The Collected Short Fiction Part 23

'If Venice every really lived!' she retorted.

But the gondolier changed the subject for them by turning off the Grand Ca.n.a.l on to the Rio di San Felice. They were bound for the wide waters of the Lagoon.

In the Sacca della Misericordia, the almost square bay on the Venetian north sh.o.r.e, all was silent. There are no footways and in the buildings was only an occasional dim light, suggesting a rogue tenant, even now up to no good.

'Is this where the danger begins?' asked Fern.

She made no reply, but drew even closer. Beneath the dim, lilac amphora of the sky, she was all black or white, like Pierrot. The gondolier, with strokes as strong and regular as if he were swinging a scythe, swept them forward to their consummation.

Here, to the north of Venice, the Lagoon was incandescent. It seemed to Fern, who had never seen it like this before, a nearer word than phosph.o.r.escent, because the light which gleamed from the water, faintly around the gondola, but in distant patches quite brightly, was multicoloured, blue, white, yellow, pink; and always with lilac in it too, from the infusion of the sky. There were small glittering waves, and vast, indefinite areas of coloured froth or sc.u.m, like torn lace. Already it was a little colder.

They approached an island. Fern saw the white shape of a Renaissance church and, extending from it along the entire sh.o.r.e, a high wall, as of a prison or asylum. Ranged in the small piazzetta before the church door was a line of figures, indistinct in respect of age, s.e.x, or costume, but each bearing a lighted Venetian lantern, a decorated light on a decorated pole, a device, here, now, and always one of the distinctive splendours of Venice. The figures seemed to agitate the lanterns almost frenziedly, in welcome to Fern and his companion, but from the group Fern could hear no sound, though by now they were less than a hundred yards away, and the whiteness of the church behind them was luminous as a leper's face.

'Isn't it San Michele?' whispered Fern. 'The cemetery island, where at night no one stays?'

'The dead stay. By this time, no one knows how many of them. All who permit themselves to be taken from their beds, dressed in the streets, and buried.' She pressed her soft cool lips on his to dismiss the thought.

When Fern looked up once more, they were almost past the island. The lines of figures with the gorgeous lanterns lay far astern, though the lanterns were still tilting at odd, wild angles. It occurred to Fern that the figures were not expecting the gondola to stop, but had come out in order to speed it on its way, as it might be the barge of Bianca Capello. He saw that the lights were now higher in the air, as the poles were lifted joyously to their full length. But there was still no sound beyond the sounds of night and the sea.

Out here, while the small, scattered navigation lights flickered and bickered, Fern could see that, in places, the water was not merely faintly radiant but transparent right down to the wrack and garbage settled on the bottom from earliest times. In other places, it was opaque, sometimes as if great volumes of powder had been dissolved in it, and sometimes as if it were effervescent and gaseous. Every now and then Fern could see bones, human or animal, arranged in dead seaweed, or a hideous pile of discarded domesticities, or a small, vague underwater mountain, not quite mineral, not quite vegetable, not quite animal, but riddled and crawling with life of a kind, notwithstanding. Big lumpy fish and pale grey and pink serpentine creatures, elaborately devious in structure, glided in and out of the clear patches, sometimes seeming almost to gambol round the gondola, occasionally breaking surface for a second, with a gasp and croak. Everywhere was an entanglement of seadrift, rotted but constantly self-renewing. The north sh.o.r.e of Venice, always the dark side of the city, was now a necklace of single lamps round the throat of the night: the different floors and the buildings were levelled off by distance and amalgamated with the public lamp posts of the Fondamenta Nuove. Over on the left of the gondola, the ancient gla.s.sworks of Murano, working day and night to produce brittle joys for visitors, thrust quick swords of fire into the encroaching blackness.

Further than Murano it seemed impossible for even this gondolier to continue with so much power; but there was no sign of flagging.

'He is a strong man,' said Fern.

'Here there is a current,' replied his companion. 'Here the struggle ends.'

