Asylum Piece

I

The scene is set exactly like a stage upon which a light comedy, something airy and gay, is about to be acted. At the back can be seen part of the ground floor of a mansion with doors right and left opening upon a wide terrace where tables and chairs are arranged. In front, a flight of shallow stone steps leads down to the garden. Large pillars of light-coloured stone support the roof of the terrace. At each end, beyond the final column, the walls of the house can be seen covered by creepers which are a mass of brilliant orange and purple flowers. Some of the full-blown flower trumpets have been carried by the wind on to the steps where they lie as if strewn for the feet of a bridal procession. The foreground, which in a theatre would be the auditorium, consists of an enormous view over falling ground with a lake in the middle distance and mountains beyond. The whole vista is flooded with dazzling midsummer sunshine.

At first there is no one to be seen. A flock of pigeons circles round twice with flashing wings and vanishes into the upper blue.

The door at the right extremity of the terrace opens and a number of people emerge. They are well-dressed men and women of varying ages who stand about or sit in groups round the tables. They have just finished lunch. Some are smoking, some have coffee cups in their hands. The most striking thing about them is their silence. Only a few talk together; the others seem abstracted, or as if suspended, as if waiting to be told what to do. After a few moments they start to drift slowly across the terrace and vanish one after another through the door on the left. A grey-haired woman who appears to be in a position of authority is seen to be shepherding them along. She settles a group of four at a table on the extreme left and gives them a pack of cards which one of them deals in a perfunctory fashion.

A stout man in a dark suit occupies the most comfortable chair in the middle of the terrace. He is about forty years old, slightly bald, and has a round, red, cheerful face. He unfolds a newspaper and starts to read. Something, it is not easy to say what, distinguishes him from the people who have lately passed by. Perhaps it is merely that he is exempt from the domination of the grey-haired woman. He is the Professor.

After a minute or two, the door on the left opens and three new figures emerge with a somewhat stealthy appearance: they have an obvious air of having evaded authority. At the sight of the Professor, whom they had not expected to find there, they hesitate uncertainly, but he smiles at them over his paper and waves them forward with an indulgent gesture. Relieved, they advance past the card players, who glance up at them with faint curiosity, and then seat themselves on the top step of the terrace just in front of the Professor.

Here they remain for a while without speaking, staring through their dark glasses into the glare. The central person of the trio is a young woman with yellow hair. She is smartly dressed in pale pink. On her right is a young man with the pointed ears and the half wistful, half malicious look of a faun. The man on her other side is older with a sad Jewish face. Between all three a curious resemblance is noticeable, and this is not only due to the fact that each one is slender and elegant and wearing a pair of dark spectacles.

The card players, having once displayed their dim inquiry, without further interest in what is passing lethargically continue the game which they have been ordered to play, dealing and receiving the cards with gestures as automatic as those of the hands of so many clocks. The Professor rustles the page of his newspaper. The three on the steps sit motionless, deriving some incommunicable solace from each other’s proximity and from the fugitive sense of escape.

Suddenly a flock of pigeons flies up from the direction of the lake and circles low in front of the terrace with bright flashing wings. And immediately, as if stricken into life at the sight of those beating wings, the three rise from the steps with one simultaneous lamentable cry.

Now it can be seen only too clearly where their mutual and horrid resemblance lies. What appeared as slender elegance now reveals itself as emaciation, hip bones protrude shockingly through the covering clothes, cheek bones have almost pushed their way through the reluctant flesh.

The long, lank, match-thin limbs with their enlarged joint mechanisms jerk into forlorn obedience to the Professor’s wires as, like a smiling puppet-master, he hurriedly takes control. And from behind the three pairs of dark spectacles large tears roll over the painted marionette cheeks and slowly drip on to the stone terrace.

II

I had a friend, a lover. Or did I dream it? So many dreams are crowding upon me now that I can scarcely tell true from false: dreams like light imprisoned in bright mineral caves; hot, heavy dreams; ice-age dreams; dreams like machines in the head. I lie between the bare wall and the medicine bitter with sediment in its dwarfish glass, and try to recall my dream.

I see myself walking hand-in-hand with another, a human being whose heart and mind had grown into mine. We walked together on many roads, in sunshine beside ancient olive trees, on hillsides sprayed as by fountains with the larks’ singing, in lanes where the raindrops dripped from the chilly leaves. Between us there was understanding without reservations and indestructible peace. I, who had been lonely and incomplete, was now fulfilled. Our thoughts ran together like greyhounds of equal swiftness. Perfection like music was in our united thoughts.

I remember an inn in some southern country. A crisis, long since forgotten, had arisen in our lives. I remember only the cypresses’ black flames blowing, the sky hard as a blue plate, and my own confidence, serene, unshakable, utterly secure. ‘Whatever happens is trivial so long as we are together. Under no circumstances could we fail one another, wound one another, do one another wrong.’

Who shall describe the slow and lamentable cooling of the heart? On what day does one first observe the infinitesimal crack which finally becomes a chasm deeper than hell?

The years passed like the steps of a staircase leading lower and lower. I did not walk any more in the sun or hear the songs of larks like crystal fountains playing against the sky. No hand enfolded mine in the warm clasp of love. My thoughts were again solitary, disintegrate, disharmonious — the music gone. I lived alone in a few pleasant rooms, feeling my life run out aimlessly with the tedious hours: the life of an old maid ran out of my fingertips. I arranged the flowers in their vases.

Yet still, intermittently, I saw him, the companion whose heart and brain once seemed to have grown to mine. I saw him without seeing him, the same and yet not the same. Still I could not believe that everything was lost beyond hope of salvage. Still I believed that one day the world would change colour, a curtain would be ripped away, and all would be as it once was.

But now I am lying in a lonely bed. I am weak and confused. My muscles do not obey me, my thoughts run erratically, as small animals do when they are cornered. I am forgotten and lost.

It was he who brought me to this place. He took my hand. I almost heard the tearing of the curtain. For the first time in many months we rested together in peace.

Then they told me that he had gone. For a long while I did not believe it. But time passes by, and no word comes. I cannot deceive myself any longer. He has gone, he has left me, and he will not return. I am alone for ever in this room where the light burns all night long and the professional faces of strangers, without warmth or pity, glance at me through the half open door. I wait, I wait, between the wall and the bitter medicine in the glass. What am I waiting for? A screen of wrought iron covers the window; the house door is locked though the door of my room is open. All night long the light watches me with its unbiased eye. There are strange sounds in the night. I wait, I wait, perhaps for the dreams that come so close to me now.

I had a friend, a lover. It was a dream.

III

Hans comes out of the lift and crosses the hall of the clinic. Just beside a large vase of salmon-pink gladioli which stands on a table, he remembers that he has left the door of the lift open. He turns back and closes it very carefully, then slowly crosses the wide hall again. He is a small, slim man, quite young, with pointed ears and black hair that grows in a point on his forehead. His brown eyes, which nature intended to be gentle and mischievous, are now gentle and sad. His whole expression is one of barely concealed anxiety which shows also in the undecided steps of his shiny black shoes. He is smartly, if rather unsuitably, dressed in a dark town suit.

A woman in a white uniform wishes him good morning from her desk near the main door. He answers mechanically, without seeing her. At the door he hesitates for several moments: it is difficult for him to pass through it although it is standing open. Finally he manages to overcome his inhibition and goes outside. On the steps he again hesitates, not being able to decide which direction to take.

The sun shines brilliantly. Before him is a parklike expanse of grass with groups of trees and some single fine Wellingtonias dotted about. There is nobody in sight. It is eleven o’clock and all the patients who are well enough are at work in the atelier or in different parts of the grounds.

