Head in Green Bronze and Other Stories E-Book

Hugh Walpole

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

In Walpole style, an excellent collection of short story bedside tables in the guest room, for recovering or reading aloud. There is nothing modern cynicism; the stories seem somewhat outdated – but in the end it often reassures. One group may be left alone, „Let the storm tremble,” built on the fascinating idea of business to rid society of boring ones.

Leseprobe

Contents

HEAD IN GREEN BRONZE

THE GERMAN

THE EXILE

THE TRAIN

THE HAIRCUT

LET THE BORES TREMBLE

THE HONEY-BOX

THE FEAR OF DEATH

FIELD WITH FIVE TREES

HAVING NO HEARTS

THE CONJURER

HEAD IN GREEN BRONZE

The Lord God Almighty was busy that time examining the artists. This was a tiresome and monotonous job, for He had been doing it for thousands and thousands of centuries and, with one or two exceptions a century, artists are always the same.

About Him stretched into everlasting space fields and fields of light, rather as on an early summer evening, when the harvesters have drawn away home and the sun-drenched soil is left to its own peace.

But every artist as he appeared for his examination brought with him his own personal memory and consciousness, his individual litter....

It was the authors whom just now God Almighty was examining. The examinations were very brief.

Against the vast eternity of light–light upon light upon light and of a stainless purity–the impedimenta of each separate little soul seemed incredibly mean and paltry. Now, for example, there was William Newcombe with his country cottage, old oak beams, settle by the fire, flagged garden path, refrigerator and most modern bathroom. Also his twenty-three travel books and his blank-verse drama called Armageddon.

“They all sold very well, I hear,’ said God Almighty.

“Well,’ William answered modestly, “they did. Except Armageddon, which didn’t sell at all.’

“Why did you write that one?’ asked God Almighty.

“Because I wanted to,’ said William, blinking his old eyes a little at the unaccustomed light.

“Good,’ said God Almighty. “Because of that one book you may have with you, while at work, any one of your earthly goods and chattels you prefer.’

“My dog Caesar,’ William said promptly. All his impedimenta, oak beams, garden path, bathroom, all the travel books disappeared, and only a charming fox-terrier with engaging whiskers, frisking in the light, remained. William and Caesar, in the charge of an Archangel, passed into light.

A flock of angels cut the brilliant air like a wave breaking through mist.

“Next one,’ said God Almighty.

This was Peter Bentham, whose consciousness provided him with four very thin books of poetry, a life of Rimbaud, a small painting by Dali, and a cough mixture in a dirty blue bottle.

God Almighty looked at him. “How have you allowed your body to get into such a miserable state?’

“I never was very strong,’ Peter answered with that rather shrill staccato little cry that had before now thrown so much terrible scorn on prosperity and success.

“I’m afraid,’ said God Almighty gently (for there was something very touching about Peter), “that you have prevented yourself from enjoying too many amusing and vivifying things.’

“That,’ said Peter firmly (he was not going to be put down by a God Who, all his life, he had asserted did not exist), “is because my taste has always been perfect. I have never been able to endure any kind of athletics, popular novels and novelists, optimistic essays and sentimental plays, patriotism, or anyone, male or female, in rude health.’

“What have you enjoyed?’ God Almighty asked.

“My own poetry,’ Peter answered, “the paintings of Dali, Miró and Léger, the music of Tschenakivitzky, free love in Russia and a cocktail called “Flowers of Parnassus.” ’

“I like your honesty,’ God Almighty said, “but you are a little too serious, especially about yourself. However, what you really need is fattening up. Without your earthly clothes’ (for now all Peter’s worldly impedimenta had vanished) “you are frankly a miserable object–nor have you washed as frequently as you should. However, we shall soon change all that. I shall hand you over to Henry Fielding for an aeon or two.’

And then came Margaret Cunningham, a tall, fat, red-faced woman whose teeth because they had not been kept back in childhood now protruded over a receding chin. Without her clothes she was shapeless, helpless, innocent. Her impedimenta were an untidy two-roomed flat, a tortoiseshell cat, some London chimneys, her working tools and some twenty-four misshapen clay heads with long necks leaning to right or left.

“Well, Margaret,’ God Almighty said kindly, “I’m afraid you haven’t made much of a living out of this work of yours.’

“Well, no, I haven’t,’ Margaret said frankly in her Woman’s-Club how-are-you-all-girls voice. “Of course there was the teaching twice a week.’ She felt the light on her nakedness with so keen a pleasure that her brown-grey eyes shone with delight. “It’s like the Riviera, which I’ve never been able to afford,’ she said.

“But this,’ said God Almighty, “has been always your secret longing’–and there, solid against the light, was the curving road, the signpost “To Watendlath,’ the newspaper placard “Mussolini attacks Britain’ and the stream, the shelving green hill, the mouse-shaped clouds watching a cat-faced moon.

“Yes,’ Margaret murmured. “That and the head in green bronze.’

“Head of whom?’ God Almighty asked.

“Of no one in particular. Simply a grand head of some hero–in dark green bronze. I’ve imagined myself for years and years creating such a thing. I could, I believe, if I’d gone on. I was really improving. But then I caught cold and pneumonia followed–and here I am!’

