. The new-painted shelves were ready and empty. This was
not, Gordon saw at a glance, going to be the kind of library that he had
presided over at McKechnie's. McKechnie's library had been comparatively
highbrow. It had dredged no deeper than Dell, and it had even had books
by Lawrence and Huxley. But this was one of those cheap and evil little
libraries ('mushroom libraries', they are called) which are springing up
all over London and are deliberately aimed at the uneducated. In
libraries like these there is not a single book that is ever mentioned
in the reviews or that any civilised person has ever heard of. The books
are published by special low-class firms and turned out by wretched
hacks at the rate of four a year, as mechanically as sausages and with
much less skill. In effect they are merely fourpenny novelettes
disguised as novels, and they only cost the library-proprietor one and
eightpence a volume. Mr Cheeseman explained that he had not ordered the
books yet. He spoke of 'ordering the books' as one might speak of
ordering a ton of coals. He was going to start with five hundred
assorted titles, he said. The shelves were already marked off into
sections—'Sex', 'Crime', 'Wild West', and so forth.

[¶169] He offered Gordon the job. It was very simple. All you had to do was to
remain there ten hours a day, hand out the books, take the money and
choke off the more obvious book-pinchers. The pay, he added with a
measuring, sidelong glance, was thirty shillings a week.

[¶170] Gordon accepted promptly. Mr Cheeseman was perhaps disappointed. He had
expected an argument, and would have enjoyed crushing Gordon by
reminding him that beggars can't be choosers. But Gordon was satisfied.
The job would do. There was no _trouble_ about a job like this; no room
for ambition, no effort, no hope. Ten bob less—ten bob nearer the mud.
It was what he wanted.

[¶171] He 'borrowed' another two pounds from Ravelston and took a furnished
bed-sitting-room, eight bob a week, in a filthy alley parallel to
Lambeth Cut. Mr Cheeseman ordered the five hundred assorted titles, and
Gordon started work on the twentieth of December. This, as it happened,
was his thirtieth birthday.

## 10. X

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/10/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/10/#p-N

[¶0] Under ground, under ground! Down in the safe soft womb of earth, where
there is no getting of jobs or losing of jobs, no relatives or friends
to plague you, no hope, fear, ambition, honour, duty—no _duns_ of any
kind. That was where he wished to be.

[¶1] Yet it was not death, actual physical death, that he wished for. It was
a queer feeling that he had. It had been with him ever since that
morning when he had woken up in the police cell. The evil, mutinous mood
that comes after drunkenness seemed to have set into a habit. That
drunken night had marked a period in his life. It had dragged him
downward with strange suddenness. Before, he had fought against the
money-code, and yet he had clung to his wretched remnant of decency. But
now it was precisely from decency that he wanted to escape. He wanted to
go down, deep down, into some world where decency no longer mattered; to
cut the strings of his self-respect, to submerge himself—to _sink_, as
Rosemary had said. It was all bound up in his mind with the thought of
being _under ground_. He liked to think about the lost people, the
underground people, tramps, beggars, criminals, prostitutes. It is a
good world that they inhabit, down there in their frowzy kips and
spikes. He liked to think that beneath the world of money there is that
great sluttish underworld where failure and success have no meaning; a
sort of kingdom of ghosts where all are equal. That was where he wished
to be, down in the ghost-kingdom, _below_ ambition. It comforted him
somehow to think of the smoke-dim slums of South London sprawling on and
on, a huge graceless wilderness where you could lose yourself for ever.

[¶2] And in a way this job was what he wanted; at any rate, it was something
near what he wanted. Down there in Lambeth, in winter, in the murky
streets where the sepia-shadowed faces of tea-drunkards drifted through
the mist, you had a _submerged_ feeling. Down here you had no contact
with money or with culture. No highbrow customers to whom you had to act
the highbrow; no one who was capable of asking you, in that prying way
that prosperous people have, 'What are you, with your brains and
education, doing in a job like this?' You were just part of the slum,
and, like all slum-dwellers, taken for granted. The youths and girls and
draggled middle-aged women who came to the library scarcely even spotted
the fact that Gordon was an educated man. He was just 'the bloke at the
library', and practically one of themselves.

[¶3] The job itself, of course, was of inconceivable futility. You just sat
there, ten hours a day, six hours on Thursdays, handing out books,
registering them and receiving twopences. Between whiles there was
nothing to do except read. There was nothing worth watching in the
desolate street outside. The principal event of the day was when the
hearse drove up to the undertaker's establishment next door. This had a
faint interest for Gordon, because the dye was wearing off one of the
horses and it was assuming by degrees a curious purplish-brown shade.
Much of the time, when no customers came, he spent reading the
yellow-jacketed trash that the library contained. Books of that type you
could read at the rate of one an hour. And they were the kind of books
that suited him nowadays. It is real 'escape literature', that stuff in
the twopenny libraries. Nothing has ever been devised that puts less
strain on the intelligence; even a film, by comparison, demands a
certain effort. And so when a customer demanded a book of this category
or that, whether it was 'Sex' or 'Crime' or 'Wild West' or '_Ro_mance'
(always with the accent on the o), Gordon was ready with expert advice.

[¶4] Mr Cheeseman was not a bad person to work for, so long as you understood
that if you worked till the Day of Judgement you would never get a rise
of wages. Needless to say, he suspected Gordon of pinching the
till-money. After a week or two he devised a new system of booking, by
which he could tell how many books had been taken out and check this
with the day's takings. But it was still (he reflected) in Gordon's
power to issue books and make no record of them; and so the possibility
that Gordon might be cheating him of sixpence or even a shilling a day
continued to trouble him, like the pea under the princess's mattress.
Yet he was not absolutely unlikeable, in his sinister dwarfish way. In
the evenings, after he had shut the shop, when he came along to the
library to collect the day's takings, he would stay talking to Gordon
for a while and recounting with nosy chuckles any particularly astute
swindles that he had worked lately. From these conversations Gordon
pieced together Mr Cheeseman's history. He had been brought up in the
old-clothes trade, which was his spiritual vocation, so to speak, and
had inherited the bookshop from an uncle three years ago. At that time
it was one of those dreadful bookshops in which there are not even any
shelves, in which the books lie about in monstrous dusty piles with no
attempt at classification. It was frequented to some extent by
book-collectors, because there was occasionally a valuable book among
the piles of rubbish, but mainly it kept going by selling second-hand
paper-covered thrillers at twopence each. Over this dust-heap Mr
Cheeseman had presided, at first, with intense disgust. He loathed books
and had not yet grasped that there was money to be made out of them. He
was still keeping his old-clothes shop going by means of a deputy, and
intended to return to it as soon as he could get a good offer for the
bookshop. But presently it was borne in upon him that books, properly
handled, are worth money. As soon as he had made this discovery he
developed an astonishing flair for book-dealing. Within two years he had
worked his shop up till it was one of the best 'rare' bookshops of its
size in London. To him a book was as purely an article of merchandise as
a pair of second-hand trousers. He had never in his life _read_ a book
himself, nor could he conceive why anyone should want to do so. His
attitude towards the collectors who pored so lovingly over his rare
editions was that of a sexually cold prostitute towards her clientèle.
Yet he seemed to know by the mere feel of a book whether it was valuable
or not. His head was a perfect mine of auction-records and first-edition
dates, and he had a marvellous nose for a bargain. His favourite way of
acquiring stock was to buy up the libraries of people who had just died,
especially clergymen. Whenever a clergyman died Mr Cheeseman was on the
spot with the promptness of a vulture. Clergymen, he explained to
Gordon, so often have good libraries and ignorant widows. He lived over
the shop, was unmarried, of course, and had no amusements and seemingly
no friends. Gordon used sometimes to wonder what Mr Cheeseman did with
himself in the evenings, when he was not out snooping after bargains. He
had a mental picture of Mr Cheeseman sitting in a double-locked room,
with the shutters over the windows, counting piles of half-crowns and
bundles of pound notes which he stowed carefully away in cigarette-tins.

[¶5] Mr Cheeseman bullied Gordon and was on the lookout for an excuse to dock
his wages; yet he did not bear him any particular ill-will. Sometimes in
the evening when he came to the library he would produce a greasy packet
of Smith's Potato Crisps from his pocket, and, holding it out, say in
his clipped style:

[¶6] 'Hassome chips?'

[¶7] The packet was always grasped so firmly in his large hand that it was
impossible to extract more than two or three chips. But he meant it as a
friendly gesture.

[¶8] As for the place where Gordon lived, in Brewer's Yard, parallel to
Lambeth Cut on the south side, it was a filthy kip. His bed-sitting-room
was eight shillings a week and was just under the roof. With its sloping
ceiling—it was a room shaped like a wedge of cheese—and its skylight
window, it was the nearest thing to the proverbial poet's garret that he
had ever lived in. There was a large, low, broken-backed bed with a
ragged patchwork quilt and sheets that were changed once fortnightly; a
deal table ringed by dynasties of teapots; a rickety kitchen chair; a
tin basin for washing in; a gas-ring in the fender. The bare floorboards
had never been stained but were dark with dirt. In the cracks in the
pink wallpaper dwelt multitudes of bugs; however, this was winter and
they were torpid unless you over-warmed the room. You were expected to
make your own bed. Mrs Meakin, the landlady, theoretically 'did out' the
rooms daily, but four days out of five she found the stairs too much for
her. Nearly all the lodgers cooked their own squalid meals in their
bedrooms. There was no gas-stove, of course; just the gas-ring in the
fender, and, down two flights of stairs, a large evil-smelling sink
which was common to the whole house.

[¶9] In the garret adjoining Gordon's there lived a tall handsome old woman
who was not quite right in the head and whose face was often as black as
a Negro's from dirt. Gordon could never make out where the dirt came
from. It looked like coal dust. The children of the neighbourhood used
to shout 'Blackie!' after her as she stalked along the pavement like a
tragedy queen, talking to herself. On the floor below there was a woman
with a baby which cried, cried everlastingly; also a young couple who
used to have frightful quarrels and frightful reconciliations which you
could hear all over the house. On the ground floor a housepainter, his
wife and five children existed on the dole and an occasional odd job.
Mrs Meakin, the landlady, inhabited some burrow or other in the
basement. Gordon liked this house. It was all so different from Mrs
Wisbeach's. There was no mingy lower-middle-class decency here, no
feeling of being spied upon and disapproved of. So long as you paid your
rent you could do almost exactly as you liked; come home drunk and crawl
up the stairs, bring women in at all hours, lie in bed all day if you
wanted to. Mother Meakin was not the type to interfere. She was a
dishevelled, jelly-soft old creature with a figure like a cottage loaf.
People said that in her youth she had been no better than she ought, and
probably it was true. She had a loving manner towards anything in
trousers. Yet it seemed that traces of respectability lingered in her
breast. On the day when Gordon installed himself he heard her puffing
and struggling up the stairs, evidently bearing some burden. She knocked
softly on the door with her knee, or the place where her knee ought to
have been, and he let her in.