Hans glances round uneasily. It is part of his routine, too, to work in the atelier at this hour. Until a few days ago someone would certainly have come to investigate his absence: but now nobody comes near him; nobody seems to care how he occupies his time. This strikes him as exceedingly ominous. ‘My brother must have written to say that he can’t afford to keep me here much longer. Soon I shall be sent away from the clinic — and then what will become of me?’

He sighs and takes from his pocket a crumpled letter which he has been carrying about for several days. It is from his brother in Central Europe and contains nothing but bad news about the factory upon which the family fortune depends — strikes, unemployment, rising price of raw materials. The whole village also depends upon the factory; the whole village is suffering.

Hans sighs again deeply and returns the letter to his pocket without unfolding it. He takes out his dark spectacles and puts them on, hiding from the brightness of the day which fills him with obscure alarms.

Suddenly his face changes. A girl of about twenty is approaching him on a bicycle. She is the gymnastic teacher with whom, up to a few days ago, Hans has been indulging in a mild flirtation. Now he feels far too anxious to think of flirting, although he admires automatically the beautiful golden tan of her bare arms and legs. She carries a black swimming suit over the handlebars of her cycle.

‘How I wish she would ask me to go swimming with her!’ he thinks to himself, as a smile of eager anticipation appears on his face. It is not that he really wants to swim in the lake; but what he longs for above everything at this moment is laughter, companionship and a friendly voice.

The girl is abreast of him now; her thick, curly hair blows out like a fleece in the sun. The gravel crunches, minute particles of grit fly up from under the tyres; there is a greeting, a flash of teeth and a whirring noise. She has gone.

Hans stands for a moment watching the departing form of the gym mistress. The smile slowly fades from his face and he begins to walk on. His loitering steps carry him as a matter of course in the direction of the atelier. On his way he passes the vegetable garden where several patients are working. Two of them, in blue overalls, are hoeing the parched earth quite close to the path where he walks. A man near by, who looks like a gardener, is really a nurse who is keeping them under his eye. Hans pauses to watch the workers who do not return his gaze. The ground is baked dry, it is hard work, sweat runs down their faces. The two men do not speak to each other, nor do they look happy; yet Hans, who detests hard work, almost envies them their place in the established order of institutional life to which he now feels himself an outsider. He wanders on past another man who is picking blackberries. The blackberry bushes have been trained over wires, and the patient stands with his back to Hans, intent on his prickly task, carefully picking out the berries and putting them into a basket. Hans would like to speak to him, but the unresponsive look of the man’s back deters him, and he walks on in silence, looking abstractedly at the path.

His thoughts fall back into their usual unhappy pattern — money troubles, bad health, insecurity. Once more he fingers the letter in his pocket. Yes, the poor old factory is certainly in a bad way — perhaps even on its last legs. How broken-hearted father would have been! A good thing the old man didn’t live to see these terrible times. But what about Hans’s own enterprise, the small private business which he has built up by his personal efforts? For the hundredth time he tries to think of some reason why he has not heard from his partner for such a long time. It’s over a month since the fellow has written. ‘Can he be ill? Is he double-crossing me? Or has he really written and they have kept the letters from me because of more bad news? I really ought to go and find out what’s happening. I ought to go at once — to-morrow. If I wait I may be too late.’ But the thought of taking a long train journey alone, of talking to strangers and concentrating upon business problems is too much for poor Hans. ‘I can’t do it. It’s no use. They shouldn’t expect it of me in my condition. I’m ill — I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t make decisions. I can’t even think properly any more. .’ He passes his hand over his dark hair with a despairing gesture, takes off his glasses for a moment, and then, dazzled, hastily puts them back on his nose.

Now he has reached the atelier. A confused hum of activity comes from within. In the carpenter’s shop someone is hammering. A machine in one of the other rooms makes a thin buzzing noise like a wasp. The various workshops open on to a veranda raised several steps above the path where Hans is walking, but looking up he can see the faces of the people near the windows and doors. With some of them he exchanges a nod. They are busy with book-binding or leather-work or basket-making. The official in charge of the atelier comes out on to the veranda for a minute to wish Hans good day. He behaves as though it were quite in order for him to be strolling out there when all the rest of the clinic is hard at work. This attitude on the part of the supervisor confirms the young man’s worst fears and he moves off immediately.

At the last open door a girl is sitting alone, working at a sketch on an easel. ‘Hullo, Hans!’ she calls out amiably.

He stops and leans against the stone wall of the veranda. He would like to see what she is painting, but the effort required to mount the steps is too great, and he stays where he is, looking up at her wistfully.

‘Why do you always wear those dark clothes?’ she asks him. ‘You look so hot and dismal — as if you were going to a funeral or a dreary business appointment.’

‘Well, you see, it’s like this,’ he begins to explain, feeling the stone warm under the palms of his hands, ‘I never could decide what to put on. Every morning when I started to dress I used to put out all my suits in a row, and it would take me perhaps half an hour, perhaps longer, to make up my mind. The same thing happened with my shoes — with my ties — it was really awful. You can’t think how this silly affair used to worry me. So at last I thought of a plan to avoid making a choice. I just put on the same suit every day. This is the one I wore when they took us to that concert in Geneva; I’ve worn it ever since.’

The girl doesn’t say any more. She doesn’t see his forlorn expression. Perhaps she is not interested; perhaps her painting absorbs her just then; or perhaps she has simply fallen into a dream.

Hans moves away. Suddenly he feels envious, bitter. ‘She’s well — not nearly as ill as I am, at any rate. And yet she can stay here as long as she likes while I shall be turned out in a day or two to face the world.’

So far he has been dawdling along, but now he comes to a decision and starts to walk briskly. He will send another telegram to his partner and this time he will word it so that it is bound to bring a reply. Out he goes into the dusty public road that leads to the village. He has no business to be there, but what does it matter? He has often done it before, and anyway, nobody seems to care what he does these days.

Soon he comes to the street of humble, rather squalid houses, shuttered against the heat. Most of the dwellings are built in one with their cowsheds or stables. In front of one an enormous heap of manure slowly steams in the sun. The overpowering smell of manure, the heat, the quick walk, combine to make Hans feel dizzy for a few seconds. He stands still, bending his head, and looking down at his shoes, now white like a tramp’s with the dust. With fumbling fingers he unfastens his jacket. A tiny split in the front of his shirt catches his eye. ‘But I’m going about in rags — absolutely in rags! It will be the gutter for me next,’ he mutters under his breath, with a sort of mild, aggrieved surprise.

Now he is at the post office. He pulls himself together and goes inside. The empty room smells fustily of dried ink, just outside the window some shabby, gaunt hens are pecking in an enclosure of wire netting overgrown with convolvulus. Hans observes with distaste all the details of the place with which he is already only too familiar. The postmaster appears. He is an oldish, pot-bellied peasant with grizzled hair. Carefully, with much thought, Hans writes out his message and hands the telegraph form over the counter.

After the young man has gone, the postmaster stands for a time holding the telegram against his huge belly, and watching the door as if he half expects the sender to come back. Then, in a methodical way, he sets about tearing the form into small pieces, until nothing is left but a handful of shreds which he negligently tosses out of the open window. With greedy eyes, the hens come rushing on their strong, scaly legs, pouncing on the torn fragments. But immediately discovering that the paper scraps are inedible, they abandon them in disgust and resume their unprofitable pecking in the hard earth.

IV

An elderly man and his wife are standing in the chief doctor’s study. The husband is a big, tall man who is beginning to stoop a little. He has a serious, important face with a large grey moustache and pouches under the eyes. In his buttonhole he wears a narrow red ribbon. He is rather a fine figure for his age and is obviously used to being in a position of command. His wife, on the other hand, is nondescript and ineffective looking. One realizes at once that she has been dominated by her husband ever since their marriage, and by her parents before that.

