Bliss, and Other Stories quotes

… the road, Isabel bursting with pride, her nose turned up at all the world, Linda Burnell prostrated, and the grandmother rummaging among the very curious oddments she had had put in her black silk reticule at the last moment, for something to give her daughter.

The buggy twinkled away in the sunlight and fine golden dust up the hill and over.

Kezia bit her lip, but Lottie, carefully finding her handkerchief first, set up a wail.

With the bite out it made a dear little sort of a gate. Pooh! She didn’t care! A tear rolled down her cheek, but she wasn’t crying. She couldn’t have cried in front of those awful Samuel Josephs.

She sat with her head bent, and as the tear dripped slowly down, she caught it with a neat little whisk of her tongue and ate it before any of them had seen.

After tea Kezia wandered back to their own house. Slowly she walked up the back steps, and through the scullery into the kitchen.

But Kezia edged up to the storeman.

He towered beside her big as a giant and he smelled of nuts and new wooden boxes.

It was the first time that Lottie and Kezia had ever been out so late. Everything looked different—the painted wooden houses far smaller than they did by day, the gardens far bigger and wilder.

Further and further. Lottie’s head wagged; she drooped, she slipped half into Kezia’s lap and lay there. But Kezia could not open her eyes wide enough. The wind blew and she shivered; but her cheeks and ears burned.

“Do stars ever blow about?” she asked.

“Not to notice,” said the storeman.

It was long and low built, with a pillared verandah and balcony all the way round.

The soft white bulk of it lay stretched upon the green garden like a sleeping beast.

And now one and now another of the windows leaped into light. Someone was walking through the empty rooms carrying a lamp. From a window downstairs the light of a fire flickered. A strange beautiful excitement seemed to stream from the house in quivering ripples.

And now one and now another of the windows leaped into light. Someone was walking through the empty rooms carrying a lamp. From a window downstairs the light of a fire flickered.

A strange beautiful excitement seemed to stream from the house in quivering ripples.

“Where are we?” said Lottie, sitting up. Her reefer cap was all on one side and on her cheek there was the print of an anchor button she had pressed against while sleeping.

Dawn came sharp and chill with red clouds on a faint green sky and drops of water on every leaf and blade. A breeze blew over the garden, dropping dew and dropping petals, shivered over the drenched paddocks, and was lost in the sombre bush.

In the sky some tiny stars floated for a moment and then they were gone—they were dissolved like bubbles.

And plain to be heard in the early quiet was the sound of the creek in the paddock running over the brown stones, running in and out of the sandy hollows, hiding under clumps of dark berry bushes, spilling into a swamp of yellow water …

He was enormously pleased. Weather like this set a final seal on his bargain.

He felt, somehow, that he had bought the lovely day, too—got it chucked in dirt cheap with the house and ground.

He dashed off to his bath and Linda turned over and raised herself on one elbow to see the room by daylight. All the furniture had found a place—all the old paraphernalia—as she expressed it.

In the quiet, and under her tracing finger, the poppy seemed to come alive. She could feel the sticky, silky petals, the stem, hairy like a gooseberry skin, the rough leaf and the tight glazed bud.

Things had a habit of coming alive like that.

Not only large substantial things like furniture, but curtains and the patterns of stuffs and the fringes of quilts and cushions. How often she had seen the tassel fringe of her quilt change into a funny procession of dancers with priests attending. . . .

“It’s very quiet now,” she thought.

She opened her eyes wide, and she heard the silence spinning its soft endless web.

How lightly she breathed; she scarcely had to breathe at all.

At her throat there was a silver crescent moon with five little owls seated on it, and round her neck she wore a watch guard made of black beads.

It was hard to believe that she had not been in that kitchen for years; she was so much a part of it.

She put the crocks away with a sure, precise touch, moving leisurely and ample from the stove to the dresser, looking into the pantry and the larder as though there were not an unfamiliar corner.

“Yes, Kezia,” and Linda smiled down at her, and half shut her eyes. “

Once every hundred years.

”

“I’ve nothing but two pairs,” said Beryl, exaggerating her woe because she knew how he loved winning.

The cribbage pegs were like two little people going up the road together, turning round the sharp corner, and coming down the road again.

They were pursuing each other. They did not so much want to get ahead as to keep near enough to talk—to keep near, perhaps that was all.

