Orlando (Chapter 3)

It is, indeed, highly unfortunate, and much to be regretted that at this
stage of Orlando's career, when he played a most important part in the
public life of his country, we have least information to go upon. We know
that he discharged his duties to admiration--witness his Bath and his
Dukedom. We know that he had a finger in some of the most delicate
negotiations between King Charles and the Turks--to that, treaties in the
vault of the Record Office bear testimony. But the revolution which broke
out during his period of office, and the fire which followed, have so
damaged or destroyed all those papers from which any trustworthy record
could be drawn, that what we can give is lamentably incomplete. Often the
paper was scorched a deep brown in the middle of the most important
sentence. Just when we thought to elucidate a secret that has puzzled
historians for a hundred years, there was a hole in the manuscript big
enough to put your finger through. We have done our best to piece out a
meagre summary from the charred fragments that remain; but often it has
been necessary to speculate, to surmise, and even to use the imagination.

Orlando's day was passed, it would seem, somewhat in this fashion. About
seven, he would rise, wrap himself in a long Turkish cloak, light a
cheroot, and lean his elbows on the parapet. Thus he would stand, gazing
at the city beneath him, apparently entranced. At this hour the mist
would lie so thick that the domes of Santa Sofia and the rest would seem
to be afloat; gradually the mist would uncover them; the bubbles would be
seen to be firmly fixed; there would be the river; there the Galata
Bridge; there the green-turbaned pilgrims without eyes or noses, begging
alms; there the pariah dogs picking up offal; there the shawled women;
there the innumerable donkeys; there men on horses carrying long poles.
Soon, the whole town would be astir with the cracking of whips, the
beating of gongs, cryings to prayer, lashing of mules, and rattle of
brass-bound wheels, while sour odours, made from bread fermenting and
incense, and spice, rose even to the heights of Pera itself and seemed
the very breath of the strident multi-coloured and barbaric population.

Nothing, he reflected, gazing at the view which was now sparkling in the
sun, could well be less like the counties of Surrey and Kent or the towns
of London and Tunbridge Wells. To the right and left rose in bald and
stony prominence the inhospitable Asian mountains, to which the arid
castle of a robber chief or two might hang; but parsonage there was none,
nor manor house, nor cottage, nor oak, elm, violet, ivy, or wild
eglantine. There were no hedges for ferns to grow on, and no fields for
sheep to graze. The houses were white as egg-shells and as bald. That he,
who was English root and fibre, should yet exult to the depths of his
heart in this wild panorama, and gaze and gaze at those passes and far
heights planning journeys there alone on foot where only the goat and
shepherd had gone before; should feel a passion of affection for the
bright, unseasonable flowers, love the unkempt pariah dogs beyond even
his elk hounds at home, and snuff the acrid, sharp smell of the streets
eagerly into his nostrils, surprised him. He wondered if, in the season
of the Crusades, one of his ancestors had taken up with a Circassian
peasant woman; thought it possible; fancied a certain darkness in his
complexion; and, going indoors again, withdrew to his bath.

An hour later, properly scented, curled, and anointed, he would receive
visits from secretaries and other high officials carrying, one after
another, red boxes which yielded only to his own golden key. Within were
papers of the highest importance, of which only fragments, here a
flourish, there a seal firmly attached to a piece of burnt silk, now
remain. Of their contents then, we cannot speak, but can only testify
that Orlando was kept busy, what with his wax and seals, his various
coloured ribbons which had to be diversely attached, his engrossing of
titles and making of flourishes round capital letters, till luncheon
came--a splendid meal of perhaps thirty courses.