It is just after noon on a hot summer day. The interview is ended. The chief doctor rises behind his desk. He is as tall as his visitor, but handsome, slender and in the prime of life, with thick, wavy hair which he wears rather long and which is just starting to be becomingly streaked with grey. He is dressed in a beautiful silver-grey suit and brown and white shoes. The room is large, lofty and expensively furnished, but rather dark with curtains drawn over the french windows. There is a perceptible odour of eau de cologne ambrèe which emanates from the doctor’s person. One feels that a slightly mysterious atmosphere has been aimed at with a view to impressing visitors. There are flowers and a number of large, dim, allegorical pictures.

The couple move slowly towards the door. The wife is distressed and reluctant to leave. There is something she wants to say, but she is intimidated by the atmosphere of the room and by the doctor who looks to her like a film actor. Finally she manages to bring out a question.

‘Couldn’t I please, doctor, see her just for a minute before we go? We’ve come all this way — and it’s such a long time since I saw her…’ Her voice, just as one would expect, is humble and diffident. The poor old lady is tired out with travelling and not far from tears as she stands there nervously clasping her shapeless black handbag and gazing at the head doctor with imploring eyes.

‘My dear madame, it would be the greatest mistake. It would upset your daughter and possibly cause a relapse. I’m extremely sorry, but we must consider the patient’s best interests before everything, mustn’t we? I assure you that she has settled down most satisfactorily, I am very pleased with her progress, and I have excellent reports of her from my doctors as well. You can leave her in our hands without the slightest anxiety. She is well and happy and has taken remarkably well to our community life.’

The cultured voice sounds softer than silk, but the mother hardly hears the last part of the speech. She grasps only that she is not to be permitted to see her child who is so close to her, perhaps even within calling distance, hidden away behind all these invisible barriers of medical authority and discipline. A mist comes in front of her eyes, she can no longer see very clearly where she is going; but this does not matter because her husband takes her by the arm and steers her firmly through the door.

‘We must be guided in everything by the doctor’s advice,’ he is saying. And then she hears him refusing an invitation to lunch at the chief’s private house. ‘A thousand thanks — no. We shall just be in time to catch the express from Lausanne.’ Tremulously, she walks down the polished corridor, supported by the inexorable arm of her husband. She does not see the white coated attendant who is escorting them. She feels very old, and chilly in spite of the heat. Now there is nothing before her but the tiresome, exhausting train journey back to her empty home.

The head doctor is relieved to have got rid of the elderly pair. He had quite expected that he would have to entertain them to lunch. As soon as he ceases to hear the sound of the car carrying them away, he opens a window and steps out into the sunshine. His house is a short distance off, on the shore of the lake. As he walks towards it, everyone whom he passes stops to salute and admire the fine — looking, clever, successful, debonair physician with his graceful, athletic stride.

Meanwhile, Mademoiselle Zèlie is getting ready for lunch in her own room. She is a plump, heavy-looking girl in the early twenties, who has rather the air of an enormously bloated child. Her body seems unwieldy like a young child’s, and her face has the childish simplicity that includes some cunning. Her complexion is pale and unhealthy, her hair needs a shampoo. She has altogether a rather slatternly aspect: her stockings are wrinkled, there is a gap at the back between her white linen skirt and her spotted blouse. Her nurse, who is sitting over some embroidery at the window, suddenly takes a look at her, jumps up and impatiently rearranges her clothing.

‘How is it you can’t keep yourself tidy, mademoiselle?’ she says in a scolding voice. ‘I’m always putting you right and you’re as bad again in two minutes. Your hair, too — you haven’t combed it yet. And your hands — have you washed them for lunch? Let me look — no, of course not. Go on now, give them a good scrub with the brush; the nails are quite black.’ And she gives the girl a little push towards the washbasin.

Zèlie obediently turns on the taps. As the water is running into the basin, she glances at her companion with dislike. This is a new nurse: her nurses never stay long with her. ‘Why does she nag at me like that?’ she is thinking. ‘To have one of these stupid creatures with me all the time, day and night… their stupid voices going on and on… just peasant women, too, who don’t understand anything — it’s insupportable. If only my mother would come… If only I could tell her… She would never allow it.’

Standing there with her hands in the water she has quite forgotten what she is supposed to be doing. The nurse comes up with the expression of a person restraining herself in exasperating circumstances, lets out the water, gives her a towel and briskly and efficiently tidies her hair. ‘There, now; we must hurry. The gong’s gone — didn’t you hear it?’

Zèlie is glad to go into the dining-room; she is fond of her food. But to day her pleasure is spoilt by the fact that her place has been laid next to a young Italian whom she detests. As she sits down between him and her nurse, she glances with sidelong suspicion at the shock-headed, narrow-eyed youth who teases her and confuses her with his spiteful tricks.

To-day it seems as though he is going to leave her in peace. He says nothing at all until the first course has been eaten and taken away. Then, just as the waiters are making a subdued clatter with the fresh plates, he leans towards her and whispers into her ear: ‘And how were your mother and father to-day, mademoiselle?’

‘My mother and father? They haven’t been here.’ She looks at him blankly, yet with distrust, out of her sparkless eyes.

‘Oh, yes, indeed — they were here this morning. I was in the corridor when they came out of the doctor’s study. He was saying good-bye to them. I saw them and heard the name quite distinctly.’ The Italian boy seems to be only interested in his food, but really he is all attention, all on the alert.

Zèlie takes a mouthful of veal from her plate. Suddenly she grasps the meaning of what has just been said to her; the implication of the words dawns upon her. She lets her knife and fork fall. ‘My mother has been here… and she went away… without seeing me!’

Her chair is on the side of the table nearest the double doors. The doors are almost immediately behind her chair. She has only to get up and take two or three steps and then she is out of the room. For a moment everything hangs in suspense. The waiters stand poised with their dishes. There has been no noise, no disturbance: for a moment no one seems to realize what has happened. Then the girl’s nurse rises and follows her. Here and there about the room other figures also get to their feet and go out. The young Italian bends low over his plate. His mouth is crammed full of food, his jaws solemnly chewing. But an impish glee crinkles the ends of his eyes: he is happy.

Zèlie runs across the hall towards the chief doctor’s study. The main door of the clinic is wide open and her pursuers will naturally assume that she has gone out that way. It is not with the idea of eluding them that she goes to the study, but simply because the Italian said he had seen her mother there. Of course, the room is now empty; but the french window is still open as the doctor left it, and Zèlie passes through. Now she is on a grass bank that slopes down to a pine wood. She runs down the steep bank, moving clumsily, tripping and stumbling in her high-heeled shoes which do not fit very well. In the wood she still finds it hard to run because the pine needles are slippery, and treacherous roots are continually tripping her up. She is out of condition and soon feels exhausted. Her breath makes a painful sobbing sound in the quiet wood, her heart-beats sound loud and continuous like a waterfall, her face, streaked with her tumbled hair, is glazed over with sweat, one of her shoes has gone and she is completely dishevelled. She does not know why she is running or where. One word, ‘Mother! Mother!’ keeps crying out in her head.

Suddenly she is pulled up short. A wire fence, twelve feet high and strong enough to imprison a herd of wild beasts, marks the boundary of the estate. Zèlie is running so blindly that she does not see the wire and crashes against it. Her hands beat on the fine mesh, her awkward body staggers and falls to the ground. She lies collapsed on the pine needles under the indifferent trees. The small harmony of the wood, which her clumsy irruption has broken, slowly renews itself. A wood pigeon starts to coo over her head. That gentle summer sound, which when she was a child always made her think of her mother’s sewing machine, is more than Zèlie can bear. Her heart breaks, she clutches handfuls of the sharp pine needles which pierce her flesh, while from between her thick lips, smeared with saliva and rouge, issues a desolate keening that soon leads her pursuers in the right direction.