“There’s plenty of time,’ God Almighty said. He looked at Margaret kindly. “Here’s where you’ve always wanted to be. You’re a true artist although not as yet a very good one. Donatello shall give you a lesson or two....’

Margaret was on her bare knees looking into the stream behind Rosthwaite. Beside her was a little pile of clay.

“God Almighty thinks I can help you,’ a voice said.

She looked up and saw Donatello, naked and glorious. He knelt down beside her, taking the clay in his hands.

“Now let us see,’ he said. “Head of a Hero in green bronze....’

THE GERMAN

The date of this story is 1933. The date is very important because in no other year in the world’s history, perhaps, could things have happened just as they did in 1933. What I mean is that if it had not been for the things that happened in 1933 the soul and body of Hans would not have been rent with such fearful storms and stresses as they were. This is Hans’s story.

Hans was a dachshund. He was both the pride and property of the Conistons.

The Conistons were a very nice family who lived in Hyde Park Gate, and they still live there and are still a nice family. The family consisted of Alfred Coniston, Nellie, his wife, Rupert, aged twenty-two, and Margaret, aged twenty-one. Their cook was called Hammond and their maid’s name was Fanny Sutcliffe, which everyone who knew anything about cricket thought a very odd coincidence. But the Conistons knew nothing about cricket. Alfred Coniston might have said “What are Hobbs?’ just as someone asked, in an earlier day, of Keats. The fact was that the Conistons were eaten up with Causes. Alfred Coniston had retired, and had therefore plenty of spare time for his hobby. Mrs. Coniston had time, too, because Hammond and Sutcliffe were such excellent servants and Margaret Coniston took so many things off her mother’s hands. Alfred and Nellie Coniston had hearts as tender as were to be found in the whole of London.

They were too tender, in fact. They were always bleeding. They bled for things as different as Out-of-Work Musicians, Itinerant Greeks, Negroes in America, Overworked Navvies and the Old Destitute Ladies’ Society. They were not well-off, but quite comfortable as people go in these difficult times. They would, however, have never had a penny for themselves, have been as destitute as any of their Causes, had it not been for their son Rupert, who was made of much sterner stuff. Rupert had a high position in the Custom House and so learnt, day by day, what rogues and rascals people could be. He, too, cared for Causes, but in a more impersonal and abstract way. His parents looked up to him very much indeed and he thought it quite right that they should do so. He cared for his parents’ affairs and saw that they were not too foolish. They often appeared shamefaced in his presence.

And now about Hans. Hans had been given, when he was a puppy, to Mrs. Coniston by her husband on the occasion of her birthday. The fact was that Alfred Coniston had been, on this occasion, really puzzled as to what to give his wife. A subscription to the Cancer Hospital was what she wanted him to give her, but, for once in a way, he determined that she should have something for herself. She needed nothing. Her jewellery consisted of her wedding ring and a necklace of amber beads. She wished for no more. She had plenty of serviceable clothes, she never read a book but only pamphlets, she was not greedy, she did not wish to look beautiful. What could he give her? He passed the Bond Street dog-shop and there was Hans in the window. He looked dejected and unhappy; two men, staring at him from the street, were poking fun at him. He became at once therefore in the eyes of Alfred Coniston a Cause. Alfred went in and bought him.

He was at that time a very comical-looking creature indeed, with a long, thin body like a black hose-pipe, a thread of a tail and very large black ears. But his eyes were of a melting brown and his coat of so silken and warm a sleekness that in cold weather (Mrs. Coniston’s birthday was in November) he was as good as a hot-water bottle.

The whole family (including Hammond and Sutcliffe) took to him at once and he took to the family.

He was every bit as sentimental as they were. He had the softest of hearts and the most trusting of natures, which was just what the Conistons preferred. With the exception of Rupert. Rupert, from the first, thought of him as a foreigner. For Rupert any kind of frontier was a barrier. It was from behind frontiers that people wickedly brought into England cameras, clocks, silks, scents and the rest of the list. It was on the other side of frontiers that people learnt to be wicked, deceitful and sly. Rupert profoundly distrusted all foreigners. Nor did Hans quite trust Rupert. In spite of his soft heart Hans was not altogether a fool. He was a selector of persons. There would come into his warm, brown eyes, at times, a sharp, suspicious look, and he was capable of secretly nipping the ankles of anyone he disliked.

The fact that he was a foreigner and a German did not distress the other members of the Coniston family. They strongly approved of it, for Germany had, for a long while now, been one of their Causes.

Mrs. Coniston did not sleep at night properly for thinking of the poor Germans. Someone had told her dreadful stories of the bread-line in Berlin; another friend had stayed in a small German town where the courage of the middle-class ladies was almost terrifying. So the Conistons were pro-German and very anti-French indeed. Had Hans been a poodle his lot would have been a poor one. He would have been charged with immoral literature, taxing the English for their occupation of the trenches, and mean avoidance of the American Debt.

