This Is the End by Stella Benson (best novels of all time .TXT) 📕

would write something very nice upon his memorial brass about a pure heart or everlasting life, and he thought you would smile a little at that. He said that he remembered going home with you in a 'bus and seeing on the window of the 'bus a text that promised everlasting life on certain conditions. He said the remembrance of that text tired him still. He said he had had too much of himself, he had known himself too well, and when death came, he wanted it to be an honest little death with no frills, and after that an everlasting sleep with no dreams. I am putting it all in the wrong order. I shall make you despise me. You talk so well yourself."

Jay was remembering the "Coos" they used to have in the big armchair in the nursery. When they found that they suddenly loved each other unbearably, they had a Coo, they tied themselves up in a little tangle together, and sang Coo in soft voices. And then they felt relieved. Jay remembered the last Coo. It happened when Kew's voice was breaking ten years ago, and he found that he could no longer coo except in a funny falsetto. So, rather than become farcical, the Coos ceased.

"I don't know quite why Kew wanted me to tell you all this," said Mr. Morgan, "except that he said you knew so much about him that you might as well get as near as possible to knowing everything. He never thought he would be killed, in fact I gave him a lot of messages of my own to give to my mother in case I went. But at the last, when he knew he was dying, he was desperately anxious you should know that he did not die a 'Stranger's death,' as he said. He thought any hint of drama about his death would spoil your friendship. He said you knew more than most people about friends, and he thought that in this way you could find for him a certain 'secret immortality' which would make the soil of France comfier for him to sleep in. And then he said, 'If I'm too poetic--like a swan--don't report me too accurately.' He seemed to go to sleep for some time after that, and every now and then he laughed very faintly in his sleep. I had to leave him for a bit, and when I came back he was still asleep. The only thing he said after that was: 'This is awfully exciting.' He said that about ten minutes before he died. I hope I'm not making it too painful for you, dear little Jay.'"

"No," said Jay. Quite irrelevantly, she had found her Secret Friend. She found a little dark wood, burnt and broken by fire, in a grey light, and there was a wet ditch that skirted the edge of it. She saw the hopeless and regretful sky, there was neither night nor morning in it, there was neither sun nor moon. These things she noticed, but more than all she saw her Secret Friend, lying crouched upon his side close to the ditch, with his arms about his face. She saw the slow leaves fall upon him from the ruined trees, she saw the damp air settle in beads upon his clothes. His feet were in the undergrowth, and above them the dripping net of the spider was flung. She had never seen her Friend quite still before. All her life her Secret Friend and her Secret Sea had kept her soul awake with movement. But her Friend was dead, and there was no more sea. The very fine rain blew across her Secret World, and blotted it out. The very distant sound of guns--which was not so much a sound as an indescribable vacuum of sound--shattered the walls of her bubble enchantment.

"Oh, darling Jay," said Mr. William Morgan, "I wish I could help you. I can't go away and leave you like this. I wish I could help you."

She found she had her forehead on the table, and her hands were knotted in her lap. And where once the Gate to the House had been, there was only London now. No more would the drum of the sea beat in her heart, there was nothing left but the throbbing of distant trams.

"So it's all lies ..." she said quietly. "There really is a thing called death after all. People die...."

"Jay, darling, don't," sobbed Mr. Morgan. "For God's sake marry me, and I'll comfort you. I won't die--I swear I won't. And after all, it's Spring. There's no real death in the Spring. Kew can't have died."

"Oh, what's the use of these eternal seasons?" said Jay. "There is a thing called death. And death has no romance and no reason. The rats died, and Kew died, and the secret world died, and there is nothing left...."

It was young David, lord of sheep and cattle,
Pursued his Fate, the April fields among,
Singing a song of solitary battle,
A loud mad song, for he was very young.

Vivid the air--and something more than vivid,--
Tall clouds were in the sky--and something more,--
The light horizon of the spring was livid
With a steel smile that showed the teeth of War.

It was young David mocked the Philistine.
It was young David laughed beside the river.
There came his mother--his and yours and mine--
With five smooth stones, and dropped them in his quiver.

You never saw so green-and-gold a fairy.
You never saw such very April eyes.
She sang him sorrow's song to make him wary,
She gave him five smooth stones to make him wise.

The first stone is love, and that shall fail you.
The second stone is hate, and that shall fail you.
The third stone is knowledge, and that shall fail you.
The fourth stone is prayer, and that shall fail you.
The fifth stone shall not fail you.