V

It is quite early, just after seven o’clock, on a beautiful summer morning. The sky is pale blue, cloudless, serene and mild, like an immense arch, not awe-inspiring, but full of benevolence and protectiveness. The untroubled lake is opalescent, half solid looking as if one could walk across it. The mountains withdraw their stern faces behind gauzy mist veils. On the first slope of the hillside above the lake the main building of the clinic stands washed in the clear new sunshine, a fine mansion with flowers edging the balconies and a pillared terrace in front. Everything is peaceful, orderly and reassuring. In a steep hayfield above the road some labourers are already at work with their scythes, moving rhythmically, their brown, nude torsos gleaming like statuary. A car comes along the highroad from the town and smoothly loops its way up the private road to the clinic. It stops in front of the main entrance which is in shadow, on the side of the building that faces away from the lake. Here the aspect of the new day is slightly less comfortable, owing perhaps to the dark, wide shade from the house and the huge black trees that point severely away from the world.

A man and a young woman emerge from the car. They have been travelling all night. The man is about forty, rather well-looking in the heavy Roman emperor style, young for his age, in spite of the fact that his face is unshaven and wears a harassed expression. He has the indescribably, almost imperceptibly, false look of a person who is outwardly friendly and kind but inwardly barren and self-absorbed. He is large, and altogether somewhat dishevelled after the journey. The woman, who is several years younger than he, is almost in a state of collapse and has to be helped up the steps into the clinic. Nevertheless, she has managed to achieve a fairly normal appearance. Her green dress is in order, her fair hair is smoothly combed, there is powder on her face and lipstick on her mouth: probably her last living impulse would be to attend to these things. She does not speak or look about her, but passively allows herself to be led into a room facing the lake where there is sunshine and a large vase of antirrhinums on a round table. Here she subsides on to a sofa. The pupils of her eyes are dilated, she sees only a blur of afflicting brightness, she is really hardly conscious of what is going on. The man sits in a chair near her, drumming nervously on the table with his thick fingers. Neither of the two utters a word.

A girl in a white overall brings in a tray of coffee. She is attractively fresh looking and glances with curiosity at the travel-worn strangers, particularly at the woman who now seems to be on the verge of losing consciousness altogether and falling off the sofa on to the floor. The attendant speaks to her, pours out a cup of coffee and puts a cushion under her head. With colossal effort the other pulls herself back to life sufficiently to murmur some half audible comment, shading her eyes with her hand. The nurse goes to the window and quietly closes the shutters: then she goes out of the door with a last backward glance. Now there is only a green, subaqueous dimness left in the room, striated with bands of brightness. The man, in unbroken silence, and, as it were, gloomily, apprehensively, absent-mindedly, swallows the hot coffee, directing from time to time upon his companion a look of automatic anxiety which really conceals a sort of resentment. The other cup of coffee, untasted, slowly steams on the table.

After a few minutes the chief doctor comes into the room. Although it is so early in the morning, he is immaculately turned out and has an air of brisk and vital efficiency about his handsome person. He shakes hands with the visitor who rises to greet him, immediately sinking back heavily into his chair. Then the doctor goes to the fair-haired woman and takes her limp hand. There is an exchange of preliminary talk between the two men. The stranger briefly outlines certain medical details with which the physician has already been made familiar by letter. The large man speaks in the halting manner of someone who forces himself to discuss a matter subconsciously repugnant to him. He often fails to finish a sentence, one gets the impression that his real attention is wandering, that he longs to dissociate himself from the whole situation. The doctor, although he listens with polite attention, realizes that the other, unable or unwilling to acknowledge responsibility, will say nothing of any value, and his dark eyes continually turn to the silent woman across the room. Finally he addresses her:

‘So you think you would like to come to my clinic, madame?’

She, who has appeared oblivious of the talk, reacts unexpectedly to the direct question. Her eyes open wide, a kind of contortion appears on her face as though she might weep or even strike a blow if she had the strength. She pulls herself up on the sofa, clenches her hands, and her voice too is unexpectedly strong as she answers:

‘No, I never wanted to come. I was forced — brought here against my will.’

She cannot help the intense hostility in her tone, which is the result of hysteria, of complete emotional exhaustion, perhaps of despair: it is aimed at her own neurosis and at a whole chain of events which have gone before — not at the man who now speaks to her with a smile. But he, because they are foreigners and strangers to one another, and because they belong besides to ethnological groups fundamentally unsympathetic, he is a little stung, a little displeased. However, he continues to smile as he says with unchanging smoothness:

‘Perhaps you will rest here for a few minutes. There are one or two things I must discuss with monsieur.’

Left alone, the young woman lapses into a state of complete quiescence, her fair hair spread on the brown cushion. She does not move, she hardly appears to breathe; only at long intervals a deep, broken sigh comes from her painted lips, her grey, distracted, unfocused eyes open wide and gaze at the pleasant room like the eyes of a lost person, a person who has lost his memory, or has been incomprehensibly taken prisoner in a strange land.

The two men are absent rather a long time, at least half an hour, but she does not notice. It would be all the same to her if they stayed away the whole morning: drugs and exhaustion have destroyed her appreciation of time. She is not alseep, but neither is she truly awake. Vague fantasies, most of them unpleasant, occupy her submerged brain.

Presently the big man returns with a nurse. The doctor sends a message that he has been called away but will visit his new patient later in the morning. Supported by the two others, the young woman slowly traverses a wide corridor. Now there are signs of life in the building. A few patients, accompanied by an attendant, are returning from the gymnasium. Some of them look curiously at the blonde victim, soon to be their companion, who does not return their gaze: most likely she does not see them. The man with her is clearly uneasy, frowning and biting his nails, and seeking security in talk with the tranquil, matter-of-fact nurse in her white overall.

Now they are in a bedroom. The nurse goes in search of the luggage. The other woman, her last physical force depleted by the recent exertion, droops on the edge of the bed, less than half present: only a kind of mechanical masochism still keeps her upright. Her companion, without knowing why, is irritated by this posture.

‘Why don’t you lie down comfortably?’ he asks her, repressing annoyance and keeping his voice low.

She does not answer, but something — perhaps it is the sight of the white clouds that now, like choir-boys, like seraphs, are moving across the sky in ordered procession — moves her to take his hand.

‘I’ll get better now… Everything will be all right, won’t it?’ she says, incoherent, seeking from him some reassurance which is not in his power to give.

He stirs awkwardly, scowling and biting the nails of his free hand.

‘Yes… of course… you’ll get better…’ He only wants to be free, to be gone — anywhere, out of this situation so intolerable to his irresponsible heart. But suddenly he bends down and kisses her on the cheek. She is surprised out of her trance, touched, grateful, encouraged; for a second she feels almost her old self. Even now, at the last moment, she will save everything; she will walk, and they will go out together into the sun. She starts to speak, to stand up, but he disengages himself and goes to the door.

‘You’re going away?’ she asks, disappointed. He mutters something, looking aside. ‘But you’ll come back soon?’

‘Yes, of course. When you’re in bed.’

He goes out of the room. She sits on the edge of the bed, suspended, almost lifeless, the brief animation, departed, leaving her emptier than before.

All at once she hears the engine of a car being started outside. From where she is sitting she can see through the window, covered with iron scrolls, a sweep of the drive where a car is beginning to move. Her eyes recognize that it is the car in which they drove from the town, but her brain draws no conclusion from this. Suddenly she sees in the back seat the man who accompanied her. But even now she feels only bewilderment, stupefaction. What does it mean? Why is he in the car? His suitcase lies on the seat at his side, and for some reason the sight of this bag, which she herself gave him years before, convinces her of the truth.