After luncheon, lackeys announced that his coach and six was at the door,
and he went, preceded by purple Janissaries running on foot and waving
great ostrich feather fans above their heads, to call upon the other
ambassadors and dignitaries of state. The ceremony was always the same.
On reaching the courtyard, the Janissaries struck with their fans upon
the main portal, which immediately flew open revealing a large chamber,
splendidly furnished. Here were seated two figures, generally of the
opposite sexes. Profound bows and curtseys were exchanged. In the first
room, it was permissible only to mention the weather. Having said that it
was fine or wet, hot or cold, the Ambassador then passed on to the next
chamber, where again, two figures rose to greet him. Here it was only
permissible to compare Constantinople as a place of residence with
London; and the Ambassador naturally said that he preferred
Constantinople, and his hosts naturally said, though they had not seen
it, that they preferred London. In the next chamber, King Charles's and
the Sultan's healths had to be discussed at some length. In the next were
discussed the Ambassador's health and that of his host's wife, but more
briefly. In the next the Ambassador complimented his host upon his
furniture, and the host complimented the Ambassador upon his dress. In
the next, sweet meats were offered, the host deploring their badness, the
Ambassador extolling their goodness. The ceremony ended at length with
the smoking of a hookah and the drinking of a glass of coffee; but though
the motions of smoking and drinking were gone through punctiliously there
was neither tobacco in the pipe nor coffee in the glass, as, had either
smoke or drink been real, the human frame would have sunk beneath the
surfeit. For, no sooner had the Ambassador despatched one such visit,
than another had to be undertaken. The same ceremonies were gone through
in precisely the same order six or seven times over at the houses of the
other great officials, so that it was often late at night before the
Ambassador reached home. Though Orlando performed these tasks to
admiration and never denied that they are, perhaps, the most important
part of a diplomatist's duties, he was undoubtedly fatigued by them, and
often depressed to such a pitch of gloom that he preferred to take his
dinner alone with his dogs. To them, indeed, he might be heard talking in
his own tongue. And sometimes, it is said, he would pass out of his own
gates late at night so disguised that the sentries did not know him. Then
he would mingle with the crowd on the Galata Bridge; or stroll through
the bazaars; or throw aside his shoes and join the worshippers in the
Mosques. Once, when it was given out that he was ill of a fever,
shepherds, bringing their goats to market, reported that they had met an
English Lord on the mountain top and heard him praying to his God. This
was thought to be Orlando himself, and his prayer was, no doubt, a poem
said aloud, for it was known that he still carried about with him, in the
bosom of his cloak, a much scored manuscript; and servants, listening at
the door, heard the Ambassador chanting something in an odd, sing-song
voice when he was alone.

It is with fragments such as these that we must do our best to make up a
picture of Orlando's life and character at this time. There exist, even
to this day, rumours, legends, anecdotes of a floating and
unauthenticated kind about Orlando's life in Constantinople--(we have
quoted but a few of them) which go to prove that he possessed, now that
he was in the prime of life, the power to stir the fancy and rivet the
eye which will keep a memory green long after all that more durable
qualities can do to preserve it is forgotten. The power is a mysterious
one compounded of beauty, birth, and some rarer gift, which we may call
glamour and have done with it. 'A million candles', as Sasha had said,
burnt in him without his being at the trouble of lighting a single one.
He moved like a stag, without any need to think about his legs. He spoke
in his ordinary voice and echo beat a silver gong. Hence rumours gathered
round him. He became the adored of many women and some men. It was not
necessary that they should speak to him or even that they should see him;
they conjured up before them especially when the scenery was romantic, or
the sun was setting, the figure of a noble gentleman in silk stockings.
Upon the poor and uneducated, he had the same power as upon the rich.
Shepherds, gipsies, donkey drivers, still sing songs about the English
Lord 'who dropped his emeralds in the well', which undoubtedly refer to
Orlando, who once, it seems, tore his jewels from him in a moment of rage
or intoxication and flung them in a fountain; whence they were fished by
a page boy. But this romantic power, it is well known, is often
associated with a nature of extreme reserve. Orlando seems to have made
no friends. As far as is known, he formed no attachments. A certain great
lady came all the way from England in order to be near him, and pestered
him with her attentions, but he continued to discharge his duties so
indefatigably that he had not been Ambassador at the Horn for more than
two years and a half before King Charles signified his intention of
raising him to the highest rank in the peerage. The envious said that
this was Nell Gwyn's tribute to the memory of a leg. But, as she had seen
him once only, and was then busily engaged in pelting her royal master
with nutshells, it is likely that it was his merits that won him his
Dukedom, not his calves.

Here we must pause, for we have reached a moment of great significance in
his career. For the conferring of the Dukedom was the occasion of a very
famous, and indeed, much disputed incident, which we must now describe,
picking our way among burnt papers and little bits of tape as best we
may. It was at the end of the great fast of Ramadan that the Order of the
Bath and the patent of nobility arrived in a frigate commanded by Sir
Adrian Scrope; and Orlando made this the occasion for an entertainment
more splendid than any that has been known before or since in
Constantinople. The night was fine; the crowd immense, and the windows of
the Embassy brilliantly illuminated. Again, details are lacking, for the
fire had its way with all such records, and has left only tantalizing
fragments which leave the most important points obscure. From the diary
of John Fenner Brigge, however, an English naval officer, who was among
the guests, we gather that people of all nationalities 'were packed like
herrings in a barrel' in the courtyard. The crowd pressed so unpleasantly
close that Brigge soon climbed into a Judas tree, the better to observe
the proceedings. The rumour had got about among the natives (and here is
additional proof of Orlando's mysterious power over the imagination) that
some kind of miracle was to be performed. 'Thus,' writes Brigge (but his
manuscript is full of burns and holes, some sentences being quite
illegible), 'when the rockets began to soar into the air, there was
considerable uneasiness among us lest the native population should be
seized...fraught with unpleasant consequences to all...English ladies in
the company, I own that my hand went to my cutlass. Happily,' he
continues in his somewhat long-winded style, 'these fears seemed, for the
moment, groundless and, observing the demeanour of the natives...I came
to the conclusion that this demonstration of our skill in the art of
pyrotechny was valuable, if only because it impressed upon them...the
superiority of the British...Indeed, the sight was one of indescribable
magnificence. I found myself alternately praising the Lord that he had
permitted...and wishing that my poor, dear mother...By the Ambassador's
orders, the long windows, which are so imposing a feature of Eastern
architecture, for though ignorant in many ways...were thrown wide; and
within, we could see a tableau vivant or theatrical display in which
English ladies and gentlemen...represented a masque the work of one...The
words were inaudible, but the sight of so many of our countrymen and
women, dressed with the highest elegance and distinction...moved me to
emotions of which I am certainly not ashamed, though unable...I was
intent upon observing the astonishing conduct of Lady--which was of a
nature to fasten the eyes of all upon her, and to bring discredit upon
her sex and country, when'--unfortunately a branch of the Judas tree
broke, Lieutenant Brigge fell to the ground, and the rest of the entry
records only his gratitude to Providence (who plays a very large part in
the diary) and the exact nature of his injuries.

