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Dodo: A Detail of the Day

<h4>CHAPTER SIXTEEN</h4> Dodo had written to Edith from Zermatt, where she was enjoying herself amazingly. Mrs. Vane was there, and Mr. and Mrs. Algernon Spencer, and Prince Waldenech and Jack. As there would have been some natural confusion in the hotel if Dodo had called herself Lady Chesterford, when Lord Chesterford was also there, she settled to be called Miss Vane. This tickled Prince Waldenech enormously; it seemed to him a capital joke. Dodo was sitting in the verandah of the hotel one afternoon, drinking black coffee and smoking cigarettes. Half the hotel were scandalised at her, and usually referred to her as "that Miss Vane"; the other half adored her, and went [on] expeditions with her, and took minor parts in her theatricals, and generally played universal second fiddle. Dodo enjoyed this sort of life. There was in her an undeveloped germ of simplicity, that found pleasure in watching the slow-footed, cows driven home from the pastures, in sitting with Jack—regardless of her assumed name—in the crocus-studded meadows, or by the side of the swirling glacier-fed stream that makes the valley melodious. She argued, with great reason, that she had already shocked all the people that were going to be shocked, so much that it didn't matter what she did; while the other contingent, who were not going to be shocked, were not going to be shocked. "Everyone must either be shocked or not shocked," she said, "and they're that already. That's why Prince Waldenech and I are going for a moonlight walk next week when the moon comes back." Dodo had made great friends with the Prince's half-sister, a Russian on her mother's side, and she was reading her extracts out of her unwritten book of the Philosophy of Life, an interesting work, which varied considerably according to Dodo's mood. Just now it suited Dodo to be in love with life. "You are a Russian by nature and sympathy, my dear Princess," she was saying, "and you are therefore in a continual state of complete boredom. You think you are bored here, because it is not Paris; in Paris you are quite as much bored with all your fêtes, and dances, and parties as you are here. I tell you frankly you are wrong. Why don't you come and sit in the grass, and look at the crocuses, and throw stones into the stream like me." The Princess stretched out a delicate arm. "I don't think I ever threw a stone in my life," she said dubiously. "Would it amuse me, do you think?" "Not at first," said Dodo; "and you will never be amused at all if you think about it." "What am I to think about then?" she asked. "You must think about the stone," said Dodo decisively, "you must think about the crocuses, you must think about the cows." "It's all so new to me," remarked the Princess. "We never think about cows in Russia." "That's just what I'm saying," said Dodo. "You must get out of yourself. Anything, does to think about, and nobody is bored unless they think about being bored. When one has the whole world to choose from, and only one subject in it that can make one feel bored, it really shows a want of resource to think about that. Then you ought to take walks and make yourself tired." The Princess cast a vague eye on the Matterhorn. "That sort of horror?" she asked. "No, you needn't begin with the Matterhorn," said Dodo, laughing. "Go to the glaciers, and get rather cold and wet. Boredom is chiefly physical." "I'm sure being cold and wet would bore me frightfully," she said. "No, no—a big no," cried Dodo. "No one is ever bored unless they are comfortable. That's the great principle. There isn't time for it. You cannot be bored and something else at the same time. Being comfortable doesn't count; that's our normal condition. But you needn't be uncomfortable in order to be bored. It's very comfortable sitting here with you, and I'm not the least bored. I should poison myself if I were bored: I can't think why you don't." "I will do anything you recommend," said the Princess placidly. "You are the only woman I know who never appears to be bored. I wonder if my husband would bore you. He is very big, and very good, and he eats a large breakfast, and looks after his serfs. He bores me to extinction. He would wear black for ten years if I poisoned myself." A shade of something passed over Dodo's face. It might have been regret, or stifled remembrance, or a sudden twinge of pain, and it lasted an appreciable fraction of a second. "I can imagine being bored with that kind of man," she said in a moment. The Princess was lying back in her chair,' and did not notice a curious hardness in Dodo's voice. "I should so-like to introduce you to him," said she. "I should like to shut you up with him for a month at our place on the Volga. It snows a good deal there, and he goes out in the snow and shoots animals, and comes back in the evening with a red face, and tells me all about it. It is very entertaining, but a trifle monotonous. He does not know English, nor German, nor French. He laughs very loud. He is devoted to me. Do go and stay with him. I think I'll join you when you've been there three weeks. He is quite safe. I shall not be afraid. He writes to me every day, and suggests that he should join me here." Dodo shifted her position and looked