[¶10] ''Ere y'are, then,' she wheezed kindly as she came in with her arms
full. 'I knew as 'ow you'd like this. I likes all my lodgers to feel
comfortable-like. Lemme put it on the table for you. There! That makes
the room look a bit more 'omelike, don't it now?'

[¶11] It was an aspidistra. It gave him a bit of a twinge to see it. Even
here, in this final refuge! Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? But it was
a poor weedy specimen—indeed, it was obviously dying.

[¶12] In this place he could have been happy if only people would let him
alone. It was a place where you _could_ be happy, in a sluttish way. To
spend your days in meaningless mechanical work, work that could be
slovened through in a sort of coma; to come home and light the fire when
you had any coal (there were sixpenny bags at the grocer's) and get the
stuffy little attic warm; to sit over a squalid meal of bacon,
bread-and-marg. and tea, cooked over the gas-ring; to lie on the frowzy
bed, reading a thriller or doing the Brain Brighteners in _Tit Bits_
until the small hours; it was the kind of life he wanted. All his habits
had deteriorated rapidly. He never shaved more than three times a week
nowadays, and only washed the parts that showed. There were good public
baths near by, but he hardly went to them as often as once in a month.
He never made his bed properly, but just turned back the sheets, and
never washed his few crocks till all of them had been used twice over.
There was a film of dust on everything. In the fender there was always a
greasy frying-pan and a couple of plates coated with the remnants of
fried eggs. One night the bugs came out of one of the cracks and marched
across the ceiling two by two. He lay on his bed, his hands under his
head, watching them with interest. Without regret, almost intentionally,
he was letting himself go to pieces. At the bottom of all his feelings
there was a sulkiness, a _je m'en fous_ in the face of the world. Life
had beaten him; but you can still beat life by turning your face away.
Better to sink than rise. Down, down into the ghost-kingdom, the shadowy
world where shame, effort, decency do not exist!

[¶13] To sink! How easy it ought to be, since there are so few competitors!
But the strange thing is that often it is harder to sink than to rise.
There is always something that drags one upwards. After all, one is
never quite alone; there are always friends, lovers, relatives. Everyone
Gordon knew seemed to be writing him letters, pitying him or bullying
him. Aunt Angela had written, Uncle Walter had written, Rosemary had
written over and over again, Ravelston had written, Julia had written.
Even Flaxman had sent a line to wish him luck. Flaxman's wife had
forgiven him, and he was back at Peckham, in aspidistral bliss. Gordon
hated getting letters nowadays. They were a link with that other world
from which he was trying to escape.

[¶14] Even Ravelston had turned against him. That was after he had been to see
Gordon in his new lodgings. Until this visit he had not realised what
kind of neighbourhood Gordon was living in. As his taxi drew up at the
corner, in the Waterloo Road, a horde of ragged shock-haired boys came
swooping from nowhere, to fight round the taxi door like fish at a bait.
Three of them clung to the handle and hauled the door open
simultaneously. Their servile, dirty little faces, wild with hope, made
him feel sick. He flung some pennies among them and fled up the alley
without looking at them again. The narrow pavements were smeared with a
quantity of dogs' excrement that was surprising, seeing that there were
no dogs in sight. Down in the basement Mother Meakin was boiling a
haddock, and you could smell it half way up the stairs. In the attic
Ravelston sat on the rickety chair, with the ceiling sloping down just
behind his head. The fire was out and there was no light in the room
except four candles guttering in a saucer beside the aspidistra. Gordon
lay on the ragged bed, fully dressed but with no shoes on. He had
scarcely stirred when Ravelston came in. He just lay there, flat on his
back, sometimes smiling a little, as though there were some private joke
between himself and the ceiling. The room had already the stuffy
sweetish smell of rooms that have been lived in a long time and never
cleaned. There were dirty crocks lying about in the fender.

[¶15] 'Would you like a cup of tea?' Gordon said, without stirring.

[¶16] 'No, thanks awfully—no,' said Ravelston, a little too hastily.

[¶17] He had seen the brown-stained cups in the fender and the repulsive
common sink downstairs. Gordon knew quite well why Ravelston refused the
tea. The whole atmosphere of this place had given Ravelston a kind of
shock. That awful mixed smell of slops and haddock on the stairs! He
looked at Gordon, supine on the ragged bed. And, dash it, Gordon was a
gentleman! At another time he would have repudiated that thought; but in
this atmosphere pious humbug was impossible. All the class-instincts
which he believed himself not to possess rose in revolt. It was dreadful
to think of anyone with brains and refinement living in a place like
this. He wanted to tell Gordon to get out of it, pull himself together,
earn a decent income and live like a gentleman. But of course he didn't
say so. You can't say things like that. Gordon was aware of what was
going on inside Ravelston's head. It amused him, rather. He felt no
gratitude towards Ravelston for coming here and seeing him; on the other
hand, he was not ashamed of his surroundings as he would once have been.
There was a faint, amused malice in the way he spoke.

[¶18] 'You think I'm a BF, of course,' he remarked to the ceiling.

[¶19] 'No, I don't. Why should I?'

[¶20] 'Yes, you do. You think I'm a BF to stay in this filthy place instead of
getting a proper job. You think I ought to try for that job at the New
Albion.'

[¶21] 'No, dash it! I never thought that. I see your point absolutely. I told
you that before. I think you're perfectly right in principle.'

[¶22] 'And you think principles are all right so long as one doesn't go and
put them into practice.'

[¶23] 'No. But the question always is, when _is_ one putting them into
practice?'

[¶24] 'It's quite simple. I've made war on money. This is where it's led me.'

[¶25] Ravelston rubbed his nose, then shifted uneasily on his chair.

[¶26] 'The mistake you make, don't you see, is in thinking one can live in a
corrupt society without being corrupt oneself. After all, what do you
achieve by refusing to make money? You're trying to behave as though one
could stand right outside our economic system. But one can't. One's got
to change the system, or one changes nothing. One can't put things right
in a hole-and-corner way, if you take my meaning.'

[¶27] Gordon waved a foot at the buggy ceiling.

[¶28] 'Of course this _is_ a hole-and-corner, I admit.'

[¶29] 'I didn't mean that,' said Ravelston, pained.

[¶30] 'But let's face facts. You think I ought to be looking about for a
_good_ job, don't you?'

[¶31] 'It depends on the job. I think you're quite right not to sell yourself
to that advertising agency. But it does seem rather a pity that you
should stay in that wretched job you're in at present. After all, you
_have_ got talents. You ought to be using them somehow.'

[¶32] 'There are my poems,' said Gordon, smiling at his private joke.

[¶33] Ravelston looked abashed. This remark silenced him. Of course, there
_were_ Gordon's poems. There was _London Pleasures_, for instance.
Ravelston knew, and Gordon knew, and each knew that the other knew, that
_London Pleasures_ would never be finished. Never again, probably, would
Gordon write a line of poetry; never, at least, while he remained in
this vile place, this blind-alley job and this defeated mood. He had
finished with all that. But this could not be said, as yet. The pretence
was still kept up that Gordon was a struggling poet—the conventional
poet-in-garret.

[¶34] It was not long before Ravelston rose to go. This smelly place oppressed
him, and it was increasingly obvious that Gordon did not want him here.
He moved hesitantly towards the door, pulling on his gloves, then came
back again, pulling off his left glove and flicking it against his leg.

[¶35] 'Look here, Gordon, you won't mind my saying it—this is a filthy place,
you know. This house, this street—everything,'

[¶36] 'I know. It's a pigsty. It suits me.'

[¶37] 'But do you _have_ to live in a place like this?'

[¶38] 'My dear chap, you know what my wages are. Thirty bob a week.'

[¶39] 'Yes, but——! Surely there _are_ better places? What rent are you
paying?'

[¶40] 'Eight bob.'

[¶41] 'Eight bob? You could get a fairly decent unfurnished room for that.
Something a bit better than this, anyway. Look here, why don't you take
an unfurnished place and let me lend you ten quid for furniture?'

[¶42] '"Lend" me ten quid! After all you've "lent" me already? _Give_ me ten
quid, you mean.'

[¶43] Ravelston gazed unhappily at the wall. Dash it, what a thing to say! He
said flatly:

[¶44] 'All right, if you like to put it like that. _Give_ you ten quid.'

[¶45] 'But as it happens, you see, I don't want it.'

[¶46] 'But dash it all! You might as well have a decent place to live in.'

[¶47] 'But I don't want a decent place. I want an indecent place. This one,
for instance.'

[¶48] 'But why? Why?'

[¶49] 'It's suited to my station,' said Gordon, turning his face to the wall.

[¶50] A few days later Ravelston wrote him a long, diffident sort of letter.
It reiterated most of what he had said in their conversation. Its
general effect was that Ravelston saw Gordon's point entirely, that
there was a lot of truth in what Gordon said, that Gordon was absolutely
right in principle, but——! It was the obvious, the inevitable 'but'.
Gordon did not answer. It was several months before he saw Ravelston
again. Ravelston made various attempts to get in touch with him. It was
a curious fact—rather a shameful fact from a Socialist's point of
view—that the thought of Gordon, who had brains and was of gentle
birth, lurking in that vile place and that almost menial job, worried
him more than the thought of ten thousand unemployed in Middlesbrough.
Several times, in hopes of cheering Gordon up, he wrote asking him to
send contributions to _Antichrist_. Gordon never answered. Their
friendship was at an end, it seemed to him. The evil time when he had
lived on Ravelston had spoiled everything. Charity kills friendship.