The cribbage pegs were like two little people going up the road together, turning round the sharp corner, and coming down the road again. They were pursuing each other.

They did not so much want to get ahead as to keep near enough to talk—to keep near, perhaps that was all.

But no, there was always one who was impatient and hopped away as the other came up, and would not listen.

“I have been looking at the aloe,” said Mrs. Fairfield. “I believe it is going to flower this year. Look at the top there. Are those buds, or is it only an effect of light?”

As they stood on the steps, the high grassy bank on which the aloe rested rose up like a wave, and the aloe seemed to ride upon it like a ship with the oars lifted.

Bright moonlight hung upon the lifted oars like water, and on the green wave glittered the dew.

It had never been so plain to her as it was at this moment. There were all her feelings for him, sharp and defined, one as true as the other. And there was this other, this hatred, just as real as the rest.

She could have done her feelings up in little packets and given them to Stanley.

She longed to hand him that last one, for a surprise. She could see his eyes as he opened that . . .

In a way, of course, it was all perfectly true, but in another way it was all the greatest rubbish and she didn’t believe a word of it. No, that wasn’t true. She felt all those things, but she didn’t really feel them like that.

It was her other self who had written that letter.

It not only bored, it rather disgusted her real self.

But even as she looked the smile faded from her lips and eyes. Oh God, there she was, back again, playing the same old game. False—false as ever. False as when she’d written to Nan Pym.

False even when she was alone with herself, now.

What had that creature in the glass to do with her, and why was she staring? She dropped down to one side of her bed and buried her face in her arms.

or as if the same strange types came here every day, whom one could watch from one’s corner and recognise and more or less (with a strong accent on the less) get the hang of.

But pray don’t imagine that those brackets are a confession of my humility before the mystery of the human soul.

Not at all; I don’t believe in the human soul. I never have.

But pray don’t imagine that those brackets are a confession of my humility before the mystery of the human soul. Not at all; I don’t believe in the human soul. I never have.

I believe that people are like portmanteaux—packed with certain things, started going, thrown about, tossed away, dumped down, lost and found, half emptied suddenly, or squeezed fatter than ever, until finally the Ultimate Porter swings them on to the Ultimate Train and away they rattle. . . .

Not but what these portmanteaux can be very fascinating. Oh, but very! I see myself standing in front of them, don’t you know, like a Customs official.

“Interior of Café where Body was Found.” You’ve seen him hundreds of times.

Do you believe that every place has its hour of the day when it really does come alive?

That’s not exactly what I mean. It’s more like this. There does seem to be a moment when you realize that, quite by accident, you happen to have come on to the stage at exactly the moment you were expected.

Do you believe that every place has its hour of the day when it really does come alive? That’s not exactly what I mean. It’s more like this.

There does seem to be a moment when you realize that, quite by accident, you happen to have come on to the stage at exactly the moment you were expected.

Everything is arranged for you—waiting for you. Ah, master of the situation! You fill with important breath.

The waiter disappeared and reappeared with an armful of straw. He strewed it over the floor from the door to the counter and round about the stove with humble, almost adoring gestures.

One would not have been surprised if the door had opened and the Virgin Mary had come in, riding upon an ass, her meek hands folded over her big belly. . . .

That’s rather nice, don’t you think, that bit about the Virgin? It comes from the pen so gently; it has such a “dying fall.” I thought so at the time and decided to make a note of it.

It’s always a new thing. The moment it leaves you it’s changed. Why, that’s even true of a hat you chase after; and I don’t mean superficially—I mean profoundly speaking . . .

I have made it a rule of my life never to regret and never to look back.

Regret is an appalling waste of energy, and no one who intends to be a writer can afford to indulge in it. You can’t get it into shape; you can’t build on it; it’s only good for wallowing in.

The moment it leaves you it’s changed. Why, that’s even true of a hat you chase after; and I don’t mean superficially—I mean profoundly speaking . . . I have made it a rule of my life never to regret and never to look back.

Regret is an appalling waste of energy, and no one who intends to be a writer can afford to indulge in it.

You can’t get it into shape; you can’t build on it; it’s only good for wallowing in. Looking back, of course, is equally fatal to Art. It’s keeping yourself poor. Art can’t and won’t stand poverty.

You can’t get it into shape; you can’t build on it; it’s only good for wallowing in. Looking back, of course, is equally fatal to Art.

