In the Days of the Comet

So far I have said nothing of Nettie.  I have departed widely from my individual story.  I have tried to give you the effect of the change in relation to the general framework of human life, its effect of swift, magnificent dawn, of an overpowering letting in and inundation of light, and the spirit of living.  In my memory all my life before the Change has the quality of a dark passage, with the dimmest side gleams of beauty that come and go.  The rest is dull pain and darkness.  Then suddenly the walls, the bitter confines, are smitten and vanish, and I walk, blinded, perplexed, and yet rejoicing, in this sweet, beautiful world, in its fair incessant variety, its satisfaction, its opportunities, exultant in this glorious gift of life.  Had I the power of music I would make a world-wide motif swell and amplify, gather to itself this theme and that, and rise at last to sheer ecstasy of triumph and rejoicing.  It should be all sound, all pride, all the hope of outsetting in the morning brightness, all the glee of unexpected happenings, all the gladness of painful effort suddenly come to its reward; it should be like blossoms new opened and the happy play of children, like tearful, happy mothers holding their first-born, like cities building to the sound of music, and great ships, all hung with flags and wine bespattered, gliding down through cheering multitudes to their first meeting with the sea.  Through it all should march Hope, confident Hope, radiant and invincible, until at last it would be the triumph march of Hope the conqueror, coming with trumpetings and banners through the wide-flung gates of the world.

And then out of that luminous haze of gladness comes Nettie, transfigured.

So she came again to me—­amazing, a thing incredibly forgotten.

She comes back, and Verrall is in her company.  She comes back into my memories now, just as she came back then, rather quaintly at first—­at first not seen very clearly, a little distorted by intervening things, seen with a doubt, as I saw her through the slightly discolored panes of crinkled glass in the window of the Menton post-office and grocer’s shop.  It was on the second day after the Change, and I had been sending telegrams for Melmount, who was making arrangements for his departure for Downing Street.  I saw the two of them at first as small, flawed figures.  The glass made them seem curved, and it enhanced and altered their gestures and paces.  I felt it became me to say “Peace” to them, and I went out, to the jangling of the door-bell.  At the sight of me they stopped short, and Verrall cried with the note of one who has sought, “Here he is!” And Nettie cried, “Willie!”

I went toward them, and all the perspectives of my reconstructed universe altered as I did so.

I seemed to see these two for the first time; how fine they were, how graceful and human.  It was as though I had never really looked at them before, and, indeed, always before I had beheld them through a mist of selfish passion.  They had shared the universal darkness and dwarfing of the former time; they shared the universal exaltation of the new.  Now suddenly Nettie, and the love of Nettie, a great passion for Nettie, lived again in me.  This change which had enlarged men’s hearts had made no end to love.  Indeed, it had enormously enlarged and glorified love.  She stepped into the center of that dream of world reconstruction that filled my mind and took possession of it all.  A little wisp of hair had blown across her cheek, her lips fell apart in that sweet smile of hers; her eyes were full of wonder, of a welcoming scrutiny, of an infinitely courageous friendliness.

I took her outstretched hand, and wonder overwhelmed me.  “I wanted to kill you,” I said simply, trying to grasp that idea.  It seemed now like stabbing the stars, or murdering the sunlight.

“Afterward we looked for you,” said Verrall; “and we could not find you. . . .  We heard another shot.”

I turned my eyes to him, and Nettie’s hand fell from me.  It was then I thought of how they had fallen together, and what it must have been to have awakened in that dawn with Nettie by one’s side.  I had a vision of them as I had glimpsed them last amidst the thickening vapors, close together, hand in hand.  The green hawks of the Change spread their darkling wings above their last stumbling paces.  So they fell.  And awoke—­lovers together in a morning of Paradise.  Who can tell how bright the sunshine was to them, how fair the flowers, how sweet the singing of the birds? . . .

This was the thought of my heart.  But my lips were saying, “When I awoke I threw my pistol away.”  Sheer blankness kept my thoughts silent for a little while; I said empty things.  “I am very glad I did not kill you—­that you are here, so fair and well. . . .”

“I am going away back to Clayton on the day after to-morrow,” I said, breaking away to explanations.  “I have been writing shorthand here for Melmount, but that is almost over now. . . .”

Neither of them said a word, and though all facts had suddenly ceased to matter anything, I went on informatively, “He is to be taken to Downing Street where there is a proper staff, so that there will be no need of me. . . .  Of course, you’re a little perplexed at my being with Melmount.  You see I met him—­by accident—­directly I recovered.  I found him with a broken ankle—­in that lane. . . .  I am to go now to the Four Towns to help prepare a report.  So that I am glad to see you both again”—­I found a catch in my voice—­“to say good-bye to you, and wish you well.”

This was after the quality of what had come into my mind when first I saw them through the grocer’s window, but it was not what I felt and thought as I said it.  I went on saying it because otherwise there would have been a gap.  It had come to me that it was going to be hard to part from Nettie.  My words sounded with an effect of unreality.  I stopped, and we stood for a moment in silence looking at one another.

It was I, I think, who was discovering most.  I was realizing for the first time how little the Change had altered in my essential nature.  I had forgotten this business of love for a time in a world of wonder.  That was all.  Nothing was lost from my nature, nothing had gone, only the power of thought and restraint had been wonderfully increased and new interests had been forced upon me.  The Green Vapors had passed, our minds were swept and garnished, but we were ourselves still, though living in a new and finer air.  My affinities were unchanged; Nettie’s personal charm for me was only quickened by the enhancement of my perceptions.  In her presence, meeting her eyes, instantly my desire, no longer frantic but sane, was awake again.

It was just like going to Checkshill in the old time, after writing about socialism. . . .

I relinquished her hand.  It was absurd to part in these terms.

So we all felt it.  We hung awkwardly over our sense of that.  It was Verrall, I think, who shaped the thought for me, and said that to-morrow then we must meet and say good-bye, and so turned our encounter into a transitory making of arrangements.  We settled we would come to the inn at Menton, all three of us, and take our midday meal together. . . .

Yes, it was clear that was all we had to say now. . . .

We parted a little awkwardly.  I went on down the village street, not looking back, surprised at myself, and infinitely perplexed.  It was as if I had discovered something overlooked that disarranged all my plans, something entirely disconcerting.  For the first time I went back preoccupied and without eagerness to Melmount’s work.  I wanted to go on thinking about Nettie; my mind had suddenly become voluminously productive concerning her and Verrall.