Happily, Miss Penelope Hartopp, daughter of the General of that name, saw
the scene from inside and carries on the tale in a letter, much defaced
too, which ultimately reached a female friend at Tunbridge Wells. Miss
Penelope was no less lavish in her enthusiasm than the gallant officer.
'Ravishing,' she exclaims ten times on one page, 'wondrous...utterly
beyond description...gold plate...candelabras...negroes in plush
breeches... pyramids of ice...fountains of negus...jellies made to
represent His Majesty's ships...swans made to represent water
lilies...birds in golden cages...gentlemen in slashed crimson
velvet...Ladies' headdresses AT LEAST six foot high...musical boxes....Mr
Peregrine said I looked QUITE lovely which I only repeat to you, my
dearest, because I know...Oh! how I longed for you all!...surpassing
anything we have seen at the Pantiles...oceans to drink...some gentlemen
overcome...Lady Betty ravishing....Poor Lady Bonham made the unfortunate
mistake of sitting down without a chair beneath her...Gentlemen all very
gallant...wished a thousand times for you and dearest Betsy...But the
sight of all others, the cynosure of all eyes...as all admitted, for none
could be so vile as to deny it, was the Ambassador himself. Such a leg!
Such a countenance!! Such princely manners!!! To see him come into the
room! To see him go out again! And something INTERESTING in the
expression, which makes one feel, one scarcely knows why, that he has
SUFFERED! They say a lady was the cause of it. The heartless monster!!!
How can one of our REPUTED TENDER SEX have had the effrontery!!! He is
unmarried, and half the ladies in the place are wild for love of him...A
thousand, thousand kisses to Tom, Gerry, Peter, and dearest Mew'
[presumably her cat].

From the Gazette of the time, we gather that 'as the clock struck twelve,
the Ambassador appeared on the centre Balcony which was hung with
priceless rugs. Six Turks of the Imperial Body Guard, each over six foot
in height, held torches to his right and left. Rockets rose into the air
at his appearance, and a great shout went up from the people, which the
Ambassador acknowledged, bowing deeply, and speaking a few words of
thanks in the Turkish language, which it was one of his accomplishments
to speak with fluency. Next, Sir Adrian Scrope, in the full dress of a
British Admiral, advanced; the Ambassador knelt on one knee; the Admiral
placed the Collar of the Most Noble Order of the Bath round his neck,
then pinned the Star to his breast; after which another gentleman of the
diplomatic corps advancing in a stately manner placed on his shoulders
the ducal robes, and handed him on a crimson cushion, the ducal coronet.'

At length, with a gesture of extraordinary majesty and grace, first
bowing profoundly, then raising himself proudly erect, Orlando took the
golden circlet of strawberry leaves and placed it, with a gesture which
none that saw it ever forgot, upon his brows. It was at this point that
the first disturbance began. Either the people had expected a
miracle--some say a shower of gold was prophesied to fall from the
skies--which did not happen, or this was the signal chosen for the attack
to begin; nobody seems to know; but as the coronet settled on Orlando's
brows a great uproar rose. Bells began ringing; the harsh cries of the
prophets were heard above the shouts of the people; many Turks fell flat
to the ground and touched the earth with their foreheads. A door burst
open. The natives pressed into the banqueting rooms. Women shrieked. A
certain lady, who was said to be dying for love of Orlando, seized a
candelabra and dashed it to the ground. What might not have happened, had
it not been for the presence of Sir Adrian Scrope and a squad of British
bluejackets, nobody can say. But the Admiral ordered the bugles to be
sounded; a hundred bluejackets stood instantly at attention; the disorder
was quelled, and quiet, at least for the time being, fell upon the scene.