[¶51] And then there were Julia and Rosemary. They differed from Ravelston in
this, that they had no shyness about speaking their minds. They did not
say euphemistically that Gordon was 'right in principle'; they knew that
to refuse a 'good' job can never be right. Over and over again they
besought him to go back to the New Albion. The worst was that he had
both of them in pursuit of him together. Before this business they had
never met, but now Rosemary had got to know Julia somehow. They were in
feminine league against him. They used to get together and talk about
the 'maddening' way in which Gordon was behaving. It was the only thing
they had in common, their feminine rage against his 'maddening'
behaviour. Simultaneously and one after the other, by letter and by word
of mouth, they harried him. It was unbearable.

[¶52] Thank God, neither of them had seen his room at Mother Meakin's yet.
Rosemary might have endured it, but the sight of that filthy attic would
have been almost the death of Julia. They had been round to see him at
the library, Rosemary a number of times, Julia once, when she could make
a pretext to get away from the teashop. Even that was bad enough. It
dismayed them to see what a mean, dreary little place the library was.
The job at McKechnie's, though wretchedly paid, had not been the kind of
job that you need actually be ashamed of. It brought Gordon into touch
with cultivated people; seeing that he was a 'writer' himself, it might
conceivably 'lead to something'. But here, in a street that was almost a
slum, serving out yellow-jacketed trash at thirty bob a week—what hope
was there in a job like that? It was just a derelict's job, a
blind-alley job. Evening after evening, walking up and down the dreary
misty street after the library was shut, Gordon and Rosemary argued
about it and about. She kept on and on at him. _Would_ he go back to the
New Albion? _Why_ wouldn't he go back to the New Albion? He always told
her that the New Albion wouldn't take him back. After all, he hadn't
applied for the job and there was no knowing whether he could get it; he
preferred to keep it uncertain. There was something about him now that
dismayed and frightened her. He seemed to have changed and deteriorated
so suddenly. She divined, though he did not speak to her about it, that
desire of his to escape from all effort and all decency, to sink down,
down into the ultimate mud. It was not only from money but from life
itself that he was turning away. They did not argue now as they had
argued in the old days before Gordon had lost his job. In those days she
had not paid much attention to his preposterous theories. His tirades
against the money-morality had been a kind of joke between them. And it
had hardly seemed to matter that time was passing and that Gordon's
chance of earning a decent living was infinitely remote. She had still
thought of herself as a young girl and of the future as limitless. She
had watched him fling away two years of his life—two years of _her_
life, for that matter; and she would have felt it ungenerous to protest.

[¶53] But now she was growing frightened. Time's wingèd chariot was hurrying
near. When Gordon lost his job she had suddenly realised, with the sense
of making a startling discovery, that after all she was no longer very
young. Gordon's thirtieth birthday was past; her own was not far
distant. And what lay ahead of them? Gordon was sinking effortless into
grey, deadly failure. He seemed to _want_ to sink. What hope was there
that they could ever get married now? Gordon knew that she was right.
The situation was impossible. And so the thought, unspoken as yet, grew
gradually in both their minds that they would have to part—for good.

[¶54] One night they were to meet under the railway arches. It was a horrible
January night; no mist, for once, only a vile wind that screeched round
corners and flung dust and torn paper into your face. He waited for her,
a small slouching figure, shabby almost to raggedness, his hair blown
about by the wind. She was punctual, as usual. She ran towards him,
pulled his face down and kissed his cold cheek.

[¶55] 'Gordon, dear, how cold you are! Why did you come out without an
overcoat?'

[¶56] 'My overcoat's up the spout. I thought you knew.'

[¶57] 'Oh, dear! Yes.'

[¶58] She looked up at him, a small frown between her black brows. He looked
so haggard, so despondent, there in the ill-lit archway, his face full
of shadows. She wound her arm through his and pulled him out into the
light.

[¶59] 'Let's keep walking. It's too cold to stand about. I've got something
serious I want to say to you.'

[¶60] 'What?'

[¶61] 'I expect you'll be very angry with me.'

[¶62] 'What is it?'

[¶63] 'This afternoon I went and saw Mr Erskine. I asked leave to speak to him
for a few minutes.'

[¶64] He knew what was coming. He tried to free his arm from hers, but she
held on to it.

[¶65] 'Well?' he said sulkily.

[¶66] 'I spoke to him about you. I asked him if he'd take you back. Of course
he said trade was bad and they couldn't afford to take on new staff and
all that. But I reminded him of what he'd said to you, and he said, Yes,
he'd always thought you were very promising. And in the end he said he'd
be quite ready to find a job for you if you'd come back. So you see I
_was_ right. They _will_ give you the job.'

[¶67] He did not answer. She squeezed his arm. 'So _now_ what do you think
about it?' she said.

[¶68] 'You know what I think,' he said coldly.

[¶69] Secretly he was alarmed and angry. This was what he had been fearing. He
had known all along that she would do it sooner or later. It made the
issue more definite and his own blame clearer. He slouched on, his hands
still in his coat pockets, letting her cling to his arm but not looking
towards her.

[¶70] 'You're angry with me?' she said.

[¶71] 'No, I'm not. But I don't see why you had to do it—behind my back.'

[¶72] That wounded her. She had had to plead very hard before she had managed
to extort that promise from Mr Erskine. And it had needed all her
courage to beard the managing director in his den. She had been in
deadly fear that she might be sacked for doing it. But she wasn't going
to tell Gordon anything of that.

[¶73] 'I don't think you ought to say _behind your back_. After all, I was
only trying to help you.'

[¶74] 'How does it help me to get me the offer of a job I wouldn't touch with
a stick?'

[¶75] 'You mean you won't go back, even now?'

[¶76] 'Never.'

[¶77] 'Why?'

[¶78] '_Must_ we go into it again?' he said wearily.

[¶79] She squeezed his arm with all her strength and pulled him round, making
him face her. There was a kind of desperation in the way she clung to
him. She had made her last effort and it had failed. It was as though
she could feel him receding, fading away from her like a ghost.

[¶80] 'You'll break my heart if you go on like this,' she said.

[¶81] 'I wish you wouldn't trouble about me. It would be so much simpler if
you didn't.'

[¶82] 'But why do you have to throw your life away?'

[¶83] 'I tell you I can't help it. I've got to stick to my guns.'

[¶84] 'You know what this will mean?'

[¶85] With a chill at his heart, and yet with a feeling of resignation, even
of relief, he said: 'You mean we shall have to part—not see each other
again?'

[¶86] They had walked on, and now they emerged into the Westminster Bridge
Road. The wind met them with a scream, whirling at them a cloud of dust
that made both of them duck their heads. They halted again. Her small
face was full of lines, and the cold wind and the cold lamplight did not
improve it.

[¶87] 'You want to get rid of me,' he said.

[¶88] 'No. No. It's not exactly that.'

[¶89] 'But you feel we ought to part.'

[¶90] 'How can we go on like this?' she said desolately.

[¶91] 'It's difficult, I admit.'

[¶92] 'It's all so miserable, so hopeless! What can it ever lead to?'

[¶93] 'So you don't love me after all?' he said.

[¶94] 'I do, I do! You know I do.'

[¶95] 'In a way, perhaps. But not enough to go on loving me when it's certain
I'll never have the money to keep you. You'll have me as a husband, but
not as a lover. It's still a question of money, you see.'

[¶96] 'It is _not_ money, Gordon! It's _not_ that.'

[¶97] 'Yes, it's just money. There's been money between us from the start.
Money, always money!'

[¶98] The scene continued, but not for very much longer. Both of them were
shivering with cold. There is no emotion that matters greatly when one
is standing at a street corner in a biting wind. When finally they
parted it was with no irrevocable farewell. She simply said, 'I must get
back,' kissed him and ran across the road to the tram-stop. Mainly with
relief he watched her go. He could not stop now to ask himself whether
he loved her. Simply he wanted to get away—away from the windy street,
away from scenes and emotional demands, back in the frowzy solitude of
his attic. If there were tears in his eyes it was only from the cold of
the wind.

[¶99] With Julia it was almost worse. She asked him to go and see her one
evening. This was after she had heard, from Rosemary, of Mr Erskine's
offer of a job. The dreadful thing with Julia was that she understood
nothing, absolutely nothing, of his motives. All she understood was that
a 'good' job had been offered him and that he had refused it. She
implored him almost on her knees not to throw this chance away. And when
he told her that his mind was made up, she wept, actually wept. That was
dreadful. The poor goose-like girl, with streaks of grey in her hair,
weeping without grace or dignity in her little Drage-furnished
bed-sitting-room! This was the death of all her hopes. She had watched
the family go down and down, moneyless and childless, into grey
obscurity. Gordon alone had had it in him to succeed; and he, from mad
perverseness, would not. He knew what she was thinking; he had to induce
in himself a kind of brutality to stand firm. It was only because of
Rosemary and Julia that he cared. Ravelston did not matter, because
Ravelston understood. Aunt Angela and Uncle Walter, of course, were
bleating weakly at him in long, fatuous letters. But them he
disregarded.

[¶100] In desperation Julia asked him, what did he mean to _do_ now that he had
flung away his last chance of succeeding in life. He answered simply,
'My poems.' He had said the same to Rosemary and to Ravelston. With
Ravelston the answer had sufficed. Rosemary had no longer any belief in
his poems, but she would not say so. As for Julia, his poems had never
at any time meant anything to her. 'I don't see much sense in writing if
you can't make money out of it,' was what she had always said. And he
himself did not believe in his poems any longer. But he still struggled
to 'write', at least at times. Soon after he changed his lodgings he had
copied out onto clean sheets the completed portions of _London
Pleasures_—not quite four hundred lines, he discovered. Even the labour
of copying it out was a deadly bore. Yet he still worked on it
occasionally; cutting out a line here, altering another there, not
making or even expecting to make any progress. Before long the pages
were as they had been before, a scrawled, grimy labyrinth of words. He
used to carry the wad of grimy manuscript about with him in his pocket.
The feeling of it there upheld him a little; after all it was a kind of
achievement, demonstrable to himself though to nobody else. There it
was, sole product of two years—of a thousand hours' work, it might be.
He had no feeling for it any longer as a poem. The whole concept of
poetry was meaningless to him now. It was only that if _London
Pleasures_ were ever finished it would be something snatched from fate,
a thing created _outside_ the money-world. But he knew, far more clearly
than before, that it never would be finished. How was it possible that
any creative impulse should remain to him, in the life he was living
now? As time went on, even the desire to finish _London Pleasures_
vanished. He still carried the manuscript about in his pocket; but it
was only a gesture, a symbol of his private war. He had finished for
ever with that futile dream of being a 'writer'. After all, was not that
too a species of ambition? He wanted to get away from all that, _below_
all that. Down, down! Into the ghost-kingdom, out of the reach of hope,
out of the reach of fear! Under ground, under ground! That was where he
wished to be.

