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Guerino Mazzola · Jason Noer
Yan Pang · Shuhui Yao · Jay Afrisando
Christopher Rochester · William Neace

The Future
of Music
Towards a Computational Musical
Theory of Everything
The Future of Music
Guerino Mazzola • Jason Noer • Yan Pang •
Shuhui Yao • Jay Afrisando •
Christopher Rochester • William Neace

The Future of Music

Towards a Computational Musical Theory
of Everything
Guerino Mazzola Jason Noer
School of Music Department of Theatre Arts & Dance
University of Minnesota University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, USA Minneapolis, USA

Yan Pang Shuhui Yao

Department of Theatre Arts & Dance School of Music
University of Minnesota University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, USA Minneapolis, USA

Jay Afrisando Christopher Rochester

School of Music School of Music
University of Minnesota University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, USA Minneapolis, USA

William Neace
School of Music
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-39708-1 ISBN 978-3-030-39709-8 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39709-8
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt
from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Dedicated to Ida Mazzola

Photo by Guerino Mazzola

Preface

The idea for this book came from a reading of the trilogy The Three-Body Problem,
The Dark Forest, Death’s End by the famous science fiction author Cixin Liu,
which was recommended to me by my student Shuhui Yao. It was less the concrete
narrative of these books—spread over the entire universe in time and space—than
the very category of “science fiction” which was troubling. Science fiction deals
with future and more or less fictitious perspectives of the world’s physical reality,
together with narratives that inhabit those fictions.
It prompted the authors to ask themselves as creators, theorists, and performers
of music and dance whether there was something like “music fiction,” a narrative in
a musical fictitious future.
While this book is inspired by a science fiction, this book’s proposed concep-
tualization of music fiction is not about fiction of a musical future. Instead, it is a
historical and theoretical investigation with the purpose of predicting the future of
music.
We started our inquiry by thinking about how music—instead of science—could
look and feel in 50 years. As Guerino Mazzola was then teaching his university
course “The Mathematical Design of Future Music,” his next step was to envisage a
project about the possible realms of future music.
In the Fall 2018, Mazzola therefore offered a graduate course on writing a book
following these ideas. The precise goal of this project was to envisage a book that
would be the first step towards what we have come to call a “Computational Music
Theory of Everything” (ComMuTE). This title was borrowed from what in physics
is now the Big Science ideal for finding a theory that explains everything. This
“Theory of Everything” (ToE) would unify the four fundamental forces: electro-
magnetic, weak, strong, and gravitational. The unification of the electromagnetic
and weak to the electro-weak being the first big step towards ToE.
We, the collaborators, who took part in this collective effort, represent diverse
experiences and contribute expertise in specialities including composition, im-
provization, and dance. This collaborative effort offers not only new directions
and perspectives that arise from their routine work with creativity that includes new

vii
viii Preface

technologies, but also new interpretations of the social and aesthetic role of music
in its multicultural global variety.
This book is the result of our collaboration that was extended to the Spring 2019
semester and offers a breathtaking spectrum of new vectors into the future of music.
In the general introduction, Chap. 1, a perspective of future developments will be
drawn on the basis of the book’s chapters.
We are pleased to acknowledge the strong support for writing such a demanding
treatise from Springer’s science editor Thomas Hempfling.

Minneapolis, USA Guerino Mazzola

Minneapolis, USA Jason Noer
Minneapolis, USA Yan Pang
Minneapolis, USA Shuhui Yao
Minneapolis, USA Jay Afrisando
Minneapolis, USA Christopher Rochester
Minneapolis, USA William Neace
May 2019

From left to right: William Neace, Jay Afrisando, Jason Noer, Yan Pang, Guerino Mazzola, Shuhui
Yao, Christopher Rochester. Image reprinted with kind permission from the Authors
Contents

Part I Introduction
1 General Introduction .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1 The Collaborative Authors .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Not State of the Art, but Milestones to the Future .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Outdated Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3.1 A Total Reengineering of Music . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.4 The Book’s Architecture of Future Musical Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.4.1 Part I: Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.4.2 Part II: Technological Tools . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.4.3 Part III: Mathematical Concepts . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.4.4 Part IV: Cultural Extensions . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.4.5 Part V: Creative Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.4.6 Part VI: COMMUTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2 Ontology and Oniontology.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.1 Ontology: Where, Why, and How . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2 Oniontology: Facts, Processes, and Gestures . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.3 A Short Characterization .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3 The Basic Functions of Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.1 Surveys of Basic Functions of Music . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.1.1 Theoretical Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.1.2 Empirical Approaches .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.1.3 The Comprehensive Empirical Investigations .. . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.2 Music and the Hippocampal Gate Function.. . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4 Historicity in Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.1 The System of Music and Its History . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.2 Utopia .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.3 Musical Anticipation .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

ix
x Contents

5 Only One Restriction: Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

5.1 Intellectual Properties in Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
5.2 Communication of a Musical Message. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5.3 Medium .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5.4 Cultural Factor/Relevance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5.5 Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Part II Technological Tools

6 Software Tools and Hardware Options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
6.1 Composition and Sound Synthesis: DAWs . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
6.1.1 Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
6.1.2 Project Managing/General Editing.. . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
6.1.3 Audio Editing .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
6.1.4 MIDI Programming/Recording . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
6.1.5 Mixing/Mastering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
6.2 Composition and Sound Synthesis: Audio Programming .. . . . . . . . . 41
6.2.1 Object-Oriented Programming and Its Advantages .. . . . . . 42
6.2.2 Graphical Programming Language . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
6.2.3 Text-Based Programming Language.. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
6.2.4 Which Language Is Better? . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
6.2.5 Audio Programming and DAW . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
6.3 Analysis and Experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
6.3.1 Rhythm and Melody Creation via Automata .. . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
6.3.2 RUBATO Components for Analysis .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
6.4 Software-Base Experimental Music Theory: Rubato’s
MetroRubette for Brahms’s Sonata Op. 1 . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
6.4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
6.4.2 Inner Metric Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
6.4.3 Inner Metric Analysis of Piano Sonata Op. 1,
Movement 1, Allegro .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
6.4.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
6.5 Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
6.5.1 NotePerformer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
6.5.2 RUBATO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
6.5.3 Melodyne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
6.6 Improvisation .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
6.6.1 Nodal .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
6.6.2 Impro-Visor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
6.6.3 Band in a Box .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
6.7 Notation .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
6.8 Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
6.8.1 Auralia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
6.8.2 Syntorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
6.8.3 Counterpointer .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Contents xi

6.9 Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
6.9.1 Input .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
6.9.2 MIDI Keyboards .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
6.9.3 Alternative MIDI Input Tools . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
6.9.4 Microphones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
6.9.5 Output .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
7 New Concepts of Musical Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
7.1 The Classification of Instruments.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
7.1.1 Acoustic/Mechanical . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
7.1.2 Electroacoustic/Electromagnetic .. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
7.2 Expansive Realization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
7.3 Creative Realization .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
8 Musical Distribution Channels: New Networks . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
8.1 A Conceptual Understanding of the Evolution of Music
Distribution in History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
8.1.1 Pre-Internet Electronic Music Distribution Media:
Phonographic Disc, Cassette, and Compact Disc . . . . . . . . . 88
8.2 Present Internet-Based Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
8.3 Ubiquity and Omnipresence: Effects on Music
Consumption Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
8.4 The Global Village of Music as Reshaped by Algorithms . . . . . . . . . 93
9 Big Science in Music. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
9.1 Introduction .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
9.2 Language, Models and Theorems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
9.3 Experiments and the Operationalization of the Theory.. . . . . . . . . . . . 99
9.3.1 Database Management System Research .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
9.3.2 High Performance Combinatorics and New
Methods in Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
9.3.3 Laboratories .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
9.4 Political Acceptance.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Part III Mathematical Concepts

10 Mathematical Music Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
10.1 The MaMuTh Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
10.1.1 The Language in MaMuTh.. . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
10.1.2 Models and Theorems .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
10.1.3 Experiments .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
10.2 The Creative Power of MaMuTh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
11 Serialism: Failure of New Concepts Without Musical Impact . . . . . . . . 111
11.1 Principles of Serialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
11.2 Boulez’s Construction and Ligeti’s Critique . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
11.3 Generalization of Boulez’s Construction to 12 Instruments.. . . . . . . 116
xii Contents