Fern perceived that they had indeed changed direction. Ahead lay a long dark sh.o.r.e, as in his dream. But he knew quite well what it was. It was the Litorale; the long, narrow, reef strengthened and sustained through the ages to prevent the high seas or the Adriatic from entering the Lagoon and eroding Venice; a reef penetrated by three gaps or porti, through which s.h.i.+pping pa.s.sed, one of which, Fern knew, must be somewhere ahead, the Porto di Lido, standing at the north of that notorious wilderness of pleasure. He realised now where their journey would end. Where else could an official tour of Venice terminate but at Lido?

'We leave the Laguna Morta and enter the Laguna Viva,' said his guide.

Fern was not sure that this was exactly accurate; but it did not really matter, because the next thing she said was, 'This is the moment of love,' and because that, for some little time, was what it proved to be.

After so many mortal years, Fern's dream was proving more than true. Fern was proving himself right and the rest of the world wrong.

Now the sky was at last completely black, the stars gave little light, and the effulgent Lagoon was becoming the sombre sea. Upon all the black gondolier must have looked down, with more time to stare, now that his work was lighter, but about him it did not seem to Fern the moment to concern himself. To Fern, life had become an affair of moments only; a present without past, without future.

How long had pa.s.sed by the hands of Fern's watch, he never knew, because when, somewhat later, he looked at his watch, he found that it had stopped.

IV.

When first he stirred, he realised that a fairly stiff breeze was blowing round the little craft. The gondola was tossing and plunging quite seriously.

Fern drew himself up and looked round. There were biggish waves, and the scanty lighting at the northern, garrison end of Lido, instead of lying ahead, was distinctly to the leftward, the garish glow of the pleasure grounds completely out of sight: to all intents and purposes, Fern realised with a shock, the lights of the Lido pleasure area were behind them. It was somewhere in this watery region that on the Festa de Sensa the Doge at the prow of the Bucentaur, loveliest vessel in the world, each year married the sea. It startled him that his own strange marriage had found its culmination just there. This was when Fern looked at his watch.

Then he twisted right round, for the first time since he had entered the boat, and, kneeling on the keel, looked straight back to the gondolier. Then he had his third and greatest shock. There was no one there at all. The gondola was merely being swept out to sea on the current. It came to Fern that, even though there are said to be but small tides or no tides in the Mediterranean, yet the very expression Laguna Morta referred to areas 'under water only at high tides'; and that now the Lagoon was emptying, pouring out through the relatively narrow breach ahead.

When Fern first roused himself after the moment of love, he had left his companion rem.u.f.fled in her black cloak, soft, small, and silent. Now he turned to where she lay beside him. He could not decide what first to say. It seemed terrible to speak at once of the mere practical circ.u.mstances, and worse if the circ.u.mstances were of danger, as he could not doubt they were. He was appalled by the surmise that the gondolier, strong as he was, had been somehow swept from the boat, while the two of them had been lost in pa.s.sion and the spell of the night. Gently, he put out his hand and drew away the black hood. Then, in the solitude of the sea and against the rising wind, Fern screamed out loud. Inside the black hood was a white skull; and an instantaneous throwing back of the entire black cloak, revealed inside it only an entire white skeleton.

V.

At the Porto di Lido, the main entrance to the harbour of Venice, two very long stone breakwaters run far out to sea. There was no question for Fern of a storm having arisen, or of any serious change at all in the weather. The change was merely that brought about by leaving a more or less still and dead pool for the living, unpredictable ocean. Even the wind which so alarmed Fern was little more than the breeze encountered in almost all regions when one embarks seriously upon open waters. Between the Porto Di Lido breakwaters, therefore, vessels pa.s.sed in and out in fair numbers, hardly sentient of the racing ebb which for a single gondola was so formidable.

Fern, in fact, pa.s.sed no fewer than four incoming s.h.i.+ps; and two others overtook him. Some of them came far too close to his uncontrolled c.o.c.klesh.e.l.l, but his wild shouting and waving reached never a soul aboard any of them, so black was the night, so black his craft, in accordance with the decree of 1562. Between the long breakwaters, the pa.s.sing s.h.i.+ps were the obvious danger: it was certainly not rough, though it was reasonably unpleasant for a man pitching about in a vessel so small as a gondola. The possibility of the gondola, instead of being run down, sinking beneath him, did not, therefore, seriously occur to him until the real sea was drawing quite near.

