Then, as I say, the hymeneal bark either founders15, or dashes on a rock, or more wisely gets out of the clash of meeting oceans and takes one tide or the other, where the flood has things all its own way. The woman, being to-day the captain of the marriage bark, either steers16 into the vast Pacific waters of lord-and-masterdom, though never, of course, hauling down the flag of perfect love; or else, much more frequently these latter days, she steers into the rather grey Atlantic of true friendship and companionship, still keeping the flag of perfect love bravely afloat.
And now the bark is fairly safe. In the great Pacific, the woman can take the ease and warm repose17 of her new dependence18, but she is usually laughing up her sleeve. She lets the lord and master manage the ship, but woe19 betide him if he seeks to haul down the flag of perfect love. There is mutiny in a moment. And his chief officers and his crew, namely, his children and his household servants, are up and ready to put him in irons at once, at a word from that wondrous20 goddess of the bark, the wife of his bosom21. It is Aphrodite, mistress of the seas, in her grand capacity of motherhood and attendant wifehood. None the less, with a bit of managing the hymeneal bark sails on across the great waters into port. A lord and master is not much more than an upper servant while the flag of perfect love is flying and the sea-mother is on board. But a servant with the name of captain, and the pleasant job of sailing the ship and giving the necessary orders. He feels it is quite all right. He is supreme22 servant-in-command, while the mistress of mistresses smiles as she suckles his children. She is suckling him too.
Nevertheless, this is the course I would recommend young married women to drift into, after the first two years of “perfect love.”
They won’t often take my advice, I know that. Ha-ha! they will say. We see through your lord-and-master tricks. Course East-North-East, helmsman, into the safer and more populous23 waters of perfect companionship. If we{190} can’t have one thing perfect we’ll have another. If it isn’t exactly perfect love, it is perfect companionship, and the two are pretty nearly one and the same.
For woman, even more than man, when once she gets an idea into her head, or worse, when once she gets herself into her head, will have nothing short of perfection. She simply will tolerate nothing short of perfection. E.N.E., then, into the democratic Atlantic of perfect companionship.
Well, they are grey waters, and the perfect companionship usually resolves, subtly, and always under the perfect love flag, into a very nearly perfect limited liability company, the bark steering24 nicely according to profit and loss, and usually “getting on” fabulously25. The Golden Vanity. If this perfect love flag is a vanity, the perfect-companionship management is certainly Golden. I would recommend perfect-companionship to all those married couples who truly and sincerely want to get on.
Now the good bark Harriet and Lovat had risen from the waves, like Aphrodite’s shell as well as Aphrodite, in the extremest waters of perfect love. Love and love alone! Wide, wild, lonely waters, with the great albatross like a sign of the cross, sloping in the immense heavens. A sea to themselves, the waters of perfect love. And the good ship Harriet and Lovat, with white sails spread, sailing with never a master, like the boat of Dionysus, which steered27 of its own accord across the waters, in the right direction mark you, to the sound of the music of the dolphins, while the mast of the ship put forth28 tendrils of vine and purple bunches of grapes, and the grapes of themselves dripped vinous down the throats of the true Dionysians. So sailed the fair ship Harriet and Lovat in the waters of perfect love.
I have not made up my mind whether she was a ship, or a bark, or a schooner29, technically30 speaking. Let us imagine her as any one of them. Or perhaps she was a clipper, or a frigate31, or a brig. All I insist is that she was not a steam-boat with a funnel32, as most vessels33 are nowadays, sailing because they are stoked.
Fair weather and foul34 alternated. Sometimes the brig Harriet and Lovat skimmed along the path of the moon like a phantom35; sometimes she lay becalmed, while sharks{191} flicked36 her bottom: then she drove into the most awful hurricanes, and spun37 round in a typhoon: and yet behold38 her sailing out through the glowing arch of a rainbow into halcyon39 waters again. And so for years, till she began to look rather worn, but always attractive. Her paint had gone, so her timbers now were sea-silvery. Her sails were thin, but very white. The mainsail also was slit40, and the stun-sails had been carried away in a blizzard41. As for the flag of perfect love, the flag of the red-and-white rose upon the cross of thorns, all on a field of azure42, it was woefully frayed43 and faded. The azure field was nearly tattered44 away, and the rose was fading into invisibility.
She had some awful weather, did the poor bark Harriet and Lovat. The seas opened great jaws45 to swallow her, the treacherous46 seas of perfect love, while cynical47 rocks gnashed their teeth at her, and unstable48 heavens opened chasms49 of wind on her, and fierce, full-blooded lusty bull-whales rushed at her and all but burst her timbers. Dazed and battered51, she wandered hither and thither52 on the seas of perfect love, that she always had all to herself. Never another sail in sight, never another ship in hail. Only sometimes the smoke of a steamer skirting the horizon, making for one of the oceans.