11.4 Critique of These Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

11.4.1 Mathematical Abstraction .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
11.4.2 Absence of Ordered Syntagm .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
11.4.3 Failure of Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
11.4.4 No Harmony, Rhythm, or Melody . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
11.4.5 The Sociological Role of Serialism . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
12 Mazzola’s Sonata Construction: A Technical Approach
and Its Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
12.1 Boulez’s Creative Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
12.2 Applying Creative Analysis to Beethoven’s Hammerklavier
Sonata Op. 106, Allegro Movement . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
12.2.1 Modulation Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
12.2.2 The Generic Motive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
12.3 Transfer to a New Sonata Allegro Construction: Mazzola’s
Op. 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
12.3.1 Modulation .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
12.3.2 The Generic Motive and the Main Melody .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
12.4 The Moebius Type Motivic Construction . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
12.5 A Model for Future Composition or Just Uncreative Copying? . . . 126
13 Imaginary Time: Extending Musical Time Concepts
to Cognitive Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
13.1 Einstein’s and Hawking’s Time Concepts . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
13.2 Musical Consciousness and Creativity . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
13.3 Descartes’ Dualism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
13.4 Synthesizing the Real with the Imaginary: Introducing
Complex Time in Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
13.5 Performing Symbols to Physical Gestures . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
13.6 Application of Imaginary Time to Composition .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
14 Mathematical Gesture Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
14.1 Historical Roots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
14.1.1 Tommaso Campanella .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
14.1.2 Hugues de Saint-Victor .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
14.1.3 Paul Valéry .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
14.1.4 Jean Cavaillès . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
14.1.5 Maurice Merleau-Ponty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
14.2 Definition of a Gesture .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
14.3 Hypergestures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
14.4 Future Technology for Gestures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
15 Future Theories (Counterpoint Etc.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
15.1 Future Counterpoint Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
15.1.1 The History of Counterpoint Until Palestrina . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
15.1.2 The Miraculous Effect of Composition on
Consonances and Dissonances . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Contents xiii

15.1.3 The Mathematical Understanding of the Miracle . . . . . . . . . 148

15.1.4 Future Contrapuntal Perspectives .. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
15.2 Future Theories and Creativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Part IV Cultural Extensions

16 A Critique of the Western Concept of Music . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
16.1 Disembodied Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
16.2 Absent Gesture Theory.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
16.3 Paper Music Fiction .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
16.4 Time Without Now .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
16.5 Sub Specie Aeternitatis: The Devil of Improvisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
16.6 Expert Music Only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
17 Improvisation and the Synthesis Project on the Presto Software . . . . . 159
17.1 The Role of Improvisation for the Future of Musical Creativity .. . 159
17.2 Software Construction and Improvisation: Mazzola’s
Synthesis Project.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
17.2.1 Principles of the Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
17.2.2 The presto Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
17.2.3 The Overall Architecture of the Composition .. . . . . . . . . . . . 163
17.2.4 Symmetries in Music .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
17.2.5 Second Movement: Morphing Melodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
17.2.6 Third Movement: The Music of Poetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
17.2.7 Improvisation with the Software Construction:
Turing’s Test, the CD, and Some Critique .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
18 Art Making as Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
18.1 Choreography, Composition, and Improvisation in Music
and Dance.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
18.2 Practice as Research .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
18.3 Methodology: An Example and Extension from Dance Studies .. . 173
19 Human and Machine Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
19.1 Artificial Intelligence.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
19.2 Some AI Components in Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
19.3 The No/Body Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
20 The Role of Music in the Diversifying Cultures (Africa, East
Asia, South Asia).. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
20.1 Africa: Ghana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
20.2 East Asia: China, Japan .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
20.3 South Asia: Indonesia .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
21 Cultural Theories of Gesture .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
21.1 The Origin of Gesture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
21.2 Gestures in Relation to Culture .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
21.2.1 Gesture in American Hip Hop DJing . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
xiv Contents

21.2.2 The Sign Language Formalism of the Noh Theater .. . . . . . 189

21.2.3 Chinese Gestural Notation and Opera Performance . . . . . . 191
21.3 The Role of Gestures in Future Music . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Part V Creative Strategies

22 Recapitulation of Creativity Theory .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
22.1 Defining Creativity .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
23 The Specifically Musical Walls Against Creativity... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
23.1 Tradition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
23.2 Extramusical References .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
23.3 Missing Ontological Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
24 Examples of Creative Extensions in Music . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
24.1 New Counterpoint .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
24.2 Bitches Brew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
24.3 Free Jazz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
25 Performance and Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
25.1 Performance of Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
25.2 Composition of Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
26 Are Aesthetics and Business Antagonists? .. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
26.1 Commercial Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
26.2 Conceptual Conflict of Money and Composition .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
26.2.1 Selling Beauty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
26.2.2 Artistic Integrity and the Pressure
of Commercialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
26.2.3 Conflict of Art vs. Commercial .. . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
26.3 Reconceptualizing to Allow for Monetary Value
and Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
26.3.1 Moving from High Versus Low to Inner Versus Outer . . . 212
26.3.2 Conceptualizing the ‘Value’ of Composition.. . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
26.4 Final Step: Testing Our Extension.. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

Part VI Commute
27 COMMUTE: Towards a Computational Musical Theory
of Everything .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
27.1 The Physical Theory of Everything (ToE) . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
27.2 Why Would We Think About a Musical ToE (COMMUTE)? . . . . . . 218
27.3 Some Directions Towards COMMUTE . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
27.3.1 Harmony and Rhythm .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
27.3.2 Gestures for Harmony and Counterpoint .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
27.3.3 Counterpoint Worlds for Different Musical Cultures . . . . . 223
27.3.4 Complex Time for Unification of Mental and
Physical Realities in Music . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Contents xv

27.3.5 Symbolic and Real Gestures . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

27.3.6 Unifying Note Performance and Gestural
Performance: Lie Operators.. . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
27.3.7 Unifying Composition and Improvisation?.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
27.4 Imagining Big Science for COMMUTE . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
27.5 Hegel’s Weltgeist and the Big Bang . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

References .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Index . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
 Part I
Introduction
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
eyes gone absent-minded while he rapidly conversed with the person at the
other end of the telephone.
‘Come on,’ said Mr. Thorpe, laying hold of Jocelyn’s arm.
He took him away to the hotel. The hotel was the Carlton. ‘Know me at
the Carlton,’ said Mr. Thorpe, who in the first year of his widowerhood,
before he felt justified in beginning to court Mrs. Luke, had sometimes
consoled himself with the cooking of the Carlton. And thus it was that Mrs.
Luke presently found herself too at the Carlton, for Jocelyn, who no more
than Mr. Thorpe would leave the neighbourhood of Scotland Yard, was
concerned for his mother, left alone at Almond Tree Cottage. So Mr. Thorpe
sent the car back for her, and also for the necessary luggage. He couldn’t
quite see himself appearing next morning at the Carlton in the dinner-jacket
he put on every night at Abergeldie because of the butler.

§
She arrived at one in the morning. Mr. Thorpe by that time had taken
three bedrooms, and a sitting-room.
‘I can’t pay,’ said the unhappy Jocelyn on seeing these arrangements.
‘But I can,’ said Mr. Thorpe.
‘I don’t know why——’ began Jocelyn, shrinking under the
accumulating weight of obligations.
‘But I do,’ said Mr. Thorpe, cutting him short.
Mrs. Luke never forgot that pink sitting-room at the Carlton, for it was
there that Jocelyn, walking up and down it practically demented, cast
himself adrift from her for ever. And yet what had she done but try to help
him? What had she ever done all his life but love him, and try to help him?
‘There’s been too much of that—there’s been too much of that,’ Jocelyn
raved, when she attempted, faintly, for she was exhausted, to defend herself.
She soon gave up. She soon said nothing more at all, but sat crying
softly, the tears dropping unnoticed on her folded hands.
Before this, however, while the car was fetching her from South Winch,
Mr. Thorpe, bracing himself to his plain and unshirkable duty, invited
Jocelyn into the sitting-room he had engaged, and ordered whiskies and
sodas. These he drank by himself, while Jocelyn, his head sunk on his chest,
sat stretched full length in a low chair staring at nothing; and having drunk
the whiskies, Mr. Thorpe felt able to perform his duty.
Which he did; and in a series of brief sentences described the girl’s state
of mind when he accidentally found her down by his fence, and how it was
the idea of being left alone with Jocelyn’s mother till the summer that she
couldn’t stand, because she simply couldn’t stand his mother. Frightened of
her. Scared stiff. Just simply couldn’t stand her.
At this Jocelyn, roused from his stupor, looked round at Mr. Thorpe with
heavy-eyed amazement.
‘Couldn’t stand my mother?’ he said in tones of wonder, his mouth
remaining open, so much was he surprised.
‘That’s the ticket,’ said Mr. Thorpe; and drank more whiskey.
He then, after explaining that he wasn’t an orator, told Jocelyn in a
further series of brief sentences that it was unnatural for wives to live with
their mothers-in-law instead of with their husbands, that his wife knew and
felt this, and that she was, besides, having been brought up on the Bible and
being otherwise ignorant of life, genuinely and deeply shocked at what she
regarded as his disobedience to God’s laws.
‘But my mother,’ said Jocelyn, ‘has been nothing but——’
‘Sees red about your mother, that girl does,’ interrupted Mr. Thorpe.
‘But why?’ said Jocelyn, sitting up straight now, his brows knitted in the
most painful bewilderment.
‘Don’t ask me,’ said Mr. Thorpe; and drank more whiskey.
He then told Jocelyn, in a third and last series of brief sentences, for after
that not only had he said his say but the young man didn’t seem able to
stand any more, that if—no, when—his wife was restored to him, he had
better see to it that his mother was as far off and as permanently off as
possible; and then, Jocelyn by this time looking the very image of
wretchedness, he gave him, poor young devil, the bit of comfort of telling
him that his wife had only meant to leave him till she knew he was in
Cambridge, and that then she had been going to join him there, and live in
some rooms somewhere near him. It wasn’t him she was running from, it
was his mother.
‘All that girl asked,’ said Mr. Thorpe, bringing his fist, weighty now with
whiskey, down shatteringly on the table, ‘was a couple of rooms, and you
sometimes in them. A girl in a thousand. If she’d been as ugly as sin she’d
still have been a treasure to any man. But look at her—look at her, I say.’
‘Oh, damn you!’ shouted Jocelyn, springing to his feet, unable to bear
any more, ‘Damn you—damn you! How dare you, how dare you, when it’s
you—you——’
And he came towards Mr. Thorpe, his arms lifted as if to strike him; but
he suddenly dropped them to his sides, and turning away gripped hold of
the chimneypiece, and, laying his head on his hands, sobbed.