So far, we are on the firm, if rather narrow, ground of ascertained
truth. But nobody has ever known exactly what took place later that
night. The testimony of the sentries and others seems, however, to prove
that the Embassy was empty of company, and shut up for the night in the
usual way by two A.M. The Ambassador was seen to go to his room, still
wearing the insignia of his rank, and shut the door. Some say he locked
it, which was against his custom. Others maintain that they heard music
of a rustic kind, such as shepherds play, later that night in the
courtyard under the Ambassador's window. A washer-woman, who was kept
awake by toothache, said that she saw a man's figure, wrapped in a cloak
or dressing gown, come out upon the balcony. Then, she said, a woman,
much muffled, but apparently of the peasant class, was drawn up by means
of a rope which the man let down to her on to the balcony. There, the
washer-woman said, they embraced passionately 'like lovers', and went
into the room together, drawing the curtains so that no more could be
seen.

Next morning, the Duke, as we must now call him, was found by his
secretaries sunk in profound slumber amid bed clothes that were much
tumbled. The room was in some disorder, his coronet having rolled on the
floor, and his cloak and garter being flung all of a heap on a chair. The
table was littered with papers. No suspicion was felt at first, as the
fatigues of the night had been great. But when afternoon came and he
still slept, a doctor was summoned. He applied remedies which had been
used on the previous occasion, plasters, nettles, emetics, etc., but
without success. Orlando slept on. His secretaries then thought it their
duty to examine the papers on the table. Many were scribbled over with
poetry, in which frequent mention was made of an oak tree. There were
also various state papers and others of a private nature concerning the
management of his estates in England. But at length they came upon a
document of far greater significance. It was nothing less, indeed, than a
deed of marriage, drawn up, signed, and witnessed between his Lordship,
Orlando, Knight of the Garter, etc., etc., etc., and Rosina Pepita, a
dancer, father unknown, but reputed a gipsy, mother also unknown but
reputed a seller of old iron in the market-place over against the Galata
Bridge. The secretaries looked at each other in dismay. And still Orlando
slept. Morning and evening they watched him, but, save that his breathing
was regular and his cheeks still flushed their habitual deep rose, he
gave no sign of life. Whatever science or ingenuity could do to waken him
they did. But still he slept.

On the seventh day of his trance (Thursday, May the 10th) the first shot
was fired of that terrible and bloody insurrection of which Lieutenant
Brigge had detected the first symptoms. The Turks rose against the
Sultan, set fire to the town, and put every foreigner they could find,
either to the sword or to the bastinado. A few English managed to escape;
but, as might have been expected, the gentlemen of the British Embassy
preferred to die in defence of their red boxes, or, in extreme cases, to
swallow bunches of keys rather than let them fall into the hands of the
Infidel. The rioters broke into Orlando's room, but seeing him stretched
to all appearances dead they left him untouched, and only robbed him of
his coronet and the robes of the Garter.

And now again obscurity descends, and would indeed that it were deeper!
Would, we almost have it in our hearts to exclaim, that it were so deep
that we could see nothing whatever through its opacity! Would that we
might here take the pen and write Finis to our work! Would that we might
spare the reader what is to come and say to him in so many words, Orlando
died and was buried. But here, alas, Truth, Candour, and Honesty, the
austere Gods who keep watch and ward by the inkpot of the biographer, cry
No! Putting their silver trumpets to their lips they demand in one blast,
Truth! And again they cry Truth! and sounding yet a third time in concert
they peal forth, The Truth and nothing but the Truth!

At which--Heaven be praised! for it affords us a breathing space--the
doors gently open, as if a breath of the gentlest and holiest zephyr had
wafted them apart, and three figures enter. First, comes our Lady of
Purity; whose brows are bound with fillets of the whitest lamb's wool;
whose hair is as an avalanche of the driven snow; and in whose hand
reposes the white quill of a virgin goose. Following her, but with a
statelier step, comes our Lady of Chastity; on whose brow is set like a
turret of burning but unwasting fire a diadem of icicles; her eyes are
pure stars, and her fingers, if they touch you, freeze you to the bone.
Close behind her, sheltering indeed in the shadow of her more stately
sisters, comes our Lady of Modesty, frailest and fairest of the three;
whose face is only shown as the young moon shows when it is thin and
sickle shaped and half hidden among clouds. Each advances towards the
centre of the room where Orlando still lies sleeping; and with gestures
at once appealing and commanding, OUR LADY OF PURITY speaks first:

'I am the guardian of the sleeping fawn; the snow is dear to me; and the
moon rising; and the silver sea. With my robes I cover the speckled hen's
eggs and the brindled sea shell; I cover vice and poverty. On all things
frail or dark or doubtful, my veil descends. Wherefore, speak not, reveal
not. Spare, O spare!'

Here the trumpets peal forth.

'Purity Avaunt! Begone Purity!'