As it was, he flourished. He was, like all dachshunds, very well able to look after himself. The dachshund, more than any dog save the Pekingese and the French bulldog, knows exactly what he wants. His needs are partly material, partly spiritual. The satisfaction of both is essential to him. He will, for instance, quite naturally droop and pine in any house where the food is insufficient, but he will also droop and pine in any house where he is misunderstood.

He has also a very strong and almost ironical sense of humour, a sense of humour that is, strangely enough, not German at all, but French rather in its lightness, gaiety, and absence of any moral prejudices. In addition to these things he is a very sporting dog and will chase anything that runs, not minding at all if he looks ridiculous (as he frequently does) in the act. The spirit is all!

Hans had all these qualities. He was as gay as a flattered baby, as ironical as Anatole France, as greedy (when he was hungry) as Pantagruel, and a perfect Jorrocks when out for a walk. And, as I have already said, he had a most sensitive and affectionate heart.

The only part of him that the Conistons did not understand was his irony. They had no irony at all in their own composition, and when a friend of theirs, Mrs. Burrows, said one day, “How delightful it is to see people to whom everyone else’s affairs are their own,’ they agreed smilingly that they were a fortunate family in that respect.

There were occasions when Hans looked at them ironically–once, for instance, when Mrs. Coniston tied a blue bow round his neck at Christmas, once when Mr. Coniston went to a Fancy-Dress Ball for the Distressed Crofters of Scotland dressed as a Bavarian peasant in very tight shorts. But he soon discovered that irony was lost upon them, and he liked them so much that he forgave them. His gaiety they appreciated, for they were themselves (with the exception of Rupert) essentially gay people and laughed at almost everything. Hans liked to play with them, and every evening after supper a chewed and dissipated black ball was produced. This ball was thrown for him by Mr. Coniston, hidden under the bookcase by Mrs. Coniston, and bounced on the floor by Margaret. Hans played this game (it always lasted fifteen minutes exactly by the ormolu drawing-room clock) very prettily and pretended to take it seriously because of his love for them, but his real amusements were quite other. What he truly enjoyed was to exercise his imagination and surprise people. Hammond and Sutcliffe adored him and would grossly have overfed him had they been able, but Hans realized that, hungry though he might be, true pleasure in food came from delicate choice. He was something of a gourmet, something of a sensualist. Like all sensualists he knew that one must refuse often in order to enjoy much.

Behind his gaiety, his irony and his greed was his devotion. He had never loved any other human beings because of his tender youth, and, as he grew, love became a necessity of his being. His trustfulness of all the world made him amiable to almost everyone; but the Conistons, even Rupert, commanded his entire devotion. He loved them in this order: Margaret first, Mrs. Coniston next, then Mr. Coniston, lastly Rupert–but he loved them all. When, for several weeks, Mr. Coniston lay in bed with a stomach complaint (indigestion was his weakness), Hans led a bewildered, apprehensive existence. He could not understand why Mr. Coniston lay in bed, why he groaned, why he, Hans, was prevented from the room where Mr. Coniston was. He imagined that some enemy had done this and barked at everyone who came to the house. When Mr. Coniston at last appeared downstairs, very pale, very melancholy, Hans did everything that he could to amuse him. And when Mr. Coniston, at last stirred to life by the injustices of the Moscow Trial of the English Engineers, woke to activity again and wrote a long letter to the Daily Telegraph, Hans was overjoyed and became a perfect Don Juan in the Park.

Such was his life, sheltered, you would say, safe, prosperous. But who is safe in these times? It is a commonplace that what happens in one country dreadfully affects all the others, so close are we to-day to all our fellow human beings.

What happened in Germany became Hans’s tragedy.

I don’t know when exactly it was that the Conistons became aware of the Nazis. Because Germany was a Cause, therefore everything that happened in Germany was right–until, quite suddenly, everything was wrong.

The Conistons had never considered the Jews very carefully, which was odd because the Jews have been a Cause ever since the beginning of Genesis. Alfred Coniston numbered several Jews among his friends–there were the Hotzheims, the Goetzes, the Richters. He was very cordial towards the Hotzheims, who were as warm-hearted as he himself. Mrs. Hotzheim, stout, red-faced, extremely voluble, was so very good-natured that her flat in Knightsbridge overflowed with the destitute. She was for ever wiping the noses of street children and buying sweets for them.

It was, in all probability, through the Hotzheims that the Conistons first became aware that something was wrong in Germany. Oscar Hotzheim had a brother in Berlin. Oscar Hotzheim’s brother committed suicide. It made no difference that it was well known that Mr. Hotzheim’s brother was nothing very much and had been in bad financial trouble long before the Nazis–the fact that he had shot himself inflamed the Coniston imagination. Hitler came to full power, Einstein and Feuchtwanger and Thomas Mann were excommunicated, there were Concentration Camps, stories of persecution and horror. The Conistons were not of those who quiver for accuracy. Emotion takes the place of facts. Here was a new Cause–one of the finest that they had ever had.

It was one fine morning at breakfast that Alfred Coniston suddenly realised that Hans was a German. The sunlight was flooding the room, the silver gleamed and glittered, the kedgeree was perfectly seasoned–nevertheless Alfred was uncomfortable.

“Is anything the matter, dear?’ Mrs. Coniston asked.

