Читать книгу The Patchwork Papers - E. Temple Thurston - Страница 12

V

REALISM

This word—realism—has lost its meaning. So, for that matter, has many another word in the language. Sentiment is one and, as a natural consequence, the word sentimental is another. Realism and sentiment, in fact, have got so shuffled about, for all the world like the King and Queen in a pack of cards that now, instead of sentiment being hand in hand with reality, they have become almost opposed. To express a sentiment is now tantamount to ignoring a reality.

Joseph Surface may be responsible for this. It would not seem unlikely. But wherever the responsibility lies, it is an everlasting pity; no one has had the common politeness to replace or even create a substitute for the thing which they have taken away.

Realism, which now means an expression of things as they happen without any relation to things as they immortally are, is robbed of its true significance. But no word is left in its place. Sentiment, which now means an expression of momentary emotionalism, instead of what one perceives to be true in the highest moments of one’s thoughts, has left a blank in the language which no one seems willing to or capable of filling up.

Now all this is an irreparable loss. How great a loss it is can be seen by the fact that no two people’s terminology is the same when they are discussing a subject wherein these words must be employed. In the space of five minutes both are at cross purposes; in a tangle from which they find it well-nigh impossible to extricate themselves.

I do not for one instant propose to supply here a solution to the difficulty; nor can I coin two words to repair the loss sustained. All I wish to do is to tell a real story, one that happened only a short while ago, to illustrate what seems to me to be realism in comparison with what realism is supposed to be.

Our little servant-girl was married—married to the young man who brought the milk of a morning. The courtship had been going on for some time before I realised the glorious things that were happening. Then, when I was told about it, I used to peep out of my bedroom window. As soon as I heard that cry of his—impossible to write—when he opened the gate and rattled with his can down the area steps, then up I jumped from my bed and lifted the window.

They must have been wonderful moments for Emily, those early mornings when, with heart beating at the sound of his cry, she had run for the big white jug, then dragged out the time lest he should think she had opened the door too eagerly.

Many a time have I seen them down at the bottom of those area steps; she leaning up against the pillar of the door watching him, rapt in admiration, while he filled up the big white jug.

It is a fine thing for you when your little maid has eyes for the milkman. You get a good measure, I can tell you. He would not seem stingy to her for the world. I have seen him dipping his little half-pint measure times and again into the big can as he talked to her and, as she held out the white jug, just trickling it in till our two pints were more than accounted for.

All this went on for weeks together. Emily sang like a lark in the morning when she rose betimes to do her work. The worst of the scrubbing was all finished with and Emily’s hair was tidy long before there came that weird falsetto cry, or the sound of the milk cans rattled down the area steps. Oh, I can assure you, it is an excellent thing when your little maid has eyes for the milkman. She never gets up late of a morning.

And then, at last, with great to-doings in Emily’s home out at Walham Green, they were married. I asked Emily what she would like for a wedding present and she said:

“I’d like one o’ them old brass candlesticks—same as what you ’ave in your study.”

You see Emily had acquired some taste. I call it taste because it is mine. Good or bad, she had acquired it.

“Wouldn’t you prefer silver?” I asked, thinking I knew what silver would mean in Walham Green.

But she only replied:

“No—I like the brass ones—’cos they’re old. I’ve a fancy for old things.”

So a pair of old brass candlesticks was what I gave her. She wrote and thanked me for them. She said they looked just lovely on George’s writing table and that one of these days, when I was passing that way, I ought to go and look at them.

I did pass through Walham Green eventually. It was some months later. She had probably forgotten all about having asked me, but I paid my visit all the same.

For a moment or so, as I stood on the doorstep, I felt a twinge of trepidation. I could not remember her married name. But it was all right. She opened the door herself. Then, as she stood there, with a beaming smile lighting her face from ear to ear, reminding me so well of those early mornings when I used to peep out of my bedroom window and peer into the area below, I saw that soon there would be another little Emily or another perky little George to bring a smile or a cry into the world.

“You’re happy?” said I.

“Oh—sir!” said she.

She showed me up then to the sitting-room where was George’s writing table and the pair of old brass candlesticks. She pointed to the table.

“’E made it ’imself,” she said, not meaning it in explanation; but it did explain the queer shape. “’E made it out of an old box and I covered it with felt. Ain’t it splendid?”

I agreed with my whole heart. Everything was splendid. The whole room might have been made out of an old box. And yet I could see what a joy it was to her. There was her acquired taste in evidence everywhere, but except for my poor pair of candlesticks, everything was imitation. It made no matter. She thought they were really old and liked them immeasurably better than the things I had collected with such care at home.

“Could anything be nicer than this?” said I with real enthusiasm.

“I don’t believe it could, sir,” said she.

And then, in little half-amused, half-curious, half-frightened whispers, she told me how they were going to call the baby after me.

“Supposing it’s a girl,” said I.

No—they had not reckoned on that. When you make up your mind properly to a boy—a boy it is up to the last moment. After that, you forget how you made up your mind, you are so wildly delighted that it is alive at all.

I walked across to the window.

“So you’re radiantly happy,” I said.

“’E’s just wonderful,” she replied; “I thought it couldn’t last at first—but it’s just the same.”

I gazed out of the window—envious, perhaps.

“What does this look on to?” I asked.

“A slaughter-house, sir.”

She said it full of cheerfulness, full of the joy of her own life. I stared and stared out of the window. A slaughter-house! A slaughter-house! and here was a little slip of a woman passing through those trembling hours before the birth of her first child!

Now that is what your realist would call a chance! He would make a fine subject out of that. He would show you the growth of that idea in the woman’s mind. He would picture her drawn to gaze out of that awesome window whenever they dragged the lowing, frightened cattle to their doom. And last of all, with wonderful photographic touches, he would describe for you the birth of a still-born child. Then with a feeling of sickness in the heart of you, you would lay down the story and exclaim, “How real!”

That is what is meant by realism to-day.

Yet somehow or other I prefer my Emily; not because the boy is called after me—but because, whatever he may be called, he is alive, he is well, and he kicks his little legs like wind-mills.

Now that is an immortal truth.