Eva's apples

What a religion!

With a start, he detached himself from his reverie. “The stars are getting more golden,” he said, rising, “and the sky is a dark deep blue.”

“And, darling, look at them, I mean the stars. We can see them everywhere, underneath as well as on top.”

“That is quite natural. The earth is a tiny ball and we can walk round it like flies.”

“But Castor and Pollux are on top.”

“Always were top dogs even in life.”

“See, darling, Castor and Pollux are now pure gold.”

“Not unnaturally, either. Look at that wood, secretive, leering. Hush! Hark!”

“Yes.”

“Listen:

“Sweet. What makes you think in German?”

“I quote in the language of the country.”

“Which country?”

“Technically this is a piece of old Austria.”

“M’m! It makes you think. A piece of old Austria. But Australia gone, America gone, India, Russia, Paris, London, Vienna—all gone!”

“To kingdom come. Didn’t Christ always warn us that it was at hand?”

“Nobody took any notice of Him, darling.”

“Till too late. But we shall muddle through. It is an English characteristic, to give the old country its due. Not because we are muddle-headed, but because no other race is clear-headed enough to perceive how muddled they are, except the Russians, who, having perceived the muddled nature of all life, have identified themselves with it for good.”

“There is the moon.”

“Yes, there she is.”

The moon swam out in all the fulness of her glory.

“Oh, do you remember that passage in Hermann und Dorothea, as they go homeward by night, as we are doing now? How goes it?—

My memory is the only repository of poetry that we have with us. And nature, or what is left of it, the only promise of heaven. Look at those rocks,” he pointed. “What serene dispassionate peace! They are death. They brood, but not darkly. They are pressing upon us: you and I have to bear their intolerable weight! The clouds sail above them, barely touching them, toppling over. They teach us that life is not what we do or think: that life is elsewhere, barely touching us, as those clouds.”

Somebody, probably Frau König, began to play Chopin, and the rippling waterfall of sound, marvellous and enchanting, filtered through the air; the strains pressed into the night and asked questions.

“O God of Love! How that woman plays. Her madness, resentment, then a cowed, shuddering awe, and overflowing tears of tenderness. They have summoned, you see, those other creatures, visitants from a world, certainly not ours. ‘Perhaps,’ says Proust, ‘we shall lose them, perhaps they will be obliterated, if we return to nothing in the dust. Perhaps it is not-being that is the true state, and all our dream of life is without existence; but, if so, we feel that it must be that these phrases of music, these conceptions which exist in relation to our dream, are nothing either. We shall perish, but we have for our hostages these divine captives who shall follow and share our fate. And death in their company is something less bitter, less inglorious, and perhaps even less certain.’”

“It dawns.”

“It dawns. Home, darling, and to bed.”

They began the descent, as the sky grew threadbare, the moon paled, and a small peevish sun looked out, sleepy, red-eyed. Then a shaft of light licked a fugitive cloud. A cock cleared his throat in the yard below. The rich odour of mown grass and the rays on the ricks of straw bid them live. They blessed their fate, and that neither of them was to be hanged at dawn, that they had sufficient to eat and could go home and sleep in clean sheets upon feather beds.

XLVII.

IT IS FINISHED

Six weeks it rained without cease. Dark clouds ran on, as if there was still a scheme in the universe, even though this chip of a dead planet was discarded; dark, brooding, they ran, on and on. Never had they known such weather, except possibly in London.

They were sarcastic at the expense of Lord de Jones, who told them they had grown immodest in their expectations; that even in the New Jerusalem it was not always sunshine.

But lo! a shaft of sunlight. The wet valley glittered with gaiety; it spread to the hills, then the whole vault of heaven broke out into spontaneous sunlight. Soon they all cried out for mercy. Mercy! how hot! The sun pressed on, pressed on, pressed on.