‘He’s leaving me here. He’s going away… Without telling me… Without even a word. When he kissed me it was good-bye.’

Some final desperate reserve of nervous energy enables her to run to the door. ‘I must go to him — I must stop him — he can’t leave me like this!’ she cries out to the empty room. The door is locked on the outside. She twists the handle and beats on the glass panel. The glass is unbreakable and an iron bar would do no more than splinter it. Nevertheless she continues to beat weakly upon it with her two hands while tears run down her distorted face.

An attendant passing along the corridor glances with a startled look at the convulsed face with its wild, lost, streaming eyes, and then hurries off in search of someone in authority.

VI

It is early in the morning in one of the bedrooms of the foreign clinic. The empty room has the indefinably forlorn air of a place just deserted by its usual occupant. The door into the passage stands open, there is a tray with disarranged breakfast things on a table beside the bed. The room is quite large and has a parquet floor and well-proportioned furniture of pale wood: although one would not call it luxurious, it is certainly comfortable and pleasant. All the same, there is something a little odd, a little disquieting, about it. It would be difficult to locate the source of this impression; perhaps the circumstance that there is not a single hook anywhere, that all planes are bare and smooth, and that the electric light is protected by a wire screen, has something to do with it. The big window, too, is covered by a grille of wrought iron work which, though it is ornamental, somehow suggests a utilitarian purpose. Just now the room is cool, even chilly, in spite of the fact that it is midsummer. There is a thick white mountain mist out of doors.

A young peasant girl in an overall hurries in from the passage, carries away the breakfast tray, and then returns with an armful of cleaning utensils. She is nineteen or twenty years old, big, robust, rather bony, with an unbeautiful large-nosed face and brown hair scraped back from her forehead. All her movements are clumsy but vigorous. She kneels down on the floor, scoops a dollop of some thick, grease-like substance out of a tin, and begins to polish the boards energetically. As she works she quietly hums to herself a long, tuneless national song. All her life she has worked hard, she is full of unbounded energy, it pleases her to see the smooth wood shine like water under her cloth; she is happy.

Soon the floor is polished as if for a ball, but still there is the bed to make, the furniture to attend to. She washes her hands at the basin and dries them on her special cloth before putting the bed in order: then goes over to dust the dressing-table, looking with unenvious curiosity at the decorative boxes of powder and cream, the scent in its slender flask.

Before she has finished, the occupant of the room returns from her bath. She is about ten years older than the peasant girl, of whom she is the antithesis in every way; the two might serve as examples of opposite products of society. The newcomer is exceedingly slim and decorative in a sophisticated way. Her long, smoothly curving, heavy blonde hair, her full cyclamen-coloured gown that trails on the floor, give her a somewhat romantic appearance which is not negatived by her unhappy eyes, nor by her face of assumed hardness, of assumed indifference, which does not conceal desolation.

She says good morning, then carelessly drops on the bed the sponge, the soap, the essence which she has brought back from the bath, and goes to the window where she stands staring out at the mist that hides everything behind its sad, opaque, colourless veil. The peasant girl hurries to pick up the things from the bed and arranges them carefully in their proper places. As she finishes her work she glances all the time at the other woman who stands there so still, looking away from her, as if in another world. The graceful cyclamen robe fills the beholder with admiration. ‘How wonderful it must be to wear such a dress,’ she thinks in her simple heart. ‘She looks like an angel with her hair hanging down so bright’: and she touches her own drab head with a sort of surprise.

‘The room is done now,’ she says at length, timidly, in the bad French which she speaks only with difficulty.

The woman in front of the window makes no reply, no movement at all. Perhaps she has not understood, perhaps she has not heard.

The other takes out her brooms, her cloths, her polish, and puts everything down in the corridor. Then she goes back and loiters a moment or two inside the bedroom door. She knows she ought to get on with her work, to hurry into the next room and start polishing the floor there, instead of wasting her time; but somehow she cannot bear to go away without some response from that motionless figure whose hands are now clutching the scrolls of the iron grille.

‘Don’t stand there, madame,’ she says in her awkward way; ‘madame will catch cold — let me dose the window.’ She crosses the room and actually reaches towards the glass, brushing the other’s sleeve as she does so. The physical touch breaks the spell of the elder woman’s abstraction and she turns her head. The servant is horrified to see her eyes overflowing with tears which slowly and without any concealment run down her cheeks.

‘Oh, madame…’ she stammers, ‘what is it…? Don’t cry…’

Scarcely realizing what she does, she loosens the clenched, cold fingers, chilled by their prolonged contact with the metal lattice, and leads the other away from the window. The fair-haired woman submits passively, like a child, without words: too violent or too painful emotion, too long endured, seems to have deprived her of all vitality. She might be a mechanical figure but for the tears which continue their soundless rain, leaving dark spots where they fall on the purplish silk. Suddenly she stumbles over the hem of the long gown and would fall were it not for the strong young arms which support her on to the edge of the bed. This pathetic loss of dignity in one so remote, so perfect, is altogether too much for the peasant girl, already emotionalized by the sight of those incongruous tears.

Forgetting their different social status, forgetting the possibility of observation, forgetting even her work, she embraces this unhappy being as she would embrace a hurt child in her native village, murmuring inarticulate sounds of comfort. The other, who for so long has remained obdurate, confronting her equals with a disdainful, unchanging face, can allow herself to relax a little in such an uncouth clasp. It is as though she found solace in the subhuman sympathy, the mute caresses of an affectionate dog.

‘Why are you being kind to me…? What are you saying? What language is that?’ she asks at length, vague, out of her unreal world.

‘It is Romansh, madame; I come from the Grisons,’ the girl answers in French. The moment is slipping away, she already begins to feel a trifle awkward, incipiently aware of herself. Yet she still encircles the thin shoulders with both arms. reluctant to withdraw her support. ‘Don’t cry,’ she says once again. ‘Don’t be so unhappy. It’s not really bad here… And you’ll go away soon — back to your home. Can’t you think of it as a little holiday?’

‘I’m frightened… quite alone… and so far from everything,’ the other replies in a whisper, tasting the tears on her mouth. She is still as if in a dream, unconscious of the inappropriate situation.

The maid, who understands nostalgia only too well, searches her brain for some consolation.

‘But it’s so comfortable here, madame!’ she exclaims; ‘and the food…! Yesterday I brought you asparagus for lunch, and to-day there will be strawberries — I know because I saw the men picking them. And look — the mist is breaking! The sun will shine soon.’

Just at this moment she hears someone calling her name in the passage; it is one of the other work girls who has been sent to find out why she is being so slow over the rooms this morning.

‘Yes, yes — at once — I am coming!’ she cries out. She stands upright immediately; but then she bends down and impulsively plants a warm peasant’s kiss on the wet cheek before she crosses the room in a clumsy rush and vanishes into the corridor.

The other woman sits on in the same position, alone. Her tears have almost ceased falling: and now, for the first time in many days, there appears on her face the difficult inception of a smile.

VII

A charming eighteenth-century house stands just at the edge of the lake. It is really a small château with turrets which give it a sophisticated, frivolous, dashing air, well suited to the residence of the mistress of some distinguished personage, as which it was originally designed. The building is in an excellent state of repair, the flowering magnolia on its façade has been skilfully trained and pruned, everything indicates an appreciative and careful proprietor. Only a very sensitive observer might notice about the place an almost indescribable air, not exactly forlorn, but deprived of something, lacking the touch of individual affection, like a child brought up in an efficient institution instead of a home. There is an indefinably impersonal look about the rooms visible through the windows which are all wide open to the hot summer afternoon.