Then OUR LADY OF CHASTITY speaks:

'I am she whose touch freezes and whose glance turns to stone. I have
stayed the star in its dancing, and the wave as it falls. The highest
Alps are my dwelling place; and when I walk, the lightnings flash in my
hair; where my eyes fall, they kill. Rather than let Orlando wake, I will
freeze him to the bone. Spare, O spare!'

Here the trumpets peal forth.

'Chastity Avaunt! Begone Chastity!'

Then OUR LADY OF MODESTY speaks, so low that one can hardly hear:

'I am she that men call Modesty. Virgin I am and ever shall be. Not for
me the fruitful fields and the fertile vineyard. Increase is odious to
me; and when the apples burgeon or the flocks breed, I run, I run; I let
my mantle fall. My hair covers my eyes. I do not see. Spare, O spare!'

Again the trumpets peal forth:

'Modesty Avaunt! Begone Modesty!'

With gestures of grief and lamentation the three sisters now join hands
and dance slowly, tossing their veils and singing as they go:

'Truth come not out from your horrid den. Hide deeper, fearful Truth. For
you flaunt in the brutal gaze of the sun things that were better unknown
and undone; you unveil the shameful; the dark you make clear, Hide! Hide!
Hide!'

Here they make as if to cover Orlando with their draperies. The trumpets,
meanwhile, still blare forth,

'The Truth and nothing but the Truth.'

At this the Sisters try to cast their veils over the mouths of the
trumpets so as to muffle them, but in vain, for now all the trumpets
blare forth together,

'Horrid Sisters, go!'

The sisters become distracted and wail in unison, still circling and
flinging their veils up and down.

'It has not always been so! But men want us no longer; the women detest
us. We go; we go. I (PURITY SAYS THIS) to the hen roost. I (CHASTITY SAYS
THIS) to the still unravished heights of Surrey. I (MODESTY SAYS THIS) to
any cosy nook where there are ivy and curtains in plenty.'

'For there, not here (all speak together joining hands and making
gestures of farewell and despair towards the bed where Orlando lies
sleeping) dwell still in nest and boudoir, office and lawcourt those who
love us; those who honour us, virgins and city men; lawyers and doctors;
those who prohibit; those who deny; those who reverence without knowing
why; those who praise without understanding; the still very numerous
(Heaven be praised) tribe of the respectable; who prefer to see not;
desire to know not; love the darkness; those still worship us, and with
reason; for we have given them Wealth, Prosperity, Comfort, Ease. To them
we go, you we leave. Come, Sisters, come! This is no place for us here.'

They retire in haste, waving their draperies over their heads, as if to
shut out something that they dare not look upon and close the door behind
them.

We are, therefore, now left entirely alone in the room with the sleeping
Orlando and the trumpeters. The trumpeters, ranging themselves side by
side in order, blow one terrific blast:--

'THE TRUTH!

at which Orlando woke.

He stretched himself. He rose. He stood upright in complete nakedness
before us, and while the trumpets pealed Truth! Truth! Truth! we have no
choice left but confess--he was a woman.

***

The sound of the trumpets died away and Orlando stood stark naked. No
human being, since the world began, has ever looked more ravishing. His
form combined in one the strength of a man and a woman's grace. As he
stood there, the silver trumpets prolonged their note, as if reluctant to
leave the lovely sight which their blast had called forth; and Chastity,
Purity, and Modesty, inspired, no doubt, by Curiosity, peeped in at the
door and threw a garment like a towel at the naked form which,
unfortunately, fell short by several inches. Orlando looked himself up
and down in a long looking-glass, without showing any signs of
discomposure, and went, presumably, to his bath.

We may take advantage of this pause in the narrative to make certain
statements. Orlando had become a woman--there is no denying it. But in
every other respect, Orlando remained precisely as he had been. The
change of sex, though it altered their future, did nothing whatever to
alter their identity. Their faces remained, as their portraits prove,
practically the same. His memory--but in future we must, for convention's
sake, say 'her' for 'his,' and 'she' for 'he'--her memory then, went back
through all the events of her past life without encountering any
obstacle. Some slight haziness there may have been, as if a few dark
drops had fallen into the clear pool of memory; certain things had become
a little dimmed; but that was all. The change seemed to have been
accomplished painlessly and completely and in such a way that Orlando
herself showed no surprise at it. Many people, taking this into account,
and holding that such a change of sex is against nature, have been at
great pains to prove (1) that Orlando had always been a woman, (2) that
Orlando is at this moment a man. Let biologists and psychologists
determine. It is enough for us to state the simple fact; Orlando was a
man till the age of thirty; when he became a woman and has remained so
ever since.