§
Charles Moulsford, then, was right, and the Lukes suffered. So did Mr.
Thorpe, for it was all his fault really. He was amazed at the ease and
swiftness with which he had slipped away from being evidently and
positively a decent man into being equally evidently and positively an evil-
doer. That he had done evil, and perhaps irreparable evil, was plain. Yet its
beginning was after all quite small. He had only helped the girl to go to her
father. Such an act hadn’t deserved this tremendous punishment. Mr.
Thorpe couldn’t help feeling that fate was behaving unfairly by him. If all
his impulses and indiscretions throughout his life had been punished like
this, where would he have been by now?
But that was neither here nor there. This terrible thing had happened, and
it was his fault. Without him she couldn’t have budged; and, weighed down
by his direct responsibility, when Jocelyn advanced on him with his fists
uplifted ready to strike him he rather hoped he would actually do it, and
when instead the poor devil broke down and began to cry, Mr. Thorpe was
very unhappy indeed. Perhaps he hadn’t been quite tactful in the things he
had said to him. Perhaps he had been clumsy. Whiskey was tricky stuff. He
had only meant——
Then Margery arrived, with her white face and great, scared eyes, and
found her son standing there holding on to the chimneypiece and crying,
and—well, Mr. Thorpe felt he had overdone the getting even business
altogether, and discovered with a shock that he could no longer regard
himself as a decent man.
He went away to his bedroom, leaving them alone. He didn’t know what
they were saying to each other, but he could hear that Jocelyn seemed to be
talking a good deal. Couldn’t stop, the poor devil couldn’t; went on and on.
 Mr. Thorpe sat down to think out plans, the ceaseless sound of that voice
in his ears. It was he who had lost the girl, and it was he who was going to
find her. If Scotland Yard found her first so much the better, but he wasn’t
going to sit still till they did, he was going off on his own account next
morning. He’d begin by sending Margery home, who was doing no good
here, he could tell by the sounds coming through the door, pack Jocelyn,
who was doing no good here either raving like that, off to Cambridge
because of the remote chance that the girl was going to be able after all to
do what she said and join him there, and he himself would meanwhile make
a bee-line for her father.
Pinner was the man. Pinner was the point to start from. Pinner and
Woodles. She had said his name was Pinner, and that he lived at Woodles.
Woodles? Funny sort of name that, thought Mr. Thorpe, trying to cheer
himself up by being amused at it. The sounds coming through the door
weren’t very cheering. Raving, the poor young devil was,—raving at his
mother. Mr. Thorpe feared he had perhaps been quite beastly tactless, telling
him of Sally’s not being able to stand his mother. He felt very
uncomfortable about it, sitting there with those sounds in his ears. And
meanwhile the night was slipping along, and where was that girl?
There were so many possible answers to this question, and all of them so
very unpleasant, that Mr. Thorpe couldn’t, he found, sit quiet in his chair.
Three o’clock. Fourteen hours now since last she was seen....
He got up and walked about. In the next room he could hear Jocelyn
doing the same thing. No—dash it all, thought Mr. Thorpe after listening for
some time to the ceaseless voice, he couldn’t be allowed to go on at his
mother like that. He’d had close on a couple of hours of it. All very well
being heartbroken, all very well being out of one’s senses, but he couldn’t
be allowed——
Mr. Thorpe opened the door and went in. There was Jocelyn, striding
about the room, up and down, round and round, enough to make one giddy
just to see him, his words pouring out, his face convulsed, and there sitting
looking at him, not saying a word, with tears rolling down her face, was his
mother.
No—damn it all—there were limits——
‘Better shut up now, eh?’ said Mr. Thorpe firmly to the demented young
man. ‘Said all there’s to say long ago, I bet. Won’t help, you know—this
sort of thing.’
‘I’m telling my mother—I’m making it clear to her once and for all,’
raved Jocelyn, who indeed no longer had the least control of himself, ‘that
if I ever find Sally never again as long as I live shall she come between us,
never shall she set foot——’
‘Oh, shut up. We know all that, don’t we, Margery. Who’s going to come
between you, you silly young ass? Look here—no good crying, you know,’
said Mr. Thorpe, going to Mrs. Luke and putting his arm round her. It
seemed natural. For two pins he would have kissed her. Habit. Can’t get
away from habits.
But Mrs. Luke didn’t appear to know he was there. Her eyes, from which
the tears dropped slowly and unnoticed, were fixed only on Jocelyn.
‘He’s so tired—so tired,’ she kept on whispering to herself. ‘Oh, my
darling—you’re so tired.’

§
It was Mr. Pinner’s turn next day to have a bad time, and he had it. He
had a most miserable day, from noon on, when the same car that had
brought Sally drew up in front of his shop, and a stout elderly gentleman
with a red face and a bristly moustache got out, and came and spent half an
hour with him.
What a half hour that was; but all of a piece with the life he seemed now
to be living. The day before there had been first Sally, and then Mr. Luke,
and now there was this gentleman. Mr. Luke had soon been pacified, and
only wanted to be getting home again, but the stout gentleman came in and
sat down square to it, and at the end of half an hour Mr. Pinner felt as if he
had been turned inside out, and wouldn’t ever be able to look himself in the
face again.
For Sally hadn’t gone home, and it was his fault that she hadn’t. These
were the facts; the gentleman said so. Terrible, terrible, thought Mr. Pinner,
shrinking further than ever into his trousers. The first fact was terrible
enough, but the second seemed even worse to Mr. Pinner. Responsibility,
again—and he who had supposed when he got Sally safely married that he
had done with it for good and all!
 At first he had tried to make a stand and hold up his head, and had said
politely—nothing lost by manners,—‘Excuse me, sir, but are you by any
chance the gentleman my daughter mentioned to me as ’er father-in-law?’
And when the gentleman, after a minute, said he was, Mr. Pinner told him
that in that case it was he who was responsible for her loss, for it was he
who had lent her the car in which she had left her husband.
Wasn’t this true? Anybody would have thought so; but before Mr. Pinner
could say knife the boot had been put on the other leg, and he found that it
was his fault and his only that she was lost, because he hadn’t, as the
gentleman said was his plain duty, taken her back himself to the very door.
Mr. Pinner, constitutionally unable not to feel guilty if anybody told him
loud enough that he was, at once saw the truth of this. Terrible. Awful.
Fancy. Yes, indeed—a daughter like that. Yes, indeed—any daughter, but a
daughter like that, a daughter in a million. No, indeed—he didn’t know how
he came not to do such a thing——
And the more Mr. Thorpe cross-examined him about the details of that
seeing-off at the station, the more did Mr. Pinner’s conduct appear criminal;
for, under Mr. Thorpe’s searching questions, Mr. Pinner somehow began to
be sure the lady in the carriage hadn’t been a lady at all, but something quite
different, something terrible and wicked, who had carried Sally off into the
sort of place one doesn’t mention. He remembered her black eyes, and how
they rolled——
‘Rolled, eh?’ said Mr. Thorpe, who was snatching at Mr. Pinner’s words
almost before they appeared, trembling, on the edge of his mouth.
Yes—rolled. And bold-looking, she was too,—bold-looking, and pat as
you please at answering. Not Mr. Pinner’s idea at all of a modest woman.
Yes, and the compartment smelt of scent, now he came to think of it—yes,
he dared say it was cheap scent. And powdered, her face was—he had
remarked on it to himself, after the train had gone.
Thus did Mr. Thorpe’s own fears get by cross-examination into Mr.
Pinner’s mind, and by the end of the half hour Mr. Pinner was as much
convinced as Mr. Thorpe that Sally had fallen into the hands of somebody
of whom Mr. Thorpe used an expression that Mr. Pinner wouldn’t have
soiled his lips with for any sum one cared to mention. And then, after
swearing at him, and asking him what sort of a father he thought he was,
and Mr. Pinner, who by this time was wishing with all his heart that he
wasn’t a father at all, tremblingly begging him not to blaspheme, Mr.
Thorpe went away.
‘What ’ad I better do now, sir?’ Mr. Pinner asked, following him out on
to the steps in much distress, clinging to him in spite of his horrifying
language.
‘You? What can you do? You’ve done your damnedest——’
‘Sir, sir——’
And he got into his car, and Mr. Pinner heard him tell the chauffeur to
drive like the devil to London and go to Liverpool Street Station; and it
seemed as if in a flash the street were empty, and he alone.