“No, I don’t think so.’ He drank his coffee. “Here is a letter, darling, from Oscar, suggesting that we should sign a paper demanding the trial of Hitler by a Central European Council. What do you think of the idea?’

He looked about him, his eyes wandered from the oil-painting of his father to the Medici print of a Vermeer, thence to the floor, finally to Hans who was lying, his black stove-pipe body stretched contentedly before the fire, one large brown eye watching Margaret’s plate, for there were occasions when something excellent came his way. Alfred Coniston regarded Hans: Hans regarded Alfred Coniston. Hans’s eyes twinkled, his large ears flapped as though he scented a fly.

“It’s that dog,’ Alfred said, suddenly.

“What dog, dear?’ asked Mrs. Coniston.

“Hans. I’ve never thought of it before. It’s foolish of me–but do you realise, darling, how very German Hans is?’

All eyes were on Hans.

Rupert, getting up to be on his way to the Custom House, said: “I always said so–a beastly foreigner.’

“What nonsense!’ Margaret cried. “He was born in England. He’s no more German than I am.’

“It isn’t where he was born,’ Alfred said, very solemnly. “It’s what he looks like. I suppose there’s nothing in the world looks more German than a dachshund.’ Finally he said before he left the room: “I can’t help it. But the sight of that dog offends me!’

How subtle a thing is atmosphere! Within two days everyone in the house was conscious of Hans’s very German appearance. Unfortunately for Hans the papers were full, just then, of Nazi atrocities. Every day brought fresh horrors. No one was safe in Germany. Someone was kicked in the stomach and died because he would not salute the Nazi flag. Never, never before had there been a Cause so exactly suited to the Coniston temperament. Mrs. Coniston paid visits to the Hotzheims and the Goetzes. Alfred Coniston signed papers, wrote letters; Rupert cut a fellow official in the Custom House because he was of German origin.

And Hans? It did not take him very long to be aware of a difference. He noticed first that people spoke to him very little. He enjoyed nothing better than constant conversation. What he liked was that as soon as he was near a human being that human being should recognise his presence. On his side he might come to the conclusion that nothing was to be done beyond a bark or a sniff at a trouser-leg. The point was that there should be contact. In the Conistons’ house contact had always been instant. He could not enter any room without someone saying: “Oh, there’s Hans!’ or “Come here, Hans!’ and his reply would be what he chose to make it, jovial, ironical, sentimental, proud or humble....

Now there began to be silence. At first he thought the trouble must be in himself. He had been with the Conistons so long that he was growing casual, not taking thought as once he had done. So he barked, played, ran as never he had done before. Margaret took him for a walk in the Park, and never in all his life before had he tried so hard to be entertaining.

She sat on a seat and looked at him, and for the first time real trouble entered into his soul. The sun sparkled through the trees, children ran happily about, a most attractive female fox-terrier made coy enticing gestures in the neighbourhood. Hans paid these things no attention. His eyes were on Margaret.

She motioned him on to the seat beside her. He sprang up and laid his head on her lap. She stroked his warm sleek back.

“Do you feel German, Hans?’ she asked. “Do your instincts go back to your forefathers? If you were in Germany now, would you be a Nazi dog or an anti-Nazi? It would depend on the politics of your master. That’s a good point I will tell them at home. Your politics are the same as ours. Now bark when I say “Hitler” ! ’

She made a motion with her hand and he barked. They went home very happily, for now surely everything would be well.

At tea-time, Margaret said “Hitler! Down with Hitler!’ and Hans barked, but, unfortunately, Mr. Coniston followed it with “Down with the Jews!’ and Hans barked at that, too.

“You see,’ Mr. Coniston said, gloomily. “He has no pro-Jewish feeling.’

The alarm that had come to Hans did not now leave him. He knew that something was wrong. Even in the kitchen things were not as they had been.

“He do look German, don’t he?’ said Sutcliffe to Hammond. “What is all this the Germans are doing? The master was raving at lunch.’

“They are massacring everybody,’ Hammond said, “who don’t think like they do. They kicked a man in the stomach in Berlin.’

“Well I never!’ said Sutcliffe. “Would you believe it? It’s like the War back again.’

She snapped rather sharply at Hans who had jumped on to a chair, a favour always granted him.

“Now then, come off it,’ Sutcliffe said. “Dirtying the chair....’

And Hans, desperately puzzled, came off it.

That night, a terrible thing happened. Hitherto he had always slept in a basket in Mr. Coniston’s room. His basket was taken down to the pantry.

“I don’t know why it is,’ Mr. Coniston said. “It’s ridiculous, but that dog reminds me too much of what is going on. I doubt if I should sleep a wink.’

Hans did not sleep, either. The pantry, commonplace in the daytime, was terrifying at night. Things rustled and shook and trembled. He lay there, his sharp nose on the edge of the basket, wondering what crime he had committed. He knew again what loneliness was. The horror of the dog-shop in Bond Street had been that he did not belong to anyone. During these last happy years he had forgotten the dog-shop, but now in the grim loneliness of the pantry those old terrors returned. Once again he was without protection. Friendship had given him a multitude of safeguards. Even when he had done wrong, his punishment had been followed with additional love. As the night continued his terrors increased. He was, as are so many human beings, a demon of courage when the world thought well of him, but a coward under ostracism.