And now the Harriet and Lovat began to feel the pull of the two opposing currents. It was as if she had a certain homesickness for one or other of the populous oceans: she was weary of the lone26 and wasteful53 waters of the sea of perfect love. Sometimes she drifted E.N.E. towards the Atlantic of true companionship. And then Lovat, seeing the long swell54 of that grey sea, and the funnels55 of ships like a city suburb, put the helm hard aport, and turned the ship about, and beat against a horrible sea and wind till they got into the opposite drift. Then things went a little easier, till Harriet saw before her the awful void opening of the other ocean, and the great, dark-blue, dominant56 swell of the waters, and the loneliness and the vastness and the feeling of being overwhelmed. She looked at the mast and saw the flag of perfect love falling limp, the faded rose of all roses dying at last.
And in a moment when he was asleep, her almost lord-and-master, she whipped the ship about and steered E.S.E. into the heart of the sea of perfect love, hoping to get into{192} the current E.N.E. and so out into the open Atlantic. Then storms intolerable.
Then they took to cruising the far, lone, desert fringes of the sea of perfect love, utterly57 lonely and near the ice, the fringe of the seas of death. There they cruised, in the remote waters on the edge of extinction58. And then they looked at one another.
“We will be perfect companions: you know how I love you,” said Harriet, of the good ship Harriet and Lovat.
“Never,” said Lovat, of the same ship. “I will be lord and master, but ah, such a wonderful lord and master that it will be your bliss59 to belong to me. Look, I have been sewing a new flag.”
She didn’t even look at the flag.
“You!” she exclaimed. “You a lord and master! Why, don’t you know that I love you as no man ever was loved? You a lord and master! Ph! you look it! Let me tell you I love you far, far more than ever you ought to be loved, and you should acknowledge it.”
“I would rather,” said he, “that you deferred60 your loving of me for a while, and considered the new proposition. We shall never sail any straight course at all, until you realise that I am lord and master, and you my blissful consort61. Supposing, now, you had the real Hermes for a husband, Trismegistus. Would you not hold your tongue for fear you lost him, and change from being a lover, and be a worshipper? Well, I am not Hermes or Dionysus, but I am a little nearer to it than you allow. And I want you to yield to my mystery and my divination62, and let me put my flag of a phœnix rising from a nest in flames in place of that old rose on a field azure. The gules are almost faded out.”
“It’s a lovely design!” she cried, looking at the new flag. “I might make a cushion-embroidery of it. But as a flag it’s absurd. Of course, you lonely phœnix, you are the bird and the ashes and the flames all by yourself! You would be. Nobody else enters in at all. I—I am just nowhere—I don’t exist.”
“Yes,” he said, “you are the nest.”
“I’ll watch it!” she cried. “Then you shall sleep on thorns, Mister.”
“But consider,” he said.{193}
“That’s what I am doing,” she replied. “Mr Dionysus and Mr Hermes and Mr Thinks-himself-grand. I’ve got one thing to tell you. Without me you’d be nowhere, you’d be nothing, you’d not be that,” and she snapped her fingers under his nose, a movement he particularly disliked.
“I agree,” he replied, “that without the nest the phœnix would be—would be up a tree—would be in the air—would be nowhere, and couldn’t find a stable spot to resurrect in. The nest is as the body to the soul: the cup that holds the fire, and in which the ashes fall to take form again. The cup is the container and the sustainer.”
“Yes, I’ve done enough containing and sustaining of you, my gentleman, in the years I’ve known you. It’s almost time you left off wanting so much mothering. You can’t live a moment without me.”
“I admit that the phœnix without a nest is a bird absolutely without a perch63, he must dissipate in the air. But—”
“Then I’ll make a cushion-cover of your flag, and you can rest on that.”
“No, I’m going to haul down the flag of perfect love.”
“Oh, are you! And sail without a flag? Just like you, destroy, destroy, and nothing to put in its place.”
“Yes, I want to put in its place this crowned phœnix rising from the nest in flames. I want to set fire to our bark, Harriet and Lovat, and out of the ashes construct the frigate Hermes, which name still contains the same reference, her and me, but which has a higher total significance.”
She looked at him speechless for some time. Then she merely said:
“You’re mad,” and left him with his flag in his hands.
