THE WAVES (1931) - World eBook Library

subtle suggestion of intimacy and respect. I must allude to talks
we have had together--bring back some remembered scene. But I must
seem to her (this is very important) to be passing from thing to
thing with the greatest ease in the world. I shall pass from the
service for the man who was drowned (I have a phrase for that) to
Mrs Moffat and her sayings (I have a note of them), and so to some
reflections apparently casual but full of profundity (profound
criticism is often written casually) about some book I have been
reading, some out-of-the-way book. I want her to say as she
brushes her hair or puts out the candle, "Where did I read that?
Oh, in Bernard's letter." It is the speed, the hot, molten effect,
the laval flow of sentence into sentence that I need. Who am I
thinking of? Byron of course. I am, in some ways, like Byron.
Perhaps a sip of Byron will help to put me in the vein. Let me
read a page. No; this is dull; this is scrappy. This is rather
too formal. Now I am getting the hang of it. Now I am getting his
beat into my brain (the rhythm is the main thing in writing). Now,
without pausing I will begin, on the very lilt of the stroke--.
'Yet it falls flat. It peters out. I cannot get up steam enough
to carry me over the transition. My true self breaks off from my
assumed. And if I begin to re-write it, she will feel "Bernard is
posing as a literary man; Bernard is thinking of his biographer"
(which is true). No, I will write the letter tomorrow directly
after breakfast.
'Now let me fill my mind with imaginary pictures. Let me suppose
that I am asked to stay at Restover, King's Laughton, Station
Langley three miles. I arrive in the dusk. In the courtyard of
this shabby but distinguished house there are two or three dogs,
slinking, long-legged. There are faded rugs in the hall; a
military gentleman smokes a pipe as he paces the terrace. The note
is of distinguished poverty and military connections. A hunter's
hoof on the writing table--a favourite horse. "Do you ride?"
"Yes, sir, I love riding." "My daughter expects us in the drawing-
room." My heart pounds against my ribs. She is standing at a low
table; she has been hunting; she munches sandwiches like a tomboy.
I make a fairly good impression on the Colonel. I am not too
clever, he thinks; I am not too raw. Also I play billiards. Then
the nice maid who has been with the family thirty years comes in.
The pattern on the plates is of Oriental long-tailed birds. Her
mother's portrait in muslin hangs over the fireplace. I can sketch
the surroundings up to a point with extraordinary ease. But can I
make it work? Can I hear her voice--the precise tone with which,
when we are alone, she says "Bernard"? And then what next?