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By Root 7687 0

like a rabbit‘s, or like a troll’s, or like the eyes of a lost being, having a strange, dumb, depraved look of knowledge, and a quick spark of uncanny fire. Whenever Gudrun had tried to talk to him he had shied away unresponsive, looking at her with his watchful dark eyes, but entering into no relation with her. He had made her feel that her slow French and her slower German, were hateful to him. As for his own inadequate English, he was much too awkward to try it at all. But he understood a good deal of what was said, nevertheless. And Gudrun, piqued, left him alone.

This afternoon, however, she came into the lounge as he was talking to Ursula. His fine, black hair somehow reminded her of a bat, thin as it was on his full, sensitive-looking head, and worn away at the temples. He sat hunched up, as if his spirit were bat-like. And Gudrun could see he was making some slow confidence to Ursula, unwilling, a slow, grudging, scanty self-revelation. She went and sat by her sister.

He looked at her, then looked away again, as if he took no notice of her. But as a matter of fact, she interested him deeply.

“Isn’t it interesting, Prune,” said Ursula, turning to her sister, “Herr Loerke is doing a great frieze for a factory in Cologne, for the outside, the street.”

She looked at him, at his thin, brown, nervous hands, that were prehensile, and somehow like talons, like “griffes,” inhuman.

“What in?” she asked.

“Aus was?” repeated Ursula.

“Granit,”ct he replied.

It had become immediately a laconic series of question and answer between fellow craftsmen.

“What is the relief?” asked Gudrun.

“Alto relievo.”cu

“And at what height?”

It was very interesting to Gudrun to think of his making the great granite frieze for a great granite factory in Cologne. She got from him some notion of the design. It was a representation of a fair, with peasants and artisans in an orgy of enjoyment, drunk and absurd in their modern dress, whirling ridiculously in roundabouts, gaping at shows, kissing and staggering and rolling in knots, swinging in swing-boats, and firing down shooting galleries, a frenzy of chaotic motion.

There was a swift discussion of technicalities. Gudrun was very much impressed.

“But how wonderful, to have such a factory!” cried Ursula. “Is the whole building fine?”

“Oh yes,” he replied. “The frieze is part of the whole architecture. Yes, it is a colossal thing.”

Then he seemed to stiffen, shrugged his shoulders, and went on:

“Sculpture and architecture must go together. The day for irrelevant statues, as for wall pictures, is over. As a matter of fact sculpture is always part of an architectural conception. And since churches are all museum stuff, since industry is our business, now, then let us make our places of industry our art—our factory-area our Parthenon, ecco!”

Ursula pondered.

“I suppose,” she said, “there is no need for our great works to be so hideous.”

Instantly he broke into motion.

“There you are!” he cried, “there you are! There is not only no need for our places of work to be ugly, but their ugliness ruins the work, in the end. Men will not go on submitting to such intolerable ugliness. In the end it will hurt too much, and they will wither because of it. And this will wither the work as well. They will think the work itself is ugly: the machines, the very act of labour. Whereas the machinery and the acts of labour are extremely, maddeningly beautiful. But this will be the end of our civilisation, when people will not work because work has become so intolerable to their senses, it nauseates them too much, they would rather starve. Then we shall see the hammer used only for smashing, then we shall see it. Yet here we are—we have the opportunity to make beautiful factories, beautiful machine-houses—we have the opportunity—”

Gudrun could only partly understand. She could have cried with vexation.

“What does he say?” she asked Ursula. And Ursula translated, stammering and brief. Loerke watched Gudrun’s face, to see her judgment.

“And do you think then,” said Gudrun, “that art should serve industry?