Nevertheless he was a determined64 little devil, as she knew to her cost, and once he’d got an idea into his head not heaven nor hell nor Harriet would ever batter50 it out. And now he’d got into his head this idea of being lord and master, and Harriet’s acknowledging him as such. Not just verbally. No. Not under the flag of perfect love. No. Obstinate65 and devilish as he was, he wanted to haul down the flag of perfect love, to set fire to the bark Harriet and Lovat, to seat himself in glory on the ashes, like a resurrected phœnix, with an imaginary crown on his{194} head. And she was to be a comfortable nest for his impertinence.
In short, he was to be the lord and master, and she the humble66 slave. Thank you. Or at the very best, she was to be a sort of domestic Mrs Gladstone, the Mrs Gladstone of that old chestnut—who, when a female friend was lamenting68 over the terrible state of affairs, in Ireland or somewhere, and winding69 up her lament67 with: “Terrible, terrible. But there is One above”—replied: “Yes, he’s just changing his socks. He’ll be down in a minute.” Mr Lovat was to be the One above, and she was to be happy downstairs thinking that this lord, this master, this Hermes cum Dionysus wonder, was comfortably changing his socks. Thank you again. The man was mad.
Yet he stuck to his guns. She was to submit to the mystic man and male in him, with reverence70, and even a little awe71, like a woman before the altar of the great Hermes. She might remember that he was only human, that he had to change his socks if he got his feet wet, and that he would make a fool of himself nine times out of ten. But—and the but was emphatic72 as a thunderbolt—there was in him also the mystery and lordship of—of Hermes, if you like—but the mystery and the lordship of the forward-seeking male. That she must emphatically realise and bow down to. Yes, bow down to. You can’t have two masters of one ship: neither can you have a ship without a master. The Harriet and Lovat had been an experiment of ten years’ endurance. Now she was to be broken up, or burnt, so he said, and the non-existent Hermes was to take her place.
You can’t have two masters to one ship. And if it is a ship: that is, if it has a voyage to sail, a port to make, even a far direction to take, into the unknown, then a master it must have. Harriet said it wasn’t a ship, it was a houseboat, and they could lie so perfectly73 here by the Pacific for the rest of time—or be towed away to some other lovely spot to house in. She could imagine no fairer existence. It was a houseboat.
But he with his no, no, he almost drove her mad. The bark of their marriage was a ship that must sail into uncharted seas, and he must be the master, and she must be the crew, sworn on. She was to believe in his{195} adventure and deliver herself over to it; she was to believe in his mystic vision of a land beyond this charted world, where new life rose again.
And she just couldn’t. His land beyond the land men knew, where men were more than they are now: she couldn’t believe in it. “Then believe in me,” he said desperately74. “I know you too well,” she replied. And so, it was an impasse75.
Him, a lord and master! Why, he was not really lord of his own bread and butter; next year they might both be starving. And he was not even master of himself, with his ungovernable furies and his uncritical intimacies76 with people: even people like Jack77 Callcott, whom Harriet quite liked, but whom she would never have taken seriously. Yet there was Lovat pouring himself out to him. Pah—believe! How could one believe in such a man! If he had been naturally a master of men, general of an army, or manager of some great steel works, with thousands of men under him—then, yes, she could have acknowledged the master part of the bargain, if not the lord. Whereas, as it was, he was the most forlorn and isolated78 creature in the world, without even a dog to his command. He was so isolated he was hardly a man at all, among men. He had absolutely nothing but her. Among men he was like some unbelievable creature—an emu, for example. Like an emu in the streets or in a railway carriage. He might well say phœnix.
All he could do was to try and come it over her with this revolution rubbish and a stunt79 of “male” activity. If it were even real!
He had nothing but her, absolutely. And that was why, presumably, he wanted to establish this ascendancy80 over her, assume this arrogance. And so that he could refute her, deny her, and imagine himself a unique male. He wanted to be male and unique, like a freak of a phœnix. And then go prancing81 off into connections with men like Jack Callcott and Kangaroo, and saving the world. She could not stand these world-saviours. And she, she must be safely there, as a nest for him, when he came home with his feathers pecked. That was it. So that he could imagine himself absolutely and arrogantly82 It, he would turn her into a nest, and sit on her and overlook her, like{196} the one and only phœnix in the desert of the world, gurgling hymns83 of salvation84.
Poor Harriet! No wonder she resented it. Such a man, such a man to be tied to and tortured by!
And poor Richard! To be a man, and to have a man’s uneasy soul for his bed-fellow.
