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Authors: Elizabeth Bowen
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place at all, in this small castle.”
“Thank you, I’d rather stay with her.”
“It may be, she goes to hospital—but to hospital where? Oh, that stupid doctor!”
“Don’t,” pleaded Eva, “take her away!”
“Not that she is sick badly ,” said the Hungarian lady. “But all the same …” She sized up Eva, disparagingly. “You are not nervous?”
“I am accustomed to her,” the dolt said.
“You must not touch her, Eva: you understand?”
Eva locked her hands together behind her back, in token of abstinence. She nodded.
“You call me—yes?—should there ever be anything. Though I am very busy. All this is terrible for Kenneth!” lamented the Hungarian lady (who did adore him). She rolled her lustrous, emotional, heartless eyes. “He has this beautiful nature, so is imposed on. Never should he have been sent this unhealthy child, who also was trying to go to bed with a Japanese boy, I am sorry to say.”
“She wants her mother, I think.”
But nobody heard. The spike heels of the matron or house mother went clickety-click away down the sounding stairs.
So the watch began. No longer did mornings transform the room, a perpetual makeshift curtain having been thumb-tacked over the window, to hide the lake—now, only a lightening of the fabric on which stood out a cabalistic pattern spoke of the duration of the short spaces, too like one another to be days, between night and night: whatever the hour by the clock, nothing made the ceiling less of an umbrella-shaped canopy of shadows, which multiplied within it, as do cobwebs, as time went on—though, did time go on? The octagonal chamber, outlook gone from its window, seemed more locked-up round its consenting prisoners than if a key had been turned in the door, and, made mediaeval by the untimely dark, began in a cardboard way to belong to history. Though set in the middle of the castle, whose unreal noises could be heard, the place was as though levitated to a topmost turret. What made Eva visualise this as a marriage chamber? As its climate intensified, all grew tender. To repose a hand on the blanket covering Elsinore was to know in the palm of the hand a primitive tremor—imagining the beating of that other heart, she had a passionately solicitous sense of this other presence. Nothing forbad love. This deathly yet living stillness, together, of two beings, this unapartness, came to be the requital of all longing. An endless feeling of destiny filled the room.
There were few intruders. Back came the doctor, on guard, mistrustful, knowing more than he said. At irregular intervals the house mother, silently turbulent, “saw to” Elsinore, or, hauling the child’s head up, tried to pour consommé between the inert lips. Eva went downstairs only when, chancing to be remembered, she was sent for to go to a lesson or a meal. Sometimes, on such occasions, her place was taken by the boy who had pulled Elsinore out of the lake and been riddled by self-analysis ever since—”She knew what she was doing, but did I? A reflex. It was disgusting. What fundamentally am I, a Boy Scout?”
“Oh, no,” Eva grew used to saying.
He then would gnaw at a thumbnail. “Look what I’ve possibly done to her—she may live, you know! Look what she’s done to me, though; jumping me into this. Her decision was rational, tiresome little thing. Look at her—Ophelia’s illegit!”
“Oh, no.”
Often, however, leaning over the bed he not unkindly blew at a downy wisp of Elsinore’s hair; whereat the child’s head rolled, as though facelessly, his way. Then the afternoon came when he said to Eva: “Her corrupt mother’s been sent for; didn’t you know?”
“No …”
“That’s the buzz today. You never hear anything up here.”
With the coming-into-the-room of Elsinore’s mother, all here ended. From that instant, down came oblivion—asbestos curtain. Whether Elsinore died or lived, no one told Eva. Not told, she became unable to ask. Nor did
“Thank you, I’d rather stay with her.”
“It may be, she goes to hospital—but to hospital where? Oh, that stupid doctor!”
“Don’t,” pleaded Eva, “take her away!”
“Not that she is sick badly ,” said the Hungarian lady. “But all the same …” She sized up Eva, disparagingly. “You are not nervous?”
“I am accustomed to her,” the dolt said.
“You must not touch her, Eva: you understand?”
Eva locked her hands together behind her back, in token of abstinence. She nodded.
“You call me—yes?—should there ever be anything. Though I am very busy. All this is terrible for Kenneth!” lamented the Hungarian lady (who did adore him). She rolled her lustrous, emotional, heartless eyes. “He has this beautiful nature, so is imposed on. Never should he have been sent this unhealthy child, who also was trying to go to bed with a Japanese boy, I am sorry to say.”
“She wants her mother, I think.”
But nobody heard. The spike heels of the matron or house mother went clickety-click away down the sounding stairs.
So the watch began. No longer did mornings transform the room, a perpetual makeshift curtain having been thumb-tacked over the window, to hide the lake—now, only a lightening of the fabric on which stood out a cabalistic pattern spoke of the duration of the short spaces, too like one another to be days, between night and night: whatever the hour by the clock, nothing made the ceiling less of an umbrella-shaped canopy of shadows, which multiplied within it, as do cobwebs, as time went on—though, did time go on? The octagonal chamber, outlook gone from its window, seemed more locked-up round its consenting prisoners than if a key had been turned in the door, and, made mediaeval by the untimely dark, began in a cardboard way to belong to history. Though set in the middle of the castle, whose unreal noises could be heard, the place was as though levitated to a topmost turret. What made Eva visualise this as a marriage chamber? As its climate intensified, all grew tender. To repose a hand on the blanket covering Elsinore was to know in the palm of the hand a primitive tremor—imagining the beating of that other heart, she had a passionately solicitous sense of this other presence. Nothing forbad love. This deathly yet living stillness, together, of two beings, this unapartness, came to be the requital of all longing. An endless feeling of destiny filled the room.
There were few intruders. Back came the doctor, on guard, mistrustful, knowing more than he said. At irregular intervals the house mother, silently turbulent, “saw to” Elsinore, or, hauling the child’s head up, tried to pour consommé between the inert lips. Eva went downstairs only when, chancing to be remembered, she was sent for to go to a lesson or a meal. Sometimes, on such occasions, her place was taken by the boy who had pulled Elsinore out of the lake and been riddled by self-analysis ever since—”She knew what she was doing, but did I? A reflex. It was disgusting. What fundamentally am I, a Boy Scout?”
“Oh, no,” Eva grew used to saying.
He then would gnaw at a thumbnail. “Look what I’ve possibly done to her—she may live, you know! Look what she’s done to me, though; jumping me into this. Her decision was rational, tiresome little thing. Look at her—Ophelia’s illegit!”
“Oh, no.”
Often, however, leaning over the bed he not unkindly blew at a downy wisp of Elsinore’s hair; whereat the child’s head rolled, as though facelessly, his way. Then the afternoon came when he said to Eva: “Her corrupt mother’s been sent for; didn’t you know?”
“No …”
“That’s the buzz today. You never hear anything up here.”
With the coming-into-the-room of Elsinore’s mother, all here ended. From that instant, down came oblivion—asbestos curtain. Whether Elsinore died or lived, no one told Eva. Not told, she became unable to ask. Nor did
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