§
That afternoon Mr. Pinner himself arrived at Liverpool Street Station—
an anxious little man in his Sunday clothes, his blue eyes staring with
anxiety. He couldn’t just stay in his shop, and as likely as not never hear
anything more, either one way or the other. He must do something. He must
ask questions. Nobody would tell him if Sally were found or not, if he
didn’t. She herself might some day perhaps drop him a line, but she wasn’t
much of a one for writing, and besides he had been harsh to her. ‘Don’t
believe you loves me,’ she had said, crying bitterly when he scolded her so
and wouldn’t let her stay with him. Love her? He loved her dearly. She was
all he had in the world. If anything had happened to that girl——
He timidly stopped a porter, and began to inquire. The porter, who was
busy, stared at him and hurried on. He then tried a guard, who said, ‘Eh?’
very loud, looked past him along the platform, waved a green flag, jumped
on to a train, and departed.
He then tried another porter; several porters; and at last, more timid than
ever by this time, approached a ticket-collector.
Nobody seemed to have time for Mr. Pinner. His trousers were against
him. So was his hat; so was everything he said and did. The ticket-collector,
who didn’t like shabbiness and meekness, ignored him. He knew perfectly
well who Mr. Pinner was talking about, for the whole station was invariably
aware of any of the Duke’s family passing through it, and everybody the
day before had seen Lady Laura and the young lady. Mr. Pinner hadn’t got
beyond his first words of description before the ticket-collector knew what
he was driving at, but he only looked down his long nose at the flushed
little man in the corkscrew trousers, and said nothing. Give a thing like that
information about her ladyship’s movements? Not much.
Yet this same ticket-collector, only an hour or two before, had been wax
in the gloved hands of Mr. Thorpe, and with these words had parted from
him:
‘Thank you, sir. Don’t mention it, sir. No trouble at all. Yes—a very
striking young lady indeed, sir. Her ladyship was going to Goring House for
a couple of days, so the chauffeur told me. Much obliged, sir. Yes, sir—
Lady Laura Moulsford. That’s right, sir—the Duke of Goring’s daughter.’
This same ticket-collector had said all that; and to Mr. Pinner he said not
a word. He merely down his long nose looked at him, and when the little
man explained that he was the fair young lady’s father he looked at him
more glassily than ever. So that presently for very shame Mr. Pinner
couldn’t go on standing there asking questions that got no answers, and
after lingering awhile uncertainly in the ticket-collector’s neighbourhood,
for something told him that this man could throw light on Sally’s
disappearance if he would, he went sorrowfully, but unresentfully, away.
Presently he found himself in South Winch. He seemed to have drifted
there, not knowing what to do or where to go next, and unable to bear the
thought of his lonely shop and of nobody’s letting him know about
anything. He had thought it fine and peaceful at first to be independent and
at last alone, but it didn’t seem so now. He missed his wife. Nobody now to
mind what he did, good or bad. Nobody.
In South Winch he sought out the grocer, so as to get Jocelyn’s address,
preferring him to the Post Office because the smell of currants and bacon
made him feel less lonely, and, having followed the directions the grocer
gave him, found the road and the house, and opened the white gate with
deferential trepidation. Timidly at the door he asked if he might say a word
to Mr. Luke, and the little maid, at once at ease with his sort of clothes,
inquired pleasantly if Mrs. Luke wouldn’t do just as well; better, suggested
the little maid, because she was there, and Mr. Jocelyn wasn’t. In fact she
offered Mrs. Luke to Mr. Pinner, she pressed her upon him,—a lady he
wouldn’t have dreamt of disturbing if left to himself.
So that Mr. Pinner, without apparently in the least wanting to, found
himself in a beautiful drawing-room, and there by the fire sat a lady, leaning
back on some cushions as though she were tired.
At first he thought she was asleep, and he was beginning to feel
extremely awkward when she turned her head and looked at him.
A pale lady. A very pale lady; with a face that seemed all eyes.
‘Beg pardon, mum,’ said Mr. Pinner, wishing he hadn’t come.
The lady went on looking at him. She didn’t move. Her hands were
hanging down over the arms of the chair as though she were tired. She just
turned her head, but didn’t move else.
‘It’s about Sally,’ said Mr. Pinner. ‘ ’Appened to be passin’, and thought
I’d——’
He stopped, for now he came to think of it he didn’t rightly know what
he had thought.
The lady leant forward in her chair. ‘Do you know where she is?’ she
asked quickly.
‘No, mum. Do you?’ asked Mr. Pinner.
‘No,’ said the lady in a queer sort of voice, her head drooping.
Mr. Pinner stood there very awkward indeed.
‘Are you her father?’ she asked, after a minute.
‘That’s right, mum,’ said Mr. Pinner.
Then she got up and came across to him.
‘I’m afraid you are very unhappy,’ she said, looking at him.
‘That’s right, mum,’ said Mr. Pinner.
She held out her hand, her eyes on his face.
He shook it respectfully, but without enthusiasm.
‘Why, you’re cold,’ she said.
‘That’s right, mum,’ said Mr. Pinner.
‘Won’t you come to the fire and get warm?’ she said; and before he had
time to consider what he ought to do next, Mr. Pinner found himself sitting
on the edge of the low chair the lady pushed up for him, warming his knees
and not saying anything.
The lady talked a little. She had some nice hot tea made for him, and
while he drank it talked a little, and said she was sure they would hear good
news soon, and he mustn’t worry, because she was sure....
 Then she fell silent too, and they sat there together looking into the fire;
and it was funny, thought Mr. Pinner, how just to sit there quietly, and know
she was sorry too about everything, seemed to make him feel better. A kind
lady; a good lady. What did Sally mean, saying he wouldn’t be able to stand
her either, if he knew her? The only thing wrong with her that Mr. Pinner
could see, was that she looked so ill. Half dead, thought Mr. Pinner.
And after being with her he had more courage to go back to the lonely
shop, and she promised faithfully to let him know the minute there was any
news, and again told him not to worry and everything would come all right,
and he went away comforted.
And she, watching him as he trotted off down to the gate, felt somehow
comforted too; not quite so lonely; not quite so lost.