Dimly, too, his faith in life was shaken. The change had come so abruptly and without reason. Cause and effect were essential for him if he were not to be bewildered. He slept at last, but miserably; he dreamt that he chased a bone and the bone became a man with a whip. He woke, in the cold dawn, to see all the things in the pantry grin maliciously at him.

Then, once more like a human being, in disgrace he behaved disgracefully. Nothing would go right with him. He was afraid to bark, to lie before the fire. He was not taken for a walk by Margaret, but by Sutcliffe, who dragged him on a lead, saying “Oh, come along, do!’

The streets were wet and he made muddy marks in the hall. He slunk into a corner. They all asked what had happened to him. It was exactly as though he knew how disgracefully his countrymen were behaving. Margaret made an outburst on his behalf, and this did him no good.

Rupert, in the sitting-room, said: “The dog should be in the kitchen. I’ve always told you so.’ Mrs. Coniston said: “Well, perhaps.’ Margaret told them all her opinion, that the dog had done no harm, it wasn’t his fault if the Germans behaved badly. He knew nothing about Einstein. How could they change so abruptly? “Mother, I wouldn’t have thought you capable–’

Then Mrs. Coniston, who was tired and overwrought because Mrs. Hotzheim’s flat, where there had been an anti-German meeting, had been so hot and noisy, burst into tears. Mr. Coniston said: “It’s all that damned dog.’ Hans hid behind the sofa.

Two days later Mrs. Hotzheim, hot, voluble, too brightly attired, came to tea.

“I always do like that little dog,’ she said.

“You may have him if you like,’ said Mr. Coniston. “You don’t mind his being German.’

“I’m German myself,’ said Mrs. Hotzheim, quite amiably.

This Mr. Coniston had never considered. After all, Hans might be a German Jew. Then why all this ill-feeling? But no. He looked at the dog again. Nazi seemed to be written all down his long back. He swallowed his disgust.

“Take him with you, Mrs. Hotzheim,’ he said. “And keep him.’

Now Hans’s story passes into something timeless, eternal. It has nothing to do with contemporary politics. Its emotion is universal. He was a creature longing for someone whom he had loved and lost.

The Hotzheims, who were well-off even in these hard times, lived in a large Knightsbridge flat that looked over the Park. Besides Mr. and Mrs. Hotzheim there were four little Hotzheims. Ruth Hotzheim succeeded Rachel Hotzheim who had died, childless, of pneumonia. Because Rachel had been quiet, shy, and fond of writing poetry, so was Ruth exuberant, jolly, careless, and fond of noisy entertainment. She felt that Mr. Hotzheim liked variety. So he did. So did the little children. This was, very possibly, the noisiest, untidiest flat in all London.

So Hans found it. He suffered agonies of discomfort, apprehension, disgust. He had been always a fastidious dog. He appreciated good manners; he liked doors to be shut carefully, people to look where they walked, voices to be soft. It is one of the chief ironies of the situation that, had he been in Germany, he would have disliked the Nazis very much indeed.

Meanwhile, how he hated the Hotzheim children! They were not, in themselves, bad; rather, badly trained. That is, they were not trained at all. Mrs. Hotzheim shouted, laughed, slapped, kissed, pushed and patted. Little Isaac, Rebecca, Ada, and Joseph shouted, laughed, slapped and kissed in return. And they thought Hans the most comical dog they had ever seen. They laughed at everything, his shining nose, his long-barrelled body, his black tail. They held him up by his front legs, pulled his long ears, rolled him on the floor, stuck fingers in his eyes.

And Mrs. Hotzheim only called out, roared with laughter, rushed to and fro endeavouring to do all the things for which there was so little time.

Everyone rushed to and fro. The rooms were in frantic disorder. Everyone was good-natured and happy and untidy. Everyone was happy save Hans. He did not know that he was in hell because Hitler was taking the salute in Berlin from one hundred thousand passionate-hearted men.

He was in hell. Can dogs not suffer? Ask the myriads, brown and black and silken-coated, who move with ghostly tread in the dogs’ Valhalla!

This is hell, to be in a prison where there is no rest, no understanding, and always rasping sound. How he hated the Hotzheim children! At first he thought it his duty to be forbearing because for some reason those whom he loved and once had trusted had sent him here. Most of all were his ears sensitive. To have them pulled by rough hands was torture to him–so one fine morning he turned with a snarl (he had not snarled since the dog-shop) and bit little Isaac in the calf of his fat leg. Didn’t little Isaac howl! But Mrs. Hotzheim was no ordinary woman. She slapped little Isaac and told him not to annoy the poor dog.

And Hans felt the deepest shame. He had never bitten a human being in his life before. It was the first law in the Canine Tables of Stone–”Thou shalt not bite a human being!’ He shrank away into the only place of security that he had found, a corner of the cloak-room where the coats and mackintoshes were kept. It was cold, it was draughty, but he could not be seen there. So he lay curled up, breaking his heart, wondering why this misery had come to him.