It’s keeping yourself poor.

Art can’t and won’t stand poverty.

All the same I had no more money than I have now.

It’s extraordinary how one can live without money. . . .

I have quantities of good clothes, silk underwear, two evening suits, four pairs of patent leather boots with light uppers, all sorts of little things, like gloves and powder boxes and a manicure set, perfumes, very good soap, and nothing is paid for.

And Mouse got in the black hole and sat stroking Mouse II and not saying a word.

Away we jolted and rattled like three little dice that life had decided to have a fling with.

I had insisted on taking the flap seat facing them because I would not have missed for anything those occasional flashing glimpses I had as we broke through the white circles of lamplight.

You know I had the mad idea that they were kissing in that quiet room—a long comfortable kiss.

One of those kisses that not only puts one’s grief to bed, but nurses it and warms it and tucks it up and keeps it fast enfolded until it is sleeping sound.

Ah! how good that is.

Oh, is there no way you can express it without being “drunk and disorderly”?

How idiotic civilization is! Why be given a body if you have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle?

“No, that about the fiddle is not quite what I mean,” she thought, running up the steps and feeling in her bag for the key—she’d forgotten it, as usual—and rattling the letter-box. “It’s not what I mean, because—— Thank you, Mary”—she went into the hall.

Bertha wanted to ask if it wasn’t rather dangerous to let her clutch at a strange dog’s ear. But she did not dare to.

She stood watching them, her hands by her side, like the poor little girl in front of the rich little girl with the doll.

The baby looked up at her again, stared, and then smiled so charmingly that Bertha couldn’t help crying:

How absurd it was.

Why have a baby if it has to be kept—not in a case like a rare, rare fiddle—but in another woman’s arms?

“Oh, I must!” said she.

“Yes, it really was,” said Eddie, following her into the drawing-room. “

I saw myself driving through Eternity in a timeless taxi.

”

“We only have a new coffee machine once a fortnight,” said Harry. Face took her arm this time; Miss Fulton bent her head and followed after.

The fire had died down in the drawing-room to a red, flickering “nest of baby phœnixes,” said Face.

“Don’t turn up the light for a moment. It is so lovely.” And down she crouched by the fire again. She was always cold . . . “without her little red flannel jacket, of course,” thought Bertha.

Bogey’s voice is breaking. When he speaks he rushes up and down the scale. It’s funny—it makes you laugh—and yet it just suits the day.

The wind carries their voices—away fly the sentences like little narrow ribbons.

It is getting very dark. In the harbour the coal hulks show two lights—one high on a mast, and one from the stern.

Just for a moment both of them stood silent in that leaping light. Still, as it were, they tasted on their smiling lips the sweet shock of their greeting.

Their secret selves whispered:

“Why should we speak? Isn’t this enough?”

“Yes, I am,” she laughed. “

I long for tea as strong men long for wine.

”

For the special thrilling quality of their friendship was in their complete surrender.

Like two open cities in the midst of some vast plain their two minds lay open to each other.

And it wasn’t as if he rode into hers like a conqueror, armed to the eyebrows and seeing nothing but a gay silken flutter—nor did she enter his like a queen walking soft on petals.

But the smile undid them. It lasted too long; it became a grin.

They saw themselves as two little grinning puppets jigging away in nothingness.

“What have we been talking about?” thought he. He was so utterly bored he almost groaned.

The clock struck six merry little pings and the fire made a soft flutter.

What fools they were—heavy, stodgy, elderly—with positively upholstered minds.

And now the silence put a spell upon them like solemn music. It was anguish—anguish for her to bear it and he would die—he’d die if it were broken. . . . And yet he longed to break it. Not by speech.

This time she walked back to the studio slowly, and standing in the middle of the room with half-shut eyes she felt so light, so rested, as if she had woken up out of a childish sleep.

Even the act of breathing was a joy. . . .

The sommier was very untidy. All the cushions “like furious mountains” as she said; she put them in order before going over to the writing-table.

And I always was such a one for being warm in the old days. It’s not as if I was skinny—I’m just the same full figure that I used to be. No, it’s because I don’t have a good hot dinner in the evenings.”

A pageant of Good Hot Dinners passed across the ceiling, each of them accompanied by a bottle of Nourishing Stout. . . .

