The Journal of a Disappointed Man Part 22

... If I am to admit the facts they are that I eagerly antic.i.p.ate love, look everywhere for it, long for it, am unhappy without it. She fascinates me--admitted. I could, if I would, surrender myself. Her affection makes me long to do it. I am sick of living by myself. I am frightened of myself. My life is miserable alone, and sometimes desperately miserable when I long for a little sympathy to be close at hand.

I have often tried to persuade R---- to share a flat with me, because I don't really wish to marry. I struggle against the idea, I am egotist enough to wish to s.h.i.+rk the responsibilities.

But then I am a ridiculously romantic creature With a wonderful ideal of a woman I shall never meet or if I do she won't want me--"that (wholly) impossible She." R---- in a flat with me would partly solve my difficulties. I don't love her enough for marriage. Mine must be a grand pa.s.sion, a _boulevers.e.m.e.nt_--for I am capable of it.

_April_ 17.

_A Humble Confession_

The Hon. ----, son and heir of Lord ----, to-day invited me to lunch with him in ---- Square. He's a handsome youth of twenty-five, with fair hair and blue eyes.... and O! such an aristocrat. Good Lord.

But to continue: the receipt of so unexpected an invitation from so glorious a young gentleman at first gave me palpitation of the heart. I was so surprised that I scarcely had enough presence of mind to listen to the rest of his remarks and later, it was only with the greatest difficulty that I could recall the place where we arranged to meet. His remarks, too, are not easy to follow, as he talks in a stenographic, Alfred-Jingle-like manner, jerking out disjected members of sentences, and leaving you to make the best of them or else to h.e.l.l with you--by the Lord, I speak English, don't I? If I said, "I beg your pardon," he jerked again, and left me often equally unenlightened.

On arriving at his home, the first thing he did was to shout down the stairs to the bas.e.m.e.nt: "Elsie, Elsie," while I gazed with awe at a parcel on the hall table addressed to "Lord ----." Before lunch we sat in his little room and talked about ----, but I was still quite unable to regain my self-composure. I couldn't for the life of me forget that here was I lunching with Lord ----'s son, on equal terms, with mutual interests, that his sisters perhaps would come in directly or even the n.o.ble Lord himself. I felt like a scared hare. How should I address a peer of the realm? I kept trying to remember and every now and then for some unaccountable reason my mind travelled into ----s.h.i.+re and I saw Auntie C---- serving out tea and sugar over the counter of the baker's shop in the little village. I luxuriated in the contrast, tho' I am not at all inclined to be a sn.o.b.

He next offered me a cigarette, which I took and lit. It was a Turkish cigarette with one end plugged up with cotton-wool--to absorb the nicotine--a, thing I've never seen before. I was so flurried at the time that I did not notice this and lit the wrong end. With perfect ease and self-possession, the Honourable One pointed out my error to me and told me to throw the cigarette away and have another.

By this time I had completely lost my nerve. My pride, chagrin, excessive self-consciousness were entangling all my movements in the meshes of a net. Failing to tumble to the situation, I inquired, "Why the _wrong_ end? Is there a right and a wrong end?" Lord ----'s son and heir pointed out the cotton-wool end, now blackened by my match.

"That didn't burn very well, did it?"

I was bound to confess that it did not, and threw the smoke away under the impression that these wonderful cigarettes with right and wrong ends must be some special brand sold only to aristocrats, and at a great price, and possessing some secret virtue. Once again, handsome Mr. ---- drew out his silver cigarette-case, selected a second cigarette for me, and held it towards me between his long delicate fingers, at the same time pointing out the plug at one end and making a few staccato remarks which I could not catch.

I was still too scared to be in full possession of my faculties, and he apparently was too tired to be explicit to a member of the bourgeoisie, stumbling about his drawing-room. The cotton-wool plug only suggested to me some sort of a plot on the part of a dissolute scion of a n.o.ble house to lure me into one of his bad habits, such as smoking opium or taking veronal. I again prepared to light the cigarette at the wrong end.

"Try the other end," repeated the young man, smiling blandly. I blushed, and immediately recovered my balance, and even related my knowledge of pipes fitted to carry similar plugs....

During lunch (at which we sat alone) after sundry visits to the top of the stairs to shout down to the kitchen, he announced that he thought it wasn't last night's affair after all which was annoying the Cook (he got home late without a latch-key)--it was because he called her "Cook"

instead of Mrs. Austin. He smiled serenely and decided to indulge Mrs.

A., his indulgent att.i.tude betraying an objectionable satisfaction with the security of his own una.s.sailable social status. There was a trace of gratification at the little compliment secreted in the Cook's annoyance.

She wanted Mr. Charles to call her Mrs. Austin, forsooth. Very well! and he smiled down on the little weakness _de haute en bas_.

I enjoyed this little experience. Turning it over in my mind (as the housemaid says when she decides to stay on) I have come to the conclusion that the social parvenu is not such a vulgar fellow after all. He may be a bore--particularly if he sits with his finger tips apposed over a spherical paunch, festooned with a gold chain, and keeps on relating _in extenso_ how once he gummed labels on blacking bottles.

