Water-Ice

Wherein the Wintry Lady Fiora Silvertree is Unexpectedly Thawed

DJUNA BARNES

THE curtain is up, disclosing aroomentirely cool and entirely white.

The room is large and almost untouched by color. White, in many materials; deep haired polar rugs; chairs in thick embroidered satin: walls of lacquer; candelabrum of twisted crystal; porcelains, misshapen like dead flowers; a bowl of shaved ice, exhaling a cool steam. In clear basins, thin depths of white Assyrian rose waters lie. The fire burns clear; the logs are of white pine.

About a goblet, spilling a thick cluster of lemonpale grapes, lie masses of gardenias.

Upon a couch of dull cloth, a fan of cocque, as crisp as chalk, has been tossed.

The double windows look out upon trees sharp with ice. The curtains at these windows are so thick that they might have been lifted from a pan of milk on a dairy-maid's thumb.

By these curtains, in draperies somber and lusterless, paces Lady Flora Silvertree. She is austere, beautiful and passionless; she is thin beyond necessity. Her sockets, moving, touch off light where her knee bends in her gown. Her cheek bones are ivory beneath a faultless skin. Her light eyes are shadowed by many days of seclusion. In her cars tremble crystal drops, and her fingers are burdened to the knuckles with diamonds; in her hair quivers a Chinese flower of white fade.

As she walks, her hands are clasped behind her; impassive she is, and. undisturbed. In her gaze there is neither interest nor the lack of it; a still, locked existence.

Beside her, in precise lengths, a Russian wolfhound paces, with the curve of a sickle.

It may be noted that the mouth of Lady Fiora Silvertree passes out of the realm of colorless things, to return to them again in the curve of a close underlip.

Presently a maid enters, spotless in linens. She arranges a chair, facing the audience. She places a white cushion at its foot, and a crystal ash-tray before it. She prepares to draw the curtains.

LADY FIORA: What hour is it, Lily?

LILY: It is three minutes to four o'clock, Madame.

LADY FIORA: Bring, presently, two glasses of lime-juice, sweetened with rock-candy and diluted with spring water. Bring also the incense that does not smoke.

LILY: Yes, madame. (She leaves the room, returning with a censor. In a few moments she announces Major Ottoman, a tail man in the white liveries of a high military order in the country of Avalon.)

OTTOMAN (bowing deeply): Madame.

LADY FIORA: Please sit down: for the time being I will stand.

OTTOMAN (seating himself, uncomfortably): Today is the last day of the year—I have been commanded to present myself to you, Madame, in order—

LADY FIORA: Exactly, they were my orders, but before you continue, I wish to acquaint you with the real gravity of the situation. (Lily enters, with two crystal goblets of lime-juice and water. Placing than on a small table, she leaves the room.) I am Lady Fiora Silvertree, the most beautiful and the coldest woman in Avalon. Once, I was followed on the streets by multitudes. All the men in Avalon pursued me, old men, young men. They hung upon my every word. Men named their children for me: for me was the festival of flowers. That was ten years ago. I, sir, gave up the life of passion and emotion ten years ago today, knowing how base, how shallow man is and how his word goes for naught, and how lies alone make progress from mouth to mouth, and that there is wisdom in no one. I came here and I had the doors locked and the windows screened by eighty yards of stuffed silk, that I might not behold the false seasons pass and go. Winter alone is to my liking, and for her alone I permit my curtains to be drawn. It is now the time of ice. White ice pleases me.

I chose this cloistered abode, which is like the virgin mind of a child of no hours, thoughtless and unprejudiced and blank, and here I walk the year away, seeing no one but my maid and speaking to no one save her; she answering only when I command her so to do. Here, one day, away from the senseless devotion of men and of the city, I, Fiora Silvertree, shall die, please God, and ascend to heaven, without a last word, without a philosophy. Neither shall I be burdened with a fanatical love for another, I shall ascend simply, as a featherless arrow, intent upon no target.

OTTOMAN (leaning forward): And madame has never known what it was to love a man, the frenzied pursuit of love?

LADY FIORA (coldly, lowering her thin lids): You are impudent, sir, no one is permitted to question me. Nevertheless, this once, because I have never seen you before and never shall again, I will answer you. I loved a man once. His name was Lucien: he and I loved as no others in the world have ever loved before. I reverenced his love, but I had firmly resolved to remain celibate. Then I came here, and here I have remained.

OTTOMAN: And once, every year—

LADY FIORA (interrupting): Once, every

year, on that year's last day, a messenger comes to me from the outer world, to tell me one thing, and one thing only; the most important tidings for the past twelve months in Avalon. This, then, I would know of you.

OTTOMAN: And what have the nine other messages been, madame?

LADY FIORA (wearily, and touching with chill finger-tips the pearls of her close corsage): For ten years there has been nothing but repetition. No one has brought me tidings of anything save that which 1 knew full well. No happening worthy to pierce a virgin's ear that has known silence for three hundred and sixty-four days. Nine different messengers have come, as you have come today, and each, unknown to the other, has brought the same message, couched in the same terms: "The men of Avalon cry out for Fiora's beauty. And one -heartbrokened, bereft—who goes by the name of Lucien, stands before the Virgin in the cathedral crying softly into the stuff of his sleeve, vowing eternal love to Lady Fiora."

OTTOMAN (sipping the iced lime): It is indeed an insult to a recluse of celibate mind.

LADY FIORA: You are the first of my messengers who has been allowed to speak so many words beside the point.

OTTOMAN: Madame, I am humbled. (Offering her a cigarette.) Will you?

LADY FIORA: I never smoke.

OTTOMAN: Why?

LADY FIORA: YOU have too many questions. Still I will answer you. Know then that 1 do not smoke because it turns the white of the eye a saffron color, not to my liking.

OTTOMAN (lighting his cigarette): May I?

LADY FIORA: Certainly. And now perhaps it were well you should tell me of the great events that have come to pass in Avalon for the twelve-month past.

OTTOMAN (rising and bowing): As you will, madame, and this time I think I have news that will please you. (He speaks in a tone quite devoid of interest.) This thing was not so until the trees hardened and the ground thickened and the time of snow was upon us. But now it is. The men of Avalon no longer speak of you. They have ceased mourning your lost beauty: and Lucien has quite forgotten you.

LADY FIORA (her hand is at her throat; her pale eyes darkening, the red of her lips a most dangerous scarlet): I thank you. (They bow, and Ottoman passes out silently. For a moment she is alone. She does not move. She seems not to take breaths, then, furiously, like one gone mad, she begins to tear off her earrings, her pearls, and to loosen the locks of her hair. She overturns the goblet of white grapes. She commands her Russian wolf-hound to cease his pacing, and hangs upon the bell-cord until Lily enters, clasping her hands.) Quick, quick!

LILY: Madame, madame. What is it?

LADY FIORA: Fool, have you no blood in you; no heat? Bring me my scarlet dress, my golden slippers, and my mantle of lavender brocade.

LILY (wringing her hands): Oh! madame, madame what will you do?

LADY FIORA: Walk in the streets again, little goose; seek Lucien—and warmer weather; there is too much white ice in my spine. (She begins to unfasten her bodice.)

CURTAIN