The Pilgrim’s Regress

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ESCHROPOLIS (#ulink_be6d4c14-71bc-5d7f-bad6-3e02f2719369)

The poetry of the Silly Twenties – The ‘Courage’ and mutual loyalty of Artists

Then I dreamed that he led John into a big room rather like a bathroom: it was full of steel and glass and the walls were nearly all window, and there was a crowd of people there, drinking what looked like medicine and talking at the tops of their voices. They were all either young, or dressed up to look as if they were young. The girls had short hair and flat breasts and flat buttocks so that they looked like boys: but the boys had pale, egg-shaped faces and slender waists and big hips so that they looked like girls – except for a few of them who had long hair and beards.

‘What are they so angry about?’ whispered John.

‘They are not angry,’ said Gus; ‘they are talking about Art.’

Then he brought John into the middle of the room and said:

‘Say! Here’s a guy who has been taken in by my father and wants some real hundred per cent music to clean him out. We had better begin with something neo-romantic to make the transition.’

Then all the Clevers consulted together and presently they all agreed that Victoriana had better sing first. When Victoriana rose John at first thought that she was a school-girl: but after he had looked at her again he perceived that she was in fact about fifty. Before she began to sing she put on a dress which was a sort of exaggerated copy of Mr Halfways’ robes, and a mask which was like the Steward’s mask except that the nose had been painted bright red and one of the eyes had been closed in a permanent wink.

‘Priceless!’ exclaimed one half of the Clevers, ‘too Puritanian.’

But the other half, which included all the bearded men, held their noses in the air and looked very stiff. Then Victoriana took a little toy harp and began. The noises of the toy harp were so strange that John could not think of them as music at all. Then, when she sang, he had a picture in his mind which was a little like the Island, but he saw at once that it was not the Island. And presently he saw people who looked rather like his father, and the Steward and old Mr Halfways, dressed up as clowns and doing a stiff sort of dance. Then there was a columbine, and some sort of love-story. But suddenly the whole Island turned into an aspidistra in a pot and the song was over.

‘Priceless,’ said the Clevers.

‘I hope you like it,’ said Gus to John.

‘Well,’ began John doubtfully, for he hardly knew what to say: but he got no further, for at that moment he had a very great surprise. Victoriana had thrown her mask away and walked up to him and slapped him in the face twice, as hard as she could.

‘That’s right,’ said the Clevers, ‘Victoriana has courage. We may not all agree with you, Vikky dear, but we admire your courage.’

‘You may persecute me as much as you like,’ said Victoriana to John. ‘No doubt to see me thus with my back to the wall, wakes the hunting lust in you. You will always follow the cry of the majority. But I will fight to the end. So there,’ and she began to cry.

‘I am extremely sorry,’ said John. ‘But –’

‘And I know it was a good song,’ sobbed Victoriana, ‘because all great singers are persecuted in their lifetime – and I’m per-persecuted – and therefore I must be a great singer.’

‘She has you there,’ said the Clevers, as Victoriana left the laboratory.

‘Well, I must admit,’ said one of the Clevers, ‘now that she has gone, that I think that stuff of hers rather vieux jeu.’