[¶101] Yet in a way it was not so easy. One night about nine he was lying on
his bed, with the ragged counterpane over his feet, his hands under his
head to keep them warm. The fire was out. The dust was thick on
everything. The aspidistra had died a week ago and was withering upright
in its pot. He slid a shoeless foot from under the counterpane, held it
up and looked at it. His sock was full of holes—there were more holes
than sock. So here he lay, Gordon Comstock, in a slum attic on a ragged
bed, with his feet sticking out of his socks, with one and fourpence in
the world, with three decades behind him and nothing, nothing
accomplished! Surely _now_ he was past redemption? Surely, try as they
would, they couldn't prise him out of a hole like this? He had wanted to
reach the mud—well, this was the mud, wasn't it?

[¶102] Yet he knew that it was not so. That other world, the world of money and
success, is always so strangely near. You don't escape it merely by
taking refuge in dirt and misery. He had been frightened as well as
angry when Rosemary told him about Mr Erskine's offer. It brought the
danger so close to him. A letter, a telephone message, and from this
squalor he could step straight back into the money-world—back to four
quid a week, back to effort and decency and slavery. Going to the devil
isn't so easy as it sounds. Sometimes your salvation hunts you down like
the Hound of Heaven.

[¶103] For a while he lay in an almost mindless state, gazing at the ceiling.
The utter futility of just lying there, dirty and cold, comforted him a
little. But presently he was roused by a light tap at the door. He did
not stir. It was Mother Meakin, presumably, though it did not sound like
her knock.

[¶104] 'Come in,' he said.

[¶105] The door opened. It was Rosemary.

[¶106] She stepped in, and then stopped as the dusty sweetish smell of the room
caught her. Even in the bad light of the lamp she could see the state of
filth the room was in—the litter of food and papers on the table, the
grate full of cold ashes, the foul crocks in the fender, the dead
aspidistra. As she came slowly towards the bed she pulled her hat off
and threw it onto the chair.

[¶107] '_What_ a place for you to live in!' she said.

[¶108] 'So you've come back?' he said.

[¶109] 'Yes.'

[¶110] He turned a little away from her, his arm over his face. 'Come back to
lecture me some more, I suppose?'

[¶111] 'No.'

[¶112] 'Then why?'

[¶113] 'Because——'

[¶114] She had knelt down beside the bed. She pulled his arm away, put her face
forward to kiss him, then drew back, surprised, and began to stroke the
hair over his temple with the tips of her fingers.

[¶115] 'Oh, Gordon!'

[¶116] 'What?'

[¶117] 'You've got grey in your hair!'

[¶118] 'Have I? Where?'

[¶119] 'Here—over the temple. There's quite a little patch of it. It must have
happened all of a sudden.'

[¶120] '"My golden locks time hath to silver turned,"' he said indifferently.

[¶121] 'So we're both going grey,' she said.

[¶122] She bent her head to show him the three white hairs on her crown. Then
she wriggled herself onto the bed beside him, put an arm under him,
pulled him towards her, covered his face with kisses. He let her do it.
He did not want this to happen—it was the very thing that he least
wanted. But she had wriggled herself beneath him; they were breast to
breast. Her body seemed to melt into his. By the expression of her face
he knew what had brought her here. After all, she was virgin. She did
not know what she was doing. It was magnanimity, pure magnanimity, that
moved her. His wretchedness had drawn her back to him. Simply because he
was penniless and a failure she had got to yield to him, even if it was
only once.

[¶123] 'I had to come back,' she said.

[¶124] 'Why?'

[¶125] 'I couldn't bear to think of you here alone. It seemed so awful, leaving
you like that.'

[¶126] 'You did quite right to leave me. You'd much better not have come back.
You know we can't ever get married.'

[¶127] 'I don't care. That isn't how one behaves to people one loves. I don't
care whether you marry me or not. I love you.'

[¶128] 'This isn't wise,' he said.

[¶129] 'I don't care. I wish I'd done it years ago.'

[¶130] 'We'd much better not.'

[¶131] 'Yes.'

[¶132] 'No.'

[¶133] 'Yes!'

[¶134] After all, she was too much for him. He had wanted her so long, and he
could not stop to weigh the consequences. So it was done at last,
without much pleasure, on Mother Meakin's dingy bed. Presently Rosemary
got up and rearranged her clothes. The room, though stuffy, was
dreadfully cold. They were both shivering a little. She pulled the
coverlet further over Gordon. He lay without stirring, his back turned
to her, his face hidden against his arm. She knelt down beside the bed,
took his other hand and laid it for a moment against her cheek. He
scarcely noticed her. Then she shut the door quietly behind her and
tiptoed down the bare, evil-smelling stairs. She felt dismayed,
disappointed and very cold.

## 11. XI

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/11/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/11/#p-N

[¶0] Spring, spring! Bytuene Mershe ant Averil, when spray beginneth to
spring! When shaws be sheene and swards full fayre, and leaves both
large and longe! When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, in
the spring time, the only pretty ring time, when the birds do sing,
hey-ding-a-ding ding, cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-wee, ta-witta-woo! And so on
and so on and soon. See almost any poet between the Bronze Age and 1850.

[¶1] But how absurd that even now, in the era of central heating and tinned
peaches, a thousand so-called poets are still writing in the same
strain! For what difference does spring or winter or any other time of
year make to the average civilised person nowadays? In a town like
London the most striking seasonal change, apart from the mere change of
temperature, is in the things you see lying about on the pavement. In
late winter it is mainly cabbage leaves. In July you tread on cherry
stones, in November on burnt-out fireworks. Towards Christmas the orange
peel grows thicker. It was a different matter in the Middle Ages. There
was some sense in writing poems about spring when spring meant fresh
meat and green vegetables after months of frowsting in some windowless
hut on a diet of salt fish and mouldy bread.

[¶2] If it was spring Gordon failed to notice it. March in Lambeth did not
remind you of Persephone. The days grew longer, there were vile dusty
winds and sometimes in the sky patches of harsh blue appeared. Probably
there were a few sooty buds on the trees if you cared to look for them.
The aspidistra, it turned out, had not died after all; the withered
leaves had dropped off it, but it was putting forth a couple of dull
green shoots near its base.

[¶3] Gordon had been three months at the library now. The stupid slovenly
routine did not irk him. The library had swelled to a thousand 'assorted
titles' and was bringing Mr Cheeseman a pound a week clear profit, so Mr
Cheeseman was happy after his fashion. He was, nevertheless, nurturing a
secret grudge against Gordon. Gordon had been sold to him, so to speak,
as a drunkard. He had expected Gordon to get drunk and miss a day's work
at least once, thus giving a sufficient pretext for docking his wages;
but Gordon had failed to get drunk. Queerly enough, he had no impulse to
drink nowadays. He would have gone without beer even if he could have
afforded it. Tea seemed a better poison. All his desires and discontents
had dwindled. He was better off on thirty bob a week than he had been
previously on two pounds. The thirty bob covered, without too much
stretching, his rent, cigarettes, a washing bill of about a shilling a
week, a little fuel, and his meals, which consisted almost entirely of
bacon, bread-and-marg. and tea, and cost about two bob a day, gas
included. Sometimes he even had sixpence over for a seat at a cheap but
lousy picture-house in the Westminster Bridge Road. He still carried the
grimy manuscript of _London Pleasures_ to and fro in his pocket, but it
was from mere force of habit; he had dropped even the pretence of
working. All his evenings were spent in the same way. There in the
remote frowzy attic, by the fire if there was any coal left, in bed if
there wasn't, with teapot and cigarettes handy, reading, always reading.
He read nothing nowadays except twopenny weekly papers. _Tit Bits_,
_Answers_, _Peg's Paper_, _The Gem_, _The Magnet_, _Home Notes_, _The
Girl's Own Paper_—they were all the same. He used to get them a dozen
at a time from the shop. Mr Cheeseman had great dusty stacks of them,
left over from his uncle's day and used for wrapping paper. Some of them
were as much as twenty years old.

[¶4] He had not seen Rosemary for weeks past. She had written a number of
times and then, for some reason, abruptly stopped writing. Ravelston had
written once, asking him to contribute an article on twopenny libraries
to _Antichrist_. Julia had sent a desolate little letter, giving family
news. Aunt Angela had had bad colds all the winter, and Uncle Walter was
complaining of bladder trouble. Gordon did not answer any of their
letters. He would have forgotten their existence if he could. They and
their affection were only an encumbrance. He would not be free, free to
sink down into the ultimate mud, till he had cut his links with all of
them, even with Rosemary.

[¶5] One afternoon he was choosing a book for a tow-headed factory-girl, when
someone he only saw out of the corner of his eye came into the library
and hesitated just inside the door.

[¶6] 'What kind of book did you want?' he asked the factory-girl.

[¶7] 'Oo—jest a kind of a _ro_mance, please.'

[¶8] Gordon selected a _ro_mance. As he turned, his heart bounded violently.
The person who had just come in was Rosemary. She did not make any sign,
but stood waiting, pale and worried-looking, with something ominous in
her appearance.

[¶9] He sat down to enter the book on the girl's ticket, but his hands had
begun trembling so that he could hardly do it. He pressed the rubber
stamp in the wrong place. The girl trailed out, peeping into the book as
she went. Rosemary was watching Gordon's face. It was a long time since
she had seen him by daylight, and she was struck by the change in him.
He was shabby to the point of raggedness, his face had grown much
thinner and had the dingy, greyish pallor of people who live on bread
and margarine. He looked much older—thirty-five at the least. But
Rosemary herself, did not look quite as usual. She had lost her gay trim
bearing, and her clothes had the appearance of having been thrown on in
a hurry. It was obvious that there was something wrong.

[¶10] He shut the door after the factory-girl. 'I wasn't expecting you,' he
began.

[¶11] 'I had to come. I got away from the studio at lunch time. I told them I
was ill.'

[¶12] 'You don't look well. Here, you'd better sit down.'

