A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook
Title: The Captain's Doll (1923)
Author: D. H. Lawrence
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Language: English
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A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook
Title: The Captain's Doll (1923)
Author: D. H. Lawrence
I
'Hannele!'
'Ja--a.'
'Wo bist du?'
'Hier.'
'Wo dann?'
Hannele did not lift her head from her work. She sat in a low
chair under a reading-lamp, a basket of coloured silk pieces beside
her, and in her hands a doll, or mannikin, which she was dressing.
She was doing something to the knee of the mannikin, so that the
poor little gentleman flourished head downwards with arms wildly
tossed out. And it was not at all seemly, because the doll was a
Scotch soldier in tight-fitting tartan trews.
There was a tap at the door, and the same voice, a woman's,
calling:
'Hannele?'
'Ja--a!'
'Are you here? Are you alone?' asked the voice in German.
'Yes--come in.'
Hannele did not sound very encouraging. She turned round her doll
as the door opened, and straightened his coat. A dark-eyed young
woman peeped in through the door, with a roguish coyness. She was
dressed fashionably for the street, in a thick cape-wrap, and a
little black hat pulled down to her ears.
'Quite, quite alone!' said the newcomer, in a tone of wonder.
'Where is he, then?'
'That I don't know,' said Hannele.
'And you sit here alone and wait for him? But no! That I call
courage! Aren't you afraid?' Mitchka strolled across to her
friend.
'Why shall I be afraid?' said Hannele curtly.
'But no! And what are you doing? Another puppet! He is a good
one, though! Ha--ha--ha! HIM! It is him! No--no--that is too
beautiful! No--that is too beautiful, Hannele. It is him--exactly
him. Only the trousers.'
'He wears those trousers too,' said Hannele, standing her doll on
her knee. It was a perfect portrait of an officer of a Scottish
regiment, slender, delicately made, with a slight, elegant stoop of
the shoulders and close-fitting tartan trousers. The face was
beautifully modelled, and a wonderful portrait, dark-skinned, with
a little, close-cut, dark moustache, and wide-open dark eyes, and
that air of aloofness and perfect diffidence which marks an officer
and a gentleman.
Mitchka bent forward, studying the doll. She was a handsome woman
with a warm, dark golden skin and clear black eyebrows over her
russet-brown eyes.
'No,' she whispered to herself, as if awe-struck. 'That is him.
That is him. Only not the trousers. Beautiful, though, the
trousers. Has he really such beautiful fine legs?'
'Exactly him. Just as finished as he is. Just as complete. He is
just like that: finished off. Has he seen it?'
'No,' said Hannele.
'What will he say, then?' She started. Her quick ear had caught a
sound on the stone stairs. A look of fear came to her face. She
flew to the door and out of the room, closing the door to behind
her.
'Who is it?' her voice was heard calling anxiously down the stairs.
The answer came in German. Mitchka immediately opened the door
again and came back to join Hannele.
'Only Martin,' she said.
She stood waiting. A man appeared in the doorway--erect, military.
'Ah! Countess Hannele,' he said in his quick, precise way, as he
stood on the threshold in the distance. 'May one come in?'
'Yes, come in,' said Hannele.
The man entered with a quick, military step, bowed, and kissed the
hand of the woman who was sewing the doll. Then, much more
intimately, he touched Mitchka's hands with his lips.
Mitchka meanwhile was glancing round the room. It was a very large
attic, with the ceiling sloping and then bending in two handsome
movements towards the walls. The light from the dark-shaded
reading-lamp fell softly on the huge whitewashed vaulting of the
ceiling, on the various objects round the walls, and made a
brilliant pool of colour where Hannele sat in her soft, red dress,
with her basket of silks.
She was a fair woman with dark-blond hair and a beautiful fine
skin. Her face seemed luminous, a certain quick gleam of life
about it as she looked up at the man. He was handsome, clean-
shaven, with very blue eyes strained a little too wide. One could
see the war in his face.
Mitchka was wandering round the room, looking at everything, and
saying: 'Beautiful! But beautiful! Such good taste! A man, and
such good taste! No, they don't need a woman. No, look here,
Martin, the Captain Hepburn has arranged all this room himself.
Here you have the man. Do you see? So simple, yet so elegant. He
needs a woman.'
The room was really beautiful, spacious, pale, soft-lighted. It
was heated by a large stove of dark-blue tiles, and had very little
furniture save large peasant cupboards or presses of painted wood,
and a huge writing-table, on which were writing materials and some
scientific apparatus and a cactus plant with fine scarlet blossoms.
But it was a man's room. Tobacco and pipes were on a little tray,
on the pegs in the distance hung military overcoats and belts, and
two guns on a bracket. Then there were two telescopes, one mounted
on a stand near a window. Various astronomical apparatus lay upon
the table.
