They arrived at a large block of buildings, went up in a lift, and presently a door was being opened for them by a Hindu. Gerald looked in surprise, wondering if he were a gentleman, one of the Hindus down from Oxford, perhaps. But no, he was the manservant.
'Make tea, Hasan,' said Halliday.
'There is a room for me?' said Birkin.
To both of which questions the man grinned, and murmured.
He made Gerald uncertain, because, being tall and slender and reticent, he looked like a gentleman.
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'Who is your servant?' he asked of Halliday. 'He looks a swell.'
'Oh yes--that's because he's dressed in another man's clothes. He's anything but a swell, really. We found him in the road, starving. So I took him here, and another man gave him clothes. He's anything but what he seems to be--his only advantage is that he can't speak English and can't understand it, so he's perfectly safe.'
'He's very dirty,' said the young Russian swiftly and silently. Directly, the man appeared in the doorway.
'What is it?' said Halliday.
The Hindu grinned, and murmured shyly:
'Want to speak to master.'
Gerald watched curiously. The fellow in the doorway was goodlooking and clean-limbed, his bearing was calm, he looked elegant, aristocratic. Yet he was half a savage, grinning foolishly. Halliday went out into the corridor to speak with him.
'What?' they heard his voice. 'What? What do you say? Tell me again. What? Want money? Want MORE money? But what do you want money for?' There was the confused sound of the Hindu's talking, then Halliday appeared in the room, smiling also foolishly, and saying:
'He says he wants money to buy underclothing. Can anybody lend me a shilling? Oh thanks, a shilling will do to buy all the underclothes he wants.' He took the money from Gerald and went out into the passage again, where they heard him saying, 'You can't want more money, you had three and six yesterday. You mustn't ask for any more. Bring the tea in quickly.'
Gerald looked round the room. It was an ordinary London sitting-room in a flat, evidently taken furnished, rather common and ugly. But there were several negro statues, wood-carvings from West Africa, strange and disturbing, the carved negroes looked almost like the foetus of a human being. One was a woman sitting naked in a strange posture, and looking tortured, her abdomen stuck out.
The young Russian explained that she was sitting in child-birth, clutching the ends of the band that hung from her neck, one in each hand, so that she could bear down, and help labour. The strange, transfixed, rudimentary face of the woman again reminded Gerald of a foetus, it was also rather wonderful, conveying the suggestion of the extreme of physical sensation, beyond the limits of mental consciousness.
'Aren't they rather obscene?' he asked, disapproving.
'I don't know,' murmured the other rapidly. 'I have never defined the obscene. I think they are very good.'
Gerald turned away. There were one or two new pictures in the room, in the Futurist manner; there was a large piano. And these, with some ordinary London lodging-house furniture of the better sort, completed the whole.
The Pussum had taken off her hat and coat, and was seated on the sofa. She was evidently quite at home in the house, but uncertain, suspended. She did not quite know her position. Her alliance for the time being was with Gerald, and she did not know how far this was admitted by any of the men. She was considering how she should carry off the situation. She was determined to have her experience. Now, at this eleventh hour, she was not to be baulked. Her face was flushed as with battle, her eye was brooding but inevitable.
The man came in with tea and a bottle of Kummel. He set the tray on a little table before the couch.
'Pussum,' said Halliday, 'pour out the tea.' She did not move.
'Won't you do it?' Halliday repeated, in a state of nervous apprehension.
'I've not come back here as it was before,' she said. 'I only came because the others wanted me to, not for your sake.'
'My dear Pussum, you know you are your own mistress. I don't want you to do anything but use the flat for your own convenience--
44
you know it, I've told you so many times.'
She did not reply, but silently, reservedly reached for the tea-pot. They all sat round and drank tea. Gerald could feel the electric connection between him and her so strongly, as she sat there quiet and withheld, that another set of conditions altogether had come to pass. Her silence and her immutability perplexed him. HOW was he going to come to her? And yet he felt it quite inevitable. He trusted completely to the current that held them. His perplexity was only superficial, new conditions reigned, the old were surpassed; here one did as one was possessed to do, no matter what it was.
Birkin rose. It was nearly one o'clock.
'I'm going to bed,' he said. 'Gerald, I'll ring you up in the morning at your place or you ring me up here.'
'Right,' said Gerald, and Birkin went out.
When he was well gone, Halliday said in a stimulated voice, to Gerald:
'I say, won't you stay here--oh do!'
'You can't put everybody up,' said Gerald.
'Oh but I can, perfectly--there are three more beds besides mine--do stay, won't you. Everything is quite ready--there is always somebody here--I always put people up--I love having the house crowded.'
'But there are only two rooms,' said the Pussum, in a cold, hostile voice, 'now Rupert's here.'
'I know there are only two rooms,' said Halliday, in his odd, high way of speaking. 'But what does that matter?' He was smiling rather foolishly, and he spoke eagerly, with an insinuating determination.
'Julius and I will share one room,' said the Russian in his discreet, precise voice. Halliday and he were friends since Eton.
'It's very simple,' said Gerald, rising and pressing back his arms, stretching himself. Then he went again to look at one of the pictures.
Every one of his limbs was turgid with electric force, and his back was tense like a tiger's, with slumbering fire. He was very proud.
The Pussum rose. She gave a black look at Halliday, black and deadly, which brought the rather foolishly pleased smile to that young man's face. Then she went out of the room, with a cold good-night to them all generally.
There was a brief interval, they heard a door close, then Maxim said, in his refined voice:
'That's all right.'
He looked significantly at Gerald, and said again, with a silent nod:
'That's all right--you're all right.'
Gerald looked at the smooth, ruddy, comely face, and at the strange, significant eyes, and it seemed as if the voice of the young Russian, so small and perfect, sounded in the blood rather than in the air.
'I'M all right then,' said Gerald.
'Yes! Yes! You're all right,' said the Russian. Halliday continued to smile, and to say nothing.
Suddenly the Pussum appeared again in the door, her small, childish face looking sullen and vindictive.
'I know you want to catch me out,' came her cold, rather resonant voice. 'But I don't care, I don't care how much you catch me out.'