The Escape

It was his fault, wholly and solely his fault, that they had missed the

train. What if the idiotic hotel people had refused to produce the

bill? Wasn’t that simply because he hadn’t impressed upon the waiter at

lunch that they must have it by two o’clock? Any other man would have

sat there and refused to move until they handed it over. But no! His

exquisite belief in human nature had allowed him to get up and expect

one of those idiots to bring it to their room. . . . And then, when the

_voiture_ did arrive, while they were still (Oh, Heavens!) waiting for

change, why hadn’t he seen to the arrangement of the boxes so that they

could, at least, have started the moment the money had come? Had he

expected her to go outside, to stand under the awning in the heat and

point with her parasol? Very amusing picture of English domestic life.

Even when the driver had been told how fast he had to drive he had paid

no attention whatsoever—just smiled. “Oh,” she groaned, “if she’d been

a driver she couldn’t have stopped smiling herself at the absurd,

ridiculous way he was urged to hurry.” And she sat back and imitated

his voice: “_Allez, vite, vite_”—and begged the driver’s pardon for

troubling him. . . .

And then the station—unforgettable—with the sight of the jaunty little

train shuffling away and those hideous children waving from the

windows. “Oh, why am I made to bear these things? Why am I exposed to

them? . . .” The glare, the flies, while they waited, and he and the

stationmaster put their heads together over the time-table, trying to

find this other train, which, of course, they wouldn’t catch. The

people who’d gathered round, and the woman who’d held up that baby with

that awful, awful head. . . . “Oh, to care as I care—to feel as I feel,

and never to be saved anything—never to know for one moment what it was

to . . . to . . .”

Her voice had changed. It was shaking now—crying now. She fumbled with

her bag, and produced from its little maw a scented handkerchief. She

put up her veil and, as though she were doing it for somebody else,

pitifully, as though she were saying to somebody else: “I know, my

darling,” she pressed the handkerchief to her eyes.

The little bag, with its shiny, silvery jaws open, lay on her lap. He

could see her powder-puff, her rouge stick, a bundle of letters, a

phial of tiny black pills like seeds, a broken cigarette, a mirror,

white ivory tablets with lists on them that had been heavily scored

through. He thought: “In Egypt she would be buried with those things.”

They had left the last of the houses, those small straggling houses

with bits of broken pot flung among the flower-beds and half-naked hens

scratching round the doorsteps. Now they were mounting a long steep

road that wound round the hill and over into the next bay. The horses

stumbled, pulling hard. Every five minutes, every two minutes the

driver trailed the whip across them. His stout back was solid as wood;

there were boils on his reddish neck, and he wore a new, a shining new

straw hat. . . .

There was a little wind, just enough wind to blow to satin the new

leaves on the fruit trees, to stroke the fine grass, to turn to silver

the smoky olives—just enough wind to start in front of the carriage a

whirling, twirling snatch of dust that settled on their clothes like

the finest ash. When she took out her powder-puff the powder came

flying over them both.

“Oh, the dust,” she breathed, “the disgusting, revolting dust.” And she

put down her veil and lay back as if overcome.

“Why don’t you put up your parasol?” he suggested. It was on the front

seat, and he leaned forward to hand it to her. At that she suddenly sat

upright and blazed again.

“Please leave my parasol alone! I don’t want my parasol! And anyone who

was not utterly insensitive would know that I’m far, far too exhausted

to hold up a parasol. And with a wind like this tugging at it. . . .

Put it down at once,” she flashed, and then snatched the parasol from

him, tossed it into the crumpled hood behind, and subsided, panting.

Another bend of the road, and down the hill there came a troop of

little children, shrieking and giggling, little girls with sun-bleached

hair, little boys in faded soldiers’ caps. In their hands they carried

flowers—any kind of flowers—grabbed by the head, and these they

offered, running beside the carriage. Lilac, faded lilac, greeny-white

snowballs, one arum lily, a handful of hyacinths. They thrust the

flowers and their impish faces into the carriage; one even threw into

her lap a bunch of marigolds. Poor little mice! He had his hand in his

trouser pocket before her. “For Heaven’s sake don’t give them anything.

Oh, how typical of you! Horrid little monkeys! Now they’ll follow us

all the way. Don’t encourage them; you _would_ encourage beggars”; and

she hurled the bunch out of the carriage with, “Well, do it when I’m

not there, please.”

He saw the queer shock on the children’s faces. They stopped running,

lagged behind, and then they began to shout something, and went on

shouting until the carriage had rounded yet another bend.

“Oh, how many more are there before the top of the hill is reached? The

horses haven’t trotted once. Surely it isn’t necessary for them to walk

the whole way.”

“We shall be there in a minute now,” he said, and took out his

cigarette-case. At that she turned round towards him. She clasped her

hands and held them against her breast; her dark eyes looked immense,

imploring, behind her veil; her nostrils quivered, she bit her lip, and

her head shook with a little nervous spasm. But when she spoke, her

voice was quite weak and very, very calm.

“I want to ask you something. I want to beg something of you,” she

said. “I’ve asked you hundreds and hundreds of times before, but you’ve

forgotten. It’s such a little thing, but if you knew what it meant to

me. . . .” She pressed her hands together. “But you can’t know. No

human creature could know and be so cruel.” And then, slowly,

deliberately, gazing at him with those huge, sombre eyes: “I beg and

implore you for the last time that when we are driving together you

won’t smoke. If you could imagine,” she said, “the anguish I suffer

when that smoke comes floating across my face. . . .”

“Very well,” he said. “I won’t. I forgot.” And he put the case back.