§
Meanwhile Mr. Thorpe, having lunched and tidied and generally
freshened himself up, was on the steps of Goring House, asking for Lady
Laura Moulsford.
‘Her ladyship is hout,’ said the footman haughtily, for he knew at once
when Mr. Thorpe added the word Moulsford that he was what the footman
called not one of Our Lot. No good his having a car waiting there, and a fur
coat, and suède gloves; he simply wasn’t one of Our Lot. And the footman,
his head thrown back, looked at Mr. Thorpe very much as the ticket-
collector was at that moment looking at Mr. Pinner.
‘Out, eh?’ said Mr. Thorpe. ‘When will she be in?’
‘Her ladyship didn’t say,’ said the footman, his head well back.
‘You’ve got a young lady here of the name of Luke. She in?’
‘Mrs. Luke is hout,’ said the footman, beginning to shut the door.
‘Is anybody in?’ asked Mr. Thorpe, getting angry.
‘The family is hout,’ said the footman; and was going to shut the door
quite when Mr. Thorpe went close up to him and damned him. And because
Mr. Thorpe’s temper was quick and hot he damned him thoroughly, and the
footman, as he heard the familiar words, strongly reminiscent not only of
Lord Streatley but also of the different sergeants he had had during the war,
who, however unlike each other to look at, were identical to listen to,
thought he must be one of Lady Laura’s friends after all, and began to open
the door again; and Mr. Thorpe advancing, damning as he went and saying
things about flunkeys that were new to the footman, entered that marble hall
which had struck such a chill into Sally’s unaspiring soul.
The butler appeared. The butler was suave where the footman had been
haughty. He had heard some of the things Mr. Thorpe was saying as he
hurried from his private sitting-room into the echoing hall, and had no
doubt that he was a friend of the family’s.
Lady Laura had been in to lunch, but had gone out again; Mrs. Luke was
motoring with Lord Charles—who the devil was he, Mr. Thorpe wondered
—down to Crippenham, where she was going to stay the night. Her
ladyship had had a telegram from his lordship to that effect, and she herself
was going down the following morning.
‘Where’s Crippenham?’ asked Mr. Thorpe.
The butler was surprised. Up to that moment he had taken Mr. Thorpe
for a friend, if an infrequent one, of Lady Laura’s.
‘His Grace’s Cambridgeshire seat,’ he said, in his turn with hauteur. ‘His
Grace is at present in residence.’
‘Crikey!’ thought Mr. Thorpe. ‘Got right in with the Duke himself, has
she?’ And he felt fonder of Sally than ever.

§
At this point Mr. Thorpe, who had been behaving so well, began to
behave less well. The minute the pressure of anxiety was relaxed, the
minute, that is, that he no longer suffered, he became callous to the
sufferings of the Lukes; and instead of at once letting them know what he
had discovered he kept it to himself, he hugged his secret, and deferred
sending till some hours later a telegram to each of them saying, ‘Hot on her
tracks.’
Quite enough, thought Mr. Thorpe, as jolly again as a sand-boy, and
immediately unable to imagine the world other than populated by sand-boys
equally jolly,—quite enough that would be to go on with, quite enough to
make them both feel better. If he told them more, they’d get rushing off to
Crippenham and disturbing the Duke’s house-party. The whole thing should
now be allowed to simmer, said Mr. Thorpe to himself. Sally should be
given a fair field with her duke, and not have relations coming barging in
and interrupting.
But what a girl, thought Mr. Thorpe, slapping his knee—he was in his
car, on the way to his club—what a girl. She only had to meet dukes for
them to go down like ninepins at her feet. Apart from her beauty, what
spirit, what daring, what initiative, what resource! It had been worth all the
anxiety, this magnificent dénouement. Safe, and sounder than ever. A
glorious girl; and he too had at once seen how glorious she was, and at
once, like the Duke, fallen at her feet. That girl, thought Mr. Thorpe, who
began to believe she would rise triumphant even over a handicap like
Jocelyn, might do anything, might do any mortal thing,—no end at all, there
wasn’t, to what that girl couldn’t do. And, glowing, he telephoned to
Scotland Yard, and later on, after having had his tea and played a rubber of
bridge, sent his telegrams.
Then he went quietly home. Things should simmer. Things must now be
left to themselves a little. He went quietly home to Abergeldie, and didn’t
let Mrs. Luke know he was there. Her feelings, he considered, were
sufficiently relieved for the present by his telegram; things must now be
allowed to simmer. And he took a little walk in his shrubbery, and then had
a hot bath, and dressed, and dined, ordering up a pint of the 1911 Cordon
Rouge, and sat down afterwards with a great sigh of satisfaction by his
library fire.
He smoked, and he thought; and the only thing he regretted in the whole
business was the rude name he had called Lady Laura Moulsford to that
fool Pinner. But, long as he smoked and thought, it never occurred to him to
resent, or even to criticise, the conduct of the Moulsford family. Strange as
it may seem, considering that family’s black behaviour, Mr. Thorpe dwelt
on it in his mind with nothing but complacency.
 XV

§
At Crippenham next morning it was very fine. London and South Winch
were in a mist, but the sun shone brightly in Cambridgeshire, and the Duke
woke up with a curiously youthful feeling of eagerness to get up quickly
and go downstairs. He knew he couldn’t do anything quickly, but the odd
thing was that for years and years he hadn’t wanted to, and that now
suddenly he did want to; and just to want to was both pleasant and
remarkable.
He had been thinking in the night,—or, rather, Charles’s thoughts, placed
so insistently before him, had sunk in and become indistinguishable from
his own; and he had thought so much that he hadn’t gone to sleep till nearly
five. But then he slept soundly, and woke up to find his room flooded with
sunshine, and to feel this curiously agreeable eagerness to be up and doing.
The evening before, when Charles came in from the garden and packed
his bewitching guest off to bed, he had been very cross, and had listened
peevishly to all his son was explaining and pointing out; not because he
wasn’t interested, or because he resented the suggestions being made, but
simply because the moment that girl left the room it was as if the light had
gone out,—the light, and the fire. She needn’t have obeyed Charles. Why
should she obey Charles? She might have stayed with him a little longer,
warming him by the sight of her beauty and her youth. The instant she went
he felt old and cold; back again in the condition he was in before she
arrived, dropped back again into age and listlessness, and, however stoutly
he pretended it wasn’t so, into a deathly chill.
Now that, thought the Duke, himself surprised at the difference his
guest’s not being in the room made, was what had happened to David too
towards the end. They didn’t read it in the Lessons in church on Sundays,
but he nevertheless quite well remembered, from his private inquisitive
study of the Bible in his boyhood, how they covered David when he was
old with clothes but he got no heat, and only a young person called the
Shunammite was able, by her near presence, to warm him. The Duke didn’t
ask such nearness as had been the Shunammite’s to David, for he, perhaps
because he was less old, found all he needed of renewed life by merely
looking at Sally; but he did, remembering David while Charles talked, feel
aggrieved that so little as this, so little as merely wishing to look at her,
should be taken from him, and she sent to bed at ten o’clock.
So he was cross, and pretended not to understand, and anyhow not to be
interested. But he had understood very well, and in the watches of the night
had come to his decision. At his age it wouldn’t do to be too long coming to
decisions; if he wished to secure the beautiful young creature—Charles said
help, but does not helping, by means of the resultant obligations, also
secure?—he must be quick.
He rang for his servant half an hour before the usual time. He wanted to
get up, to go to her again, to look at her, to sit near her and have her
fragrant, lovely youth flowing round him. The mere thought of Sally made
him feel happier and more awake than he had felt for years. Better than the
fortnight’s cure of silence and diet at Crippenham was one look at Sally,
one minute spent with Sally. And she was so kind and intelligent, as well as
so beautiful—listening to every word he said with the most obvious
interest, and not once fidgeting or getting sleepy, as people nowadays
seemed to have got into the habit of doing. It was like sitting in the sun to
be with her; like sitting in the sun on a warm spring morning, and freshness
everywhere, and flowers, and hope.
Naturally, having found this draught of new life the Duke wasn’t going
to let it go. On the contrary, it was his firm intention, with all the strength
and obstinacy still in him, to stick to Sally. How fortunate that she was poor,
and he could be the one to help her. For she, owing all her happiness to him,
couldn’t but let him often be with her. Charles had said it would be both
new and desirable to do something in one’s life for nothing; but the Duke
doubted if it were ever possible, however much one wished to, to do
anything for nothing. In the case of Sally it was manifestly impossible.
Whatever he did, whatever he gave, he would be getting far more back; for
she by her friendship, and perhaps affection, and anyhow by her presence,
would be giving him life.
‘Come out into the garden, my dear,’ he said, when he had been safely
helped downstairs—the stairs were each time an adventure—putting his
shaking hand through her arm. ‘I want to see your hair in the sun, while I
talk to you.’
 And leading him carefully out, Sally thought, ‘Poor old gentleman,’ and
minded nothing at all that he said. Her hair, her eyes, all that Oh my ain’t
you beautiful business, of which she was otherwise both sick and afraid,
didn’t matter in him she called the Jewk. He was just a poor old gentleman,
an ancient and practically helpless baby, towards whom she felt like a
compassionate mother; and when he said, sitting in the sunny sheltered seat
she had lowered him on to and taking her hand and looking at her with his
watery old eyes, that he was going to give her Crippenham, and that the
only condition he made was that he might come and do a rest-cure there
rather often, she smiled and nodded as sweetly and kindly as she smiled and
nodded at everything else he said.
Like the croonings of a baby were the utterances of the Duke in Sally’s
ears; no more meaning in them, no more weight to be attached to them, than
that. Give her Crippenham? Poor old gentleman. Didn’t know what he was
talking about any more, poor old dear. She humoured him; she patted his
arm; and she wished to goodness Laura would be quick and come and take
her to her husband.
Sally now longed to get to Jocelyn as much as if she had passionately
loved him. He was her husband. He was the father of the little baby. Her
place was with him. She had had enough of this fleshpot business. She was
homesick for the things she knew,—plain things, simple things, duties she
understood. Kind, yes; kind as kind, the picks were, and they meant well;
but she had had enough. It wasn’t right it wasn’t, at least it wasn’t right for
her, to live so fat. What would her father have said if he had seen her in the
night in Laura’s bedroom, among all that lot of silver bottles and brushes
and laces and silks, and herself in a thin silk nightgown the colour of skin,
making her look stark naked? What would he have said if he had seen her
having her breakfast up there as though she were ill,—and such a breakfast,
too! Fleshpots, he’d have said; fleshpots. And he would have said, Sally,
strong if inaccurate in her Bible, was sure, that she had sold her husband for
a mess of fleshpots.
This was no life for her, this was no place for her, she thought, her head
bowed and the sun playing at games of miracles with her hair while the
Duke talked. She drew impatient patterns with the tip of her shoe on the
gravel. She hardly listened. Her ear was cocked for the first sounds of
Laura. She ached to have done with all this wasting of time, she ached to be
in her own home, getting on with her job of looking after her man and
preparing for her child. ‘Saturday today,’ she mused, such a lovely look
coming into her eyes that the Duke, watching her, was sure it was his
proposed gift making her divinely happy. ‘We’d be ’avin’ shepherd’s pie for
dinner—or p’raps a nice little bit of fish....’
And, coming out of that pleasant dream with a sigh, she thought,
‘Oughtn’t never to ’ave met none of these ’ere. All comes of runnin’ away
from dooty.’
Apologetically she turned her head and looked at the Duke, for she had
forgotten him for a moment, besides having been thinking on lines that
were hardly grateful. Poor old gentleman—still keeping on about giving her
Crippenham. Crippenham? She’d as soon have the cleaning of Buckingham
Palace while she was about it as of that great, frightening house—or, come
to that, of a prison.
But how like a bad dream it was, being kept there with the morning
slipping past, and she unable to reach him across the gulf of his deafness.
By eleven o’clock she was quite pale with unhappiness, she could hardly
bear it any longer. Would she have to give manners the go-by and take to
her heels once more? This time, though, there would be no kind father-in-
law to lend her a car; this time she would have to walk,—walk all the way,
and then when she got there find Jocelyn unaided. And the old gentleman
kept on and on about Crippenham being hers, and everything in it....
’E’s nothin’ but a nimage,’ she said to herself in despair. ‘Sits ’ere like a
old idol. Wot do ’e know about a married woman’s dooties?’
‘Where’s Charles?’ asked the Duke.
Sally shook her head. She hadn’t seen a sign of him that morning.
‘I want him to get my solicitor down—no time to lose,’ said the Duke.
‘You’re to have the place lock, stock and barrel, my dear, such as it is—
servants and all.’
Servants and all? Poor old gentleman. Why, she wouldn’t know which
end of a servant to start with. She with servants? And these ones here who,
however hard she tried up there in the bedroom, wouldn’t make friends.
They called her Madam. She Madam? Oh, my gracious, thought Sally,
shrinking in horror from such a dreadful picture.
‘It’s a hole of a place,’ went on the Duke, ‘and quite unworthy of you,
but we can have more bathrooms put in, and it’ll do till we find something
you like better. And Charles tells me you married rather suddenly, and
haven’t got anywhere to go to at present. He also says you have to live close
to Cambridge, because of your husband’s studies. And he also says, and I
entirely agree with him, my dear, that you oughtn’t to be in Cambridge
itself, but somewhere more secluded—somewhere where you won’t be seen
quite so much, somewhere hidden, in fact. Now I think, I really do think,
that Crippenham, in spite of all its disadvantages, does exactly fulfil these
requirements. And I want you to have it, my dear—to take it as my wedding
present to you, and to live in it very happily, and bless it and make it
beautiful by your presence.’
Thus the Duke.
‘ ’E don’t ’alf talk,’ thought Sally, quivering to be gone.