A number of people are having tea on the lawn between the house and the lake. They sit in groups round tables set in the shade of lime trees and tall acacias. Two or three women among them seem to be acting as hostesses, encouraging conversation which tends to flag and, even under their stimulus, has an oddly spasmodic character.

Marcel is the centre of his particular group. For several minutes he has been talkative, amusing, gay, with a smile that comes and goes easily on his wide, flexible mouth. The vigilant hostess looks with approval upon this young man opposite her, dressed in white flannels, who is entertaining the table so well. Suddenly he observes her appreciative glance, his smile changes, loses its rather winning spontaneity, and becomes cynical, sardonic.

‘Well, I’ve been a good boy long enough,’ he thinks to himself: ‘it’s someone else’s turn now.’

He looks at his watch, rises with a polite excuse, and picks up a racquet that has been lying on the grass near his chair. It is time for him to go to his game of tennis.

The court where he is supposed to be playing is higher up the hill, near the main building of the clinic to which all this property belongs. Swinging his racquet, Marcel saunters round the elegant little chateau that now houses guests so different from its original occupant. With the animation gone from his face one sees that he is not so young as he seemed at the tea table; he is at least thirty — perhaps a few years older. A trace of grey has already appeared at the sides of his dark hair, there are lines on his expressive face, his eyes have a slightly strained look, a slightly over-emotional brightness.

Alone on the far side of the château his steps become slower and slower until he finally stops altogether. The strokes of the stable clock sound like five languid birds floating on the warm air. He must hurry if he is not to be late for his game. He knows he ought to walk quickly up the hill, but instead he stands motionless, with drooping shoulders, the racquet dangling limp from his hand. He is suffering the reaction from his recent display of sociability and vivaciousness. An expression that is at the same time bitter and mournful overshadows his face, he feels lonely, resentful, depressed. The remainder of the day stretches before him in a dreary vista of boredom, like a dull newspaper that he has already read through many times. He thinks with distaste, with irritation, of the tennis and of his partner, the red-haired American girl who sulks whenever they lose a game. She will be waiting for him now up there on the court, beginning to get bad tempered because he is five minutes late.

‘Confound them all! Why should I play when I don’t feel like it?’ he mutters under his breath. And suddenly he turns his back on the path leading up the hill and walks down towards the lake again, passing this time round the opposite side of the château, so that he emerges on a part of the lawn some distance away from the groups at the tea-tables. Although he walks quickly he has no object in view, but is merely expressing an instinctive rebellion against the boring tennis, the detestable American girl.

The low wall bordering the lake pulls him up short. He pauses irresolute, with a sense of frustration, not knowing what to do next. Finally he sits down on the warm stone wall, letting his legs hang over the water. A clump of bushes conceals him from the distant people, not one of whom seems to have noticed his presence. This makes him feel isolated, a sensation not at all pleasing to his nature, but one from which he nevertheless derives a certain masochistic satisfaction just now. For some seconds he gazes idly into the shallow, transparent, almost stagnant water through which shoals of tiny fish are busily moving. Although the water is clear it has a tepid, stale look; all sorts of unappetizing scraps of refuse have collected on the stony bed of the lake. A black, thin shape like a minature eel comes wriggling through the shallows towards the stones at the edge; it is a leech. With a suppressed exclamation of disgust Marcel looks in another direction.

His glance now falls on a rowing boat moored a few yards away. Usually the boat is padlocked to an iron ring in the wall, but now it is only loosely secured by a knotted rope. He vaguely remembers seeing the gym mistress unfasten the padlock while he was sitting at tea. Perhaps some of the patients are going out for a row. Well, that does not interest him any more than the tennis. He raises his wide, bright, unstable eyes and sees, straight across the smooth water, the French coast with its mountains and its lower hills crested with countless poplars.

Immediately a new thought sequence springs to activity in his brain. ‘It’s high time I went home. I ought to get back to work or I shall be losing all my connections. A barrister can’t afford to take such long holidays, even if he has a rich wife —’ He tries to reckon up how many months he has spent in the clinic, but somehow the calculation eludes him, and this inability to concentrate on a simple question of dates increases his general discontent. ‘All the days are alike in this wretched place — One quite loses count of time,’ he thinks angrily. And then: ‘Why are they still keeping me here? I’m quite well — it’s not as if there ever was much wrong with me. I’d been overworking — I only needed a rest. Now I’m perfectly fit, and yet they still keep me hanging about — wasting my time.’ He scowls as he thinks of the doctors, of the evasive replies they give him when he suggests fixing a day for his departure. ‘Of course, it’s just a money-making concern: they’re all a lot of sharks trying to make as much out of us as they can.’

The mental picture of his wife now passes before him, a handsome young woman, rather plump, and beautifully dressed in black with pearls round her throat: it is she who is paying for him to stay at the clinic. An atrocious suspicion that often crosses his mind causes him to pick up a stone and hurl it viciously into the lake, startling the small fish out of their ceaseless voyaging. ‘No, it’s simply not possible — no one could be so wicked, so unscrupulous. I mustn’t allow myself to imagine such terrible things.’

All the same, he can no longer remain quietly sitting on the wall, but jumps up and takes a few restless paces in the direction of the rowing boat, above which he stands, tapping his foot against the iron ring to which the mooring rope is attached.

‘If only I could be certain what’s going on at home. If only I could get back,’ he says to himself, now for the first time admitting in his own mind that there exists some obstacle to his departure. A fantasy of leave-taking next occupies him: he imagines himself packing his luggage, going up to the chief doctor and demanding his money, his passport, booking a sleeper on the Paris train. ‘Yes, I’ll do it,’ he says aloud, twice, first with enthusiasm, then with dwindling conviction. But he does not move to put the plan into practice: something which he cannot, dare not, acknowledge, forbids him to make the attempt.

Instead, he begins to think nostalgically of his old life, of the gaiety of the city, of his work, and of his friends who will be so pleased to see him again. He looks across the lake at the mountains of Savoie, his own country: and it seems to him that only this negligible strip of water, which looks as smoothly solid as if one could walk over it, divides him from the fulfilment of his desires.

A sudden idea comes to him, and it is curious to observe the rapid change in his face which now all at once assumes a mischievous, crafty expression. He glances at the people sitting rather more than the width of the chateau away. Enervated by the hot afternoon, not a soul seems to have moved, not a soul is paying any attention to him. He stoops down and with hurried movements unfastens the knotted rope: then springs into the boat and hastily rows off. A few strong pulls carry him round a small promontory, out of sight of the chateau grounds. Smiling, with an almost roguish look, he rows on with powerful, regular strokes.

Soon he is far out from the land, alone in his boat in the midst of the practically colourless expanse of smooth water. About half a dozen other small boats are scattered over the lake. They are far away from him, but he is glad of their presence which means that his own boat will be less conspicuous from the shore. There is no breeze, it is very hot, the air shimmers with heat. Sweat rolls down Marcel’s face, but he does not mind; still smiling his roguish smile, he wipes the sweat out of his eyes and rows on. His bare, brown, muscular arms swing to an indefatigable rhythm. This man who could not find energy for a game of tennis is now quite happy toiling in the blind watery glare, gratified by his own strength.

It is further than he expected across the lake, but before very long the French coast is appreciably nearer, he can distinguish the windows of houses, then human figures, then dogs and chickens moving about. He rows parallel with the shore for a little way seeking a secluded landing place: he has the idea that it might be wiser not to land in a village where he could be questioned immediately. He has not formulated any plan of action as yet. So far, he has been occupied solely with the physical effort and with the elation he feels at his own enterprise.