Another great trouble was that he was fed on irregular scraps. The cook, a little woman like a squirrel, hopped about and gave him what came to her hand. This feeding disagreed with him. His outside lost its gloss; his inside was uncomfortable. Worst of all was his loneliness and the sense of degradation that went with it. He was ashamed of himself because he had lost his friends. He must have lost them through some fault of his own. But what fault? What was it that he had done? Finally, the worst torture of all–the fear that suddenly one day he would bite another of the Hotzheims. If this dreadful thing happened a second time he would be lost for ever. Never would he hold his head up again. Then truly he would be abandoned. So, for weeks, he resisted. He suffered the children, he endured the cook, he allowed Mrs. Hotzheim to stroke him with her hot, perspiring hand–only in his eyes there developed a look of the lost, of the hopeless, of the desolate....

And the doom fell. He bit Mr. Hotzheim.

One bright morning the master of the house was about to set forth for the City. Mr. Hotzheim was stout, his legs were large, his trousers close-fitting. He was happy and joyful, as were all the Hotzheims at the beginning of a new, splendid, promising day.

He picked Hans up by the ears, swung him gaily, landed him on his short feet again. With a growl of pain, insulted privacy and despair, Hans bit him–bit him, knowing that this was his doom and the end of all good things....

Mr. Hotzheim yelled.

“The dog’s bit me!’ he cried, and then, of all astonishing things, began to laugh. He laughed and laughed and laughed. He bared his fat leg, iodine was applied, he shouted:

“Why, who’d have believed it? That black little devil!’

“You swung him by the ears,’ Mrs. Hotzheim remarked, indulgently. “Dogs don’t like that.’

And little Isaac added with complacence: “He bit me, too.’

They were simply the most good-natured family in all England.

But for Hans the final insult! Had he been whipped, starved, even shot! No–simply laughter. He slunk away, to his corner in the cloak-room. Only one thing remained to be done. He must escape. He would find his friends, take what punishment might come to him, die if necessary–anything was better than mocking laughter.

And, at this same moment, Hitler was saying to Goering: “We will make a new world!’

This was the bravest thing that Hans had ever done–the bravest thing that in all probability he ever will do. It may indeed become a Legend in his family. I can fancy him, in future years, with his grandchildren gathered round him, saying to them, most solemnly (and the younger of them yawning because it is a story that the old boy is overfond of telling):

“I will never, never forget that morning. It is impossible for you, dear children, brought up in so happy and kindly a home, even to imagine what I suffered, what cruelties, indignity....’

Yes, like all dangerous things, fine in reminiscence, dreadful in actuality. It was not that he was venturing into the world alone for the first time. It had been often enough difficult for the Conistons to keep him within doors. No, the frightfulness of this adventure was that he was going into the world, alone, as a pariah. Was he aware at all that he was bearing on his back the sins of a whole nation, nay, of all mankind–mankind that refuses to subdue jealousy and envy and cruelty? No. In all probability he was aware only of these two facts–that he had bitten Mr. Hotzheim in the leg and that he had not a friend in the world–two things quite enough of themselves to make a pariah.

When he set out he did so blindly. A butcher’s boy with a basket stood in the open doorway of the flat–Hans stepped out, down the stairs, and when the liftman opened the main door for a stout lady bound tightly in purple, Hans seized his moment.

Once in the street he turned his sharp nose to the Conistons. How was he so sure? How is any dog so sure? It may have been that he sniffed the Albert Memorial, which smells, as everyone is aware, of soap, gold leaf, and the damp personality of the Prince Consort. It may have been that he was aware, at that same moment, that Alfred Coniston, attending an anti-Nazi meeting at the Goetzes’, was almost sick unto death from boredom, central heating, and marzipan cake. “There is something to be said for Hitler after all,’ Alfred Coniston was saying. “When I get home I shall tell them so.’

Perhaps Hans was aware of this. Perhaps it was only that a lady with a Pekingese on the end of a cord was walking in the Albert Hall direction. Hans adored Pekingese–they seemed to him the cream of civilisation.

Once a lady Pekingese of the highest pedigree–but that exotic romance does not belong to this story.

He followed the Pekingese, but at a decent interval because he was a pariah. He looked neither to right or left. In spite of his degraded state his spirits were rising. Whatever might come nothing could be worse than the Hotzheims. He would never see the Hotzheims again. His spirits would have risen even higher could he have known that at that very moment Mrs. Coniston, shopping in Harrods, was finding herself exquisitely bored by Mrs. Mances, one of the leaders of the movement for Succouring Distressed and Exiled Germans. “I am sure,’ she was thinking, “there is something to be said for Hitler. After all, he is restoring German hope and confidence.’

Then Hans saw the posters outside the Albert Hall. He knew them well, for they had been of frequent convenience to him in his daily walks. The Pekingese stopped and the lady with him also reluctantly paused. It was then that Hans realised that he was no longer a pariah. The sun was shining, the breezes blowing, there were smells everywhere, smells of trees, flowers, warm palings, soil and pavement, petrol, Albert Memorial. Hans sniffed them all. Then he sniffed the Pekingese. They had a delightful word or two. Civilised China had recognised him. He turned down Hyde Park Gardens.