But let other pens treat of sex and sexuality; we quit such odious
subjects as soon as we can. Orlando had now washed, and dressed herself
in those Turkish coats and trousers which can be worn indifferently by
either sex; and was forced to consider her position. That it was
precarious and embarrassing in the extreme must be the first thought of
every reader who has followed her story with sympathy. Young, noble,
beautiful, she had woken to find herself in a position than which we can
conceive none more delicate for a young lady of rank. We should not have
blamed her had she rung the bell, screamed, or fainted. But Orlando
showed no such signs of perturbation. All her actions were deliberate in
the extreme, and might indeed have been thought to show tokens of
premeditation. First, she carefully examined the papers on the table;
took such as seemed to be written in poetry, and secreted them in her
bosom; next she called her Seleuchi hound, which had never left her bed
all these days, though half famished with hunger, fed and combed him;
then stuck a pair of pistols in her belt; finally wound about her person
several strings of emeralds and pearls of the finest orient which had
formed part of her Ambassadorial wardrobe. This done, she leant out of
the window, gave one low whistle, and descended the shattered and
bloodstained staircase, now strewn with the litter of waste-paper
baskets, treaties, despatches, seals, sealing wax, etc., and so entered
the courtyard. There, in the shadow of a giant fig tree, waited an old
gipsy on a donkey. He led another by the bridle. Orlando swung her leg
over it; and thus, attended by a lean dog, riding a donkey, in company of
a gipsy, the Ambassador of Great Britain at the Court of the Sultan left
Constantinople.

They rode for several days and nights and met with a variety of
adventures, some at the hands of men, some at the hands of nature, in all
of which Orlando acquitted herself with courage. Within a week they
reached the high ground outside Broussa, which was then the chief camping
ground of the gipsy tribe to which Orlando had allied herself. Often she
had looked at those mountains from her balcony at the Embassy; often had
longed to be there; and to find oneself where one has longed to be
always, to a reflective mind, gives food for thought. For some time,
however, she was too well pleased with the change to spoil it by
thinking. The pleasure of having no documents to seal or sign, no
flourishes to make, no calls to pay, was enough. The gipsies followed the
grass; when it was grazed down, on they moved again. She washed in
streams if she washed at all; no boxes, red, blue, or green, were
presented to her; there was not a key, let alone a golden key, in the
whole camp; as for 'visiting', the word was unknown. She milked the
goats; she collected brushwood; she stole a hen's egg now and then, but
always put a coin or a pearl in place of it; she herded cattle; she
stripped vines; she trod the grape; she filled the goat-skin and drank
from it; and when she remembered how, at about this time of day, she
should have been making the motions of drinking and smoking over an empty
coffee-cup and a pipe which lacked tobacco, she laughed aloud, cut
herself another hunch of bread, and begged for a puff from old Rustum's
pipe, filled though it was with cow dung.

The gipsies, with whom it is obvious that she must have been in secret
communication before the revolution, seem to have looked upon her as one
of themselves (which is always the highest compliment a people can pay),
and her dark hair and dark complexion bore out the belief that she was,
by birth, one of them and had been snatched by an English Duke from a nut
tree when she was a baby and taken to that barbarous land where people
live in houses because they are too feeble and diseased to stand the open
air. Thus, though in many ways inferior to them, they were willing to
help her to become more like them; taught her their arts of cheese-making
and basket-weaving, their science of stealing and bird-snaring, and were
even prepared to consider letting her marry among them.

But Orlando had contracted in England some of the customs or diseases
(whatever you choose to consider them) which cannot, it seems, be
expelled. One evening, when they were all sitting round the camp fire and
the sunset was blazing over the Thessalian hills, Orlando exclaimed:

'How good to eat!'

(The gipsies have no word for 'beautiful'. This is the nearest.)