§
Charles, on being sent for by the Duke, was nowhere to be found. That
was because he was in South Winch. He had gone off at daybreak in his car,
and at the very moment his father woke up to the fact of his absence and
asked where he was, he was standing in the drawing-room at Almond Tree
Cottage, his eyes fixed eagerly on the door, waiting for Mrs. Luke.
He hadn’t been able to sleep for thinking of her. Somehow he had got it
into his head that she, more than her son, would suffer through Sally’s
disappearance, and be afraid. Because, thought Charles, she would feel that
it was from her the girl had run, and that any misfortune that might happen
to her would be, terribly, laid at her door. For two whole days and two
whole nights that unfortunate woman must have gone through torture. What
Charles couldn’t understand was why he hadn’t thought of this before.
Indeed his and Laura’s conduct had been utterly unpardonable. The least he
could now do, he thought, as he lay wide awake throughout the night, was
to get to South Winch without losing a minute, and put Mrs. Luke out of her
misery, and beg her forgiveness.
She was in the garden when he arrived. The little maid, staring at the
card he asked her to take to her mistress, said she would fetch her, and
ushered him into the drawing-room, where he waited with the books, the
bright cushions, the Tiepolo, and two withered tulips in a glass from which
nearly all the water had dried away; and while he waited he fought with a
feeling he considered most contemptible, in face of the facts, that he was
somehow on an errand of mercy, and arriving with healing in his wings,—
that he was somehow a benefactor.
Sternly he told himself he ought to feel nothing but shame; sternly he
tried to suppress his glow of misplaced self-satisfaction. There was nothing
good about him and Laura in this business. They had, the pair of them, been
criminally impulsive and selfish. He knew it; he acknowledged it. Yet here
he was, secretly glowing, his eyes watching the door, as much excited as if
he were going to bestow a most magnificently generous, unexpected
present.
Then it opened, and Mrs. Luke came in. He was sure it was Mrs. Luke,
for no one else could look so unhappy; and the glow utterly vanished, and
the feeling of shame and contrition became overwhelming.
‘She’s safe,’ said Charles quickly, eager to put a stop at once to the
expression in her eyes. ‘She’s at my father’s. She’s going to Cambridge
today to your son. She’s been with us the whole time——’
And he went to her, and took her hand and kissed it.
‘If it weren’t so ridiculous,’ he said, his face flushed with painful
contrition, still holding her hand and looking into her heavy, dark-ringed
eyes, ‘I’d very much like to go down on my knees to you, and beg your
pardon.’