It was—though the seasons played pranks—a midsummer’s day, and a Sunday, so warm and radiant that they brought out the table and chairs on to the terrace and lunched in the sight of the sun and the rocks. The cook, responding to the mood, expressed her personality in an exquisite meal of pre-Dissolution magnificence; and when Herr Kogl had filled their glasses, Lord de Jones rose and proposed the health of the King. The two ladies having retired, the five men addressed themselves to the usual business of imparting bawdy jokes, and Herr Kogl related how when he was in Wien and was told to buy a female fish he had ignorantly asked for a virgin fish. “In Wien!” exclaimed the fishmonger, his eyes dilated with wonder. “It’s not to be had.”

“Ah, Wien! When as a youth I was doing my military service we had to march through Wien, all along the Ring. There is no capital like Wien! Not that I’ve seen other capitals.”

Capitals! It seemed a shame that they should have gone, capitals more magnificent than Vienna. But Herr Kogl, liberal on other topics, said that Vienna beat them all. Wien! Wien! His son Herbert had been to Wien—to the Hotel and Restaurant Institute. He had been getting on so well—when the blow came. It seemed a shame. Herr Kogl went into the house and came out with his son’s certificate in his big shaking red hands. “Here it is. His college certificate.” He passed it reverently to Lord de Jones, and while the other read it, turned away his face. Two large beads rolled down his cheeks. Lord de Jones put on his glasses and read:

Herr Kogl turned round after an interval; hot tears streamed down his cheeks, as Lord de Jones handed him back the certificate. They all waited for Lord de Jones to say something. His mouth opened.

“Shall we join the ladies in the drawing-room?” he said.

But before they did so, Eva had come out with little Adam in her arms and sat on the pension steps, the second Baron Ottercove, a toothless radiance illuminating his whole countenance, on her lap. Herr Kogl sat by and tickled the baby’s nose with a feather. “Our only ray of sunshine, our little hope....” And he would look into these eyes basking in the sunshine with wonderment and tenderness, and think and think. “As for you, Rags,” he turned to the dog at his feet, “the outlook for caninity is black. Black.”

“I wish the Frau Professor’s dachshund were saved,” remarked Lord de Jones. “The canine race would have had a new start.”

“But the dachshund was no good, darling; he had weak lungs.”

“Still, beggars can’t be choosers, as you said yourself, Eva.”

“And our Rags too is no good. Rags, you old bitch, you’re no good, are you? No good! Poor old bitch! Poor old bitch!” Two large beads stood in Herr Kogl’s eyes.

And indeed, Rags was not much good to found a new canine race. She was blind and deaf with old age and lay in a corner all day. Only when you bent down to her and shouted very loudly in her ear: “Scho-ko-lade!” she would turn over and twitch feebly with her forelegs, in reminiscent pleasure.

There were no more dogs. The Prime Minister had been vindicated.

“There was,” said Eva dreamily, “a little tea-shop just off Jermyn-street, where you could get delicious ices.”

“Yes. The original sin was when man wrapped himself up in the visible world. The ultimate sin was when he shed it.”

“It may appear so to any one who has not been strong enough to shed his vices. But, for my part, I have given up smoking,” said de Jones, “for complete lack of tobacco.”

“How weak! Strength of will would lie in going on, in persisting in the face of unsurmountable difficulties.”

“But though I have nothing to reproach myself with,” continued de Jones, oblivious of Frank’s interruption, “I too have my memories of the old world, and in particular do I remember the Allied Victory march through Paris after the Great War as the troops passed under the Arc de Triomphe, ablaze with glory! A powerful emotion for a pacifist.”

Soldiers. Images drifted before Christopher. He saw ranks and ranks of them. Soldiers in scarlet uniforms. Bayonets glistening in the sun. His soldiers, armed to the teeth, equipped with the latest weapons of war. Glorious manhood! Only waiting for the word of command to set off for the enemy. He saw other soldiers ready on the turrets of Frank’s castle. His own lion-hearted warriors storming the castle, falling into the moat. He looked at Frank and wished that the jolly game were already beginning. “Ah!” he moved restively.

“What is it, darling?” from Eva.

“One day, Dickin,” he rubbed his hands anticipatingly, “yours and mine will measure their strength in battle. Wish I were alive to see the day!”

The Baron held up his glass: “Der Tag!”

