The Child of the Dawn - Arthur Christopher Benson (good short books txt) 📗

intemperately; and there have been other people--men and women--whom I have loved, in a sense; but the love of them has always seemed a sort of interruption to the life I desired, something disordered and strained, which hurt me, and kept me away from the peace I desired--from the fine weighing of sounds and colours, and the pleasure of beautiful forms and lines; and I dread to return to life, because one cannot avoid love and sorrow, and mean troubles, which waste the spirit in vain."

"Yes," I said, "I can understand what you feel very well, because I too have known what it is to desire to live in peace and beauty, not to be disturbed or fretted; but the reason, I think, why it is dangerous, is not because life becomes too _easy_. That is not the danger at all--life is never easy, whatever it is! But the danger is that it grows too solemn! One is apt to become like a priest, always celebrating holy mysteries, always in a vision, with no time for laughter, and disputing, and quarrelling, and being silly and playing. It is the poor body again that is amiss. It is like the camel, poor thing; it groans and weeps, but it goes on. One cannot live wholly in a vision; and life does not become more simple so, but more complicated, for one's time and energy are spent in avoiding the sordid and the tiresome things which one cannot and must not avoid. I remember, in an illness which I had, when I was depressed and fanciful, a homely old doctor said to me, 'Don't be too careful of yourself: don't think you can't bear this and that--go out to dinner--eat and drink rather too much!' It seemed to be coarse advice, but it was wise."

"Yes," said Charmides, "it was wise; but it is difficult to feel it so at the time. I wonder! I think perhaps I have made the mistake of being too fastidious. But it seemed so fine a goal that one had in sight, to chasten and temper all one's thoughts to what was beautiful--to judge and distinguish, to choose the right tones and harmonies, to be always rejecting and refining. It had its sorrows, of course. How often in the old days one came in contact with some gracious and beautiful personality, and flung oneself into close relations; and then one began to see this and that flaw. There were lapses in tact, petulances, littlenesses; one's friend did not rightly use his beautiful mind; he was jealous, suspicious, trivial, petty; it ended in disillusionment. Instead of taking him as a passenger on one's vessel, and determining to live at peace, to overlook, to accommodate, one began to watch for an opportunity of putting him down courteously at some stopping-place; and instead of being grateful for his friendship, one was vexed with him for disappointing one. We must speak more of these things. I seem to feel the want of something commoner and broader in my thoughts; but in this place it is hard to change."

"Will you forgive me then," I said, "if I ask you plainly what this place is? It seems very strange to me, and yet I think I have been here before."

Charmides looked at me with a smile. "It has been called," he said, "by many ugly names, and men have been unreasonably afraid of it. It is the place of satisfied desire, and, as you see, it is a comfortable place enough. The theologians in their coarse way call it Hell, though that is a word which is forbidden here; it is indeed a sort of treason to use the word, because of its unfortunate association--and you can see with your own eyes that I have done wrong even to speak of it."

I looked round, and saw indeed that a visible tremor had fallen on the groups about us; it was as though a cold cloud, full of hail and darkness, had floated over a sunny sky. People were hurrying out of the garden, and some were regarding us askance and with frowns of disapproval. In a moment or two we were left alone.

"I have been indiscreet," said Charmides, "but I feel somehow in a rebellious mood; and indeed it has long seemed absurd to me that you should be unaware of the fact, and so obviously guileless! But I will speak no more of this to-day. People come and go here very strangely, and I have sometimes wondered if it would not soon be time for me to go; but it would be idle to pretend that I have not been happy here."


