Descent into Hell - Charles Williams (an ebook reader txt) š
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ours; thereās no birth there, and only the second death.
Thereās no distinction between lover and beloved; they beget
themselves on their adoration of themselves, and they live and
feed and starve on themselves, and by themselves too, for
creation, as my predecessor said, is the mercy of God, and they
wonāt have the facts of creation. No, we donāt talk much of
Gomorrah, and perhaps itās as well and perhaps not.ā
āBut where?ā she cried.
āWhere but here? When allās said and done thereās only Zion or
Gomorrah,ā he answered. āBut donāt think of that now; go and
sleep if you can, or youāll be nervous this afternoon.
āNever,ā she said. āNot nervous.ā
āWell, thatās as it may be,ā he said. āStill, sleep. The Sabbath
and all that, even for the cattle. Be a lamb, and sleep.ā
She nodded, went obediently through the gate, and paused, saying:
āI shall see you presently?ā
āMaking my concluding appearance,ā he said. āUnless the Lord
decides to take his own call. The author has seemed to be out of
the house rather often, but he may have been brought in at last.
Till when, Periel, and with God.ā
THE SOUND OF THE TRUMPET
Mrs. Parry, rising that morning to control the grand occasion, and
excluding from her mind as often as possible the image of a
photograph in the papers of herself and Peter Stanhope side by
side, āauthor and producerā, found a note from Lawrence Wentworth
waiting on her breakfast table. It was short and frigid. It said
only that he had caught a feverish chill and would not be at the
performance. Even so, it had given him some trouble to write, for
it had demanded contact, and only a desire that he should not be,
by some maddening necessary inquiry, disturbed in his solitude,
had compelled him to write it. He had sent it round very early,
and then had returned to sit in his study, with curtains drawn, to
help him in his sickness.
āVery odd weather to catch a feverish chill,ā Mrs. Parry thought,
looking through her window at the dancing sunlight. āAnd he might
have returned his ticket, and he might have sent good wishes.ā
Good wishes were precisely what Wentworth was incapable of sending
anywhere, but Mrs. Parry could not know that. It was difficult to
imagine what either Zion or Gomorrah would make of Mrs. Parry, but
of the two it was certainly Zion which would have to deal with
her, since mere efficiency, like mere being, is in itself
admirable, and must be coloured with definite evil before it can
be lost. She made a note to tell the Seating Committee there was
a seat to spare. If there were no other absentee, if none of the
cast were knocked down by a car, blown up by a geyser, or
otherwise incapacitated, she would think herself fortunate. She
had had a private word with Pauline the day before, after the
rehearsal. Rumours of Mrs. Anstrutherās condition had reached
her, and she wanted, in effect, to know what Periel was going to
do about it. She had always been a little worried about it, but
one couldnāt refuse parts to suitable people because of elderly
grandmothers. Periel, however, had been entirely sensible;
with the full consent, almost (Mrs. Parry understood) under the
direction of the grandmother. She would, under God, be there.
Mrs. Parry had not too much belief in Godās punctuality, but she
was more or less satisfied, and left it at that. If misadventure
must come, the person best spared to it would be Peter Stanhope
himself. Mrs. Parry would willingly have immolated him on any
altar, had she had one, to ensure the presence of the rest, and
the success of the afternoon; it was why he admired her. She
desired a public success, but more ardently she desired successāthe
achievement. She would have preferred to give a perfect
performance to empty seats rather than, to full, it should fall
from perfection.
She was given her desire. Even the picture was supplied.
Stanhope, approached by photographers, saw to that. He caused her
to be collected from her affairs at a distance; he posed by her
side; he directed a light conversation at her; and there they both
were: āMr. Stanhope chatting with the producer (Mrs. Catherine
Parry).ā She took advantage of the moment to remind him that he
had promised to say something at the end of the play, āan informal
epilogueā. He assured her that he was ready-āquite informal.
The formal, perhaps, would need another speaker. An archangel, or
something.ā
āItās angelic of you, Mr. Stanhope,ā she said, touched to a new
courtesy by his, but he only smiled and shook his head.
The photographsāof them, of the chief personages, of the Chorusāhad
been taken in a secluded part of the grounds before the performance.
Stanhope lingered, watching, until they were done; then he joined
Pauline.
āHow good Mrs. Parry is!ā he said sincerely. āLook how quiet and
well-arranged we all are! a first performance is apt to be much
more distracted, but itās as much as our lives are worth to be
upset now.ā
She said thoughtfully, āShe is good, but I donāt think itās
altogether her: itās the stillness. Donāt you feel it, Peter?ā
āIt doesnāt weigh on us,ā he answered, smiling, ābut-yes.ā
She said: āI wondered. My grandmother died this morningāfive
minutes after I got back. I wondered if I was imagining the
stillness from that.ā
āNo,ā he said thoughtfully, ābut that may be in it. Itās as if
there were silence in heavenāa fortunate silence. I almost wish
it were the Tempest and not me. What a hope!