[¶13] There was only one chair in the library. He brought it out from behind
the desk and was moving towards her, rather vaguely, to offer some kind
of caress. Rosemary did not sit down, but laid her small hand, from
which she had removed the glove, on the top rung of the chair-back. By
the pressure of her fingers he could see how agitated she was.

[¶14] 'Gordon, I've a most awful thing to tell you. It's happened after all.'

[¶15] 'What's happened?'

[¶16] 'I'm going to have a baby.'

[¶17] 'A baby? Oh, Christ!'

[¶18] He stopped short. For a moment he felt as though someone had struck him
a violent blow under the ribs. He asked the usual fatuous question:

[¶19] 'Are you sure?'

[¶20] 'Absolutely. It's been weeks now. If you knew the time I've had! I kept
hoping and hoping—I took some pills—oh, it was too beastly!'

[¶21] 'A baby! Oh, God, what fools we were! As though we couldn't have
foreseen it!'

[¶22] 'I know. I suppose it was my fault. I——'

[¶23] 'Damn! Here comes somebody.'

[¶24] The door-bell ping'd. A fat, freckled woman with an ugly under-lip came
in at a rolling gait and demanded 'Something with a murder in it.'
Rosemary had sat down and was twisting her glove round and round her
fingers. The fat woman was exacting. Each book that Gordon offered her
she refused on the ground that she had 'had it already' or that it
'looked dry'. The deadly news that Rosemary had brought had unnerved
Gordon. His heart pounding, his entrails constricted, he had to pull out
book after book and assure the fat woman that this was the very book she
was looking for. At last, after nearly ten minutes, he managed to fob
her off with something which she said grudgingly she 'didn't think she'd
had before'.

[¶25] He turned back to Rosemary. 'Well, what the devil are we going to do
about it?' he said as soon as the door had shut.

[¶26] 'I don't see what I can do. If I have this baby I'll lose my job, of
course. But it isn't only that I'm worrying about. It's my people
finding out. My mother—oh, dear! It simply doesn't bear thinking of.'

[¶27] 'Ah, your people! I hadn't thought of them. One's people! What a cursed
incubus they are!'

[¶28] '_My_ people are all right. They've always been good to me. But it's
different with a thing like this.'

[¶29] He took a pace or two up and down. Though the news had scared him he had
not really grasped it as yet. The thought of a baby, his baby, growing
in her womb had awoken in him no emotion except dismay. He did not think
of the baby as a living creature; it was a disaster pure and simple. And
already he saw where it was going to lead.

[¶30] 'We shall have to get married, I suppose,' he said flatly.

[¶31] 'Well, shall we? That's what I came here to ask you.'

[¶32] 'But I suppose you want me to marry you, don't you?'

[¶33] 'Not unless _you_ want to. I'm not going to tie you down. I know it's
against your ideas to marry. You must decide for yourself.'

[¶34] 'But we've no alternative—if you're really going to have this baby.'

[¶35] 'Not necessarily. That's what you've got to decide. Because after all
there _is_ another way.'

[¶36] 'What way?'

[¶37] 'Oh, _you_ know. A girl at the studio gave me an address. A friend of
hers had it done for only five pounds.'

[¶38] That pulled him up. For the first time he grasped, with the only kind of
knowledge that matters, what they were really talking about. The words
'a baby' took on a new significance. They did not mean any longer a mere
abstract disaster, they meant a bud of flesh, a bit of himself, down
there in her belly, alive and growing. His eyes met hers. They had a
strange moment of sympathy such as they had never had before. For a
moment he did feel that in some mysterious way they were one flesh.
Though they were feet apart he felt as though they were joined
together—as though some invisible living cord stretched from her
entrails to his. He knew then that it was a dreadful thing they were
contemplating—a blasphemy, if that word had any meaning. Yet if it had
been put otherwise he might not have recoiled from it. It was the
squalid detail of the five pounds that brought it home.

[¶39] 'No fear!' he said. 'Whatever happens we're not going to do _that_. It's
disgusting.'

[¶40] 'I know it is. But I can't have the baby without being married.'

[¶41] 'No! If that's the alternative I'll marry you. I'd sooner cut my right
hand off than do a thing like that.'

[¶42] Ping! went the door-bell. Two ugly louts in cheap bright blue suits, and
a girl with a fit of the giggles, came in. One of the youths asked with
a sort of sheepish boldness for 'something with a kick in it—something
smutty'. Silently, Gordon indicated the shelves where the 'sex' books
were kept. There were hundreds of them in the library. They had titles
like _Secrets of Paris_ and _The Man She Trusted_; on their tattered
yellow jackets were pictures of half-naked girls lying on divans with
men in dinner-jackets standing over them. The stories inside, however,
were painfully harmless. The two youths and the girl ranged among them,
sniggering over the pictures on their covers, the girl letting out
little squeals and pretending to be shocked. They disgusted Gordon so
much that he turned his back on them till they had chosen their books.

[¶43] When they had gone he came back to Rosemary's chair. He stood behind
her, took hold of her small firm shoulders, then slid a hand inside her
coat and felt the warmth of her breast. He liked the strong springy
feeling of her body; he liked to think that down there, a guarded seed,
his baby was growing. She put a hand up and caressed the hand that was
on her breast, but did not speak. She was waiting for him to decide.

[¶44] 'If I marry you I shall have to turn respectable,' he said musingly.

[¶45] 'Could you?' she said with a touch of her old manner.

[¶46] 'I mean I shall have to get a proper job—go back to the New Albion. I
suppose they'd take me back.'

[¶47] He felt her grow very still and knew that she had been waiting for this.
Yet she was determined to play fair. She was not going to bully him or
cajole him.

[¶48] 'I never said I wanted you to do that. I want you to marry me—yes,
because of the baby. But it doesn't follow you've got to keep me.'

[¶49] 'There's no sense in marrying if I can't keep you. Suppose I married you
when I was like I am at present—no money and no proper job? What would
you do then?'

[¶50] 'I don't know. I'd go on working as long as I could. And afterwards,
when the baby got too obvious—well, I suppose I'd have to go home to
father and mother.'

[¶51] 'That would be jolly for you, wouldn't it? But you were so anxious for
me to go back to the New Albion before. You haven't changed your mind?'

[¶52] 'I've thought things over. I know you'd hate to be tied to a regular
job. I don't blame you. You've got your own life to live.'

[¶53] He thought it over a little while longer. 'It comes down to this. Either
I marry you and go back to the New Albion, or you go to one of those
filthy doctors and get yourself messed about for five pounds.'

[¶54] At that she twisted herself out of his grasp and stood up facing him.
His blunt words had upset her. They had made the issue clearer and
uglier than before.

[¶55] 'Oh, why did you say that?'

[¶56] 'Well, those _are_ the alternatives.'

[¶57] 'I'd never thought of it like that. I came here meaning to be fair. And
now it sounds as if I was trying to bully you into it—trying to play on
your feelings by threatening to get rid of the baby. A sort of beastly
blackmail.'

[¶58] 'I didn't mean that. I was only stating facts.'

[¶59] Her face was full of lines, the black brows drawn together. But she had
sworn to herself that she would not make a scene. He could guess what
this meant to her. He had never met her people, but he could imagine
them. He had some notion of what it might mean to go back to a country
town with an illegitimate baby; or, what was almost as bad, with a
husband who couldn't keep you. But she was going to play fair. No
blackmail! She drew a sharp inward breath, taking a decision.

[¶60] 'All right, then, I'm not going to hold _that_ over your head. It's too
mean. Marry me or don't marry me, just as you like. But I'll have the
baby, anyway.'

[¶61] 'You'd do that? Really?'

[¶62] 'Yes, I think so.'

[¶63] He took her in his arms. Her coat had come open, her body was warm
against him. He thought he would be a thousand kinds of fool if he let
her go. Yet the alternative was impossible, and he did not see it any
less clearly because he held her in his arms.

[¶64] 'Of course, you'd like me to go back to the New Albion,' he said.

[¶65] 'No, I wouldn't. Not if you don't want to.'

[¶66] 'Yes, you would. After all, it's natural. You want to see me earning a
decent income again. In a _good_ job, with four pounds a week and an
aspidistra in the window. Wouldn't you, now? Own up.'

[¶67] 'All right, then—yes, I would. But it's only something I'd _like_ to
see happening; I'm not going to _make_ you do it. I'd just hate you to
do it if you didn't really want to. I want you to feel free.'

[¶68] 'Really and truly free?'

[¶69] 'Yes.'

[¶70] 'You know what that means? Supposing I decided to leave you and the baby
in the lurch?'

[¶71] 'Well—if you really wanted to. You're free—quite free.'

[¶72] After a little while she went away. Later in the evening or tomorrow he
would let her know what he decided. Of course it was not absolutely
certain that the New Albion would give him a job even if he asked them;
but presumably they would, considering what Mr Erskine had said. Gordon
tried to think and could not. There seemed to be more customers than
usual this afternoon. It maddened him to have to bounce out of his chair
every time he had sat down and deal with some fresh influx of fools
demanding crime-stories and sex-stories and _ro_mances. Suddenly, about
six o'clock, he turned out the lights, locked up the library and went
out. He had got to be alone. The library was not due to shut for two
hours yet. God knew what Mr Cheeseman would say when he found out. He
might even give Gordon the sack. Gordon did not care.

[¶73] He turned westward, up Lambeth Cut. It was a dull sort of evening, not
cold. There was muck underfoot, white lights, and hawkers screaming. He
had got to think this thing out, and he could think better walking. But
it was so hard, so hard! Back to the New Albion, or leave Rosemary in
the lurch; there was no other alternative. It was no use thinking, for
instance, that he might find some 'good' job which would offend his
sense of decency a bit less. There aren't so many 'good' jobs waiting
for moth-eaten people of thirty. The New Albion was the only chance he
had or ever would have.

[¶74] At the corner, on the Westminster Bridge Road, he paused a moment. There
were some posters opposite, livid in the lamplight. A monstrous one, ten
feet high at least, advertised Bovex. The Bovex people had dropped
Roland Butta and got on to a new tack. They were running a series of
four-line poems—Bovex Ballads, they were called. There was a picture of
a horribly eupeptic family, with grinning ham-pink faces, sitting at
breakfast; underneath, in blatant lettering:

[¶75] _Why should you be thin and white?_
                  _And have that washed-out feeling?_
                  _Just take hot Bovex every night—_
                  _Invigorating—healing!_

[¶76] Gordon gazed at the thing. He drank in its puling silliness. God, what
trash! 'Invigorating—healing!' The weak incompetence of it! It hadn't
even the vigorous badness of the slogans that really stick. Just soppy,
lifeless drivel. It would have been almost pathetic in its feebleness if
one hadn't reflected that all over London and all over every town in
England that poster was plastered, rotting the minds of men. He looked
up and down the graceless street. Yes, war is coming soon. You can't
doubt it when you see the Bovex ads. The electric drills in our streets
presage the rattle of the machine guns. Only a little while before the
aeroplanes come. Zoom—bang! A few tons of TNT to send our civilisation
back to hell where it belongs.