But he kicked against the pricks85. He did not yet submit to the fact which he half knew: that before mankind would accept any man for a king, and before Harriet would ever accept him, Richard Lovat, as a lord and master, he, this self-same Richard who was so strong on kingship, must open the doors of his soul and let in a dark Lord and Master for himself, the dark god he had sensed outside the door. Let him once truly submit to the dark majesty86, break open his doors to this fearful god who is master, and enters us from below, the lower doors; let himself once admit a Master, the unspeakable god: and the rest would happen.
“The fire began to burn the stick,
The stick began to beat the dog,
The dog began to bite the pig,
The pig began to go over the bridge,
And so the old woman got home that night....”
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1
arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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crux
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| adj.十字形；难事，关键，最重要点 | |
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alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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revert
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| v.恢复，复归，回到 | |
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catastrophes
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| n.灾祸( catastrophe的名词复数 )；灾难；不幸事件；困难 | |
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futility
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| n.无用 | |
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creeks
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| n.小湾( creek的名词复数 )；小港；小河；小溪 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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foundering
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| v.创始人( founder的现在分词 ) | |
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11
hovers
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| 鸟( hover的第三人称单数 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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benediction
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| n.祝福；恩赐 | |
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shimmers
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| n.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的名词复数 )v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的第三人称单数 ) | |
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14
consummated
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| v.使结束( consummate的过去式和过去分词 )；使完美；完婚；（婚礼后的）圆房 | |
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founders
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| n.创始人( founder的名词复数 ) | |
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steers
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| n.阉公牛，肉用公牛( steer的名词复数 )v.驾驶( steer的第三人称单数 )；操纵；控制；引导 | |
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repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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dependence
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| n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属 | |
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woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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populous
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| adj.人口稠密的，人口众多的 | |
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steering
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| n.操舵装置 | |
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fabulously
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| 难以置信地，惊人地 | |
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lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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steered
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| v.驾驶( steer的过去式和过去分词 )；操纵；控制；引导 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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schooner
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| n.纵帆船 | |
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technically
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| adv.专门地，技术上地 | |
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frigate
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| n.护航舰，大型驱逐舰 | |
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funnel
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| n.漏斗；烟囱；v.汇集 | |
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vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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34
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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flicked
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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halcyon
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| n.平静的，愉快的 | |
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slit
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| n.狭长的切口；裂缝；vt.切开，撕裂 | |
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blizzard
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| n.暴风雪 | |
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42
azure
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| adj.天蓝色的，蔚蓝色的 | |
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43
frayed
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| adj.磨损的v.（使布、绳等）磨损，磨破( fray的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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44
tattered
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| adj.破旧的，衣衫破的 | |
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jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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46
treacherous
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| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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47
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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unstable
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| adj.不稳定的，易变的 | |
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chasms
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| 裂缝( chasm的名词复数 )； 裂口； 分歧； 差别 | |
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50
batter
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| v.接连重击；磨损；n.牛奶面糊；击球员 | |
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51
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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52
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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53
wasteful
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| adj.（造成）浪费的，挥霍的 | |
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54
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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funnels
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| 漏斗( funnel的名词复数 )； （轮船，火车等的）烟囱 | |
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56
dominant
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| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
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57
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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extinction
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| n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种 | |
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59
bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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deferred
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| adj.延期的，缓召的v.拖延，延缓，推迟( defer的过去式和过去分词 )；服从某人的意愿，遵从 | |
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61
consort
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| v.相伴；结交 | |
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62
divination
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| n.占卜，预测 | |
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63
perch
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| n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于 | |
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64
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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65
obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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66
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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67
lament
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| n.悲叹，悔恨，恸哭；v.哀悼，悔恨，悲叹 | |
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68
lamenting
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| adj.悲伤的，悲哀的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的现在分词 ) | |
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69
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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70
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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71
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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72
emphatic
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| adj.强调的，着重的；无可置疑的，明显的 | |
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73
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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75
impasse
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| n.僵局；死路 | |
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76
intimacies
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| 亲密( intimacy的名词复数 )； 密切； 亲昵的言行； 性行为 | |
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77
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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78
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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79
stunt
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| n.惊人表演，绝技，特技；vt.阻碍...发育，妨碍...生长 | |
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80
ascendancy
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| n.统治权，支配力量 | |
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81
prancing
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| v.（马）腾跃( prance的现在分词 ) | |
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82
arrogantly
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| adv.傲慢地 | |
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83
hymns
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌( hymn的名词复数 ) | |
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84
salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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85
pricks
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| 刺痛( prick的名词复数 )； 刺孔； 刺痕； 植物的刺 | |
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86
majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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