“Even if I were to get up now,” she thought, “and have a sensible substantial breakfast . . .” A pageant of Sensible Substantial Breakfasts followed the dinners across the ceiling, shepherded by an enormous, white, uncut ham.

it tugged at her, slapped her face, jeered; it knew she could not answer them. In the Square Gardens she found a little wire basket to drop the form into. And then she sat down on one of the benches to powder her nose.

But the person in the pocket mirror made a hideous face at her, and that was too much for Miss Moss; she had a good cry. It cheered her wonderfully.

“Well, that’s over,” she sighed. “It’s one comfort to be off my feet. And my nose will soon get cool in the air. . . . It’s very nice in here. Look at the sparrows. Cheep. Cheep. How close they come.

“He is not a man,” said the Two Topknots, “he is an ox. I say to my sister in the morning and at night when we are in bed, I tell her—No man is he, but an ox!”

Wheeling, tumbling, swooping, the laughter of the Honeymoon Couple dashed against the glass of the verandah.

The sun was still high. Every leaf, every flower in the garden lay open, motionless, as if exhausted, and a sweet, rich, rank smell filled the quivering air.

In the gardens the men were cutting grapes. He watched a man standing in the greenish shade, raising up, holding a black cluster in one hand, taking the knife from his belt, cutting, laying the bunch in a flat boat-shaped basket.

The man worked leisurely, silently, taking hundreds of years over the job.

On the hedges on the other side of the road there were grapes small as berries, growing wild, growing among the stones. He leaned against a wall, filled his pipe, put a match to it. . . .

They sat there for a long while.

The sky flamed, paled; the two white beds were like two ships. . . .

At last he heard the servant girl running along the corridor with the hot water cans, and gently he released her and turned on the light.

The sky is the colour of jade. There are a great many stars; an enormous white moon hangs over the garden.

Far away lightning flutters—flutters like a wing—flutters like a broken bird that tries to fly and sinks again and again struggles.

The lights from the salon shine across the garden path and there is the sound of a piano. And once the American Woman, opening the French window to let Klaymongso into the garden, cries: “Have you seen this moon?” But nobody answers.

Well—she had done her best to clip his wings, if that was any satisfaction for her, and she could congratulate herself on the success of this early morning trick.

One ought to wake exquisitely, reluctantly, he thought, slipping down in the warm bed.

He began to imagine a series of enchanting scenes which ended with his latest, most charming pupil putting her bare, scented arms round his neck, and covering him with her long, perfumed hair. “Awake, my love!” . . .

In fact, he could not help a thrill of satisfaction when he saw himself in the glass, dressed in a morning coat, dark grey trousers, grey socks and a black tie with a silver thread in it.

Not that he was vain—he couldn’t stand vain men—no; the sight of himself gave him a thrill of purely artistic satisfaction.

“Voilà tout!” said he, passing his hand over his sleek hair.

The letter was scrawled in violet ink on thick, handmade paper.

Vanity, that bright bird, lifted its wings again, lifted them until he felt his breast would break.

“Oh well, don’t let us quarrel,” said he, and actually flung out a hand to his wife.

Oh, what an enchanting idea! What a genius Mr. Peacock was.

She parted her pretty lips, and began to sing like a pansy.

“Very good, very good, indeed,” said Reginald, playing chords that would waft a hardened criminal to heaven. “Make the notes round. Don’t be afraid. Linger over them, breathe them like a perfume.”

In the afternoon the chairs came, a whole big cart full of little gold ones with their legs in the air.

And then the flowers came. When you stared down from the balcony at the people carrying them the flower pots looked like funny awfully nice hats nodding up the path.

After heaven knows how many more attempts—for the spirit of kindness dies very hard in women—they gave him up. Of course, they were still perfectly charming, and asked him to their shows, and spoke to him in the café, but that was all.

When one is an artist one has no time simply for people who won’t respond. Has one?

“And besides I really think there must be something rather fishy somewhere . . . don’t you? It can’t all be as innocent as it looks! Why come to Paris if you want to be a daisy in the field? No, I’m not suspicious. But——”

“And besides I really think there must be something rather fishy somewhere . . . don’t you? It can’t all be as innocent as it looks!

Why come to Paris if you want to be a daisy in the field?

No, I’m not suspicious. But——”

Among the flowers the old women scuttled from side to side, like crabs. Really there was no need for him to go out.