'And he reads the stars.
Only think--he is an astronomer and reads
the stars. Queer, queer people, the English!'
'He is Scottish,' said Hannele.
'Yes, Scottish,' said Mitchka. 'But, you know, I am afraid when I
am with him. He is at a closed end. I don't know where I can get
to with him. Are you afraid of him too, Hannele? Ach, like a
closed road!'
'Why should I be?'
'Ah, you! Perhaps you don't know when you should be afraid. But
if he were to come and find us here? No, no--let us go. Let us
go, Martin. Come, let us go. I don't want the Captain Hepburn to
come and find me in his room. Oh no!' Mitchka was busily pushing
Martin to the door, and he was laughing with the queer, mad laugh
in his strained eyes. 'Oh no! I don't like. I don't like it,'
said Mitchka, trying her English now. She spoke a few sentences
prettily. 'Oh no, Sir Captain, I don't want that you come. I
don't like it, to be here when you come. Oh no. Not at all. I
go. I go, Hannele. I go, my Hannele. And you will really stay
here and wait for him? But when will he come? You don't know? Oh
dear, I don't like it, I don't like it. I do not wait in the man's
room. No, no--Never--jamais--jamais, voyez-vous. Ach, you poor
Hannele! And he has got wife and children in England? Nevair!
No, nevair shall I wait for him.'
She had bustlingly pushed Martin through the door and settled her
wrap and taken a mincing, elegant pose, ready for the street, and
waved her hand and made wide, scared eyes at Hannele, and was gone.
The Countess Hannele picked up the doll again and began to sew its
shoe. What living she now had she earned making these puppets.
But she was restless. She pressed her arms into her lap, as if
holding them bent had wearied her. Then she looked at the little
clock on his writing-table. It was long after dinner-time--why
hadn't he come? She sighed rather exasperated. She was tired of
Putting aside her basket of silks, she went to one of the windows.
Outside the stars seemed white, and very near. Below was the dark
agglomeration of the roofs of houses, a fume of light came up from
beneath the darkness of roofs, and a faint breakage of noise from
the town far below. The room seemed high, remote, in the sky.
She went to the table and looked at his letter-clip with letters in
it, and at his sealing-wax and his stamp-box, touching things and
moving them a little, just for the sake of the contrast, not really
noticing what she touched. Then she took a pencil, and in stiff
Gothic characters began to write her name--Johanna zu Rassentlow--
time after time her own name--and then once, bitterly, curiously,
with a curious sharpening of her nose: Alexander Hepburn.
But she threw the pencil down, having no more interest in her
writing. She wandered to where the large telescope stood near a
farther window, and stood for some minutes with her fingers on the
barrel, where it was a little brighter from his touching it. Then
she drifted restlessly back to her chair. She had picked up her
puppet when she heard him on the stairs. She lifted her face and
watched as he entered.
'Hello, you there!' he said quietly, as he closed the door behind
him. She glanced at him swiftly, but did not move or answer.
He took off his overcoat with quick, quiet movements, and went to
hang it up on the pegs. She heard his step, and looked again. He
was like the doll, a tall, slender, well-bred man in uniform. When
he turned, his dark eyes seemed very wide open. His black hair was
growing grey at the temples--the first touch.
She was sewing her doll. Without saying anything, he wheeled round
the chair from the writing-table, so that he sat with his knees
almost touching her. Then he crossed one leg over the other. He
wore fine tartan socks. His ankles seemed slender and elegant, his
brown shoes fitted as if they were part of him. For some moments
he watched her as she sat sewing. The light fell on her soft,
delicate hair, that was full of strands of gold and of tarnished
gold and shadow. She did not look up.
In silence he held out his small, naked-looking brown hand for the
doll. On his fore-arm were black hairs.
She glanced up at him. Curious how fresh and luminous her face
looked in contrast to his.
'Do you want to see it?' she asked, in natural English.
'Yes,' he said.
She broke off her thread of cotton and handed him the puppet. He
sat with one leg thrown over the other, holding the doll in one
hand and smiling inscrutably with his dark eyes. His hair, parted
perfectly on one side, was jet black and glossy.
'You've got me,' he said at last, in his amused, melodious voice.
'What?' she said.
'You've got me,' he repeated.
'I don't care,' she said.
'What--You don't care?' His face broke into a smile. He had an
odd way of answering, as if he were only half attending, as if he
were thinking of something else.
'You are very late, aren't you?' she ventured.
'Yes. I am rather late.'
'Why are you?'
'Well, as a matter of fact, I was talking with the Colonel.'
'About me?'
'Yes. It was about you.'
She went pale as she sat looking up into his face. But it was
impossible to tell whether there was distress on his dark brow or
not.