De Jones sat pensive. “It seems to me, as I sit here, a sedentary, useless man, that I can hear across the years the distant neighing of chargers, the sharpening of flints by the camp fire. Dangerous life! Glorious struggle! Give me Kipling or D. H. Lawrence. They’d understand this. My men advancing valiantly and capturing the forts of yon castle.”

“Nor, when they have captured it, let them rest. It is, remember, only a milestone on their road to further achievement. Let them go on capturing other castles, on and on, till they have had enough.” Frank’s look grew reminiscent. “When I was a private in the last war, there was a good deal of stealing—‘pinching,’ they called it, going on amongst the troopers. What more natural and proper, you’d think, in a community of roughnecks. ‘But, nay!’ says the Idealist in Man: ‘We stick bayonet blades into other men in the name of an Idea. Pinching from your comrade is subversive of ultimate efficiency in the business of stabbing your neighbour. It deflects attention, sows suspicion, where there should be love of one’s own and hatred of others. The ideal is to eliminate dishonesty and to create a high standard of honour and mutual confidence among the troops so that they may devote their undivided attention to murdering the soldiers of another army (with an equally high moral standard).’ That is the aim. That is patriotism—serving the flag.”

“I agree,” said de Jones. “We must not arm for aggression, but for defence alone. The best way to ensure peace is to be armed to the teeth.”

“I see.”

“The meek,” said Herr Kogl, “shall inherit the earth.”

“None of that here, Herr Kogl,” protested de Jones. “Maudlin mysticism! Quite the proper note to strike in a fin de siècle mood and period. But we’re a new Finnegan-begin-again civilisation, up-and-doing, straining every nerve that the race may survive. No room for mooners. It’s men of action we want.”

“The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.”

“Quite.”

“Peace within, love of those nearest to you, no desires, no regrets, only love, steady, translucent love of all living beings: what bliss could equal it? It fills your soul with peace, as beams of sun at eventide. A peace”—Herr Kogl’s eyes filled with tears—“that passeth all understanding. ‘Come unto me,’ He said, ‘all ye who labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest: for My yoke is easy and My burden light.’”

Frank jumped to his feet. “Give me riches, give me women, each day a new one (unless I ask twice for the same one), give me food, wine—and I shall give no thought to the things of this world. But to renounce, to settle down when there is nothing ... nothing....” He could not speak. He walked up and down.

Eva looked at de Jones very earnestly. “You should never have done it,” she said.

But Herr Kogl smiled happily. “What does it matter? What does it matter,” he asked, “how we step over into eternity? We are shaken off this realm of matter one way or another.”

“Herr Kogl is a mystic—while there is wine in the cellar.” De Jones looked slyly at him. “We’ve found you out!”

“Now I am dependent on spirits for my good temper—I might just as well make a clean breast of it. But not always will I be so dependent. What matter old age and darkness? My watch,” he said, “it still registers the revolutions of our little planet. Here it is. Its dial is phosphorescent. Now its face is dull and complacent; but take it into utter darkness and its face will illumine. So shall our souls, now bleak and obscure, illumine in the utter darkness of death.”

Herr Kogl looked at his friends. They did not hear angels; they felt not the utter glory of God. Only the baby smiled unendingly at God’s world, smiled away all fear and concern into ripples of light.

“But not a thing!” cried Frank. “Where is there a book of poems, a scroll of music? Frau König,” he turned to her earnestly, “you must teach Adam music when he grows up. You must teach him, Frau König, you must! Think: if this too goes....”

He jumped to his feet. “But not a Shakespeare, not a Goethe, not a Raphael, not a Tristan....”

He wailed aloud. “Oh! Oh! Oh!” He writhed on the damp ground. “Oh! Oh! Oh!”

Eva looked on mournfully. “The world—the poor world!”

“It’s had a long run for its money,” muttered de Jones.

“And I never told it that I cared for it.”

“After life’s fitful fever it sleeps well.”

The cook came in to say that she had prepared an egg dish for supper as she feared that the cows had caught the foot-and-mouth disease, and that they had better keep the sheep for wool, Frau König having told her of her projected plans for a knitting factory.