He shrank forward to the peak of the vessel, so as to separate himself from his now terrible companion, and squatted before the tall iron ferro, only a few inches ahead. The ferro would surely drag the boat down all the faster when the moment came.

At the very end of the leftward or San Eras...o...b..eakwater, the shorter of the two, Fern could just make out a large inscription daubed by supporters of the previous Italian regime, and never obliterated owing to difficulty of access and perhaps other things. It was to the effect that a simple hour as a lion is to be preferred to a lifetime as an a.s.s.

And now there was only the Lido breakwater and, afterwards, the turbulent, nocturnal Adriatic. The gondola sped on like a black leaf on a millstream.

Fern had proved his resolution to leave Venice before the morrow night.

Into The Wood (1968).

At night those unfortunates who suffered from insomnia or nightmare used to wander about in the fields or the woods, trying to reach a pitch of exhaustion that would give them back the power of sleep. Among the afflicted creatures were people from the upper cla.s.ses, well-educated women why, there was even a parish priest! AUGUST STRINDBERG ('Inferno') These areas are not uncommon if you know how (or are compelled) to look for them. As men and women work more and more against nature, nature works more and more against men and women. All the same, a few of the areas are of long acceptance; dating back to the earliest memory of man, as the international lawyers put it. Some of them, in the beginning, were probably holy places of the pre-Christians; of whom a few even now survive on our continent, if, once more, you know how (or are driven) to look for them. Sometimes one is amazed to discover how little that is real or true ever finds its way into general knowledge: in so far, of course, as general knowledge is still an expression with meaning.

'Harry and Molly Sawyer' was what they had printed on their Christmas Cards; with an address in a Ches.h.i.+re town that was hardly a town any more, but a sprawling and sleeping area for Manchester. Harry Sawyer's business card indicated that he was an 'Earth Mover', though when one met him he seemed to have neither the back muscles of Atlas nor the mental leverage of Archimedes, nor yet the power to shake the world of Marx or Hitler; and when one saw his yellow, s.p.a.ce-fiction machines on the move, each withSAWYER painted in black capitals on all four sides, each able to pulp a platoon of soldiers at a swing of the beam, one wondered how long he could possibly hope to keep them under control.

Margaret Sawyer saw as little of the yellow monsters as she could, and, with the other well-to-do Manchester wives, strove for domestic realisation among an ever-growing a.s.sembly of lesser monsters, all whirring, spinning, and chopping, in kitchen, washroom, and lounge. Among other things, the gadgets ('gadflies', she once thought) were supposed to give her more time for her children, two girls and a boy; but it seldom worked that way. Margaret could hardly hope to be happier than the other Manchester wives; but until one night in Sweden, she would have rejected the idea that she was positively unhappy. Nor was she: until that night she was insufficiently grown for happiness or unhappiness; might well have been among those who express doubt as to whether the words mean very much.

Sawyer had to visit Sovastad, on the eastern side of central Sweden; where a big, wide, dangerous, costly road was being built across the mountains into Norway. As he would have to stay there at least a week, the Swedes, hospitable ever, had suggested that he bring Margaret with him. Those of the Swedish wives who were not pursuing careers of their own, would be able to look after her during the day, and see that she had a good time. Margaret had acquiesced: one could not use a stronger word.

And so, on the whole, it had worked out. Margaret had never been so thoroughly and efficiently looked after in all her previous life; never had so concentrated a good time. There was a highpowered, unflagging, day-and-night cordiality among the richer Swedes, to which she was totally unaccustomed, and which by the end of the week, she found very exhausting, though she would have hesitated to say so, even to herself because back in Ches.h.i.+re, she had supposed it to be the very thing she wanted. Harry also grew quieter and quieter. He admitted to her that he found Swedish businessmen and business methods very hard going. 'Particularly the younger men,' he said. 'They're so keen and sharp, they take the skin off your hands, and then they turn round and deliver a lecture about British Imperialism and what's wrong with our hospitals. You can't tell where you stand at all.'