up at the Matterhorn. "Yes," she said. "I should certainly be bored with him, but I'm not sure that I would show it." "He wouldn't like you at all," continued the Princess. "He would think you loud. That is so odd. He thinks it unfeminine to smoke. He has great ideas about the position of women. He gave me a book of private devotions bound in the parchment from a bear he had shot on my last birthday." Dodo laughed. "I'm sure you need not be bored with him," she said. "He must have a strong vein of unconscious humour about him." "I'm quite unconscious of it," said the Princess. "You cannot form the slightest idea of what he's like till you see him. I almost feel inclined to tell him to come here." "Ah, but you Russian women have such liberty," said Dodo. "You can tell your husband not to expect to see you again for three months. We can't do that. An English husband and wife are like two Siamese twins. Until about ten years ago they used to enter the drawing-room, when they were going out to dinner, arm-in-arm." "That's very bourgeois," said the Princess. "You are rather a bourgeois race. You are very hearty, and pleased to see one, and all that. There's Lord Chesterford. You're a great friend of his, aren't you? He looks very distinguished. I should say he was usually bored." "He was my husband's first cousin," said Dodo. Princess Alexandrina of course knew that Miss Vane was a widow. "I was always an old friend of his—as long as I can remember, that's to say. Jack and I are going up towards the Eiffel to watch the sunset. Come with us." "I think I'll see the sunset from here," she said. "You're going up a hill, I suppose?" "Oh, but you can't see it from here," said Dodo. "That great mass of mountain is in the way." The Princess considered. "I don't think I want to see the sunset after all," she said. "I've just found the Kreutzer Sonata. I've been rural enough for one day, and I want a breath of civilised air. Do you know, I never feel bored when you are talking to me." "Oh, that's part of my charm, isn't it?" said Dodo to Jack, who had lounged up to where they were sitting. "Dodo's been lecturing me, Lord Chesterford," said the Princess. "Does she ever lecture you?" "She gave me quite a long lecture once," said he. "She recommended me to live in a cathedral town." "A cathedral town," said the Princess. "That's something fearful, isn't it? Why did you tell him to do that?" she said. "I think it was a mistake," said Dodo. "Anyhow, Jack didn't take my advice. I shouldn't recommend him to do it now, but he has a perfect genius for being domestic. Everyone is very domestic in cathedral towns. They all dine at seven and breakfast at a quarter past eight—next morning, you understand. That quarter past is delightful. But Jack said he didn't want to score small successes," she added, employing a figure grammatically known as "hiatus." "My husband is very domestic," said the Princess. "But he isn't a bit like Lord Chesterford. He would like to live with me in a little house in the country, and never have anyone to stay with us. That would be so cheerful during the winter months." "Jack, would you like to live with your wife in a little house in the country?" demanded Dodo. "I don't think I should ever marry a woman who wanted to," remarked Jack, meeting Dodo's glance. "Imagine two people really liking each other better than all the rest of the world," said the Princess, "and living on milk, and love, and wild roses, and fresh eggs! I can't bear fresh eggs." "My egg this morning wasn't at all fresh," said Dodo. "I wish I'd thought of sending it to your room." "Would you never get tired of your wife, don't you think," continued the Princess, "if you shut yourselves up in the country? Supposing she wished to pick roses when you wanted to play lawn tennis?" "Oh, Jack, it wouldn't do," said Dodo. "You'd make her play lawn tennis." "My husband and I never thought of playing lawn tennis," said the Princess. "I shall try that when we meet next. It's very amusing, isn't it?" "It makes you die of laughing," said Dodo, solemnly. "Come, Jack, we're going to see the sunset. Good-bye, dear. Go and play with your maid. She can go out of the room while you think of something, and then come in and guess what you've thought of." Jack and Dodo strolled up through the sweet-smelling meadows towards the Riffelberg. A cool breeze was streaming down from the "furrow cloven alls" of the glacier, heavy with the clean smell of pine woods and summer flowers, and thick with a hundred mingling sounds. The cows were being driven homewards, and the faint sounds of bells were carried down to them from the green heights above. Now and then they passed a herd of goats, still nibbling anxiously at the wayside grass, followed by some small ragged shepherd, who brushed his long hair away from his eyes to get a better look at this dazzling, fair-skinned woman, who evidently belonged to quite another order of beings from his wrinkled, early-old mother. One of them held out to Dodo a wilted little bunch of flowers, crumpled with much handling, but she did not seem to notice him. After they had passed he tossed them away, and ran off after his straying flock. Southwards, high above them, stretched the long lines of snow spread out under the feet of the Matterhorn, which sat like