“Was für ein Atavismus! That was what my old German governess always used to say about me. She was right, I think. I am a bit of an Atavismus.”
Rampion laughed. “It sounds ridiculous in German. But it isn’t at all absurd in itself. An atavismus—that’s what we all ought to be. Atavismuses with all modern conveniences. Intelligent primitives. Big game with a soul.”
It was a wet, cold summer. On the morning of the day fixed for their next meeting Mary received a letter from him. “Dear Miss Felpham,” she read, and this first sight of his handwriting gave her a strange pleasure. “I’ve idiotically gone and caught a chill. Will you be more forgiving than I am—for I can’t tell you how inexpressibly disgusted and angry I am with myself—and excuse me for putting you off till today week?”
He looked pale and thin when she next saw him, and was still troubled by a cough. When she enquired about his health he cut her short almost with anger. “I’m quite all right,” he said sharply, and changed the subject.
“I’ve been rereading Blake,” he said. And he began to speak about the Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
“Blake was civilized,” he insisted, “civilized. Civilization is harmony and completeness. Reason, feeling, instinct, the life of the body—Blake managed to include and harmonize everything. Barbarism is being lopsided. You can be a barbarian of the intellect as well as of the body. A barbarian of the soul and the feelings as well as of sensuality. Christianity made us barbarians of the soul and now science is making us barbarians of the intellect. Blake was the last civilized man.”
He spoke of the Greeks and those naked sunburnt Etruscans in the sepulchral wall paintings. “You’ve seen the originals?” he said. “My word, I envy you.”
Mary felt terribly ashamed. She had seen the painted tombs at Tarquinia; but how little she remembered of them! They had just been curious old works of art like all those other innumerable old works of art she had dutifully seen in company with her mother on their Italian journey the year before. They had really been wasted on her. Whereas, if he could have afforded to go to Italy …
“They were civilized,” he was saying, “they knew how to live harmoniously and completely, with their whole being.” He spoke with a kind of passion, as though he were angry—with the world, with himself, perhaps. “We’re all barbarians,” he began, but was interrupted by a violent fit of coughing. Mary waited for the paroxysm to subside. She felt anxious and at the same time embarrassed and ashamed, as one feels when one has come upon a man off his guard and displaying a weakness which at ordinary times he is at pains to conceal. She wondered whether she ought to say something sympathetic about the cough, or pretend that she hadn’t noticed it. He solved her problem by referring to it himself.
“Talk of barbarism,” he said when the fit was over. He spoke in a tone of disgust, his smile was wry and angry. “Have you ever heard anything more barbarous than that cough? A cough like that wouldn’t be allowed in a civilized society.”
Mary proffered solicitude and advice. He laughed impatiently.
“My mother’s very words,” he said. “Word for word. You women are all the same. Clucking like hens after their chickens.”
“But think how miserable you’d be if we didn’t cluck!”
A few days later—with some misgivings—he took her to see his mother. The misgivings were groundless; Mary and Mrs. Rampion seemed to find no difficulties in making spiritual contact. Mrs. Rampion was a woman of about fifty, still handsome and with an expression on her face of calm dignity and resignation. Her speech was slow and quiet. Only once did Mary see her manner change and that was when, Mark being out of the room preparing the tea, she began to talk about her son.
“What do you think of him?” she asked, leaning forward toward her guest with a sudden brightening of the eyes.
“What do I think?” Mary laughed. “I’m not impertinent enough to set up as a judge of my betters. But he’s obviously somebody, somebody that matters.”
Mrs. Rampion nodded, smiling with pleasure. “He’s somebody,” she repeated. “That’s what I’ve always said.” Her face became grave. “If only he were stronger! If I could only have afforded to bring him up better. He was always delicate. He ought to have been brought up more carefully than I could do. No, not more carefully. I was as careful as I could be. More comfortably, more healthily. But there, I couldn’t afford it.” She shook her head. “There you are.” She gave a little sigh and, leaning back in her chair, sat there in silence, with folded arms, looking at the floor.
Mary made no comment; she did not know what to say. Once more she felt ashamed, miserable and ashamed.
“What did you think of my mother?” Rampion asked later when he was escorting her home.
“I liked her,” Mary answered. “Very much indeed. Even though she did make me feel so small and petty and bad. Which is another way of saying that I admired her, and liked her because of my admiration.”
Rampion nodded. “She is admirable,” he said. “She’s courageous and strong and enduring. But she’s too resigned.”
“But I thought that was one of the wonderful things about her.”
“She has no right to be resigned,” he answered, frowning. “No right. When you’ve had a life like hers you oughtn’t to be resigned. You ought to be rebellious. It’s this damned religion. Did I tell you she was religious?”
“No; but I guessed it when I saw her,” Mary answered.
“She’s a barbarian of the soul,” he went on. “All soul and future. No present, no past, no body, no intellect. Only the soul and the future and in the meantime resignation. Could anything be more barbarous? She ought to rebel.”
“I should leave her as she is,”