Nor, despite the social whirlwind, did Margaret find Sovastad a jocund town. It straggled along the sh.o.r.e of a vast, black lake, described as one of the biggest not only in Sweden but in Europe; and the high mountains to the west cut off the sun half-way through the day, darkened the streets, and made the water look like tar. The lake was said to be so deep as never to have been fathomed, and, as often in such cases, to harbour a creature of enormous bulk, terrifying aspect, species unknown to zoology, and origin unknown to all. There were many representations of this beast in the conscientious provincial museum, round which Margaret was conscientiously conducted by three Swedish ladies, all better dressed than she was and better preserved also, all erudite about the exhibits, in a manner unimaginable in Manchester. In late mediaeval woodcuts, the creature appeared with protuberant eyes, a forked tongue, and a thick circle of whiskers like seaweed. In eighteenth-century guides to natural philosophy, it had quietened down into the likeness of a baroque ceiling embellishment. A century later, with the advance of the scientific att.i.tude, the most barbaric devices had been constructed by the locals to trap and kill it. They were all faithfully exhibited, and the Swedish ladies explained in detail how they would have worked. Margaret was glad that there had been no occasion.

'So the creature's still in the lake?' she asked. She could not p.r.o.nounce the Swedish name for the monster.

'The children think so,' replied the Swedish ladies.

The lake was, in fact, named after it, they explained: 'Lake Orm', meaning 'serpent'. It was one of the few Swedish words Margaret felt able more or less to manage. The high tessitura in which the language is spoken, the combination of breadth and alt.i.tude in the vowel sounds, were quite beyond her. All the same, a guidebook to the district which she came upon later, said that the name of the lake originated merely in its serpentine periphery, with long arms reaching into the mountains like tentacles.

Sovastad, Margaret decided, was a little too small for its pretensions. The Swedes made the very most of every urban feature, designing them splendidly, using them fully, but the population was not big enough to prevent the rocks struggling through in almost every street and prospect, and determining the prevailing ethos. By half past three in the afternoon, the feeling would set in that this was a community almost as involved in a ceaseless struggle with harsh natural forces as a colony of Esquimaux. There was every amenity, but they were a little like the comforts of an air force base with a bitter war on its hands. Not that Margaret could think of any better adaptation to the forbidding rocks and endless winter, to which much reference was made, jocular but surprisingly grim also. Beyond doubt, the Swedes had done wonders, but a feeling of strain was pervasive. Perhaps only a newcomer, a visitor from abroad, would be aware of it.

At the same time, there was always in Sovastad a faint mistiness, a clammy softness; or, when the sun was striking directly down, an expectation of it. It too seemed to pervade the communal life; in the hectic quality of which was something almost Russian. When the sun did strike, the faint, vague mist seemed to make it still hotter. Then, very quickly, the high mountains would cut off the radiance, and within a quarter of an hour, Margaret would feel as chilled as previously she had felt warmed. She would have liked to wear trousers, but Henry implied that it would diminish their status, already none too secure. When Margaret pointed out how many of the Swedish women wore them, he inevitably replied that this was one of the very reasons why she shouldn't.

Henry's att.i.tude, and the possibility of consequent dissension between them, was the main reason, as far as Margaret was concerned, for their going on Sunday for a drive through the mountains by car, instead of for a trek on foot, which the Swedes had suggested in the first place. She could hardly, she felt, go mountaineering in a two-piece from Kendall, Milnes and frail, almost c.o.c.ktail-time shoes; especially when so many continentals tended to adopt near-battledress for even an afternoon walk. The Swedes would laugh at her, and, however she dealt with the situation, Henry would sulk. It was remarkable how deeply men seemed to feel such things when their att.i.tude to the whole question of clothes was almost always so entirely negative.

Therefore they went, six of them, by car, higher and higher, along roads very unlike the ones which Henry was building to a scale that was not human. The conifers that cover so much of Sweden, the pools, quagmires, and small lakes that occupy so much of the land area, were sad, and, at the same time, slightly mysterious and equivocal, but Margaret became aware of a spell in the very monotony, even though she was seated in the back of the big Volvo with a married couple eager that she miss absolutely nothing. The spell lay perhaps in the monotony and the boundlessness combined: already she had seen much landscape like this on the way up from Stockholm, she knew that it extended all the way northwards to the commencement of the tundra, and she had become aware how different are Swedish distances from their aspect in the ordinary school atlas. There were no footpaths through the trees, such as still survive through most woodlands in England; no tracks; no apparent access to the woods at all except by struggle. It was not so much that these millions of conifers would be likely to conceal a huge, lost city or a race of pygmies, but rather that they might of themselves generate and diffuse forces quite outside their arboricultural aspects, forces which one might have to tramp far and long to sense, because it might take much time and distance to disengage oneself sufficiently from machines like Henry's, from life like that in the Ches.h.i.+re subtopia.