some huge sphinx, unapproachable, remote. Just below lay the village, sleeping in the last rays of the sun, which shone warmly on the red, weathered planks. Light blue smoke curled slowly up from the shingled roofs, and streamed gently down the valley in a thin, transparent haze. "Decidedly, it's a very nice world," said Dodo. "I'm so glad I wasn't born a Russian. The Princess never enjoys anything at all, except telling one how bored she is. But she's very amusing, and I gave her a great deal of good advice." "What have you been telling her to do," asked Jack. "Oh, anything. I recommended her to sit in the meadows, and throw stones and get her feet wet. It's not affectation at all in her, she really is hopelessly bored. It's as easy for her to be bored as for me not to be. Jack, what will you do to me if I get bored when we're married?" "I shall tell you to throw stones," said he. "As long as you don't look at me reproachfully," said Dodo, "I sha'n't mind. Oh, look at the Matterhorn. Isn't it big?" "I don't like it," said Jack; "it always looks as if it was taking notice, and reflecting how dreadfully small one is." "I used to think Vivy was like that," said Dodo. "She was very good to me once or twice. I wonder what I shall be like when I'm middle-aged. I can't bear the thought of getting old, but that won't stop it. I don't want to sit by the fire and purr. I don't think I could do it." "One won't get old all of a sudden, though," said Jack; "that's a great consideration. The change will come so gradually that one won't know it." "Ah, don't," said Dodo quickly. "It's like dying by inches, losing hold of life gradually. It won't come to me like that. I shall wake up some morning and find I'm not young any more." "Well, it won't come yet," said Jack with sympathy. "Well, I'm not going to bother my head about it," said Dodo, "there isn't time. There's Maud and her little Spencer. He's a dear little man, and he ought to be put in a band-box with some pink cotton-wool, and taken out every Sunday morning." Dodo whistled shrilly on her fingers to attract their attention. Mr. Spencer had been gathering flowers and putting them into a neat, little tin box, which he slung over his shoulders. He was dressed in a Norfolk jacket carefully buttoned round his waist, with knickerbockers and blue worsted stockings. He wore a small blue ribbon in his top button-hole, and a soft felt hat. He carried his flowers home in the evening, and always remembered to press them before he went to bed. He and Maud were sitting on a large grey rock by the wayside, reading the Psalms for the seventeenth evening of the month. Dodo surveyed her critically, and laid herself out to be agreeable. "Well, Algy," she said, "how are the flowers going on? Oh, what a sweet little gentian. Where did you get it? We're going to have some theatricals this evening, and you must come. It's going to be a charade, and you'll have to guess the word afterwards. Jack and I are going to look at the sunset. We shall be late for dinner. What's that book, Maud?" "We were reading the Psalms for the evening," said Maud. "Oh, how dear of you!" said Dodo. "What a lovely church this makes. Algy, why don't you have service out of doors at Gloucester? I always feel so much more devotional on fine evenings out in the open air. I think that's charming. Good-bye. Jack and I must go on." Dodo was a good walker, and they were soon among the pines that climb up the long steep slope to the Eiffel. Their steps were silent on the carpet of needles, and they walked on, not talking much, but each intensely conscious of the presence of the other. At a corner high up on the slope they stopped, for the great range in front of them had risen above the hills on the other side of the valley, and all the snow was flushed with the sunset. Dodo laid her hand on Jack's. "How odd it is that you and I should be here together, and like this," she said. "I often used to wonder years ago whether this would happen. Jack, you will make me very happy? Promise me that." And Jack promised. "I often think of Chesterford," Dodo went on. "He wished for this, you know. He told me so as he was dying. Did you ever know, Jack—" even Dodo found it hard to get on at this moment—"did you ever know—he knew all? I began to tell him, and he stopped me, saying he knew." Jack's face was grave. "He told me he knew," he said; "at least, I saw he did. I never felt so much ashamed. It was my fault. I would have given a great deal to save him that knowledge." "God forgive me if I was cruel to him," said Dodo. "But, oh, Jack, I did try. I was mad that night I think." "Don't talk of it," said he suddenly; "it was horrible; it was shameful." They were silent a moment. Then Jack said,— "Dodo, let us bury the thought of that for ever. There are some memories which are sacred to me. The memory of Chesterford is one. He was very faithful, and he was very unhappy. I feel as if I was striking his dead body when you speak of it. Requiescat." They rose and went down to the hotel; the sun had set, and it grew suddenly cold. The theatricals that night were a great success. Dodo was simply inimitable. Two maiden ladies left the hotel the next morning. <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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