The Escape by Katherine Mansfield

Books at bedtime by calming anxiety, the escape by Katherine Mansfield. It was his fault, wholly and solely his fault, but they had missed the train. What if the idiotic hotel people had refused to produce the bill? Wasn't that simply because he hadn't impressed upon the way to at lunch that they must have it by 2 o'clock?

Any other man would have sat there and refused to move until they handed it over. But no, his exquisite belief in human nature had allowed him to get up and expect one of those idiots to bring it to their room. And then, when the Vwatra did arrive, while they were still "oh heavens, waiting for change, why hadn't he seen to the arrangement of the boxes so that they could at last have started the moment the money had come?" Had he expected her to go outside to stand under the awning in the heat and point with her parasol?

Very amusing picture of an English domestic life. Even when the driver had been told how fast he had to drive, he had paid no attention whatsoever. He smiled, "oh, she groaned." If she had been a driver, she couldn't have stopped smiling herself at the absurd, ridiculous way he has urged to hurry.

As she sat back and imitated his voice, "LA, VV," and begged the driver pardon for troubling him. And then the station, unforgettable, with the sight of the jaunty little train shuffling away and those hideous children waving from the windows. "oh, why am I made to bear these things?" Why am I exposed to them?

The glare of flies, while they waited, and he and the station master put their heads together over the timetable. Trying to find this other train, which, of course, they wouldn't catch. The people who gathered around and the women who'd held up that baby with that awful, awful head. "oh, to care as I care, to feel as I feel, and never to be saved anything, never to know for one moment what it was to do."

Her voice had changed. She was shaking now, crying now. She fumbled with her bag and produced from its little more ascended handkerchief. She put up her veil and, as though she were doing it for somebody else, pitifully, as though she was saying to somebody else, "I know, my darling."

She pressed the handkerchief to her eyes. A little bag with its shiny, silvery jaws open, lay on her lap. He could see her powered upuff, her rouge stick, a bundle of letters, a file of tiny black pills like seeds, a broken cigarette, a mirror, white ivory tablets, with lists on them that had been heavily scored through. He thought, "in Egypt she would be buried with these things."

They had left the last of the houses. Those small, straggling houses, with bits of broken pot, flung amongst the flowerbeds, and half-naked-hands scratching round the doorsteps. Now, they were mounting a long, steep road that wound round the hill and over into the next bay. The horse is stumbled, pulling hard.

Every five minutes, every two minutes, the driver trailed the whip across them. His stout back was solid as wood. There were boils on his reddish neck, and he wore a new, a shining new straw hat. There was a little wind.

Just enough wind to blow, to sat in the new leaves of the fruit trees, to stoke the fine grass, to turn to silver the smoky olives. Just enough wind to start in front of the carriage, a whirling, twirling snap of dust that settled on their clothes like the finest ash. When she took out her powder puff, the powder came flying over them both. "Oh, the dust," she breathed, the disgusting, revolting dust, and she put down her veil, and lay back as if overcome.

Why don't you put up the parasol?" he suggested. It was on the front seat, and he leaned forward to hand it to her. At that, she suddenly sat up raised, and blazed again. "Please, leave my parasol alone.

I don't want my parasol." And anyone who was not utterly insensitive would know that I am far, far too exhausted to hold up a parasol. So with a wind like this tugging at it, put it down at once, she flashed, and then snatched the parasol from him, tossed it into the crumpled hood behind, and subsided, panting.

Another bend to the road, and down the hill there came a troop of little children, shrieking and giggling, little girls with sun-bleached hair, little boys in faded soldiers' caps. In their hands they carried flowers, any kind of flowers, grabbed by the head, and these they offered, running beside the carriage, lilac faded lilac, greeny white snobles, one arom-lilling, a handful of hyacinths. They thrust the flowers, and their impish faces into the carriage, one even threw into her lap a bunch of marigolds, poor little mouth. He had his hand in his trouser pocket before her, for heaven's sake don't give them anything, or how typical of you, horrid little monkeys.

Now they'll follow us all the way, don't encourage them. You would encourage beggars, and she hurled a bunch out of the carriage with, "Well, do it when I'm not here, please." He saw the queer shock on the children's faces. They stopped running, lagged behind, and then they began to shout something, and went on shouting until the carriage had rounded yet another bend.

"Oh, how many more are there before the top of the hill is reached? The horses haven't trotted once. Surely it isn't necessary for them to walk the whole way. We shall be there in a minute now," he said, and took out his cigarette case.

But that she turned round towards him. She clasped her hands and held them against her breasts. Her dark eyes looked immense, imploring behind her veil. Her nostrils quivered, she bit her lip, and her head shook with a little nervous spasm.