'Anything nasty?' she said.
'Well, yes. It was rather nasty. Not about you, I mean. But
rather awkward for me.'
She watched him. But still he said no more.
'What was it?' she said.
'Oh, well--only what I expected. They seem to know rather too much
about you--about you and me, I mean. Not that anybody cares one
bit, you know, unofficially. The trouble is, they are apparently
going to have to take official notice.'
'Why?'
'Oh, well--it appears my wife has been writing letters to the
Major-General. He is one of her family acquaintances--known her
all his life. And I suppose she's been hearing rumours. In fact,
I know she has. She said so in her letter to me.'
'And what do you say to her then?'
'Oh, I tell her I'm all right--not to worry.'
'You don't expect THAT to stop her worrying, do you?' she asked.
'Oh, I don't know. Why should she worry?' he said.
'I think she might have some reason,' said Hannele. 'You've not
seen her for a year. And if she adores you--'
'Oh, I don't think she adores me. I think she quite likes me.'
'Do you think you matter as little as that to her?'
'I don't see why not. Of course she likes to feel SAFE about me.'
'But now she doesn't feel safe?'
'No--exactly. Exactly. That's the point. That's where it is.
The Colonel advises me to go home on leave.'
He sat gazing with curious, bright, dark, unseeing eyes at the doll
which he held by one arm. It was an extraordinary likeness of
himself, true even to the smooth parting of his hair and his
peculiar way of fixing his dark eyes.
'For how long?' she asked.
'I don't know. For a month,' he replied, first vaguely, then
definitely.
'For a month!' She watched him, and seemed to see him fade from
her eyes.
'And will you go?' she asked.
'I don't know. I don't know.' His head remained bent, he seemed
to muse rather vaguely. 'I don't know,' he repeated. 'I can't
make up my mind what I shall do.'
'Would you like to go?' she asked.
He lifted his brows and looked at her. Her heart always melted in
her when he looked straight at her with his black eyes and that
curious, bright, unseeing look that was more like second sight than
direct human vision. She never knew what he saw when he looked at
her.
'No,' he said simply. 'I don't WANT to go. I don't think I've any
desire at all to go to England.'
'Why not?' she asked.
'I can't say.' Then again he looked at her, and a curious white
light seemed to shine on his eyes, as he smiled slowly with his
mouth, and said: 'I suppose you ought to know, if anybody does.'
A glad, half-frightened look came on her face.
'You mean you don't want to leave me?' she asked, breathless.
'Yes. I suppose that's what I mean.'
'But you aren't sure?'
'Yes, I am, I'm quite sure,' he said, and the curious smile
lingered on his face, and the strange light shone in his eyes.
'That you don't want to leave me?' she stammered, looking aside.
'Yes, I'm quite sure I don't want to leave you,' he repeated. He
had a curious, very melodious Scottish voice. But it was the
incomprehensible smile on his face that convinced and frightened
her. It was almost a gargoyle smile, a strange, lurking,
changeless-seeming grin.
She was frightened, and turned aside her face. When she looked at
him again, his face was like a mask, with strange, deep-graven
lines and a glossy dark skin and a fixed look--as if carved half
grotesquely in some glossy stone. His black hair on his smooth,
beautifully-shaped head seemed changeless.
'Are you rather tired?' she asked him.
'Yes, I think I am.' He looked at her with black, unseeing eyes
and a mask-like face. Then he glanced as if he heard something.
Then he rose with his hand on his belt, saying: 'I'll take off my
belt and change my coat, if you don't mind.'
He walked across the room, unfastening his broad, brown belt. He
was in well-fitting, well-cut khaki. He hung up his belt and came
back to her wearing an old, light tunic, which he left unbuttoned.
He carried his slippers in one hand. When he sat down to unfasten
his shoes, she noticed again how black and hairy his fore-arm was,
how naked his brown hand seemed. His hair was black and smooth and
perfect on his head, like some close helmet, as he stooped down.
He put on his slippers, carried his shoes aside, and resumed his
chair, stretching luxuriously.
'There,' he said. 'I feel better now.' And he looked at her.
'Well,' he said, 'and how are you?'
'Me?' she said. 'Do I matter?' She was rather bitter.
'Do you matter?' he repeated, without noticing her bitterness.
'Why, what a question! Of course you are of the very highest
importance. What? Aren't you?' And smiling his curious smile--it
made her for a moment think of the fixed sadness of monkeys, of
those Chinese carved soapstone apes. He put his hand under her
chin, and gently drew his finger along her cheek. She flushed
deeply,
'But I'm not as important as you, am I?' she asked defiantly.
'As important as me! Why, bless you, I'm not important a bit. I'm
not important a bit!'--the odd straying sound of his words