§
And while Charles was in South Winch, Laura was in Cambridge,
dealing with Jocelyn. She, like Charles, had become conscious of the
sufferings of the Lukes, and, like him, was obsessed by them and lost in
astonishment that she hadn’t thought of them sooner; but for some obscure
reason, or instinct, her compunctions and her sympathies were for Jocelyn
rather than for his mother, and after a second sleepless night, during which
she was haunted by the image of the unfortunate young husband and greatly
tormented, she went down, much chastened, to Cambridge by the first
possible train, with only one desire now, to put him out of his misery and
beg his forgiveness.
So that Jocelyn, sitting doing nothing, his untouched breakfast still
littering the table, sitting bent forward in the basket-chair common to the
rooms of young men at Cambridge, his thin hands gripped so hard round his
knees that the knuckles showed white, his ears strained for the slightest
sound on the staircase, his eyes hollow from want of sleep, sitting as he had
sat all the previous afternoon after getting Mr. Thorpe’s telegram and most
of the night, sitting waiting, listening, and perhaps for the first time in his
life, for his mother had not included religious exercises in his early
education, doing something not unlike praying, did at last hear a woman’s
step crossing Austen’s Court, hesitating at what he felt sure was his corner,
then slowly coming up his staircase, and hesitating again at the first floor.
All the blood in his body seemed to rush to his head and throb there. His
heart thumped so loud that he could hardly hear the steps any more. He
struggled out of his low chair and stood listening, holding on to it to steady
himself. Would they come up higher? Yes—they were coming up. Yes—it
must be Sally. Sally—oh, oh, Sally!
He flew to the door, pulled it open, and saw—Laura.
‘It’s all right,’ she panted, for the stairs were steep and she was fat, ‘it is
—about Sally—don’t look so——’ she stopped to get her breath—‘so
dreadfully disappointed. She’s safe. If you’ll—oh, what stairs——’ she
pressed her hand to her heaving bosom—‘come with me, I’ll—take you—to
her——’
And having got to the top, she staggered past him into his room, and
dropped into the basket-chair, and for a minute or two did nothing but gasp.
But how difficult she found him. Jocelyn, whose reactions were always
violent, behaved very differently from the way his mother at that moment
was behaving, placed in the same situation of being asked forgiveness by a
Moulsford. Instead of forgiving, of being, as Laura had pictured, so much
delighted at the prospect of soon having Sally restored to him that he didn’t
mind anything, he appeared to mind very much, and quarrelled with her.
She, accustomed to have everything she did that was perhaps a little wrong
condoned and overlooked by all classes except her own, was astonished.
Here she was, doing a thing she had never done before, begging a young
man to forgive her, and he wouldn’t. On the contrary, he rated her. Rated
her! Her, Laura Moulsford. She knew that much is forgiven those above by
those below, and had frequently deplored the practice as one that has
sometimes held up progress, but now that the opposite was being done to
herself she didn’t like it at all.
 ‘Oh, what a nasty disposition you’ve got!’ she cried at last, when Jocelyn
had been telling her for ten impassioned minutes, leaning against the
chimney-piece and glowering down at her with eyes flashing with
indignation, what he thought of her. ‘I’m glad now, instead of sorry, for
what I did. At least Sally has had two days less of you.’
‘If you’re going to rag me as well——’ began Jocelyn, taking a quick
step forward as if to seize and shake this fat little incredibly officious
stranger,—so like him, his mother would have said, to waste time being
furious instead of at once making her take him to Sally.
But Laura, unacquainted with his ways, was astonished.
Then he pulled himself up. ‘It’s not you I’m cursing really at all,’ he
said. ‘It’s myself.’
‘Well, I don’t mind that,’ said Laura, smiling.
‘I’ve got the beastliest temper,’ said Jocelyn.
‘So I see,’ said Laura.
‘Do you think,’ he asked, for in spite of his anger he was all soft and
bruised underneath after his two days of fear, and when the fat stranger
smiled there was something very motherly about her, ‘I shall ever get over
it?’
‘Perhaps if you try—try hard.’
‘But—look here, I don’t care what you say—what business had you to
make away with my wife?’
‘Now you’re beginning all over again.’
‘Make away with my wife, smash up everything between me and my
mother——’
‘Oh, oh——’ interrupted Laura, stopping up her ears, and bowing her
head before the storm.

§
It was ten more minutes before she got him out of his rooms and into a
taxi.
‘We’ve lost twenty minutes,’ she said, looking at her watch. ‘You’ve lost
twenty kisses you might have had——’
 ‘For God’s sake don’t rag me!’ cried Jocelyn, gripping her by the arm
and bundling her into the taxi.
‘But what,’ asked Laura, who had tumbled in a heap on the seat, yet who
didn’t mind being thrown in because she knew she deserved worse than
that, ‘what else can one do with a creature like you?’
And she told him very seriously, as they heaved along towards
Crippenham, that the real mistake had been Sally’s marrying beneath her.
‘Beneath her?’ repeated Jocelyn, staring.
‘Isn’t it apparent?’ said Laura. ‘Angels should only marry other angels,
and not descend to entanglements with perfectly ordinary——’
‘No, I’m damned if I’m ordinary,’ thought Jocelyn. ‘And who the devil
is she, anyhow?’
‘Bad-tempered,’ continued Laura.
‘Yes, I’m beastly bad-tempered,’ he admitted.
‘Conceited——’
‘I swear I’m not conceited,’ he said.
‘Aren’t you?’ said Laura, turning her head and scrutinising him with
bright, mocking eyes.
And then, coming swift and silent as an arrow along the road towards
their taxi, she saw her father’s car.
‘Oh, stop!’ she cried, leaping to her feet and thrusting as much of herself
as would go through the window. ‘Here’s my father—yes, and Sally. Stop—
oh, stop!’ she cried, frantically waving her arms.

§
It had been decreed by Fate that Jocelyn should be reunited to Sally in
the middle of the road just beyond Waterbeach, at the point where the lane
to Lyddiatt’s Farm turns off; for such was the Duke’s desire to help his
lovely friend and such his infatuation, that he had actually broken his rule
of never emerging from Crippenham, once he got there, till the day
appointed for his departure, and was himself taking her to Ananias to hand
her over in person to her husband, afterwards lunching with the Master,—a
thing unheard of, this lunching, for the Duke disliked the Master’s politics
and the Master disliked the Duke’s, but what wouldn’t one do to further the
interests, by saying a good word for them, of the young couple?
This he had arranged that morning before coming downstairs, his
amazed servant telephoning the message and receiving the Master’s
hypocritical expressions of pleasure in return, for apart from the Duke’s
politics the Master was no fonder of a deaf guest than anybody else; and
just as Sally, on that garden seat, was coming to the end of her patience and
submissiveness and was seriously thinking of jumping up and taking to her
heels, the parlourmaid appeared on the path; and when she was quite close
she stood still, and opened her mouth very wide, and roared out that the car
was at the door; and the Duke, with a final pat of benediction, bade Sally
fetch her hat, and come with him to her husband.
So there it was that they met,—the taxi and the Rolls Royce, Laura and
Jocelyn, Sally and the Duke. And on the Swaffham Prior side of
Waterbeach, where the crooked signpost points to Lyddiatt’s Farm, the dull,
empty road was made radiant for a moment that day by happiness.
‘Stop! Stop!’ cried Laura, frantically waving.
‘Sally! Oh—oh, Sally!’ shouted Jocelyn, standing up too, and trying too,
behind Laura, to wave.
The chauffeur recognised Laura, and pulled up as soon as he could; the
taxi pulled up with a great grinding of its brakes; Jocelyn jumped out of one
door, and Laura of the other; and both ran.
‘Why,’ said Sally, who didn’t know what had happened, turning her head
and looking in astonishment at the two running figures coming along
behind, ‘why,’ she said, forgetting the Duke was deaf, ‘ ’ere is Mr. Luke
——’
And in another instant Jocelyn was there, up on the step of the car,
leaning over the side, dragging her to him with both arms, hugging her to
his heart, and kissing her as if there were no one in the world except
themselves.
‘Sally—oh, my darling! Oh, Sally—oh, oh, Sally!’ cried Jocelyn, raining
kisses on her between each word. ‘How could you—why did you—oh, yes
—I know, I know—I’ve been a beast to you—but I’m not going to be any
more—I swear, I swear——’
‘Now don’t, Mr Luke,’ Sally managed to say, stifled though she was,
‘don’t get swearin’ about it——’
 And pulling her head away from him she was able to attend to the
proprieties, and introduce him.
‘My ’usband,’ introduced Sally, looking over his arm, which was round
her neck, at the old man beside her. ‘The Jewk,’ she said, turning her face
back to Jocelyn, who took no notice of the introduction, who didn’t indeed
hear, because the moment she turned her face—oh, her divine, divine little
face!—back to him, he fell to kissing it again.
And Laura, coming panting up just then, got up on the step on the other
side of the car, and shouted in her father’s ear, who could always hear
everything she said, ‘This is Jocelyn Luke, Father—Sally’s husband.’
And the Duke said, ‘I thought it must be.’
 XVI