For what is love, O lovers of my tribe?
And what is love, O women of my day?
Love is a farthing piece, a bloody bribe
Pressed in the palm of God, and thrown away.

And what is hate, O fierce and unforgiving?
And what shall hate achieve, when all is said?
A silly joke, that cannot reach the living,
A spitting in the faces of the dead.

And what is knowledge, O young men who tasted
The reddest fruit on that forbidden tree?
Knowledge is but a painful effort wasted,
A bitter drowning in a bitter sea.

And what is prayer, O waiters for the answer?
And what is prayer, O seekers of the cause?
Prayer is the weary soul of Herod's dancer,
Dancing before blind kings without applause.

The fifth stone is a magic stone, my David,
Made up of fear and failure, lies and loss.
Its heart is lead, and on its face is graved
A crooked cross, my son, a crooked cross.

It has no dignity to lend it value;
No purity--alas--it bears a stain.
You shall not give it gratitude, nor shall you
Recall it all your days except with pain.

Oh, bless your blindness, glory in your groping!
Mock at your betters with an upward chin!
And, when the moment has gone by for hoping,
Sling your fifth stone, O son of mine, and win.

Grief do I give you--grief and dreadful laughter.
Sackcloth for banner, ashes in your wine.
Go forth, go forth, nor ask me what comes after.
The fifth stone shall not fail you, son of mine.

GO FORTH, GO FORTH, AND SLAY THE PHILISTINE!

There were a few very warm days and nights in the west last spring. It was at the time of the full moon.

There were so few clouds in the sky that when the sun went down it found no canvas on which to paint its picture. So it went down unpictured into a bank of grey heat that hid the horizon of the sea, and no one thought it worth watching except a man coming alone along the cliff from the northeast. The moon came up and filled the quarry with ghosts, and with confused and blinded memories. The sea advanced in armies of great smooth waves, but under the moon the wind went down, and the waves went down, and there was less and less sound in the air.

One man watched the dwindling waves troop into the cove near the quarry. There was only one pair of eyes in the whole world that tried that night to trace in the air the shape of a drowned house. There was only one shadow by the quarry for the moon to cast upon the thyme. There was no voice but the voice of the sea. No passing but the peaceful passing of the lambs disturbed the thistles and the foxgloves.

The sea rose like a wall across the night, a wall that shut half of life away. The sky fell like a curtain on the land, but there was no piece to be played, so the curtain was never raised.

One man waited all the night through, like a child waiting for the fairies. The sea grew calmer and calmer, the tide went down, and the cove spread out its long sands like fingers into the sea. There was a shadow on the sands below the quarry, and it may have been the shadow of a house. And perhaps when the tide came up at dawn it devoured old footprints upon the shore, the prints of feet that will never come back. I think that when the moon fled away into oblivion, it was not only the moon that fled, but also a bubble world, full of dead secrets.

How foolish to wait for the culmination of a secret story! How foolish of a man to wait all night for the redemption of an old promise, for the resurrection of a forgotten romance! There are no secret stories, there is no secret world, there are no secret friends. The House by the Sea has been drowned, and even its ghosts have forgotten it. After all, there was nothing to remember. The gate to the House is barred, not by a lock but by a laugh. Reality and not adversity has blown the bubble away.

I remember the moment when Jay found four-fifths of her life proved false. I remember that she besieged the world with tears; I remember that she bruised her hands against the iron gate. How foolish to bruise one's hands against nothingness!


ANTI-CLIMAX

"It is well," sighed Anonyma, "that our little Jay has at last found Romance. Since first she came to my arms--a toddling sceptic of four--I have seen what she lacked, I have prayed that I--who possessed it--might perhaps be inspired to give her the Clue.... Yet to young Bill Morgan it was given to show her the way ... to unlock the door.... Oh! Russ, we grow older and wiser and are left behind. The young reap where we have sown.... Is this always to be the end of our youth?"

Mr. Russell laughed a little. "Yes," he said. "This is the end."

The finest fruit God ever made
Hangs from the Tree of Heaven blue.
It hangs above the steel sea blade
That cuts the world's great globe in two.

The keenest eye that ever saw
Stares out of Heaven into mine,
Spins out my heart, and seems to draw
My soul's elastic very fine.

The greatest