Often enough he is a smug fellow, yet, truth to tell, we all feel a little interested in him. He is a traveller from an antique land, and we sometimes like to listen to his tales of adventure and all he has come through. He has traversed large territories of human experience, he has met strange folk and lodged in strange caravanserai. Similarly with the man who has come down in the world--the fool, the drunkard, the embezzler--he may bore us with his maudlin sympathy with himself yet his stories hold us. It must be a fine experience within the limits of a single life to traverse the whole keyboard of our social status, whether up or down. I should like to be a peer who grinds a barrel organ or (better still) a one-time organ-grinder who now lives in Park Lane. It must be very dull to remain stationary--once a peer always a peer.

_April_ 20.

Miss ---- heard me sigh to-day and asked what it might mean. "Only the sparks flying upward," I answered lugubriously.

A blackguard is often unconscious of a good deal of his wickedness.

Charge him with wickedness and he will deny it quite honestly--honest then, perhaps, for the first time in his life.

An Entomologist is a large hairy man with eyebrows like antennae.

Chronic constipation has gained for me an unrivalled knowledge of all laxatives, aperients, purgatives and cathartic compounds. At present I arrange two gunpowder plots a week. It's abominable. Best literature for the latrine: picture puzzles.

_April_ 23.

_A Foolish Bird_

With a menacing politeness, B---- to-day inquired of a fat curate who was occupying more than his fair share of a seat on top of a 'bus,--

"Are you going to get up or stay where ye are, sir?"

The foolish bird was sitting nearly on top of B----, mistaking a bomb for an egg.

"I beg your pardon," replied the fat curate.

B---- repeated his inquiry with more emphasis in the hideous Scotch brogue.

"I suppose I shall stay here till I get down presently."

"I don't think you will," said B----.

"What do you mean?" asked the fat one in falsetto indignation.

"This," B---- grunted, and shunted sideways so that the poor fellow almost slid on to the floor.

A posse of police walking along in single file always makes me laugh. A single constable is a Policeman, but several in single file are "Coppers." I imagine every one laughs at them and I have a shrewd suspicion it is one of W.S. Gilbert's legacies--the _Pirates of Penzance_ having become part of the national Consciousness.

_On Lighting Chloe's Cigarette_

R---- remarked to-day that he intended writing a lyric on lighting Chloe's cigarette.

"Ah!" I said at once appreciative, "now tell me, do you balance your hand--by gently (ever so gently) resting the extreme tip of your little finger upon her chin, and" (I was warming up) "do you hold the match vertically or horizontally, and do you light it in the dark or in the light? If you have finesse, you won't need to be told that the thing is to get a steady flame and the maximum of illumination upon her face to last over a period for as long as possible."

"Chloe," replied R----, "is wearing now a charming blouse with a charming V-shaped opening in front. Her Aunt asked my Mother last night tentatively, 'How do you like Chloe's blouse? Is it too low?' My Mother scrutinised the dear little furry, lop-eared thing and answered doubtfully, 'No, Maria, I don't think so.'"

"How ridiculous! Why the V is a positive signpost. My dear fellow," I said to R----, "I should refuse to be bluffed by those old women. Tell them you _know_."

Carlyle called Lamb a despicable abortion. What a crime!

_May_ 2.

Developed a savage fit. Up to a certain point, perhaps, but beyond that anxiety changes into recklessness--you simply don't care. The aperients are causing dyspepsia and intermittent action of the heart, which frightens me. After a terrifying week, during which at crises I have felt like dropping suddenly in the street, in the gardens, anywhere, from syncope, I rebelled against this humiliating fear. I pulled my shoulders back and walked briskly ahead along the street with a dropped beat every two or three steps. I laughed bitterly at it and felt it could stop or go on--I was at last indifferent. In a photographer's shop was the picture of a very beautiful woman and I stopped to look at her.

I glowered in thro' the gla.s.s angrily and reflected how she was gazing out with that same expression even at the butcher's boy or the lamp-lighter. It embittered me to think of having to leave her to some other man. To me she represented all the joy of life which at any moment I might have had to quit for ever. Such impotence enraged me and I walked off up the street with a whirling heart and the thought, "I shall drop, I suppose, when I get up as far as that." Yet don't think I was alarmed. Oh! no. The iron had entered me, and I went on with cynical indifference waiting to be struck down.

... She is a very great deal to me. Perhaps I love her very much after all.

_May_ 3.

Bad heart attack all day. Intermittency is very refined torture to one who wants to live very badly. Your pump goes a "dot and carry one," or say "misses a st.i.tch," what time you breathe deep, begin to shake your friend's hand and, make a farewell speech. Then it goes on again and you order another pint of beer.

It is a fractious animal within the cage of my thorax, and I never know when it is going to escape and make off with my precious life between its teeth. I humour and coax and soothe it, but, G.o.d wot, I haven't much confidence in the little beast. My thorax it appears is an intolerable kennel.