At this they all sat back, open-mouthed. The Baron shook his head. “This intensifies the problem of survival,” he said gravely. But Lord de Jones jumped to his feet, his hand raised in challenge.

“Are—we—down-hearted?” he cried.

“No-o-o!” The echo of the cry resounded from the rocks. Frank was conspicuous by his silence.

“But how will Adam do now without milk?” Eva looked much concerned.

“He will have,” said de Jones, “to fall back on the milk of human kindness. Frau König,” he turned to her, “it will hence be incumbent on you to generate it. May your happiness consist therein! I will, on my part, endeavour to reproduce synthetic milk—or synthetic cows. Whichever comes easier. So tails up! keep smiling! and all the rest of it. Now all together, please—

They joined in the anthem.

“We shall survive!” finished de Jones. “See if we don’t! And little Adam will not be the last nor the least to survive.”

Eva embraced him tighter. “Oh, he must, oh, he must! for the sake of ... love.”

“ ... of everything that’s been.” Dear, dear earth! It was gone; suddenly, while nobody was looking. Even now Frank could not realise it. Slowly and doggedly man had been working, planning and thinking, cautiously, step by step, climbing the steep rocky path, the circle of light spreading before him larger and wider as he advanced to a knowledge of nature, a forefeeling of God. Against heavy odds, divided against itself, mankind had struggled heroically; it had built temples and palaces, steamers and bridges and airplanes, mansions traversing the oceans and mansions traversing the air. A little more, and man would have conquered himself. But a morbid little mind had stolen the fire of Zeus and put back the clock. Egypt and India, Greece, Rome—had they laboured in vain? Had Europe created fortuitously? This is the end, he thought. And he mourned it terribly, mourned all those millions who had once loved, suffered, and died. Of course there had been misery, tribulations, hate, lies, sordid hours, and moments of pain. But there had been other moments. He remembered how fourteen of his friends had volunteered to be bled to save his mother’s life. He wept at the thought of it. He remembered other hours. Holiday crowds. Gaily clad women. The briskness of mornings, the lassitude of nights. Dew on the roses. The chivalry of reconciliation, of respect, the dignity of moments....

And they had all died, died....

The sun set behind the hill and left the valley cold and unfriendly; only the tips of rocks still gleamed in the sun. Dark clouds, looking like furrows, ran on without cease; cold, bleak and unmeaning, they ran, on and on. A bird chirruped plaintively from a branch. Herr Kogl looked up.

“Bird, forlorn bird, you are surprised at the doom which has befallen our beautiful earth. You grieve, and I grieve with you. The oceans are finished—turned to air. These clouds, running furrows, will still be passing, the sky will unveil its blue face and cover itself as before: but there will be no one to notice it. Not a soul!”

The baby smiled his dimpled, rippling smile, old, wise, and all-knowing. What did he smile at? Where did it come from? the smile of life winding through dark tunnels into light? Herr Kogl held out his finger, at which Adam at once grabbed lustily. Was it for this that millions fought and toiled and thought and felt? Was it for this that men went out “over the top,” hung on barbed wires, bled on the cross? “Little humanity,” he thought, “is this all that is left of thy deeds and high hopes? Little humanity....” His face puckered. He turned away to the clouds chasing in the unmeaning, unmerciful vault; and wept.

THE END

EVA’S APPLES

Some Critical Comment:

Eva’s Apples is that literary potpourri of wit and manners, satire and fantasy and humor and even at moments poetry, which is so easy to do but so difficult to do right. Like Max Beerbohm, Huxley at his best, and Jean Girardoux, Mr. Gerhardi does it right.

The New York Times

Probably the best recommendation of the book is that it is very hard to put down.... To be interesting is surely to be in a state of grace, and Eva’s Apples is interesting.

Heywood Broun
The Book of the Month Club News

A novelist of genius ... wild and brilliant originality.

Arnold Bennett

Extremely clever and wildly nutty.

Isabel M. Patterson

Brilliant and farcical ... heady and deceptive, like absinthe.

The London Spectator

Amusing, brilliant and quite, quite mad.

Herald Tribune