§
Now the end of this story, which is only the very beginning of Sally, the
merest introduction to her, for it isn’t to be supposed that nothing more
happened in her life,—the end of it is that she did as she was told about
Crippenham, and if the Duke had been less than ninety-three there would
have been a scandal.
But after ninety there is little scandal. The worst that was said of the
Lukes was that they had got hold of the old man, and nobody who saw
Sally believed that. Indeed, the instant anyone set eyes on her the Duke’s
behaviour was accounted for, and after five minutes in her company it
became crystal clear that she was incapable of getting hold of anybody. So
young, so shy, so acquiescent,—absurd to suppose she ever had such a thing
as an ulterior motive. And the husband, too; impossible to imagine that
silent scholar, also so young, and rather shy too, or else very sulky,—
impossible to imagine him plotting. On the contrary, he didn’t seem to like
what had happened to him much, and showed no signs whatever either of
pleasure or gratitude. But of Jocelyn no one thought long. He was without
interest for the great world. He was merely an obscure young man at
Cambridge, somebody the Duke’s amazing beauty had married.
Sally did, then, as she was told about Crippenham. It was given her, and
she took it; or rather, for her attitude was one of complete passivity, it
became hers. But she had an unsuspected simple tenacity of purpose, which
was later to develop disconcertingly, and she refused to live anywhere
except in the four-roomed cottage in the corner of the garden, built years
before as a playhouse for Laura and Charles.
On this one point she was like a rock; a polite rock, against which
persuasions, though received sweetly and amiably, should beat in vain. So
the Duke had the little house fitted up with every known labour-saving
appliance, none of which Sally would use because of having been brought
up to believe only in elbow-grease, and two bathrooms, one for her and one
for Jocelyn; and he attached such importance to these bathrooms, and he
insisted so obstinately on their being built, that Sally could only conclude
the picks must need a terrible lot of washing. Whited sepulchres they must
be, she secretly thought; looking as clean as clean outside, fit to eat one’s
dinner off if it came to that, but evidently nothing but show and take-in.
The Duke, much concerned at first, settled down to this determination of
Sally’s, and explained it to himself by remembering Marie-Antoinette. She
had her Trianon. She too had played, as Sally wished to play, at being
simple. He consoled himself by speaking of the cottage as Little Trianon; a
name Sally accepted with patience, though she told Jocelyn—who was so
much stunned at the strange turn his life had taken that she found she could
be quite chatty with him, and he never corrected, and never even said
anything back—she wouldn’t have thought of herself. Some day, the Duke
was sure, the marvellous child would grow up and get tired of her Trianon,
and then, when she wanted to move into the house, she should find
Versailles all ready for her, and very different from what it used to be.
So, on the excuse of seeing to the alterations, he was hardly ever away
from Crippenham, and if he had been less than ninety-three there would
certainly have been a scandal.
But Jocelyn, who woke up after the wild joy and relief of being reunited
to Sally to find himself the permanent guest of a duke, didn’t know whether
to be pleased or annoyed. The problems of his and Sally’s existence were
solved, it was true, but he wasn’t sure that he didn’t prefer the problems. He
rubbed his eyes. This was fantastic. It had no relation to real life, which was
the life of hard work and constant progress in his cloister at Ananias. Also,
its topsy-turviness bewildered him. Here was the Duke, convinced that
Sally had married beneath her, and so unshakably convinced that Jocelyn
had enormous difficulty in not beginning to believe it too. He couldn’t help
being impressed by the Duke. He had never met a duke before, never come
within miles of meeting one, and was impressed. That first afternoon, when
he had been carried off in the Rolls Royce to Crippenham, he had spent the
time between luncheon and tea shut up in the old man’s study being
upbraided for having taken advantage, as he was severely told, of Sally’s
youth and inexperience and motherlessness to persuade her into a marriage
which was obviously socially disastrous for her; and he couldn’t even if he
had wished to, which he certainly didn’t, tell him about Mr. Pinner, because
he couldn’t get through the barrier of his deafness. There the old man had
sat, with beetling brows and great stern voice, booming away at him hour
after hour, and there Jocelyn had sat, young, helpless, silent, his forehead
beaded with perspiration, listening to a description, among other things, of
the glories which would have been Sally’s if he hadn’t inveigled her into
marrying him. And so sure was the Duke of his facts, and so indignant, that
gradually Jocelyn began to think there was something in it, and every
moment felt more of a blackguard. In the old man’s eyes, he asked himself,
would there be much difference between him and Pinner? And was there, in
anybody’s eyes, much difference? More education; that was all. But of
family, in the Duke’s sense, he had as little as Pinner, and if Pinner had been
to a decent school, as Jocelyn had, and then gone to Cambridge—no,
Oxford for Pinner—he would probably have cut quite as good a figure, if
not in science then in something else; perhaps as a distinguished cleric.
He sat dumb and perspiring, feeling increasingly guilty; and if he could
have answered back he wouldn’t have, because the Duke made him feel
meek.
This meekness, however, didn’t last. It presently, after a period of
bewilderment, gave way to something very like resentment, which in its
turn developed into a growing conviction that he had become just a cat’s
paw,—he who, if left to himself, could have done almost anything.
Naturally he didn’t like this. But how, for the moment, could he help it?
Sally was going to have a baby. They had to live somewhere. It was really
heaven-sent, the whole thing. Yet—Sally, whom he had been going to
mould, was moulding him. Unconsciously; nothing to do with any intention
or desire of her own. And what she was moulding him into, thought
Jocelyn, as he drove himself backwards and forwards every day between
Crippenham and Cambridge, between his domestic life and his work,
between the strange mixture of emotions at the one end and the clear peace
and self-respect at the other, turning over in his mind with knitted brows, as
he drove, all that had happened to him in the brief weeks since he had
added Sally to his life—what she was moulding him into was a cat’s paw.
Yes. Just that.
Were all husbands cat’s paws?
Probably, thought Jocelyn.

§
 Mrs. Luke also reacted to the Moulsfords in terms of meekness. Hers,
however, lasted. She found them permanently dazzling. Besides, there was
nothing to be done. Jocelyn had gone; she had lost him for ever; he would
never come back, she very well knew, to the old life of dependence on her.
And if he must go, if she must lose him, there really was no one in the
world she would more willingly lose him to than the Duke of Goring. For
certainly it was a splendid, an exalted losing.
When she had had time to think after that visit from Lord Charles—he
had, she considered, a curious attractiveness—and was more herself again,
when she had recovered a little from the extreme misery she had gone
through and began not to feel quite so ill, she found it easy to forgive her
mauvais quart d’heure. The Moulsfords were heaping benefits on her boy.
They were settling all his difficulties. That morning when she was so
unhappy, Lord Charles had been most delightfully kind and sympathetic,
and had told her that the Duke, his father, intended to help the young
couple,—‘You know my son won this year’s Rutherford Prize,’ she had
said. ‘Indeed I do,’ he had answered in his charming, eager way, adding
how much interested his father was in the careers of brilliant young men,
especially at Cambridge, helping them in any way he could—and who
would not, in such circumstances, forgive?
Mrs. Luke forgave.
The fact, however, remained that she was now alone, and she couldn’t
think what her life was going to be without Jocelyn. For how, she
wondered, did one live without an object, with no raison d’être of any sort?
How did one live after one has left off being needed?
That year the spring was late and cold. The days dragged along, each one
emptier than the last. There was nothing in them at all; no reason, hardly,
why one should so much as get up every morning and dress for days like
that,—pithless, coreless, dead days. She tried to comfort herself by
remembering that at least she wasn’t any longer beaten down and
humiliated, that she could lift her head and look South Winch in the face,
and look it in the face more proudly than ever before; but even that seemed
to have lost its savour. Still, she mustn’t grumble. This happened to all
mothers sooner or later, this casting loose, this final separation, and to none,
she was sure, had it ever happened more magnificently. She mustn’t
grumble. She must be very thankful. She was very thankful. Like Toussaint
l’Ouverture—Wordsworth, again—she had, she said to herself, sitting
solitary through the chilly spring evenings by her fire after yet another
empty day, great allies; only fortunately of a different kind from poor
Toussaint’s, for however highly one might regard, theoretically, exultations
and agonies and love and man’s unconquerable mind, she, for her part,
preferred the Moulsfords.
But did she?
A bleak little doubt crept into her mind. As the weeks passed, the doubt
grew bleaker. Invisible Moulsfords; Moulsfords delightful and most
friendly when one met them, but whom one never did meet; Moulsfords full
of almost intimacies; Moulsfords who said they were coming to see one
again, and didn’t come; Moulsfords benignant, but somewhere else: were
these in the long run, except as subjects of carefully modest conversation in
South Winch—and South Winch, curiously, while it was plainly awe-struck
by what had happened to Jocelyn yet was also definitely less friendly than it
used to be—were these in the long run as life-giving, as satisfying, as
fundamentally filling as Toussaint’s exultations and agonies?
Ah, one had to feel; feel positively, feel acutely. Anything, anything, any
anger, any pain, any anxiety, any exasperation, anything at all that stabbed
one alive, was better than this awful numbness, this empty, deadly, settled,
stagnant, back-water calm....
And one evening, when it had been raining all day, after a period of
standing at the drawing-room window looking out at the dripping front
garden, where the almond-tree by the gate shivered in the grey twilight like
a frail, half-naked ghost, she turned and went to her writing-table, and sat
down and wrote a little note to Mr. Thorpe, and asked if he would not come
in after his dinner, and chat, and show that they could still be good friends
and neighbours; and when she had finished it, and signed herself Margery,
with no Luke, she rang for the little maid, and bade her take it round to
Abergeldie and bring back an answer.
‘For after all,’ she said to herself while she waited, standing by the fire
and slowly smoothing one cold hand with the other, ‘he has sterling
qualities.’
 THE END

Printed in Great Britain by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh.

Typographical error corrected by the etext transcriber:
It it were a=> If it were a {pg 126}