All the young men and women burst out laughing uproariously. The sky good
to eat, indeed! The elders, however, who had seen more of foreigners than
they had, became suspicious. They noticed that Orlando often sat for
whole hours doing nothing whatever, except look here and then there; they
would come upon her on some hill-top staring straight in front of her, no
matter whether the goats were grazing or straying. They began to suspect
that she had other beliefs than their own, and the older men and women
thought it probable that she had fallen into the clutches of the vilest
and cruellest among all the Gods, which is Nature. Nor were they far
wrong. The English disease, a love of Nature, was inborn in her, and
here, where Nature was so much larger and more powerful than in England,
she fell into its hands as she had never done before. The malady is too
well known, and has been, alas, too often described to need describing
afresh, save very briefly. There were mountains; there were valleys;
there were streams. She climbed the mountains; roamed the valleys; sat on
the banks of the streams. She likened the hills to ramparts, to the
breasts of doves, and the flanks of kine. She compared the flowers to
enamel and the turf to Turkey rugs worn thin. Trees were withered hags,
and sheep were grey boulders. Everything, in fact, was something else.
She found the tarn on the mountain-top and almost threw herself in to
seek the wisdom she thought lay hid there; and when, from the
mountain-top, she beheld far off, across the Sea of Marmara, the plains
of Greece, and made out (her eyes were admirable) the Acropolis with a
white streak or two, which must, she thought, be the Parthenon, her soul
expanded with her eyeballs, and she prayed that she might share the
majesty of the hills, know the serenity of the plains, etc. etc., as all
such believers do. Then, looking down, the red hyacinth, the purple iris
wrought her to cry out in ecstasy at the goodness, the beauty of nature;
raising her eyes again, she beheld the eagle soaring, and imagined its
raptures and made them her own. Returning home, she saluted each star,
each peak, and each watch-fire as if they signalled to her alone; and at
last, when she flung herself upon her mat in the gipsies' tent, she could
not help bursting out again, How good to eat! How good to eat! (For it is
a curious fact that though human beings have such imperfect means of
communication, that they can only say 'good to eat' when they mean
'beautiful' and the other way about, they will yet endure ridicule and
misunderstanding rather than keep any experience to themselves.) All the
young gipsies laughed. But Rustum el Sadi, the old man who had brought
Orlando out of Constantinople on his donkey, sat silent. He had a nose
like a scimitar; his cheeks were furrowed as if from the age-long descent
of iron hail; he was brown and keen-eyed, and as he sat tugging at his
hookah he observed Orlando narrowly. He had the deepest suspicion that
her God was Nature. One day he found her in tears. Interpreting this to
mean that her God had punished her, he told her that he was not
surprised. He showed her the fingers of his left hand, withered by the
frost; he showed her his right foot, crushed where a rock had fallen.
This, he said, was what her God did to men. When she said, 'But so
beautiful', using the English word, he shook his head; and when she
repeated it he was angry. He saw that she did not believe what he
believed, and that was enough, wise and ancient as he was, to enrage him.

This difference of opinion disturbed Orlando, who had been perfectly
happy until now. She began to think, was Nature beautiful or cruel; and
then she asked herself what this beauty was; whether it was in things
themselves, or only in herself; so she went on to the nature of reality,
which led her to truth, which in its turn led to Love, Friendship, Poetry
(as in the days on the high mound at home); which meditations, since she
could impart no word of them, made her long, as she had never longed
before, for pen and ink.

'Oh! if only I could write!' she cried (for she had the odd conceit of
those who write that words written are shared). She had no ink; and but
little paper. But she made ink from berries and wine; and finding a few
margins and blank spaces in the manuscript of 'The Oak Tree', managed by
writing a kind of shorthand, to describe the scenery in a long, blank
verse poem, and to carry on a dialogue with herself about this Beauty
and Truth concisely enough. This kept her extremely happy for hours on
end. But the gipsies became suspicious. First, they noticed that she was
less adept than before at milking and cheese-making; next, she often
hesitated before replying; and once a gipsy boy who had been asleep, woke
in a terror feeling her eyes upon him. Sometimes this constraint would be
felt by the whole tribe, numbering some dozens of grown men and women. It
sprang from the sense they had (and their senses are very sharp and much
in advance of their vocabulary) that whatever they were doing crumbled
like ashes in their hands. An old woman making a basket, a boy skinning a
sheep, would be singing or crooning contentedly at their work, when
Orlando would come into the camp, fling herself down by the fire and gaze
into the flames. She need not even look at them, and yet they felt, here
is someone who doubts; (we make a rough-and-ready translation from the
gipsy language) here is someone who does not do the thing for the sake of
doing; nor looks for looking's sake; here is someone who believes neither
in sheep-skin nor basket; but sees (here they looked apprehensively about
the tent) something else. Then a vague but most unpleasant feeling would
begin to work in the boy and in the old woman. They broke their withys;
they cut their fingers. A great rage filled them. They wished Orlando
would leave the tent and never come near them again. Yet she was of a
cheerful and willing disposition, they owned; and one of her pearls was
enough to buy the finest herd of goats in Broussa.

Slowly, she began to feel that there was some difference between her and
the gipsies which made her hesitate sometimes to marry and settle down
among them for ever. At first she tried to account for it by saying that
she came of an ancient and civilized race, whereas these gipsies were an
ignorant people, not much better than savages. One night when they were
questioning her about England she could not help with some pride
describing the house where she was born, how it had 365 bedrooms and had
been in the possession of her family for four or five hundred years. Her
ancestors were earls, or even dukes, she added. At this she noticed again
that the gipsies were uneasy; but not angry as before when she had
praised the beauty of nature. Now they were courteous, but concerned as
people of fine breeding are when a stranger has been made to reveal his
low birth or poverty. Rustum followed her out of the tent alone and said
that she need not mind if her father were a Duke, and possessed all the
bedrooms and furniture that she described. They would none of them think
the worse of her for that. Then she was seized with a shame that she had
never felt before. It was clear that Rustum and the other gipsies thought
a descent of four or five hundred years only the meanest possible. Their
own families went back at least two or three thousand years. To the gipsy
whose ancestors had built the Pyramids centuries before Christ was born,
the genealogy of Howards and Plantagenets was no better and no worse than
that of the Smiths and the Joneses: both were negligible. Moreover, where
the shepherd boy had a lineage of such antiquity, there was nothing
specially memorable or desirable in ancient birth; vagabonds and beggars
all shared it. And then, though he was too courteous to speak openly, it
was clear that the gipsy thought that there was no more vulgar ambition
than to possess bedrooms by the hundred (they were on top of a hill as
they spoke; it was night; the mountains rose around them) when the whole
earth is ours. Looked at from the gipsy point of view, a Duke, Orlando
understood, was nothing but a profiteer or robber who snatched land and
money from people who rated these things of little worth, and could think
of nothing better to do than to build three hundred and sixty-five
bedrooms when one was enough, and none was even better than one. She
could not deny that her ancestors had accumulated field after field;
house after house; honour after honour; yet had none of them been saints
or heroes, or great benefactors of the human race. Nor could she counter
the argument (Rustum was too much of a gentleman to press it, but she
understood) that any man who did now what her ancestors had done three or
four hundred years ago would be denounced--and by her own family most
loudly--for a vulgar upstart, an adventurer, a nouveau riche.

