The Divine Fire

site the plane-trees. The plane-tree was half-withdrawn into the night, but the balcony hu

had been once an ordinary Bloomsbury drawing-room, the d

n easy chair by itself. Poppy's hat on the grand piano, tumbling head over heels among a litter of coffee cups. On the tea-table a pair of shoes that could have belonged to nobody but Poppy, they were so diminutive. In the waste paper basket a bouquet that must have been Poppy's too, it was so e

cene into the back room beyond,

ddressed him as "Rickets," and invited him under

ooked on as in a dream. And when Poppy had finished she came and sat by him on the cl

little lonely over there

cks that delighted Mr. Pilkington and other gentlemen of her acquaintance. She merely sat on the table. She was in her ballet-dress, and before sitting on the table she arranged her red skirts over her black legs with a prodigious air of propriety

the front room, behind his yellow gauze curtain, Poppy's canary woke out of hi

py, "it's time you we

in movements of Poppy's fingers and the tip of h

look out for danger signals in the eyes of boys, for Poppy, according to those lights of hers, was honest. If she knew the secret of the world, she would not have told it to Ricky-ticky; he was much t

quarter to twelve. Did I wak

Rickets, which made it all quite proper

ck." And by way of softening this ann

curious phenomenon. Though Poppy was, for her, most unusually statio

it, anticipating with ecstasy each stage in the mounting of the illusion. For when he was sober he saw Poppy very much as she was; but when he was drunk she became for him a being immaculate, divine. He moved in a region of gross but glorious exaggeration, where his wretched l

up. In another

no use drinking it, for that thirst of his was unquenchable; but he drank, for the sake of the illusion; and as he drank it seemed to him that no

of hospitality, but it struck her that she was

drink a drop more it would spoil my li

nd led the way into the front room. He followed her with ench

Poppy sat on the top of the bear. Such a disreputable, out-of-elbow, cosmopolitan bear! His little eye-hole

uze curtain the canary stirred in his sleep. "

d nothing to say she began to sing. She sang the so

night our li

es, and, 'Sal,'

ledge,'ser 'e,

ye

z

I 'ope

e 'is bloomin'

ould 'ave 'eard

kids-the-night

style of beauty. You should have heard Simpey sing

an looked

down from his perch and stretched his wings, trailing the

aid Poppy, "look at him, striking atti

the idea of the canary

ckets, it's past

pulled himself together in order to tell her so; but at that moment he was confronted by an insuperable difficulty. In the tender and passionate speech that he was about to make to her, it would be necessary to ad

tinction between the corruptible and the incorruptible Eros. From time to time he chan

ost unmistakably. I know it isn't very nice of me to say so, when it's my fizz you've b

l, soaring on wings of champagne, was

s) "that the Love whic

t with seasons

od with light i

loweth none hav

hom he will, a

whom he hims

ect service a

s lowliest mi

uld have said he had a pretty good opin

one pure, penetrating note,

ried away in the triumph and rapture of the sestette. His steps marked the beat of the iambics, h

hath paced Heave

th the Seraphi

gs are plumed w

that bear him

veils his ho

of his own d

ed. It struck her as odd that he seemed

I ever heard anythin

don' think he wants it at all where he is now. If he does, he can take any of mine in exchange. You bear me out, Poppy-

d chappy," said Poppy soothingl

He sat down carefully, tenderly, lest he should crush so much as the h

such reverence and admiration; "Pop-oppy," he said, "you're fit t

Poppy, "can't yo

ppy's little body, what held him, at the moment, were the fascinations of her mind, and the positively gorgeous

"that tykes the ve

t, then with her whole body, shaking her head and rocking herself backwards and forwards. She laughed till her hair

d shrink to a thin sharp bud. It closed and opened again, it grew nearer and bigger, it bent

ock," said she. "You've got

again. She laughed wide-mouthed, her head flung back, her face foreshortened, her white throat

the world went to make up the petals of that rose. Her body was nothing but a shining, transparent vessel for the fire of life. It ran over; it leapt fr

coloured, and it always kept its mouth shut. This person's face was very red, and his mouth was slightly open, a detail he noticed with a peculiar disgust. He could not get away from it, either. It was held there, illuminated, insisted on, repeated for ever and ever, smaller and smaller, an endless pr

tly. She drew his hands from h

pose that's why I like you. But for the life of me I can'

had been valedictory. She had kissed, not Ricky-ticky, but his dyi

his head under his wing and gone to sleep again. Out of

he had n