Orlando. A Biography / Орландо. Вирджиния ВулфЧитать онлайн книгу.

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before he turned twenty-five, about forty-seven plays, histories, romances, poems; some in prose, some in verse; some in French, some in Italian; all romantic, and all very long. One of them he had had printed; but he had never dared show it even to his mother because for a nobleman, as he knew, to write was a disgrace.

      Now, however, was the dead of night, and he was alone, so he chose one thick document called 'Xenophila: A Tragedy', and another thin one, called simply 'The Oak Tree'. But then he paused.

      People's Memory is a strange thing. Dipping his pen in the ink, Orlando suddenly saw the mocking face of the lost Princess and immediately asked himself a million questions. Where was she; and why had she left him? Was the Ambassador her uncle or her lover? Was she forced? Was she married? Was she dead?

      But then a different face overlay the face of the Princess in Orlando's mind. Whose is it?he asked himself. And looking at the new picture which lay on top of the old, he had to wait perhaps half a minute before he could say to himself, This is the face of that rather fat, shabby man who sat in Twitchett's room so many years ago when old Queen Elizabeth came here; and I saw him, sitting at the table, as I stopped on my way downstairs, and he had the most amazing eyes. But who the devil was he? Not a nobleman; not one of us… A poet, I dare say!

      Orlando paused because Memory still held before him the image of a shabby man with big, bright eyes. Still he looked, still he paused. Once before he had paused, and Love had burst into his life. From Love he had suffered, and now, again, he paused, and in jumped Ambition, and Poetry, and Desire of Fame. Standing upright, alone in his room, he vowed that he would be the first poet of his family and would make a name for himself[29]. His ancestors had fought and killed, but what was left of all that killing, and drinking, and love-making, and hunting, and riding, and eating? A skull; a finger. Then, turning to the book of Sir Thomas Browne and comparing that achievement with those of his ancestors, he cried that their deeds were dust and ashes, but this man and his words were immortal.

      He soon saw, however, that the battles to win a kingdom were not even half as hard as the battle which he was now fighting to win immortality against the English language. Anyone familiar with the composition will not need to be told the story in detail; how he wrote and it seemed good; read and it seemed horrible; corrected and tore the paper up; cut out; put in; was excited; was in despair; had his good nights and bad mornings; found ideas and lost them; acted his people's parts as he ate; as he walked; now cried; now laughed; chose between this style and that; and still could not decide whether he was a genius or the greatest fool in the world.

      To find the answer to this last question after many months of his battle, he decided to break the solitude of years and meet with the outer world. He had a friend in London, Giles Isham, of Norfolk, who knew certain writers and could put him in touch with[30] some of them. For Orlando, there was a glory about a man who had written a book and had it printed. He could think of no greater happiness than to be allowed to sit behind a curtain and hear them talk. He thought with pride that he himself had always been called a scholar and laughed at for his love of solitude and books. He had never been good at pretty phrases. He would often stand still and blush when talking to ladies. He had twice fallen from his horse. Recalling these episodes of his social life, he hoped that all the troubles of his youth, his clumsiness, his blushes, his long walks, and his love of the country proved that he himself was not an aristocrat by birth, but a writer. For the first time since the night of the great flood he was happy.

      He now paid Mr. Isham of Norfolk to deliver to Mr. Nicholas Greene[31] of Clifford's Inn a document in which Orlando expressed his admiration for his works – as Nick Greene was a very famous writer at that time; and his desire to meet him in person, if Mr. Nicholas Greene would be so kind as to visit him. That last thing Orlando almost did not dare ask for because he had nothing to offer in return. To Orlando's delight, quite soon, Mr. Greene accepted the Noble Lord's invitation and thus was received at seven o'clock on Monday, April the twenty-first, in the southern hall of the main building.

      Many Kings, Queens, and Ambassadors had been received there. Judges and warriors had stood there. The loveliest ladies of the land had come there. There were coats of arms[32] with their lions and their leopards. There were the long tables with the gold and silver plates. There were vast marble fireplaces where nightly a whole oak tree, with its million leaves and its bird nests, was burnt to ashes. Nicholas Greene, the poet, stood there now, dressed in his old hat and a shabby black coat, holding a small bag in one hand.

      Orlando, who rushed to greet him, was slightly disappointed. The poet was of medium height, lean and somewhat stooped. Entering the hall, he stepped on a dog, and the dog bit him. What is more, Orlando did not know where to place him[33]. He belonged neither to servants, nor to noblemen. His head with its high forehead and big nose was fine, but the chin was small. The eyes were brilliant, but the lips hung loose[34]. The expression of the face was disturbing – it was neither noble or pleasant to look at; nor was it a well-trained face of a servant. He was a poet, but it seemed that he would rather criticize than praise; quarrel than make peace; struggle than rest; hate than love. His movements were quick, and there was something suspicious in his glance. Orlando was taken aback[35]. Yet they went to dinner.

      Here Orlando was, for the first time, suddenly ashamed of the number of his servants and of the richness of his table. At dinner, the poet said that although the name of Greene was common, the family had been of the highest nobility in France. Unfortunately, they had lost their wealth and status and simply left their name to the royal district of Greenwich. Then he talked about lost castles, coats of arms, cousins in the north, noble families in the west, how some Greens wrote their name with an e at the end, and others without. Only by the end of the dinner did Orlando dare mention a more important matter than the Greens; that is the subject of poetry.

      When the word was first mentioned, the poet's eyes flashed; he forgot his fine gentleman manners, banged his glass on the table, and began telling one of the longest and most passionate stories that Orlando had ever heard – about his play; another poet; and a critic. Orlando understood only that poetry was harder to sell than prose, and though the lines were shorter, it took longer to write.

      So the talk went on and on, until Orlando mentioned that he himself had been trying to write. At that, the poet jumped up from his chair. A mouse had squeaked in the wall, he said. The truth was, he explained, that his nerves were in a poor state. A mouse's squeak could upset him for two weeks. The poet then gave Orlando the full story of his health for the past ten years or so. It had been so bad that it was a miracle that he still lived. He had had the palsy, the gout, the three kinds of fevers; in addition to which he had heart, spleen, liver and spine problems. Sometimes he woke with a brain like lead; other times it was as if a thousand candles or fireworks were burning inside him. He could feel a rose leaf through his mattress, he said. Altogether, he was finely made and curiously put together, and it surprised him that he had only sold five hundred copies of his poem. But that, of course, was due to the conspiracy against him. All he could say, in the end, banging his fist on the table, was that the art of poetry was dead in England.

      'But what about Shakespeare, Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Browne, Donne[36]?' Orlando asked.

      Greene laughed. Shakespeare, he admitted, had written some things that were good enough; but he had taken them from Marlowe. Marlowe was probably a nice boy, but what else could you say of a man who died before he was thirty? As for Browne, he was writing poetry in prose, and people soon got tired of it. Donne wrapped up his lack of meaning in hard words. As for Ben Jonson – that was his friend, and he never said bad things about his friends.

      No, he concluded, the great age of literature had passed; the great age of literature was the Greek, not the Elizabethan age. In the past, men cherished an ambition. Now all young writers were writing any trash that would sell, and Shakespeare was one of them. Though it hurt him to say it, because he loved literature as he loved his life, he could see no good in the present

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