[¶77] He crossed the road and walked on, southward. A curious thought had
struck him. He did not any longer want that war to happen. It was the
first time in months—years, perhaps—that he had thought of it and not
wanted it.

[¶78] If he went back to the New Albion, in a month's time he might be writing
Bovex Ballads himself. To go back to _that_! Any 'good' job was bad
enough; but to be mixed up in _that_! Christ! Of course he oughtn't to
go back. It was just a question of having the guts to stand firm. But
what about Rosemary? He thought of the kind of life she would live at
home, in her parents' house, with a baby and no money, and of the news
running through that monstrous family that Rosemary had married some
awful rotter who couldn't even keep her. She would have the whole lot of
them nagging at her together. Besides, there, was the baby to think
about. The money-god is so cunning. If he only baited his traps with
yachts and race-horses, tarts and champagne, how easy it would be to
dodge him. It is when he gets at you through your sense of decency that
he finds you helpless.

[¶79] The Bovex Ballad jingled in Gordon's head. He ought to stand firm. He
had made war on money—he ought to stick it out. After all, hitherto he
_had_ stuck it out, after a fashion. He looked back over his life. No
use deceiving himself. It had been a dreadful life—lonely, squalid,
futile. He had lived thirty years and achieved nothing except misery.
But that was what he had chosen. It was what he _wanted_, even now. He
wanted to sink down, down into the muck where money does not rule. But
this baby-business had upset everything. It was a pretty banal
predicament, after all. Private vices, public virtues—the dilemma is as
old as the world.

[¶80] He looked up and saw that he was passing a public library. A thought
struck him. That baby. What did it mean, anyway, having a baby? What was
it that was actually happening to Rosemary at this moment? He had only
vague and general ideas of what pregnancy meant. No doubt they would
have books in there that would tell him about it. He went in. The
lending library was on the left. It was there that you had to ask for
works of reference.

[¶81] The woman at the desk was a university graduate, young, colourless,
spectacled and intensely disagreeable. She had a fixed suspicion that no
one—at least, no male person—ever consulted works of reference except
in search of pornography. As soon as you approached she pierced you
through and through with a flash of her pince-nez and let you know that
your dirty secret was no secret from _her_. After all, all works of
reference are pornographical, except perhaps Whitaker's _Almanack_. You
can put even the Oxford Dictionary to evil purposes by looking up words
like —— and ——.

[¶82] Gordon knew her type at a glance, but he was too preoccupied to care.

[¶83] 'Have you any books on gynaecology?' he said.

[¶84] 'Any _what_?' demanded the young woman with a pince-nez flash of
unmistakable triumph. As usual! Another male in search of dirt!

[¶85] 'Well, any books on midwifery? About babies being born, and so forth.'

[¶86] 'We don't issue books of that description to the general public,' said
the young woman frostily.

[¶87] 'I'm sorry—there's a point I particularly want to look up.'

[¶88] 'Are you a medical student?'

[¶89] 'No.'

[¶90] 'Then I don't _quite_ see what you want with books on midwifery.'

[¶91] Curse the woman! Gordon thought. At another time he would have been
afraid of her; at present, however, she merely bored him.

[¶92] 'If you want to know, my wife's going to have a baby. We neither of us
know much about it. I want to see whether I can find out anything
useful.'

[¶93] The young woman did not believe him. He looked too shabby and worn, she
decided, to be a newly-married man. However, it was her job to lend out
books, and she seldom actually refused them, except to children. You
always got your book in the end, after you had been made to feel
yourself a dirty swine. With an aseptic air she led Gordon to a small
table in the middle of the library and presented him with two fat books
in brown covers. Thereafter she left him alone, but kept an eye on him
from whatever part of the library she happened to be in. He could feel
her pince-nez probing the back of his neck at long range, trying to
decide from his demeanour whether he was really searching for
information or merely picking out the dirty bits.

[¶94] He opened one of the books and searched inexpertly through it. There
were acres of close-printed text full of Latin words. That was no use.
He wanted something simple—pictures, for choice. How long had this
thing been going on? Six weeks—nine weeks, perhaps. Ah! This must be
it.

[¶95] He came on a print of a nine weeks' fœtus. It gave him a shock to see
it, for he had not expected it to look in the least like that. It was a
deformed, gnome-like thing, a sort of clumsy caricature of a human
being, with a huge domed head as big as the rest of its body. In the
middle of the great blank expanse of head there was a tiny button of an
ear. The thing was in profile; its boneless arm was bent, and one hand,
crude as a seal's flipper, covered its face—fortunately, perhaps. Below
were little skinny legs, twisted like a monkey's, with the toes turned
in. It was a monstrous thing, and yet strangely human. It surprised him
that they should begin looking human so soon. He had pictured something
much more rudimentary; a mere blob with a nucleus, like a bubble of
frog-spawn. But it must be very tiny of course. He looked at the
dimensions marked below. Length 30 millimetres. About the size of a
large gooseberry.

[¶96] But perhaps it had not been going on quite so long as that. He turned
back a page or two and found a print of a six weeks' fœtus. A really
dreadful thing this time—a thing he could hardly even bear to look at.
Strange that our beginnings and endings are so ugly—the unborn as ugly
as the dead. This thing looked as if it were dead already. Its huge
head, as though too heavy to hold upright, was bent over at right angles
at the place where its neck ought to have been. There was nothing you
could call a face, only a wrinkle representing the eye—or was it the
mouth? It had no human semblance this time; it was more like a dead
puppy-dog. Its short thick arms were very dog-like, the hands being mere
stumpy paws. 15.5 millimetres long—no bigger than a hazel nut.

[¶97] He pored for a long time over the two pictures. Their ugliness made them
more credible and therefore more moving. His baby had seemed real to him
from the moment when Rosemary spoke of abortion; but it had been a
reality without visual shape—something that happened in the dark and
was only important after it had happened. But here was the actual
process taking place. Here was the poor ugly thing, no bigger than a
gooseberry, that he had created by his heedless act. Its future, its
continued existence perhaps, depended on him. Besides, it was a bit of
himself—it _was_ himself. Dare one dodge such a responsibility as that?

[¶98] But what about the alternative? He got up, handed over his books to the
disagreeable young woman, and went out; then, on an impulse, turned back
and went into the other part of the library, where the periodicals were
kept. The usual crowd of mangy-looking people were dozing over the
papers. There was one table set apart for women's papers. He picked up
one of them at random and bore it off to another table.

[¶99] It was an American paper of the more domestic kind, mainly adverts with
a few stories lurking apologetically among them. And _what_ adverts!
Quickly he flicked over the shiny pages. Lingerie, jewellery, cosmetics,
fur coats, silk stockings flicked up and down like the figures in a
child's peepshow. Page after page, advert after advert. Lipsticks,
undies, tinned food, patent medicines, slimming cures, face-creams. A
sort of cross-section of the money-world. A panorama of ignorance,
greed, vulgarity, snobbishness, whoredom and disease.

[¶100] And _that_ was the world they wanted him to re-enter! _That_ was the
business in which he had a chance of Making Good. He flicked over the
pages more slowly. Flick, flick. Adorable—until she smiles. The food
that is shot out of a gun. Do you let foot-fag affect your personality?
Get back that peach-bloom on a Beautyrest Mattress. Only a _penetrating_
face-cream will reach that under-surface dirt. Pink toothbrush is _her_
trouble. How to alkalise your stomach almost instantly. Roughage for
husky kids. Are you one of the four out of five? The world-famed
Culturequick Scrapbook. Only a drummer and yet he quoted Dante.

[¶101] Christ, what muck!

[¶102] But of course it was an American paper. The Americans always go one
better on any kind of beastliness, whether it is ice-cream soda,
racketeering or theosophy. He went over to the women's table and picked
up another paper. An English one this time. Perhaps the ads in an
English paper wouldn't be quite so bad—a little less brutally
offensive?

[¶103] He opened the paper. Flick, flick. Britons never shall be slaves!

[¶104] Flick, flick. Guinness is good for you! She _said_ 'Thanks awfully for
the lift', but she _thought_, 'Poor boy, why doesn't somebody tell him?'
How a woman of thirty-two stole her young man from a girl of twenty.
Night Starvation etc. Silkyseam—the smooth-sliding bathroom tissue.
Halitosis is ruining his career. Pyorrhea? Not me! Are you a Highbrow?
Dandruff is the Reason. Kiddies clamour for their Breakfast Crisps. Now
I'm schoolgirl complexion all over. Hike all day on a Slab of Vitamalt!

[¶105] To be mixed up in _that_! To be in it and of it—part and parcel of it!
God, God, God!

[¶106] Presently he went out. The dreadful thing was that he knew already what
he was going to do. His mind was made up—had been made up for a long
time past. When this problem appeared it had brought its solution with
it; all his hesitation had been a kind of make-believe. He felt as
though some force outside himself were pushing him. There was a
telephone booth near by. Rosemary's hostel was on the phone—she ought
to be at home by now. He went into the booth, feeling in his pocket.
Yes, exactly two pennies. He dropped them into the slot, swung the dial.

[¶107] A refaned, adenoidal feminine voice answered him: 'Who's thyah, please?'

[¶108] He pressed Button A. So the die was cast.

[¶109] 'Is Miss Waterlow in?'

[¶110] 'Who's _thyah_, please?'

[¶111] 'Say it's Mr Comstock. She'll know. Is she at home?'

[¶112] 'Ay'll see. Hold the lane, please.'

[¶113] A pause.

[¶114] 'Hullo! Is that you, Gordon?'

[¶115] 'Hullo! Hullo! Is that you, Rosemary? I just wanted to tell you. I've
thought it over—I've made up my mind.'

[¶116] 'Oh!' There was another pause. With difficulty mastering her voice, she
added: 'Well, what did you decide?'