If he sat at the window until his white beard fell over the sill he still would have found something to draw. . . .

How surprised those tender women would have been if they had managed to force the door. For he kept his studio as neat as a pin.

She looked down at the deserted market and up at the sky, but where he sat there might have been a hollow in the air. She simply did not see the house opposite. And then she disappeared.

His heart fell out of the side window of his studio, and down to the balcony of the house opposite—buried itself in the pot of daffodils under the half-opened buds and spears of green. . . .

That room with the balcony was the sitting-room, and the one next door to it was the kitchen.

“I think they are. I get them made for me by a little man in St. James’s Street. I don’t smoke very much. I’m not like you—but when I do, they must be delicious, very fresh cigarettes.

Smoking isn’t a habit with me; it’s a luxury—like perfume.

Are you still so fond of perfumes? Ah, when I was in Russia . . .”

. . “No, it’s quite all right. You don’t disturb me at all.” “Ah, a thousand thanks.” He sat down opposite her and unbuttoned the cape of his enormous coat and flung it off his shoulders.

The train seemed glad to have left the station. With a long leap it sprang into the dark.

She rubbed a place in the window with her glove but she could see nothing—just a tree outspread like a black fan or a scatter of lights, or the line of a hill, solemn and huge.

How kindly the old man in the corner watched her bare little hand turning over the big white pages, watched her lips moving as she pronounced the long words to herself, rested upon her hair that fairly blazed under the light.

Alas! how tragic for a little governess to possess hair that made one think of tangerines and marigolds, of apricots and tortoiseshell cats and champagne!

Perhaps that was what the old man was thinking as he gazed and gazed, and that not even the dark ugly clothes could disguise her soft beauty.

“I am afraid I could not do that,” said the little governess, shaking her head, suddenly important and serious. “And also, if one is alone . . .” He quite understood. He bowed, serious too. They were silent after that.

The train shattered on, baring its dark, flaming breast to the hills and to the valleys.

It was warm in the carriage. She seemed to lean against the dark rushing and to be carried away and away. Little sounds made themselves heard; steps in the corridor, doors opening and shutting—a murmur of voices—whistling. . . .

The train began to slow down. The engine gave a long shrill whistle. They were coming to a town.

Taller houses, pink and yellow, glided by, fast asleep behind their green eyelids, and guarded by the poplar trees that quivered in the blue air as if on tiptoe, listening.

In one house a woman opened the shutters, flung a red and white mattress across the window frame and stood staring at the train. A pale woman with black hair and a white woollen shawl over her shoulders.

What a perfect grandfather he would make! Just like one out of a book!

The sun came out, the pink clouds in the sky, the strawberry clouds were eaten by the blue.

“Are they good?” asked the old man. “As good as they look?”

Only Frau Arnholdt is to be at the hotel at six and I ought to be there by five.” “So you shall. After the ice cream I shall put you into a cab and you can go there comfortably.” She was happy again.

The chocolate ice cream melted—melted in little sips a long way down.

The shadows of the trees danced on the table cloths, and she sat with her back safely turned to the ornamental clock that pointed to twenty-five minutes to seven.

“I’m free. I’m free. I’m free as the wind.” And now all this vibrating, trembling, exciting, flying world was hers. It was her kingdom.

No, no, she belonged to nobody but Life.

“That will do, Marie,” she stammered. “My hat, my coat, my bag. And now get me a taxi.” Where was she going? Oh, anywhere. She could not stand this silent flat, noiseless Marie, this ghostly, quiet, feminine interior. She must be out;

The wind rattled the window-frame; a piece of iron banged, and the young man went on changing the tongs, crouching over her. Oh, how terrifying Life was, thought Monica. How dreadful. It is the loneliness which is so appalling.

We whirl along like leaves, and nobody knows—nobody cares where we fall, in what black river we float away.

The tugging feeling seemed to rise into her throat. It ached, ached; she longed to cry. “That will do,” she whispered. “Give me the pins.” As he stood beside her, so submissive, so silent, she nearly dropped her arms and sobbed.

It was still. The man in the carriage stretched himself out, folded his arms. He felt the sun beat on his knees. His head was sunk on his breast. “Hish, hish,” sounded from the sea. The wind sighed in the valley and was quiet.

He felt himself, lying there, a hollow man, a parched, withered man, as it were, of ashes.

And the sea sounded, “Hish, hish.”