At that moment Margaret Coniston was reading the paper. Hitler said that the only thing in the world that he wanted was Peace. No government in the world was as peaceful as his government.

“I’ve always said that there was something to be said for Hitler,’ she said.

The sun was pouring into the house through the windows, through the open door. Sutcliffe was cleaning the door-knocker.

Hans, his brown eyes shining, came up the path.

“Why, Miss!’ cried Sutcliffe. “Here’s Hans!’

Margaret, who had been standing at the top of the stairs drinking in the sun, ran and threw her arms about the German nation.

“Oh, you darling! We have missed you so! It’s all right! The family politics have changed!’

Hans walked into the house.

THE EXILE

In Hollywood there are many Englishmen. However long they may have resided there, they are always very easy to recognise. When I look back and trace through my memory that row of good, honest, slightly staring, faintly unhumorous faces, the one most vivid to me is certainly Hector Montgomery Cathie’s. I should like to attempt here a portrait of him, because, simple though his little story is, he stands for something very generally felt by most human beings, very seldom expressed. When I think of him many nostalgias in my own life are explained to me.

I first saw him working as an extra in an historical picture entitled, I think, Lucrezia Borgia. Pictures come and go so quickly that I can’t be sure that that was the name of it. It was, in any case, one of those pictures elaborately and expensively produced just before the invasion of colour. And I remember very vividly that when I walked on to the set searching for a friend of mine, Willie Adams, who was directing this masterpiece, after making sure that the light was not shining and the little bell not ringing, I pushed back the heavy door and nearly stumbled over a brace of large white dogs held in leash by their rough-looking protector. I was quite blinded by the brilliance of the scene I beheld, and at once thought to myself, “What a pity this can’t be in colour.’

It was one of those scenes of Renaissance Feasting, where, under brilliant lights, crowds of revellers were supposed to be eating and drinking with heady enthusiasm from gilt goblets and heaped bowls of coloured wooden fruits. On a raised dais, the aristocratic Borgias were revelling brightly, with eyes alert for possible poisonings. There were monkeys and dwarfs and parti-coloured Fools and trumpeters in a row chewing gum. There were cameras to the right of one and cameras to the left. And just as I arrived there, some perspiring gentleman in shirt-sleeves bellowed: “Camera!’ The trumpeters ceased their gum-chewing and a movement, as of sleepers suddenly awakened, rhythmically began–everyone eating and drinking, a Fool turning somersaults, the dogs moving across the vast shining floor, and Lucrezia herself holding up her goblet for more wine.

It was then that I noticed one of the handsomest old men conceivable move with tremendous dignity across the floor, mount the steps and pour wine from a goblet into Lucrezia’s cup. He is, I thought to myself, seventy if he’s a day. But his carriage was superb. He looked in his Renaissance clothes as though he’d been born in them. He was by far the most aristocratic person present. Afterwards, when I reached Adams, I questioned him.

“That’s a grand old man,’ I said, pointing.

Adams, who unlike many directors was imperturbable and nonchalant whatever the crisis, remarked, “Oh, yes, that’s Hector.’

“Hector?’ I enquired.

“You should meet him. He is a grand old man. He ought to be King of Scotland. Maybe he is.’ Adams looked up, called across the floor, “Say, Hector, come here a minute.’

The Scottish gentleman drew himself together and then walked towards us with a serene dignity that made him seem royal indeed. When he reached us, Adams said: “Here’s an Englishman who wants to meet you. Now don’t stick him with a dagger or anything. You English and Scotch are deadly enemies, aren’t you?’

With a deep and rich majesty Hector replied quietly, “I’m not a Scotchman, you know.’

“Good Lord! aren’t you?’ said Adams. “The name’s Scotch, anyway.’

Hector smiled charmingly and, looking at me, said: “I was born of English parents, Penrith, Cumberland.’

Now I knew Penrith, Cumberland, extremely well and I said to him: “Wouldn’t it be fine if we had Lord Lonsdale’s yellow coach rolling through the studio? That would make them sit up.’

He answered in that same rich but melancholy tone: “It is forty years since I last saw Penrith.’

It was time for things to move on again, and once more the same little movement, like a recurring motif in an elaborate piece of music, took place. The Fool turned somersaults, the dogs crossed the floor, and Hector advanced up the steps and filled Lucrezia’s cup. Afterwards, while the cameras were being shifted, I asked Adams some more.

“He’s the finest-looking old man I ever saw in my life,’ I remarked.

“Yes, he is, isn’t he? He’s been an extra ever since the earliest days.’

“I should have thought,’ I said, “that, with that magnificent carriage and that rich voice, he should be a proper star by this time.’

“Unfortunately,’ Adams said, “he can’t act. He never loses his dignity. But he’s quite contented, I believe.’ Then Adams corrected himself. “I don’t know about contented though. His one desire is to take a holiday and see his own country again. He’s always talking about England. He even gives lectures about it.’

“What prevents him taking a holiday?’ I asked. “If he’s constantly in work, he ought to be able to save.’

“They don’t get such a hell of a lot, extras,’ Adams answered. “For some reason or other he can’t afford to go home.’