[¶117] 'It's all right. I'll take the job—if they'll give it me, that is.'

[¶118] 'Oh, Gordon, I'm so glad! You're not angry with me? You don't feel I've
sort of bullied you into it?'

[¶119] 'No, it's all right. It's the only thing I can do. I've thought
everything out. I'll go up to the office and see them tomorrow.'

[¶120] 'I _am_ so glad!'

[¶121] 'Of course, I'm assuming they'll give me the job. But I suppose they
will, after what old Erskine said.'

[¶122] 'I'm sure they will. But, Gordon, there's just one thing. You will go
there nicely dressed, won't you? It might make a lot of difference.'

[¶123] 'I know. I'll have to get my best suit out of pawn. Ravelston will lend
me the money.'

[¶124] 'Never mind about Ravelston. I'll lend you the money. I've got four
pounds put away. I'll run out and wire it you before the post-office
shuts. I expect you'll want some new shoes and a new tie as well. And,
oh, Gordon!'

[¶125] 'What?'

[¶126] 'Wear a hat when you go up to the office, won't you? It looks better,
wearing a hat.'

[¶127] 'A hat! God! I haven't worn a hat for two years. Must I?'

[¶128] 'Well—it does look more business-like, doesn't it?'

[¶129] 'Oh, all right. A bowler hat, even, if you think I ought.'

[¶130] 'I think a soft hat would do. But get your hair cut, won't you, there's
a dear?'

[¶131] 'Yes, don't you worry. I'll be quite the smart young business man. Well
groomed, and all that.'

[¶132] 'Thanks ever so, Gordon dear. I must run out and wire that money. Good
night and good luck.'

[¶133] 'Good night.'

[¶134] He came out of the booth. So that was that. He had torn it now, right
enough.

[¶135] He walked rapidly away. What had he done? Chucked up the sponge! Broken
all his oaths! His long and lonely war had ended in ignominious defeat.
Circumcise ye your foreskins, saith the Lord. He was coming back to the
fold, repentant. He seemed to be walking faster than usual. There was a
peculiar sensation, an actual physical sensation, in his heart, in his
limbs, all over him. What was it? Shame, misery, despair? Rage at being
back in the clutch of money? Boredom when he thought of the deadly
future? He dragged the sensation forth, faced it, examined it. It was
relief.

[¶136] Yes, that was the truth of it. Now that the thing was done he felt
nothing but relief; relief that now at last he had finished with dirt,
cold, hunger and loneliness and could get back to decent, fully human
life. His resolutions, now that he had broken them, seemed nothing but a
frightful weight that he had cast off. Moreover, he was aware that he
was only fulfilling his destiny. In some corner of his mind he had
always known that this would happen. He thought of the day when he had
given them notice at the New Albion; and Mr Erskine's kind, red, beefish
face, gently counselling him not to chuck up a 'good' job for nothing.
How bitterly he had sworn, then, that he was done with 'good' jobs for
ever! Yet it was foredoomed that he should come back, and he had known
it even then. And it was not merely because of Rosemary and the baby
that he had done it. That was the obvious cause, the precipitating
cause, but even without it the end would have been the same; if there
had been no baby to think about, something else would have forced his
hand. For it was what, in his secret heart, he had desired.

[¶137] After all he did not lack vitality, and that moneyless existence to
which he had condemned himself had thrust him ruthlessly out of the
stream of life. He looked back over the last two frightful years. He had
blasphemed against money, rebelled against money, tried to live like an
anchorite outside the money-world; and it had brought him not only
misery, but also a frightful emptiness, an inescapable sense of
futility. To abjure money is to abjure life. Be not righteous over much;
why shouldst thou die before thy time? Now he was back in the
money-world, or soon would be. Tomorrow he would go up to the New
Albion, in his best suit and overcoat (he must remember to get his
overcoat out of pawn at the same time as his suit), in homburg hat of
the correct gutter-crawling pattern, neatly shaved and with his hair cut
short. He would be as though born anew. The sluttish poet of today would
be hardly recognisable in the natty young business man of tomorrow. They
would take him back, right enough; he had the talent they needed. He
would buckle to work, sell his soul and hold down his job.

[¶138] And what about the future? Perhaps it would turn out that these last two
years had not left much mark upon him. They were merely a gap, a small
setback in his career. Quite quickly, now that he had taken the first
step, he would develop the cynical, blinkered business mentality. He
would forget his fine disgusts, cease to rage against the tyranny of
money—cease to be aware of it, even—cease to squirm at the ads for
Bovex and Breakfast Crisps. He would sell his soul so utterly that he
would forget it had ever been his. He would get married, settle down,
prosper moderately, push a pram, have a villa and a radio and an
aspidistra. He would be a law-abiding little cit like any other
law-abiding little cit—a soldier in the strap-hanging army. Probably it
was better so.

[¶139] He slowed his pace a little. He was thirty and there was grey in his
hair, yet he had a queer feeling that he had only just grown up. It
occurred to him that he was merely repeating the destiny of every human
being. Everyone rebels against the money-code, and everyone sooner or
later surrenders. He had kept up his rebellion a little longer than
most, that was all. And he had made such a wretched failure of it! He
wondered whether every anchorite in his dismal cell pines secretly to be
back in the world of men. Perhaps there were a few who did not. Somebody
or other had said that the modern world is only habitable by saints and
scoundrels. He, Gordon, wasn't a saint. Better, then, to be an
unpretending scoundrel along with the others. It was what he had
secretly pined for; now that he had acknowledged his desire and
surrendered to it, he was at peace.

[¶140] He was making roughly in the direction of home. He looked up at the
houses he was passing. It was a street he did not know. Oldish houses,
mean-looking and rather dark, let off in flatlets and single rooms for
the most part. Railed areas, smoke-grimed bricks, whited steps, dingy
lace curtains. 'Apartments' cards in half the windows, aspidistras in
nearly all. A typical lower-middle-class street. But not, on the whole,
the kind of street that he wanted to see blown to hell by bombs.

[¶141] He wondered about the people in houses like those. They would be, for
example, small clerks, shop-assistants, commercial travellers, insurance
touts, tram conductors. Did _they_ know that they were only puppets
dancing when money pulled the strings? You bet they didn't. And if they
did, what would they care? They were too busy being born, being married,
begetting, working, dying. It mightn't be a bad thing, if you could
manage it, to feel yourself one of them, one of the ruck of men. Our
civilisation is founded on greed and fear, but in the lives of common
men the greed and fear are mysteriously transmuted into something
nobler. The lower-middle-class people in there, behind their lace
curtains, with their children and their scraps of furniture and their
aspidistras—they lived by the money-code, sure enough, and yet they
contrived to keep their decency. The money-code as they interpreted it
was not merely cynical and hoggish. They had their standards, their
inviolable points of honour. They 'kept themselves respectable'—kept
the aspidistra flying. Besides, they were _alive_. They were bound up in
the bundle of life. They begot children, which is what the saints and
the soul-savers never by any chance do.

[¶142] The aspidistra is the tree of life, he thought suddenly.

[¶143] He was aware of a lumpish weight in his inner pocket. It was the
manuscript of _London Pleasures_. He took it out and had a look at it
under a street lamp. A great wad of paper, soiled and tattered, with
that peculiar, nasty, grimed-at-the-edges look of papers which have been
a long time in one's pocket. About four hundred lines in all. The sole
fruit of his exile, a two years' fœtus which would never be born. Well,
he had finished with all that. Poetry! _Poetry_, indeed! In 1935.

[¶144] What should he do with the manuscript? Best thing, shove it down the WC.
But he was a long way from home and had not the necessary penny. He
halted by the iron grating of a drain. In the window of the nearest
house an aspidistra, a striped one, peeped between the yellow lace
curtains.

[¶145] He unrolled a page of _London Pleasures_. In the middle of the
labyrinthine scrawlings a line caught his eye. Momentary regret stabbed
him. After all, parts of it weren't half bad! If only it could ever be
finished! It seemed such a shame to shy it away after all the work he
had done on it. Save it, perhaps? Keep it by him and finish it secretly
in his spare time? Even now it might come to something.

[¶146] No, no! Keep your parole. Either surrender or don't surrender.

[¶147] He doubled up the manuscript and stuffed it between the bars of the
drain. It fell with a plop into the water below.

[¶148] _Vicisti_, O aspidistra!

## 12. XII

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/12/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-aspidistra-fp20181120/12/#p-N

[¶0] Ravelston wanted to say good-bye outside the registry office, but they
would not hear of it, and insisted on dragging him off to have lunch
with them. Not at Modigliani's, however. They went to one of those jolly
little Soho restaurants where you get such a wonderful four-course lunch
for half a crown. They had garlic sausage with bread and butter, fried
plaice, _entrecôte aux pommes frites_ and a rather watery caramel
pudding; also a bottle of Médoc Supérieur, three and sixpence the
bottle.

[¶1] Only Ravelston was at the wedding. The other witness was a poor meek
creature with no teeth, a professional witness whom they picked up
outside the registry office and tipped half a crown. Julia hadn't been
able to get away from the tea-shop, and Gordon and Rosemary had only got
the day off from the office by pretexts carefully manœuvred a long time
ahead. Nobody knew they were getting married, except Ravelston and
Julia. Rosemary was going to go on working at the studio for another
month or two. She had preferred to keep her marriage a secret until it
was over, chiefly for the sake of her innumerable brothers and sisters,
none of whom could afford wedding presents. Gordon, left to himself,
would have done it in a more regular manner. He had even wanted to be
married in church. But Rosemary had put her foot down on that idea.

[¶2] Gordon had been back at the office two months now. Four ten a week he
was getting. It would be a tight pinch when Rosemary stopped working,
but there was hope of a rise next year. They would have to get some
money out of Rosemary's parents, of course, when the baby was due to
arrive. Mr Clew had left the New Albion a year ago, and his place had
been taken by a Mr Warner, a Canadian who had been five years with a New
York publicity firm. Mr Warner was a live wire but quite a likeable
person. He and Gordon had a big job on hand at the moment. The Queen of
Sheba Toilet Requisites Co. were sweeping the country with a monster
campaign for their deodorant, April Dew. They had decided that BO and
halitosis were worked out, or nearly, and had been racking their brains
for a long time past to think of some new way of scaring the public.
Then some bright spark had suggested, What about smelling feet? That
field had never been exploited and had immense possibilities. The Queen
of Sheba had turned the idea over to the New Albion. What they asked for
was a really telling slogan; something in the class of 'Night
Starvation'—something that would rankle in the public consciousness
like a poisoned arrow. Mr Warner had thought it over for three days and
then emerged with the unforgettable phrase 'PP'. 'PP' stood for Pedic
Perspiration. It was a real flash of genius, that. It was so simple and
so arresting. Once you knew what they stood for, you couldn't possibly
see those letters 'PP' without a guilty tremor. Gordon had searched for
the word 'pedic' in the Oxford Dictionary and found that it did not
exist. But Mr Warner had said, Hell! what did it matter, anyway? It
would put the wind up them just the same. The Queen of Sheba had jumped
at the idea, of course.

