Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (93 page)

I
asked
him
what
he
thought
of
Baudelaire.
He
uttered
the
snort that
was
his
laugh,
and
"Baudelaire,"
he
said,
"was
a
bourgeois
malgré
lui."
France
had
only
one
poet:
Villon;
"and
two-thirds,
of Villon
were
sheer
journalism."
Verlaine
was
"an
épicier
malgré
lui."
Altogether,
rather
to
my
surprise,
he
rated
French
literature
lower than
English.
There
were
"passages"
in
Villiers
de
l'lsle-Adam.
But "I,"
he
summed
up,
"owe
nothing
to
France."
He
nodded
at
me. "You'll
see,"
he
predicted.

I
did
not,
when
the
time
came,
quite
see
that.
I
thought
the
author of
"Fungoids"
did—unconsciously,
of
course—owe
something
to
the young
Parisian
décadents,
or
to
the
young
English
ones
who
owed something
to
them.
I
still
think
so.
The
little
book—bought
by
me in
Oxford—lies
before
me
as
I
write.
Its
pale
grey
buckram
cover and
silver
lettering
have
not
worn
well.
Nor
have
its
contents.
Through these,
with
a
melancholy
interest,
I
have
again
been
looking.
They
are not
much.
But
at
the
time
of
their
publication
I
had
a
vague
suspicion
that
they
might
be.
I
suppose
it
is
my
capacity
for
faith,
not poor
Soames'
work,
that
is
weaker
than
it
once
was.
.
.
.

to a young woman

Thou
art,
who
hast
not
been.'

Pale
tunes
irresolute

And
traceries
of
old
sounds

Blown
from
a
rotted
flute Mingle
with
noise
of
cymbals
rouged
with
rust, Nor
not
strange
forms
and
epicene

Lie
bleeding
in
the
dust,

Being
wounded
with
wounds.

For
this
it
is That
in
thy
counterpart

Of
age-long
mockeries Thou
hast
not
been
nor
art/

There
seemed
to
me
a
certain
inconsistency
as
between
the
first and
last
lines
of
this.
I
tried,
with
bent
brows,
to
resolve
the
discord. But
I
did
not
take
my
failure
as
wholly
incompatible
with
a
meaning in
Soames'
mind.
Might
it
not
rather
indicate
the
depth
of
his meaning?
As
for
the
craftsmanship,
"rouged
with
rust"
seemed
to me
a
fine
stroke,
and
"nor
not"
instead
of
"and"
had
a
curious felicity.
I
wondered
who
the
Young
Woman
was,
and
what
she
had made
of
it
all.
I
sadly
suspect
that
Soames
could
not
have
made
more of
it
than
she.
Yet,
even
now,
if
one
doesn't
try
to
make
any
sense at
all
of
the
poem,
and
reads
it
just
for
the
sound,
there
is
a
certain grace
of
cadence.
Soames
was
an
artist—in
so
far
as
he
was
anything,
poor
fellow!

It
seemed
to
me,
when
first
I
read
"Fungoids,"
that,
oddly
enough, the
Diabolistic
side
of
him
was
the
best.
Diabolism
seemed
to
be a
cheerful,
even
a
wholesome,
influence
in
his
life.

nocturne

Round
and
round
the
shuttcr'd
Square I
stroll'd
with
the
Devil's
arm
in
mine. No
sound
but
the
scrape
of
his
hoofs
was
there And
the
ring
of
his
laughter
and
mine. We
had
drunk
black
wine.