Grubby, too. Why?”
“Why?” I said. “But, really——”
She looked at me through the smoke of her cigarette. She was grave, intent. But one never knew what about....
“Genius,” I said, “has——”
“Of course, genius. But——”
“They are striving,” I said, “for——”
“Yes, I know. But why are they always so ugly? I mean, these people called ‘satirists.’ One sees them abroad, at the Rotonde, or in Rome, Florence....” I saw her among them, the small white face, the cool, sensible, huge eyes, very attentive, deferring. “They marry plain, too. Always. Invariably. Why? And man and wife hang on to each other like grim death, despising everything hard. And they come out in spots. Why? One just wonders.... It seems to need very ugly men with very unattractive wives to despise things, to show us our ugliness. Has ever any even fairly human-looking person ever been a ‘satirist’? But I suppose if they weren’t so plain they wouldn’t have so much time to be obscene on paper. Or am I talking nonsense?{36}”
{36}
“It’s absurd,” I said, “to make it a question of looks——”
“But it makes me furious!” she said in that suddenly strong clear voice. “These despisers. These grubby clever men with their grubby genius. The heroes of the weekly reviews. Their impotent little obscenities. I’ve tried to find, in knowing them and reading them, a great, real contempt, something as fierce and clean as fire, a nightmare of contempt, so that from the pillars of burning smoke we can build beings of better shape than ourselves. I’ve read, watched, listened, wanting to know....”
I said things, too. But who am I? For instance, I said: “You don’t allow to all men one common failing, which shows particularly when the men are satirical writers: they must always write about women rather in the spirit of uncleanminded undergraduates. You should be more tolerant, Mrs. Storm....”
We talked of vulgarity. She had once read a book of mine, and I complained bitterly of my vulgarity, saying, you know, that one didn’t begin by being vulgar, “but one began,” I
Prev.
Back
Top