Iāll deliver all;
And promise you calm seas, auspicious gales,
And sail so expeditious, that shall catch
Your royal fleet far off.ā
His voice became incantation; his hand stretched upward in the
air, as if he invoked the motion of the influences, and the hand
was magical to her sight. The words sprang over her; auspicious
gales, sail so expeditious, and she away to the royal fleet far
off, delivered, all delivered, all on its way. She answered:
āNo; Iām glad itās you. You can have your Tempest, but Iād rather
this.ā
He said, with a mild protest: āYet he wrote your part for you too;
can you guess where?ā
āIāve been educated,ā she answered, brilliant in her pause before
they parted. āTwice educated, Peter. Shall I try?
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
Bless me to it.ā
āUnder the Mercy,ā he said, and watched her out of sight before he
went to find a way to his own seat.
The theatre was almost full; late-comers were hurrying in. The
gate was on the point of being closedātwo minutes, as the notices
had stated, before the beginning of the play when the last came.
It was Mrs. Sammile. She hurried through, and as she came she saw
Stanhope. As he bowed, she said breathlessly: āSo nice,@ isnāt
it? Have you got everything you want?ā
āOr that we donāt-ā Stanhope began, but she chattered on: āBut
itās a good thing not to have, isnāt it? Perfection would be so
dull, wouldnāt it? Itās better to think of it than to have it
isnāt it? I mean, who was it said itās better to be always walking
than to get there?ā
āNo, thank you very much,ā he said, laughing outright. āIād
rather have perfection than think of it, though I donāt see why we
shouldnāt do both. But we mustnāt stop; youāve only a minute and
a half. Whereās your ticket? This way.ā He took her round to her
seatāat the end of a row, towards the frontāand as he showed it to
her he said, gravely: āYou wonāt mind getting there for once, will
you? Rather than travelling hopefully about this place the whole
afternoon.ā
She threw a look at him, as he ran from her to his own seat, which
perplexed him, it seemed so full of bitterness and despair. It
was almost as if she actually didnāt want to sit down. He
thought, as he sank into his chair, āBut if one hated to arrive?
If one only lived by not arriving? if one preferred avoiding to
knowing? if unheard melodies were only sweet because they werenāt
there at all? false, falseā¦. and dismissed his thought, for
the Prologue stood out before the trees, and the moment of silence
before the trumpet sounded was already upon them.
It sounded annunciatory of a new thing. It called its world
together, and prepared union. It directed all attention forward,
as, his blasts done, the Prologue, actors ready behind and
audience expectant before, advanced slowly across the grass. But
to one mind at least it did even more. At the dress rehearsal it
had announced speech to Pauline, as to the rest; now it proclaimed
the stillness. It sprang up out of the stillness. She also was
aware of a new thing-of speech in relation to the silence in which
it lived.
The pause in which the Prologue silently advanced exhibited itself
to her as the fundamental thing. The words she had so long
admired did not lose their force or beauty, but they were the mere
feel of the texture. The harmony of motion and speech, now about
to begin, held and was composed by the pauses: foot to foot, line
to line, here a little and there a little. She knew she had
always spoken poetry against the silence of this world; now she
knew it had to be spoken againstāthat perhaps, but also something
greater, some silence of its own. She recognized the awful space
of separating stillness which all mighty art creates about itself,
or, uncreating, makes clear to mortal apprehension. Such art, out
of āthe mindās abyssā, makes tolerable, at the first word or note
or instructed glance, the preluding presence of the abyss.
It creates in an instant its own past. Then its significance
mingles with other significances; the stillness gives up kindred
meanings, each in its own orb, till by the subtlest graduations
they press into altogether other significances, and these again
into others, and so into one contemporaneous nature, as in that
gathering unity of time from which Lilith feverishly fled. But
that nature is to us a darkness, a stillness, only felt by the
reverberations of the single speech. About the song of the
Woodcutterās Son was the stillness of the forest. That living
stillness had gathered the girl into her communion with the dead;
it had passed into her own spirit when the vision of herself had
closed with herself; it had surrounded her when she looked on the
dead face of Margaret; and now again it rose at the sound of the
trumpetāthat which is before the trumpet and shall be after,
which is between all sentences and all words, which is between and
in all speech and all breath, which is itself the essential nature
of all, for all come from it and return to it.
She moved; she issued into the measured time of the play; she came
out of heaven and returned to heaven, speaking the nature of
heaven. In her very duty the doctrine of exchange held true,
hierarchical and republican. She owed the words to Stanhope; he
owed the utterance to her and the rest. He was over her in the
sacred order, and yet in the sacred equality they ran level. So
salvation lay everywhere in interchange: since, by an act only
possible in the whole, Stanhope had substituted himself for her,
and the moan of a God had carried the
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