Now he has found just the place to land, a curved beach like a diminutive bay, out of sight of all dwellings, with green grass banks rising steeply above. He brings the boat close to the shore but makes no attempt to disembark. He sits still, with the oars trailing in the water and the sweat slowly drying on his face which now begins to acquire a look of uncertainty. Why does he hesitate? All he has to do is to ground the boat, to jump out and climb up the bank into his own land. True, he has no passport and only a few coins of trifling value in his pockets: but still, he will be free, safe, among his own countrymen. He has only to explain his position to someone in authority and all will arrange itself satisfactorily: a telephone call will be put through to Paris, his railway fare will be advanced to him, he will be at home in the morning.

Yes, it all seems so simple, and yet he can’t bring himself to get out of the boat. What is it that prevents him from stepping ashore? What is it that tells him that it is safer not to think, safer to remain vague, to realize nothing? Dimly, through a haze of unreality, he envisages the gendarmes, the questions, the significant looks. But all these things are far-off, unimminent, cloudy. Much better not to think about them, much better not put things to the test, much better not risk having realization forced upon one.

All the archness, the volatileness, has vanished with the smile from his face. He now looks much older, worn and dejected. The spirit has quite gone out of him. He feels very tired. Slowly, wearily, with a deep sigh, his eyes empty and downcast, he takes hold of the oars and begins the laborious passage back to the other shore.

VIII

In the clinic, as in heaven, there are many mansions. The worst cases, and those requiring the most supervision, are lodged in a house called ‘La Pinède’ which stands some distance away from the main building. Metal scrolls guard the windows of this house and there is only one outer door that is always kept locked. An attendant is constantly on duty to unfasten and relock the door each time anyone passes through.

The attendant sits in a little room, white and bare as a nun’s cell, just to the left of the door. This morning quite a young girl is on duty there. She is bright and pleasant looking in her superlatively clean overall, she has put a bunch of flowers on the table where she sits with her English grammar, her note book and pencil. She is industrious, she means to get on in the world, and she studies her book with concentration. Nevertheless, she finds time to glance occasionally at the little bunch of wild cyclamen which she picked yesterday in the forest with a young man in whom she is interested. Everything about her is normal, cheerful, serene. It is difficult to associate the contented girl with the hidden unhappiness that surrounds her under this roof.

She hears footsteps approaching and goes out into the hall.

A middle-aged English lady is waiting for the door to be opened. She is rather tall, rather large, and wears a mauve knitted dress that clings to her solid figure. Her faded hair is encircled with a bandeau of brown tulle which gives her an air that somehow contrives to be both impressive and slightly comic. She has the intensely respectable, intensely reserved look so characteristic of a certain old-fashioned type of Englishwoman abroad. One would expect to find her in a pension at Mentone, making tea in her bedroom over a spirit lamp, or perhaps painting precise little water-colours with a good deal of ultramarine. To-day is one of her good days. There is nothing at all in her appearance to suggest the moods of suicidal depression which are the cause of her presence at ‘La Pinède’.

‘Good-morning, Miss Swanson,’ says the smiling attendant in careful English, as she unlocks the door.

Miss Swanson answers and smiles in her remote way and goes out into the sun. After the shadows indoors the bright light is like a blow and she stops to put on the dark spectacles that she carries about in her bag. In front of her, in the middle of the asphalted private road, is a round bed full of succulent looking cannas; behind, to the right and left, is the pinewood from which the house takes its name. When she has adjusted her glasses Miss Swanson puts up a linen sunshade lined with green and walks slowly along the middle of the roadway that leads both to the main building and to the workroom for which she is bound.

As she goes, she has, from some distance away, a clear view of what is happening ahead. From time to time, at irregular intervals, singly or in small groups, figures emerge from the white balconied house and walk towards the atelier. All of them, in passing, pause for a few seconds beside a small, solitary girlish form under a clump of trees: the distant girl in her gay summer frock seems to have some piece of news which she is imparting to each one in turn.

The woman with the sunshade watches this procedure intently, screwing up her eyes behind their dark screens. The contraction of her eyes seems to indicate anxiety or disapproval — perhaps both. She begins to walk faster.

Soon she comes within speaking distance of the girl who is now alone, half sitting on an iron table under the trees. She is so small boned and slight, her body is so immature looking, that at a first glance one would take her for a child of about fifteen. It is hard to believe that she is actually a married woman when she calls out to her friend:

‘My husband’s come! He’s with the doctors now. As soon as he’s finished with them he’s going to take me out for the day.’ She jumps up and seizes Miss Swanson’s arm impulsively, shaking back her soft, fluffy hair and exclaiming: T told you he’d come, didn’t I? You didn’t believe me, but you see I was right all the time!’ She tilts her head and laughs rather aimlessly, glancing up at the elder woman who, for her part, looks down gravely into the pretty, childish, undisciplined face which seems to lack some co-ordination with its receding chin, its large, slightly prominent blue eyes.

‘How nice for you, Freda,’ she says, non-committal.

The lukewarm tone disappoints the other who pouts and moves a few petulant steps away, putting a space between the two of them.

‘You don’t sound a bit pleased,’ she complains in an aggrieved tone.

Miss Swanson advances and pats her on the shoulder.

‘Gracious, how thin you are, child!’ she mutters to herself, feeling the bones under their inadequate coverings of silk and flesh. A thwarted maternal instinct in her has fastened upon this girl, her compatriot, who, like herself, is an exile, almost a prisoner, in this unhappy place. She feels possessive, protective, towards Freda; jealous of anyone who might come between them. ‘Of course I’m pleased that you’re happy,’ she goes on. ‘But I’m afraid for you — that things will be worse for you afterwards — that you’ll feel lonelier than ever when your husband has gone.’

‘But he’s not going!’ cries Freda triumphantly. ‘He’s going to stay at the hotel by the lake.’

‘All the same, he’ll have to go back to England sometime.’

‘Then he’ll take me with him — I’ll persuade him — you’ll see. I’m quite well now, anyhow.’

The childish face is all smiles and Miss Swanson has not got the heart to refrain from smiling back in return. But she says nothing, and as it happens she is spared the necessity for words, because at that moment Mr. Rushwood comes out on to the steps of the clinic. He is very much older than his wife — perhaps more than twice her age — the last man in the world one would expect her to marry, for his face is serious, repressive, almost stern, under his grey hair. He approaches stiffly in the sunshine, walking with rather a wooden gait on account of an old war wound in the right leg. Freda introduces her friend, and he smiles like a schoolmaster, without warmth. His voice, too, is the voice of a master or of a clergyman, authoritative and cool.

‘Well, what did the doctors say? Did they tell you how good I’ve been?’ Freda is asking, clinging on to his arm and beaming at him.

But he, without answering the question, advises her to go and fetch her hat and bag as the car will arrive in a moment.

She runs off, like a docile child, and the elders are left together in the shade of the trees. Neither speaks. Mr. Rushwood stand stiffly by the table with an expressionless face. He is preoccupied; and a little embarrassed, too, at being left alone with this stranger who, though she looks quite conventional, may at any moment display some disturbing eccentricity. Miss Swanson surveys him with eyes that, in spite of everything, are shrewd enough behind the concealing black lenses. She does not seem to find reassurance in his aspect. Presently she puts up the sunshade which she has folded during the conversation with Freda, and starts to move off. But then a sudden impulse, very rare in her restrained spinster’s heart, makes her turn back and address the uncompromising man.