XI


What Charmides had told me filled me with great astonishment; it seemed to me strange that I had not perceived the truth before. It made me feel that I had somehow been wasting time. I was tempted to call Amroth to my side, but I remembered what he had said, and I determined to resist the impulse. I half expected to find that our strange talk, and the very obvious disapproval of our words, had made some difference to me. But it was not the case. I found myself treated with the same smiling welcome as before, and indeed with an added kind of gentleness, such as older people give to a child who has been confronted with some hard fact of life, such as a sorrow or an illness. This in a way disconcerted me; for in the moment when I had perceived the truth, there had come over me the feeling that I ought in some way to bestir myself to preach, to warn, to advise. But the idea of finding any sort of fault with these contented, leisurely, interested people, seemed to me absurd, and so I continued as before, half enjoying the life about me, and half bored by it. It seemed so ludicrous in any way to pity the inhabitants of the place, and yet I dimly saw that none of them could possibly continue there. But I soon saw that there was no question of advice, because I had nothing to advise. To ask them to be discontented, to suffer, to inquire, seemed as absurd as to ask a man riding comfortably in a carriage to get out and walk; and yet I felt that it was just that which they needed. But one effect the incident had; it somehow seemed to draw me more to Cynthia. There followed a time of very close companionship with her. She sought me out, she began to confide in me, chattering about her happiness and her delight in her surroundings, as a child might chatter, and half chiding me, in a tender and pretty way, for not being more at ease in the place. "You always seem to me," she said, "as if you were only staying here, while I feel as if I could live here for ever. Of course you are very kind and patient about it all, but you are not at home--and I don't care a bit about your disapproval now." She talked to me much about Lucius, who seemed to have a great attraction for her. "He is all right," she said. "There is no nonsense about him,--we understand each other; I don't get tired of him, and we like the same things. I seem to know exactly what he feels about everything; and that is one of the comforts of this place, that no one asks questions or makes mischief; one can do just as one likes all the time. I did not think, when I was alive, that there could be anything so delightful as all this ahead of me."

"Do you never think--?" I began, but she put her hand to my lips, like a child, to stop me, and said, "No, I never think, and I never mean to think, of all the old hateful things. I never wilfully did any harm; I only liked the people who liked me, and gave them all they asked--and now I know that I did right, though in old days serious people used to try to frighten me. God is very good to me," she went on, smiling, "to allow me to be happy in my own way."

While we talked thus, sitting on a seat that overlooked the great city--I had never seen it look so stately and beautiful, so full of all that the heart could desire--Lucius himself drew near to us, smiling, and seated himself the other side of Cynthia. "Now is not this heavenly?" she said; "to be with the two people I like best--for you are a faithful old thing, you know--and not to be afraid of anything disagreeable or tiresome happening--not to have to explain or make excuses, what could be better?"

"Yes," said Lucius, "it is happy enough," and he smiled at me in a friendly way. "The pleasantest point is that one can _wait_ in this charming place. In the old days, one was afraid of a hundred things--money, weather, illness, criticism. One had to make love in a hurry, because one missed the beautiful hour; and then there was the horror of growing old. But now if Cynthia chooses to amuse herself with other people, what do I care? She comes back as delightful as ever, and it is only so much more to be amused about. One is not even afraid of being lazy, and as for those ugly twinges of what one called conscience--which were only a sort of rheumatism after all--that is all gone too; and the delight of finding that one was right after all, and that there were really no such things as consequences!"

I became aware, as Lucius spoke thus, in all his careless beauty, of a vague trouble of soul. I seemed to foresee a kind of conflict between myself and him. He felt it too, I was aware; for he drew Cynthia to him, and said something to her; and presently they went off laughing, like a pair of children, waving a farewell to me. I experienced a sense of desolation, knowing in my mind that all was not well, and yet feeling so powerless to contend with happiness so strong and wide.


XII


Presently I wandered off alone, and went out of the city with a sudden impulse. I thought I would go in the opposite direction to that by which I had entered it. I could see the great hills down which Cynthia and I had made our way in the dawn; but I had never gone in the further direction, where there stretched what seemed to be a great forest. The whole place lay bathed in a calm light, all unutterably beautiful. I wandered long by streams and wood-ends, every corner that I turned revealing new prospects of delight. I came at last to the edge of the forest, the mouths of little open glades running up into it, with fern and thorn-thickets. There were deer here browsing about the dingles, which let me come close to them and touch them, raising their heads from the grass, and regarding me with gentle and fearless eyes. Birds sang softly among the boughs, and even fluttered to my shoulder, as if pleased to be noticed. So this was what was called on earth the place of torment, a place into which it seemed as if nothing of sorrow or pain could ever intrude!

Just on the edge of the wood stood a little cottage, surrounded by a quiet garden, bees humming about the flowers, the scents of which came with a homely sweetness on the air. But here I saw something which I did not at first understand. This was a group of three people, a man