“Oh, no,” said she, and almost began to laugh, and put the back of her

hand across her eyes. “You couldn’t have forgotten. Not that.”

The wind came, blowing stronger. They were at the top of the hill.

“Hoy-yip-yip-yip,” cried the driver. They swung down the road that fell

into a small valley, skirted the sea coast at the bottom of it, and

then coiled over a gentle ridge on the other side. Now there were

houses again, blue-shuttered against the heat, with bright burning

gardens, with geranium carpets flung over the pinkish walls. The

coast-line was dark; on the edge of the sea a white silky fringe just

stirred. The carriage swung down the hill, bumped, shook. “Yi-ip,”

shouted the driver. She clutched the sides of the seat, she closed her

eyes, and he knew she felt this was happening on purpose; this swinging

and bumping, this was all done—and he was responsible for it,

somehow—to spite her because she had asked if they couldn’t go a little

faster. But just as they reached the bottom of the valley there was one

tremendous lurch. The carriage nearly overturned, and he saw her eyes

blaze at him, and she positively hissed, “I suppose you are enjoying

this?”

They went on. They reached the bottom of the valley. Suddenly she stood

up. “_Cocher! Cocher! Arrêtez-vous!_” She turned round and looked into

the crumpled hood behind. “I knew it,” she exclaimed. “I knew it. I

heard it fall, and so did you, at that last bump.”

“What? Where?”

“My parasol. It’s gone. The parasol that belonged to my mother. The

parasol that I prize more than—more than . . .” She was simply beside

herself. The driver turned round, his gay, broad face smiling.

“I, too, heard something,” said he, simply and gaily. “But I thought as

Monsieur and Madame said nothing . . .”

“There. You hear that. Then you must have heard it too. So _that_

accounts for the extraordinary smile on your face. . . .”

“Look here,” he said, “it can’t be gone. If it fell out it will be

there still. Stay where you are. I’ll fetch it.”

But she saw through that. Oh, how she saw through it! “No, thank you.”

And she bent her spiteful, smiling eyes upon him, regardless of the

driver. “I’ll go myself. I’ll walk back and find it, and trust you not

to follow. For”—knowing the driver did not understand, she spoke

softly, gently—“if I don’t escape from you for a minute I shall go

mad.”

She stepped out of the carriage. “My bag.” He handed it to her.

“Madame prefers . . .”

But the driver had already swung down from his seat, and was seated on

the parapet reading a small newspaper. The horses stood with hanging

heads. 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.”

It was then that he saw the tree, that he was conscious of its presence

just inside a garden gate. It was an immense tree with a round, thick

silver stem and a great arc of copper leaves that gave back the light

and yet were sombre. There was something beyond the tree—a whiteness, a

softness, an opaque mass, half-hidden—with delicate pillars. As he

looked at the tree he felt his breathing die away and he became part of

the silence. It seemed to grow, it seemed to expand in the quivering

heat until the great carved leaves hid the sky, and yet it was

motionless. Then from within its depths or from beyond there came the

sound of a woman’s voice. A woman was singing. The warm untroubled

voice floated upon the air, and it was all part of the silence as he

was part of it. Suddenly, as the voice rose, soft, dreaming, gentle, he

knew that it would come floating to him from the hidden leaves and his

peace was shattered. What was happening to him? Something stirred in

his breast. Something dark, something unbearable and dreadful pushed in

his bosom, and like a great weed it floated, rocked . . . it was warm,

stifling. He tried to struggle to tear at it, and at the same

moment—all was over. Deep, deep, he sank into the silence, staring at

the tree and waiting for the voice that came floating, falling, until

he felt himself enfolded.

. . . . .

In the shaking corridor of the train. It was night. The train rushed

and roared through the dark. He held on with both hands to the brass

rail. The door of their carriage was open.

“Do not disturb yourself, Monsieur. He will come in and sit down when

he wants to. He likes—he likes—it is his habit. . . . _Oui, Madame, je

suis un peu souffrante. . . . Mes nerfs._ Oh, but my husband is never

so happy as when he is travelling. He likes roughing it. . . . My

husband. . . . My husband. . . .”

The voices murmured, murmured. They were never still. But so great was

his heavenly happiness as he stood there he wished he might live for

ever.

Transcriber’s Note

Images of the source text used in this transcription are available

through the Internet Archive.

The following changes to the text were noted:

p. 2: Two subdued chirrups: “Thank you, Mrs. Samuel Josephs”—Added a

period after “Josephs”.

p. 3: The buggy tiwnkled away in the sunlight—Changed “tiwnkled” to

“twinkled”.

p. 14: lifted up his oat tails.—Changed “oat” to “coat”.

p. 101: the _garçon_ was hauing up the boxes—Changed “hauing” to

"hauling".

p. 169: I have sung that music many times.”—Inserted a closing single

quotation mark before the closing double quotation mark.

p. 154: It doesn’t matter at all, darling.” said the good

friend.—Changed period after “darling” to a comma.

p. 187: “That,” she said, “is most becoming,”—Comma after “becoming”

changed to a period.

p. 190: opening the French window to let Klaymongso into the garden,

cries.—Changed the period after “cries” to a colon.

p. 201: What a _genius_ Mr Peacock was.—Inserted a period after “Mr”.

p. 202: There she was—off again Now she—Inserted a period after

“again”.

p. 210: “That's where the ice pudding is to be,” said Cook—Added a

period to the end of the sentence.

p. 215: “I’m hanged if I won’t,” cried Father. I won’t—Inserted an

opening double quotation mark between “Father.” and “I won’t”.

p. 258: “I think I ought to gonow.”—Divided “gonow” into two words.