‘Mr. Rushwood, will you allow me to say something which I really have no right to say? You may quite well tell me that your wife’s future is no business of mine, and I can only answer that nothing but my very genuine affection for her would induce me to interfere in matters which do not concern me. During the last few weeks I have come to know Freda very well, she has confided in me, and I understand her character. Perhaps, if you will forgive my saying so, I understand her even better than you do. Of course I don’t know what plans you have made for her, but, Mr. Rushwood, I do beg you most earnestly to consider very carefully whether this is the right place for her — whether it would not be better to take her away from an environment where she is always lonely and sad and where she is bound to see and hear things which would be shocking to any young girl and must be especially so to one so sensitive and highly-strung as she is. If you leave her here when you go I am really afraid of what may happen to her — I am really afraid she will break her heart.’

It is the proof of Miss Swanson’s love that she is able to urge a course of action so contrary to her own wishes, for without Freda her existence at the clinic would loose its last shred of value.

The visitor has been growing slowly more uncomfortable during her long speech which, though spoken in a perfectly quiet voice, strikes him as being charged with dangerous emotion. For the first time he displays some sign of feeling, as, with a look half irritable, half apprehensive, he glances about as if in search of assistance. ‘This is insupportable!’ he thinks indignantly: ‘why doesn’t someone come and take the woman away?’ But there is nobody at all in sight and he is obliged to make a reply.

‘My dear madam, even though you don’t credit me with any understanding of my wife, you must at least allow the doctors’ opinion —’ he is beginning coldly, when two things occur simultaneously to rescue him from further embarrassment: a car sweeps round the bend of the private road and Freda rushes through the door of the clinic and comes running down the steps.

With only the briefest of salutes to his companion Rushwood goes across to the car where the girl is already sitting. Miss Swanson slowly waves her hand in response to Freda’s fluttering handkerchief. She watches the car out of sight and then walks in a dispirited way towards the workshop and the lampshade upon which she is stencilling a floral design. She knows that the day will pass drearily for her now.

For Freda, on the contrary, the hours fly like happy birds. Like a child just back from boarding-school for the holidays she wants to see everything, to do everything at once. The small lakeside town is a heaven to her; she darts in and out of shops, eating pastries and chocolates, buying absurd trifles, chattering all the while to her husband, whose attitude is more like that of a father, at the same time indulgent, distrait, and somewhat impatient. At lunch on the terrace of the hotel he can no longer restrain his impatience but sharply reproves the girl for her indecorous behaviour which, he fancies, is attracting the attention of the people around. Freda is cast-down and subdued for a few moments, but she soon forgets the rebuke and laughs and talks as irrepressibly as before.

The husband is rapidly coming to an end of his store of indulgence. The fact that the waiters obviously take Freda for his daughter and address her as ‘mademoiselle’ adds to his annoyance. He feels tired and worried, his leg is beginning to hurt him, he can no longer see anything but the faults in Freda’s conduct. Finally he suggests a trip on the lake. It seems to him that her childish irresponsibility and exuberance will be less noticeable on the steamer.

From the man’s point of view the afternoon is more satisfactory than the morning. To be sure, his wife is excited by the boat to begin with, she runs from one side to the other, leaning eagerly over the rail at the landing-stages to watch the people embark, and throwing bread to the gulls which mysteriously, so far from any sea, follow the steamer like white shadows. But towards the end of the trip she becomes quieter, sitting beside him on the wooden bench, her hand affectionately curled round his fingers. He spreads his coat over their knees so that no one shall see that she is holding his hand.

At dinner her febrile animation returns. The evening is chilly, instead of eating on the terrace they are now in the long dining-room. Her large, bright, prominent eyes dart mischievously from table to table, her indefatigable voice pours out its treble comments upon the diners. Once more Rushwood is forced to reprove her.

‘Really, Freda, you are acting like a bad-mannered schoolgirl. Can’t you realize that it’s not amusing but merely rude to make personal remarks?’

‘But they don’t understand what we’re saying —’

The note of almost unbearable irritation sounding through the deliberately calm tone in which he has just spoken penetrates her child’s heart like a cruel needle of ice. Her face falls grotesquely, her mouth trembles, tears — the sudden, despairing tears of a hurt child — fill her eyes to the brim.

‘All right, all right — there’s nothing to cry about,’ he says hastily, dreading a public scene.

Fortunately the waiter creates a diversion by bringing a dish of ice cream. Rushwood rests his chin on his hands and gazes across the small table at the girl who is now intent on the pink frozen substance upon her plate. Bitterness fills his being. Although his nature is cold and inflexible he is not a particularly unkind man, he wishes no ill to his wife; it is only that he can feel no sympathy, no toleration for her: his bitterness is directed against fate that has used him so evilly. He cannot understand why this disproportionate punishment should be inflicted upon him because he was once infatuated by a pretty face. ‘But who could have guessed it would turn out like this?’ he thinks wearily. He is glad that the meal is over, that the long, trying day has almost come to an end, that it is time to return his charge to the doctors’ care.

The car is waiting for them outside the hotel. He is profoundly relieved because Freda raises no objection to going back to the clinic. In his gratitude he feels more warmly towards her than he has done all day long: in the dusky seclusion of the car he touches her hand.

‘You never showed me your room in the hotel,’ she exclaims suddenly, as they start to climb the steep, curving road from the lake.

It has come now, the dangerous moment, the moment he dreads. But the lights of the clinic are in sight; he is saved.

‘I’m afraid I shan’t be staying,’ he says evenly. ‘I have to get back to the office. It’s not easy for me to get away even for a few days just now.’

There is dead silence inside the car. Even he, unimaginative and withdrawn as he is, feels the burden of silence. ‘Why doesn’t she say something?’ he wonders, peering at the averted whiteness that is her face. The car takes the final bend sharply and her body is thrown against his.

Suddenly she grasps his shoulders with both hands; he is surprised at the strength of her fingers, he feels her pointed fingers nipping into his flesh through the jacket and shirt.

‘You can’t leave me here… You must take me back with you!’ she cries shrilly, against his chest.

‘Now, Freda, do try and be reasonable. You know perfectly well that I can’t take you — that the doctors say you must stay here for the present.’

He tries to disengage her fingers; but he cannot capture her hands which, like desperate sparrows, are beating all about him, clawing at his sleeve, his lapels, his tie, even his face. He can do nothing except dumbly defend himself against those clawing, beating hands, his ears deafened and appalled by the broken treble that fills the interior of the closed car with ceaseless, inarticulate lamentation.

They have come now to the entrance of the clinic. The chauffeur opens the car door and looks inside, then quickly shuts the door again with a muttered, ‘One moment, monsieur’. He does not seem at all taken aback by what he sees in the car; probably he is quite used to such happenings. Almost at once he is back again with two nurses. ‘If you will get out here, monsieur — that will be best,’ he says to the confused husband, efficient and matter-of-fact.

The nurses prepare to restrain Freda in case she tries to prevent this move. But she, as if automatically giving up hope at the sight of authority, has already ceased all protest, all aggression, and is huddled unresistingly in the corner, limp as a doll, with tears running down her cheeks.

Mr. Rushwood steps out, with mechanical movements tidying his disordered attire. The car quickly drives on.

‘Silly little thing!’ one of the nurses says, quite kindly, to the sobbing girl. ‘This will mean ‘La Pinède’ for you.’

They reach the house in the pinewood and wait for the door to be opened. The women in white support Freda who is weeping and trembling so violently that she can scarcely stand. A light is switched on over the door revealing her face glistening all over with tears like the face of a person just emerging from water. The chauffeur watches with an impartial air as the three enter and the door is locked after them.

In the hall, which is dimly lit, someone moves out of the shadows and approaches the group. It is Miss Swanson who has waited a long time patiently for this moment. Dressed now in a blue knitted dress of exactly the same style as the mauve one which she wore earlier in the day, she comes up to the girl and, ignoring the nurses entirely, enfolds her in a compassionate and triumphant embrace.