They reached a high place. The car stopped and they got out. 'Don't leave the road,' said the Swedes. 'You'll sink above your ankles.' Margaret thought it was an exaggeration, but it was still odd that women were required to array themselves primarily as erotic objects, even on the most unsuitable occasions, even when they had pa.s.sed forty, even when the last thing that men like Henry seemed to think of was eroticism, anyway where his wife was concerned. Moreover, there was a wind blowing with a filter of ice behind it, to which Margaret was unaccustomed in England.

Still she gazed around, conscious of the spell. From this height, there were dark-green trees to the edges of the earth. Directly below, like a big, irregular rent in the greenery, spread the Orm, all of it visible at once; the square miles of black pool beside which stood the puny town; the winding, octopus arms stretching towards her. Sovastad looked like a cl.u.s.ter of limpets on the hard rock; or like the first town that men had built. The line of the new road made another tear in the woodlands, but outside Sovastad there was hardly a building to be seen in the entire panorama.

When, however, in a few steps they reached the top of the ridge, with a similar vast expanse of green to the west, Margaret saw that on this side a single structure rose fairly near at hand from the trees on the westward side of the mountains. It was a sizeable, wooden edifice, painted white, and with a slate roof.

'Who lives there?' asked Margaret, making conversation.

'It is the Kurhus. A sanatorium,' said one of the Swedish wives.

'It is not only for the sick,' explained the other Swedish wife.

'It is a place where people stay, but where there is treatment too, if you want it.'

'What you call a rest cure,' added one of the Swedish husbands.

From what Margaret had seen of Swedish life, she was not surprised.

'It has fallen out of fas.h.i.+on,' observed the second Swedish husband. 'People have no time for rest cures today.'

'Your country has the reputation of having more welfare than anywhere else,' Margaret could not help observing.

'Welfare is not rest,' replied the Swede; speaking quite severely.

'The Kurhus would do better to move with the times and become a motel,' said the other Swede. 'Business men today often prefer to sleep outside the city, provided there is a good road.'

'It must have a wonderful view, and the afternoon sun and the sunset too,' remarked Margaret. In Sovastad, there were no sunsets.

'That is true,' said one of the Swedish women seriously. 'The Kurhus sees the sinking sun. It is appropriate.'

No more was said on the subject, but, after they had gone for a little walk along the ride (Margaret would gladly have continued much further), they drove a short distance along the western flank of the mountain before returning to Sovastad, and actually pa.s.sed the Kurhus portal. Flowers hung from baskets and a number of people were sitting about at tables on a terrace. To Margaret, it did not look in the least out of fas.h.i.+on or unsuccessful. Indeed, she liked the look of it very much: especially the contrast between the small but elegant sophistications of decor and the immense wild prospect extending north, south, and west under the warm sun. The new road had not yet reached this side of the mountains, and Margaret had no idea whether it ever would. Since they had come to Sweden, Henry seemed to experience such difficulty in holding on to the the various rights and duties of his position that he had never found breathing-s.p.a.ce to go into such geographical particulars with her.

Two days later, in fact, things rose to a crisis. In the middle of the morning, Henry routed Margaret out of a konditori, where she was consuming successive cups of excellent but expensive coffee, and told her that he would have to go back for the next two nights to Stockholm, and that their departure for England would have to be postponed until at least two days after that. 'I shall be obliged to come back here again, dammit,' said Henry. 'I must make sure that they really understand what Stockholm has decided.'

'What a pest for you!' said Margaret.

'Will you come to Stockholm with me, or would you prefer to stay here till I come back? I'm sure the Larssons and the Falkenbergs will give you a good time.'