[¶3] They were putting every penny they could spare into the campaign. On
every hoarding in the British Isles huge accusing posters were hammering
'PP' into the public mind. All the posters were identically the same.
They wasted no words, but just demanded with sinister simplicity:

[¶4] 'PP'
                               What about
                                  YOU?

[¶5] Just that—no pictures, no explanations. There was no longer any need to
say what 'PP' stood for; everyone in England knew it by this time. Mr
Warner, with Gordon to help him, was designing the smaller ads for the
newspapers and magazines. It was Mr Warner who supplied the bold
sweeping ideas, sketched the general lay-out of the ads and decided what
pictures would be needed; but it was Gordon who wrote most of the
letterpress—wrote the harrowing little stories, each a realistic novel
in a hundred words, about despairing virgins of thirty, and lonely
bachelors whose girls had unaccountably thrown them over, and overworked
wives who could only afford to change their stockings once a week and
who saw their husbands subsiding into the clutches of 'the other woman'.
He did it very well; he did it far better than he had ever done anything
else in his life. Mr Warner gave golden reports of him. There was no
doubt about Gordon's literary ability. He could use words with the
economy that is only learned by years of effort. So perhaps his long
agonising struggles to be a 'writer' had not been wasted after all.

[¶6] They said good-bye to Ravelston outside the restaurant. The taxi bore
them away. Ravelston had insisted on paying for the taxi from the
registry office, so they felt they could afford another taxi. Warmed
with wine, they lolled together, in the dusty May sunshine that filtered
through the taxi window. Rosemary's head on Gordon's shoulder, their
hands together in her lap. He played with the very slender wedding ring
on Rosemary's ring finger. Rolled gold, five and sixpence. It looked all
right, however.

[¶7] 'I must remember to take it off before I go to the studio tomorrow,'
said Rosemary reflectively.

[¶8] 'To think we're really married! Till death do us part. We've done it
now, right enough.'

[¶9] 'Terrifying, isn't it?'

[¶10] 'I expect we'll settle down all right, though. With a house of our own
and a pram and an aspidistra.'

[¶11] He lifted her face up to kiss her. She had a touch of make-up on today,
the first he had ever seen on her, and not too skilfully applied.
Neither of their faces stood the spring sunshine very well. There were
fine lines on Rosemary's, deep seams on Gordon's. Rosemary looked
twenty-eight, perhaps; Gordon looked at least thirty-five. But Rosemary
had pulled the three white hairs out of her crown yesterday.

[¶12] 'Do you love me?' he said.

[¶13] 'Adore you, silly.'

[¶14] 'I believe you do. It's queer. I'm thirty and moth-eaten.'

[¶15] 'I don't care.'

[¶16] They began to kiss, then drew hurriedly apart as they saw two scrawny
upper-middle-class women, in a car that was moving parallel to their
own, observing them with catty interest.

[¶17] The flat off the Edgware Road wasn't too bad. It was a dull quarter and
rather a slummy street, but it was convenient for the centre of London;
also it was quiet, being a blind alley. From the back window (it was a
top floor) you could see the roof of Paddington Station. Twenty-one and
six a week, unfurnished. One bed, one reception, kitchenette, bath (with
geyser) and WC. They had got their furniture already, most of it on the
never-never. Ravelston had given them a complete set of crockery for a
wedding present—a very kindly thought, that. Julia had given them a
rather dreadful 'occasional' table, veneered walnut with a scalloped
edge. Gordon had begged and implored her not to give them anything. Poor
Julia! Christmas had left her utterly broke, as usual, and Aunt Angela's
birthday had been in March. But it would have seemed to Julia a kind of
crime against nature to let a wedding go by without giving a present.
God knew what sacrifices she had made to scrape together thirty bob for
that 'occasional' table. They were still very short of linen and
cutlery. Things would have to be bought piecemeal, when they had a few
bob to spare.

[¶18] They ran up the last flight of stairs in their excitement to get to the
flat. It was all ready to inhabit. They had spent their evenings for
weeks past getting the stuff in. It seemed to them a tremendous
adventure to have this place of their own. Neither of them had ever
owned furniture before; they had been living in furnished rooms ever
since their childhood. As soon as they got inside they made a careful
tour of the flat, checking, examining and admiring everything as though
they did not know by heart already every item that was there. They fell
into absurd raptures over each separate stick of furniture. The double
bed with the clean sheet ready turned down over the pink eiderdown! The
linen and towels stowed away in the chest of drawers! The gate-leg
table, the four hard chairs, the two armchairs, the divan, the bookcase,
the red Indian rug, the copper coal-scuttle which they had picked up
cheap in the Caledonian market! And it was all their own, every bit of
it was their own—at least, so long as they didn't get behind with the
instalments! They went into the kitchenette. Everything was ready, down
to the minutest detail. Gas stove, meat safe, enamel-topped table, plate
rack, saucepans, kettle, sink basket, mops, dish-cloths—even a tin of
Panshine, a packet of soapflakes and a pound of washing soda in a
jamjar. It was all ready for use, ready for life. You could have cooked
a meal in it here and now. They stood hand in hand by the enamel-topped
table, admiring the view of Paddington Station.

[¶19] 'Oh, Gordon, what fun it all is! To have a place that's really our own
and no landladies interfering!'

[¶20] 'What I like best of all is to think of having breakfast together. You
opposite me on the other side of the table, pouring out coffee. How
queer it is! We've known each other all these years and we've never once
had breakfast together.'

[¶21] 'Let's cook something now. I'm dying to use those saucepans.'

[¶22] She made some coffee and brought it into the front room on the red
lacquered tray which they had bought in Selfridge's Bargain Basement.
Gordon wandered over to the 'occasional' table by the window. Far below
the mean street was drowned in a haze of sunlight, as though a glassy
yellow sea had flooded it fathoms deep. He laid his coffee cup down on
the 'occasional' table.

[¶23] 'This is where we'll put the aspidistra,' he said.

[¶24] 'Put the _what_?'

[¶25] 'The aspidistra.'

[¶26] She laughed. He saw that she thought he was joking, and added: 'We must
remember to go out and order it before all the florists are shut.'

[¶27] 'Gordon! You don't mean that? You aren't _really_ thinking of having an
aspidistra?'

[¶28] 'Yes, I am. We won't let ours get dusty, either. They say an old
toothbrush is the best thing to clean them with.'

[¶29] She had come over to his side, and she pinched his arm.

[¶30] 'You aren't serious, by any chance, are you?'

[¶31] 'Why shouldn't I be?'

[¶32] 'An aspidistra! To think of having one of those awful depressing things
in here! Besides, where could we put it? I'm not going to have it in
this room, and in the bedroom it would be worse. Fancy having an
aspidistra in one's bedroom!'

[¶33] 'We don't want one in the bedroom. This is the place for an aspidistra.
In the front window, where the people opposite can see it.'

[¶34] 'Gordon, you _are_ joking—you must be joking!'

[¶35] 'No, I'm not. I tell you we've got to have an aspidistra.'

[¶36] 'But why?'

[¶37] 'It's the proper thing to have. It's the first thing one buys after
one's married. In fact, it's practically part of the wedding ceremony.'

[¶38] 'Don't be so absurd! I simply couldn't bear to have one of those things
in here. You shall have a geranium if you really must. But not an
aspidistra.'

[¶39] 'A geranium's no good. It's an aspidistra we want.'

[¶40] 'Well, we're not going to have one, that's flat.'

[¶41] 'Yes, we are. Didn't you promise to obey me just now?'

[¶42] 'No, I did not. We weren't married in church.'

[¶43] 'Oh, well, it's implied in the marriage service. "Love, honour and obey"
and all that.'

[¶44] 'No, it isn't. Anyway we aren't going to have that aspidistra.'

[¶45] 'Yes, we are.'

[¶46] 'We are _not_, Gordon!'

[¶47] 'Yes.'

[¶48] 'No!'

[¶49] 'Yes!'

[¶50] '_No!_'

[¶51] She did not understand him. She thought he was merely being perverse.
They grew heated, and, according to their habit, quarrelled violently.
It was their first quarrel as man and wife. Half an hour later they went
out to the florist's to order the aspidistra.

[¶52] But when they were half-way down the first flight of stairs Rosemary
stopped short and clutched the banister. Her lips parted; she looked
very queer for a moment. She pressed a hand against her middle.

[¶53] 'Oh, Gordon!'

[¶54] 'What?'

[¶55] 'I felt it move!'

[¶56] 'Felt what move?'

[¶57] 'The baby. I felt it move inside me.'

[¶58] 'You did?'

[¶59] A strange, almost terrible feeling, a sort of warm convulsion, stirred
in his entrails. For a moment he felt as though he were sexually joined
to her, but joined in some subtle way that he had never imagined. He had
paused a step or two below her. He fell on his knees, pressed his ear to
her belly and listened.

[¶60] 'I can't hear anything,' he said at last.

[¶61] 'Of course not, silly! Not for months yet.'

[¶62] 'But I shall be able to hear it later on, shan't I?'

[¶63] 'I think so. _You_ can hear it at seven months, _I_ can feel it at four.
I think that's how it is.'

[¶64] 'But it did really move? You're sure? You really felt it move?'

[¶65] 'Oh, yes. It moved.'

[¶66] For a long time he remained kneeling there, his head pressed against the
softness of her belly. She clasped her hands behind his head and pulled
it closer. He could hear nothing, only the blood drumming in his own
ear. But she could not have been mistaken. Somewhere in there, in the
safe, warm, cushioned darkness, it was alive and stirring.

[¶67] Well, once again things were happening in the Comstock family.

[¶68] THE END