She sought to answer such arguments by the familiar if oblique method of
finding the gipsy life itself rude and barbarous; and so, in a short
time, much bad blood was bred between them. Indeed, such differences of
opinion are enough to cause bloodshed and revolution. Towns have been
sacked for less, and a million martyrs have suffered at the stake rather
than yield an inch upon any of the points here debated. No passion is
stronger in the breast of man than the desire to make others believe as
he believes. Nothing so cuts at the root of his happiness and fills him
with rage as the sense that another rates low what he prizes high. Whigs
and Tories, Liberal party and Labour party--for what do they battle
except their own prestige? It is not love of truth but desire to prevail
that sets quarter against quarter and makes parish desire the downfall of
parish. Each seeks peace of mind and subserviency rather than the triumph
of truth and the exaltation of virtue--but these moralities belong, and
should be left to the historian, since they are as dull as ditch water.

'Four hundred and seventy-six bedrooms mean nothing to them,' sighed
Orlando.

'She prefers a sunset to a flock of goats,' said the gipsies.

What was to be done, Orlando could not think. To leave the gipsies and
become once more an Ambassador seemed to her intolerable. But it was
equally impossible to remain for ever where there was neither ink nor
writing paper, neither reverence for the Talbots nor respect for a
multiplicity of bedrooms. So she was thinking, one fine morning on the
slopes of Mount Athos, when minding her goats. And then Nature, in whom
she trusted, either played her a trick or worked a miracle--again,
opinions differ too much for it to be possible to say which. Orlando was
gazing rather disconsolately at the steep hill-side in front of her. It
was now midsummer, and if we must compare the landscape to anything, it
would have been to a dry bone; to a sheep's skeleton; to a gigantic skull
picked white by a thousand vultures. The heat was intense, and the little
fig tree under which Orlando lay only served to print patterns of
fig-leaves upon her light burnous.

Suddenly a shadow, though there was nothing to cast a shadow, appeared on
the bald mountain-side opposite. It deepened quickly and soon a green
hollow showed where there had been barren rock before. As she looked, the
hollow deepened and widened, and a great park-like space opened in the
flank of the hill. Within, she could see an undulating and grassy lawn;
she could see oak trees dotted here and there; she could see the thrushes
hopping among the branches. She could see the deer stepping delicately
from shade to shade, and could even hear the hum of insects and the
gentle sighs and shivers of a summer's day in England. After she had
gazed entranced for some time, snow began falling; soon the whole
landscape was covered and marked with violet shades instead of yellow
sunlight. Now she saw heavy carts coming along the roads, laden with tree
trunks, which they were taking, she knew, to be sawn for firewood; and
then appeared the roofs and belfries and towers and courtyards of her own
home. The snow was falling steadily, and she could now hear the slither
and flop which it made as it slid down the roof and fell to the ground.
The smoke went up from a thousand chimneys. All was so clear and minute
that she could see a Daw pecking for worms in the snow. Then, gradually,
the violet shadows deepened and closed over the carts and the lawns and
the great house itself. All was swallowed up. Now there was nothing left
of the grassy hollow, and instead of the green lawns was only the blazing
hill-side which a thousand vultures seemed to have picked bare. At this,
she burst into a passion of tears, and striding back to the gipsies'
camp, told them that she must sail for England the very next day.

It was happy for her that she did so. Already the young men had plotted
her death. Honour, they said, demanded it, for she did not think as they
did. Yet they would have been sorry to cut her throat; and welcomed the
news of her departure. An English merchant ship, as luck would have it,
was already under sail in the harbour about to return to England; and
Orlando, by breaking off another pearl from her necklace, not only paid
her passage but had some banknotes left over in her wallet. These she
would have liked to present to the gipsies. But they despised wealth she
knew; and she had to content herself with embraces, which on her part
were sincere.