'I don't want much more good time just for the present. May I go and stay at the Kurhus?'

Henry looked doubtful. 'They said it wasn't up to much.'

'That might mean it's quiet. Of course, I mustn't keep the room in the hotel here at the same time, but I'm sure you can arrange something.'

'Never mind about that,' said Henry generously. 'If you want a change, of course you must have it.'

'If you're not going to be here,' said Margaret, 'I want some more of the sun. If you'll tell me when you'll be back, I'll be here again waiting for you.'

'A completely new girl,' said Henry, and kissed her.

At the Kurhus next midday, Margaret was given the most beautiful room: large, with a view from the windows extending for miles, charmingly furnished, and with no fewer than three long rows of a.s.sorted books in at least four languages. Margaret, who read books, looked at this small library with considerable curiosity. As far as she could tell, the volumes seemed even to have been chosen with care, and to be by no means mere left-behinds or the bedtime reading one might expect if one could in an hotel expect anything of that kind at all. But immediately it had occurred to Margaret that these were not books of the sort that most people would read to induce slumber, she observed that the next work on the shelf was a substantial tome named Die Schlaflosigkeit, which she suspected might mean 'Insomnia'. She put it back in a hurry. Margaret made a point of sleeping like a top and believed that insomnia was largely a matter of suggestion. She wanted to know nothing about it. The next book was Daudet's Sappho. If she had been there to improve her French instead of to have a rest, that might have been well worth struggling with.

After she had said goodbye to Henry, and before leaving Sovastad, Margaret had braved the language barrier in order to buy herself a pair of sober green trousers, dark as the conifers; a coffee-coloured s.h.i.+rt, a lighter green anorak, and a pair of tough shoes. Into this costume she now changed. Probably she was too old for it, at least by British standards; but she intended her standard, for these two days, to be that of the woods and rocks and mountains, rather than that of the neighbours at home. Feeling almost a girl again, she fell on the huge double bed and, splaying out her legs, wrote a joyful postcard to each of her three children at their respective boarding schools. Then, to her intense surprise, she found that in the full flood of the mountain sun she was falling uncontrollably asleep.

When she woke up, she had, to say the least of it, missed luncheon. It was really rather queer. She had slept the night before, as long and as well as she always did, even though in the next bed Henry had probably tossed and turned as usual. She could not remember when last she had fallen asleep in the middle of the day: hardly, she thought, since she had been made to have a daily rest as a child. As far as she could recall, she had not dreamed. It was simply as if two hours or more of her proper life had been stolen from her, arbitrarily cancelled. 'It's the relaxation,' she thought; not quite daring to think, 'It's the relief' ... 'It's the beautiful big bed.' (Henry always insisted on single beds, because he slept so badly; and it was a long time since she had slept in or even on anything else.) 'It's my new clothes' ... 'It's the sun, the mountain air.'

She was not exactly hungry, but felt that if she didn't eat something at this accustomed hour, she would regret it. Also she had to buy some stamps. She drew up the zip of her anorak, arranged her s.h.i.+rt collar outside it, put on some lipstick, and descended, feeling strange in every way, but not unpleasantly so. Architecturally, the hotel really was rather fine in its period manner: a wide staircase, with bra.s.s wood-nymphs holding up the bal.u.s.ter, wood-nymphs that were half trees; a square hall with tall, thin, Gothic windows, and more wood-nymphs in the stained gla.s.s.

From experience of other continental hotels, Margaret had rather expected that someone would enquire solicitously, or pester (according as one saw it), about her lunch for which she (or Henry) would be, in any case, paying, in accordance with Henry's usual rule. But no one did. In fact, there was no one about at all; not even behind the hotel desk. Nor was there a sound; not even of birds without. The big front door stood wide open and the hall was like a temple into which sunlight streamed through every aperture, strewing the stained-gla.s.s nymphs across the white-tiled floor. Margaret reflected that even if she had been set on lunch, she would hardly have got it. At the thought, she felt quite empty.