But when she spoke, her voice was quite me, and very, very calm. I want to ask you something. I want to beg something of you," she said. I asked you hundreds and hundreds of times before, but you've forgotten. "It's such a little thing, but if you know what it means to me," she pressed her hands together.

"But you can't know. No human creature could know and be so cruel." And then slowly, deliberately gazing at him with those huge somber eyes. I beg and implore for you for the last time that when we are driving together, you won't smoke.

"If you could imagine," she said, "the anguish I suffer when that smoke comes flossing across my face." "Very well," he said. "I won't. I forgot."

And he put the case back. "Oh no," she said, and almost began to laugh and put the back of her hand across her eyes. "You couldn't have forgotten, not that." The wind came, blowing stronger.

They were at the top of the hill. "Yep, yep, yep, cried the driver." They swung down the road that fell into a small valley, skirted the sea coast at the bottom of it, and then coiled over a gentle ridge on the other side. "Now, they were houses again.

The blue shutted against the heat, with bright burning gardens, with uranium carpets flung over the pinkish walls. The coastline was dark, on the edge of the sea, a white silky fringe gestured. The carriage swung down the hill, bumped, shook, "Yep," shouted the driver. She clutched the sides of the seat.

She closed her eyes, and he knew she felt this was happening on purpose. This swinging and bumping. This was all done, and he was responsible for it, somehow, to spider, because she had asked if they couldn't go a little faster. But just as they reached the bottom of the valley, there was one tremendous urge.

The carriage nearly overturned, and he saw her eyes blaze at him, and she positively hissed. I suppose you're enjoying this. They went on. They reached the bottom of the valley.

Suddenly she stood up. She turned round and looked into the crumpled herd behind it. "I knew it," she explained. "I knew it.

I heard it fall and so did you." At that last bump. "What?" "Where?"

"My parasol." "It's gone." "The parasol that belonged to my mother." "The parasol that I prized more than, more than," she was simply beside herself.

The driver turned round. His gay, broad face smiling. "I, too, heard something, city, simply and gay. But I thought his monsoir and madame said nothing."

"There, you hear it. Then you must have heard it, too." So that accounts for the extraordinary smile on your face. "Look here," he said.

"It can't be gone. If it fell out, it will still be there. Stay where you are. I'll fetch it."

But she saw through that. "Oh, how she saw through it." "No, thank you." And she bent her spiteful, smiling eyes upon him.

"Regardless of the driver, I'll go myself. I'll walk back and find it and trust you not to follow. For, knowing the driver did not understand, she spoke softly, gently. If I don't escape for you for a minute, I shall go mad."

He stepped out of the carriage. My bag, he handed it to her. Madame prefers, but the driver had already swung down from his seat and was seated on the parapet, reading a small newspaper. The horse stood with hanging heads.

It was still. The man in the carriage stretched himself out, folded his arms. He felt the sun beat on his knees. His head was sunk on his breast.

Hish, shh, shh, sounded from the scene. The wind sighed in the valley was quiet. He felt himself lying there, a hollow man, a parched, withered man, as is it the were of ashes and the sea sounded. It was then that he saw the tree, that he was curious of its presence just outside a garden gate.

It was an immense tree with a round, thick silver stem, and a great arc of copper leaves that gave back the light and yet were somber. There was something beyond the tree, a whiteness, a softness, an opaque mass, half hidden with delicate pillars. As he looked at the tree, he felt his breathing die away, and he became part of the silence. It seemed to grow.

It seemed to expand in the quivering heat until the great carved leaves hid the sky. And yet it was motionless. Then from within its depths, or from beyond there came the sound of a woman's voice, a woman was singing. The warm and troubled voice floated upon the air, and it was all part of the silence as he was part of it.

Suddenly, as the voice rose, soft, dreaming gentle, he knew that it would come floating to him from the hidden leaves, and his peace was shattered. What was happening to him? Something stirred in his breath, something dark, something unbearable and dreadful, pushed into his bosom, and like a great weed it floated, rocked. It was warm, stifling.

He tried to struggle to tear at it, and at the same moment, all was over. Deep. Deep. Deep sank into the silence, staring at the tree, and waiting for the voice that came floating, falling, until he felt himself enfolded.

In the shaking corridor of the train, it was night. The train rushed and roared through the dark. He held on with both hands to the brass rail. The door of their carriage was open, do not disturb yourself once, he will come in and sit down when he wants to.

He likes. He likes. It is his habit. Wee madame.

Oh, but my husband is never so happy as when he is travelling. He likes roughing it. My husband. My husband.

The voice is murmured. They were never still. But so great was his heavenly happiness as he stood there. He wished he might live forever.