“He’s certainly a good-looker though.’

“He is. The girls are crazy about him.’

So much for that. I forgot him. And then by an odd chance I talked with him. Alone in Hollywood one evening, going to a picture and wanting to eat something first, I stumbled into a small restaurant near Grauman’s where my picture was to be, sat down in the first empty booth that offered itself, and found beside me Hector himself. He didn’t recognise me, of course, and I was about to get up with a word of apology when he said, rather like a king welcoming a favourite subject,’ Plenty of room here, sir. I’ve no objection if you haven’t.’

His smile was magnificent. The aristocratic head with its fine broad forehead, high cheekbones, dark colouring (he was sunburned and looked amazingly fit) reminded me of the other finest old man I’d ever seen in my life, Robert Cunninghame-Graham.

“You don’t remember me,’ I said.

“No,’ he answered, looking me straight in the eyes, “I don’t.’

I reminded him of where we had met.

“I apologise,’ he answered, “but the fact is, when I’m working I can think of nothing else. I take my work very seriously,’ he added.

I could see at once that he took everything very seriously. Humour would not, in all probability, be his most remarkable quality.

“You’ve been here a long time,’ I said.

“Yes,’ he answered, gravely. “Every year I think I’m going home, but I never do.’

The waiter was standing there. I ordered one of those strange beers in tins, very cold and refreshing (by the way, why don’t countries copy the best things from one another?), a New York cut and a large baked potato.

“Medium or rare?’ asked the waiter.

“Medium,’ I said. “Why don’t you go home if you want to?’ I asked Hector. Then, as he hesitated, I added, “I hope I’m not being rude.’

“Certainly not.’ I fancied a little sketch of a bow, “I don’t go home because I can’t afford to.’

“It doesn’t cost so much these days.’

He looked at me with a mournful kindliness. “I might never get back into work here again.’

“Why don’t you stay at home? The pictures are forging ahead in London, they say. There should be plenty to do for anyone as handsome as you are.’ This time there was a real bow.

“Thank you,’ he said. “Good-looking old men who can’t act are not greatly in demand. I have continuous work here because so many people know me.’

“And trust you,’ I said.

“Yes, they like me. The Americans are the kindest people in the world.’

“I should have thought,’ I said, looking rather mournfully at my tomato-juice cocktail, which I always drink in America although I dislike it exceedingly, “that there is a good deal of cruelty in the picture business.’

“Not cruelty–indifference. Indifference, I mean, to anyone’s personal fate. There’s too much money risked to leave much time for individuals. The star here has a very anxious time; only obscure persons like myself are comparatively safe.’

You should have heard the way he said “obscure persons.’ We were becoming a little intimate. We liked one another, I knew. “Tell me,’ I asked, “are you married? Have you children?’

He smiled. “I could never support a wife properly on what I earn. And children–who would be selfish enough to bring them into this horrible world?’

“Oh, you feel it horrible then?’

“No, I don’t personally. I enjoy each minute of it. I’m seventy-two years of age, and I hope I live to be a hundred. I should like to spend my last twenty years in England.’

“What part of England do you think of most?’ I asked.

Something crept into his eyes with that question. Something very beautiful, very tender, very romantic. That sounds sentimental, but it is a true and harsh fact that there are tender and beautiful moments, places and persons in the world. It is sentimental not to recognise that this is so.

“Oh, Cumberland, the Lake District,’ he said. “I was born in Penrith.’

“But you’ve not been back for forty years.’

“No, but I see Cumberland exactly as though I had lived there all my life. The hills are very small, you know, and very often the rocks run right down into the fields. The sky changes so often and so quickly that no place looks the same five minutes together. There are fifty different kinds of rain and you can climb for five minutes and see six lakes, the sea and twenty valleys.’

“Yes,’ I answered, smiling. “That’s the way the novelists write. They make one suspicious.’

He looked at me reprovingly. “Don’t you like to read about places you love, then? I have quite a library of books about England and I have my lantern slides.’

“Your lantern slides?’

“Yes, it sounds old-fashioned, doesn’t it? But I give lectures about England. Oh, in very small places, you know. Schools, little groups, anywhere that wants to fill in an evening for nothing. I show the slides and they’re really quite charming. More restful than the film, and you can look at something for quite a long time without its moving.’

“What do you tell them in your lectures?’ I enquired.

“Oh, little things. That’s the whole point–tiny details. One of my lectures is a walk from Keswick to Ambleside.’

“Forgive me,’ I said, “but do they really listen? I’m sure your lectures are charming, but Wordsworth–’

“Yes, Wordsworth,’ he answered very solemnly, as though he were speaking the name of God Himself. “I read his poetry. A piece out of Dorothy’s Journal. They listen most attentively.’

His voice dropped into half a whisper. “The only thing is that I get so homesick myself when I lecture. I come back to my room sometimes and can’t sleep. I think that I’ll take the next train and risk it.’ He shook his head. “But I never do, never do.’ Then, looking out over my head into space, he murmured, “Oh, to go home... to go home only once.’

There was a little, rather embarrassing silence. I said, “I must come and hear you lecture one day.’