She imagined that people would be sitting about on the terrace, as she had seen them when she had driven past; but there proved to be no one. She stood by the bal.u.s.trade, enthralled, though a little oppressed also, by the immensity of sunlit green. The sun was almost directly overhead and really hot. Margaret took off her anorak, and sat down on one of the brightly coloured terrace chairs, uncertain what to do next. She noticed that almost every window in the hotel seemed to be wide open; possibly a consequence of the hotel's sanatorium function. She noticed also that below the terrace on this side, the opposite side from the road (itself a minor one), ran a path. It emerged from the woodland on her right and entered the woodland on her left.

For some reason, it made her think of the track along which the figures pa.s.s when a mediaeval cathedral clock strikes the hour. She expected to see a red-eyed dragon emerge from one of the green tunnels, with a jewelled St. George in pursuit; and disappear into the other tunnel, eternally unconquered, though hourly beset. Or perhaps it might be a procession of twelve wise virgins; or of six pilgrims and six temptations. She herself sat at a higher level, observant of all, like the Madonna. It was along tracks such as the one below that all creation ran from darkness to darkness, everything from the stars to the rabbits in the corner of an altarpiece; until Copernicus, and Kepler and Brahe, and Galileo began upsetting things. One of the hospitable Swedes had shown her a big ill.u.s.trated book about Brahe, translating all the captions into better English than the English speak. The Swedish family had not appeared to doubt that Brahe and his kind were advantageous.

Out of the forest, as Margaret sat in the hot sun, came not St. George, but a bustling grey-haired woman in a red dress and carrying ill.u.s.trated papers. Obviously a hotel resident, she ascended the steps to the terrace.

'Good afternoon,' she said to Margaret, staring at her clothes. 'You are a newcomer.' The woman could not have been anything but a lady from England. 'It is unfortunate that I cannot in all honesty wish you a happy stay.' Margaret supposed that she was a trifle eccentric, as the English abroad are so often said to be.

'I'm only here for two nights,' she said smiling.

'Really!' exclaimed the English lady, apparently much surprised. 'A casual. We get very few casuals nowadays. So much the worse, perhaps. But it's connected with changing tastes. There's nothing to do here, you know. Absolutely nothing. What made you come here?'

'I drove past with some Swedish friends and liked the look of it.'

'A pity your Swedish friends didn't tell you that this is not an ordinary hotel. Some of them must have known perfectly well. Most people in Sweden know, and a good many elsewhere too.' She was standing with her hand on the back of the chair on the other side of the table from the chair on which Margaret was seated.

'But my friends did tell me,' said Margaret patiently. 'They warned me it was partly a sanatorium. As a matter of fact, they more or less advised me against coming here. I just didn't think their reasons were very good. As far as I was concerned anyway. I wanted the sun and I wanted not to have to wear my best clothes all the time. That was all. I wanted a rest. For two days, you know.'

'I see,' said the English lady.

'But won't you sit down?'

'Thank you,' said the English lady. 'I had better introduce myself. I am Sandy Slater. At least that is what I have always been called. No one has ever called me Alexandra. Mrs. Slater, by the way; though my marriage was little more than a formality. I was born a Brock-Vere.'

'I am Margaret Sawyer. I have usually been called Molly, but I like it less than I did. Mrs., too. My husband is concerned with building the new road.'

'I understand that the new road will make little difference to the Jamblichus Kurhus. The authorities have taken care to keep us at a distance.'

'Is that a good thing? I imagine that the owners mightn't think so. One of my Swedish friends actually said that the Kurhus ought to go in more for attracting motorists.'

'He must have been a very ignorant man,' said Mrs. Slater firmly. 'I notice that many of the Swedes are nowadays. If you will forgive my saying so about a friend of yours.'

'Oh, that's all right,' said Margaret. 'They're friends of my husband's really. Or not even that. More business acquaintances. Not that they haven't been very kind to us. They've been quite fantastic. Though that reminds me,' she continued. 'For some reason I fell asleep almost immediately I arrived here, which is something I never normally do, and in consequence I missed lunch, though it seems a silly thing to say. I'm beginning to feel rather hungry. Is it possible to attract some service?'

'Not until four o'clock,' said Mrs. Slater.

'But it's not yet three!' exclaimed Margaret. 'This is as bad as England. I shall be paying for lunch too, or at least my husband will. He will book everything, though I should often prefer to be less tied down.'