Some Do Not . . ._ A Novel - Ford Madox Ford [69]
Perhaps the future of the world then was to women? Why not? He hadn't in years met a man that he hadn't to talk down to--as you talk down to a child: as he had talked down to General Campion or to Mr Waterhouse...as he always talked down to Macmaster. All good fellows in their way...
But why was he born to be a sort of lonely buffalo: outside the herd? Not artist: not soldier: not bureaucrat: not certainly indispensable anywhere: apparently not even sound in the eyes of these dim-minded specialists...An exact observer...
Hardly even that for the last six and a half hours:
'Die Sommer Nacht hat mirs angethan
Das war ein schweigsame Reiten...'
he said aloud.
How could you translate that? You couldn't translate it: no one could translate Heine:
'It was the summer night came over me:
That was silent riding...'
A voice cut into his warm, drowsy thought:
'Oh, you do exist. But you've spoken too late. I've run into the horse.' He must have been speaking aloud. He had felt the horse quivering at the end of the reins. The horse, too, was used to her by now. It had hardly stirred...He wondered when he had left off singing 'John Peel.'...He said:
'Come along, then: have you found anything?'
The answer came:
'Something...But you can't talk in this stuff...I'll just...'
The voice died away as if a door had shut. He waited: consciously waiting: as an occupation! Contritely and to make a noise he rattled the whip-stock in its bucket. The horse started and he had to check it quickly: a damn fool he was. Of course a horse would start if you rattled a whipstock. He called out:
'Are you all right?' The cart might have knocked her down. He had, however, broken the convention. Her voice came from a great distance:
'Pm all right. Trying the other side...'
His last thought came back to him. He had broken their convention: he had exhibited concern: like any other man...He said to himself:
'By God! Why not take a holiday: why not break all conventions?'
They erected themselves intangibly and irrefragably. He had not known this young women twenty-four hours: not to speak to: and already the convention existed between them that he must play stiff and cold, she warm and clinging...Yet she was obviously as cool a hand as himself: cooler no doubt, for at bottom he was certainly a sentimentalist.
A convention of the most imbecile type...Then break all conventions: with the young woman: with himself above all. For forty-eight hours...almost exactly forty-eight hours till he started for Dover...
'And I must to the greenwood go,
Alone: a banished man!'
Border ballad! Written not seven miles from Groby!
By the descending moon: it being then just after cockcrow of midsummer night--what sentimentality I--it must be half-past-four on Sunday. He had worked out that to catch the morning Ostend boat at Dover he must leave the Wannops' at 5.15 on Tuesday morning, in a motor for the junction...What incredible cross-country train connections! Five hours for not forty miles.
He had then forty-eight and three-quarter hours! Let them be a holiday! A holiday from himself above all: a holiday from his standards: from his convention with himself. From clear observation: