Crome Yellow

The group spends the hour after lunch relaxing in Crome’s library. Mr. Scogan sips coffee and describes the books on the shelves. He lists several volumes from the Biographical Dictionary series as well as some novels written anonymously before arriving at seven volumes of the Tales of Knockespotch, which he says are the best books in Henry’s collection. He bemoans the fact that old books actually offer very little of the wisdom they promise and are instead just full of dust and mildew, but he implies that the Knockespotch series is different and better. Reading, he argues, is as much an empty vice as drinking excessively. Mary disagrees, and Denis says he thinks reading biographies is good because biographies offer space for everyone. Mr. Scogan agrees and expresses his admiration for biographies written by famed lexicographer John Lemprière. Anne praises a novel called Wild Goose Chase, which Mr. Scogan says sounds “restful” but also dull and old-fashioned (75).

Mr. Scogan argues that Knockespotch saved readers from boring realistic novels about normal, middle-class characters having conversations inside their homes by presenting fantastic characters having extraordinary adventures. He tells Denis that if Denis could read Knockespotch’s work, he would no longer want to write dull coming-of-age stories. Denis asks if Mr. Scogan can give the group an example of a Knockespotch story, but Mr. Scogan compares Knockespotch’s great work to Excalibur, waiting for the right writer to pull it from its “wooden prison” (77). He leaves the task to Denis, who thanks him sullenly.

Mr. Scogan tells a story about a practice in the 16th-century French court: When a young woman came to dine with the king, she drank her wine from a handmade Italian cup with increasingly racy sex scenes carved inside it. The more wine she drank, the more would be revealed; if she blushed, the court would laugh at her for being too innocent, and if she did not blush, they would laugh at her for knowing too much about sex. Anne asks if he thinks this practice should be revived, and he says he merely relayed it to illustrate a 16th-century custom. He says he could provide similar anecdotes that demonstrate sexual frankness from every century except the 19th. The 19th century, he says, saw the openness from every other century as perverse and unnatural. Mary agrees and is about to cite 19th-century physician Havelock Ellis, but Mr. Scogan cuts her off and continues talking about “the nature of the reaction” (78).

He argues that in the late 19th people became overly serious about sex and love. He says he would like to see some of the playful frankness from past centuries mixed with this new, serious scientific attitude. Mary disagrees, saying that sex is a serious matter, but Mr. Scogan says sex is one of the only perpetually amusing human activities. Mary disagrees again, and an uncomfortable silence descends.

Anne wonders aloud when Ivor will arrive. She walks out onto the terrace and looks over the countryside, which seems to become richer and more solid in the evening light. She points to a sudden dust cloud appearing on the opposite side of the valley and shouts that she can tell from the speed that it is Ivor. The car soon arrives at the house, with Ivor honking loudly. He embraces Anne and Mary and asks if he is late for dinner. Ivor is 26, with wavy brown hair, bright blue eyes, and a slender, charming face. While he is thin and seems frail, he moves quickly and energetically. Mr. Scogan asks him if he thinks sex is serious or not. Ivor says yes and Mary shouts happily, but Mr. Scogan asks him in what sense sex is serious. Ivor says he means it “as an occupation” and argues that one can have sex constantly without ever getting bored because women are essentially always the same (80). He offers examples of different body shapes among women in various countries, and Mr. Scogan says he is delighted to hear this.

The men of Crome drink port together, and Mr. Scogan tries to determine which Roman emperor each one resembles. He says this is a question he often asks himself when meeting new people because the Caesars are touchstones for him. Gombauld asks which emperor Mr. Scogan resembles, and Mr. Scogan says he has characteristics of all of them. He says he had potential to be a great or powerful person, but he was born in a small English village and spent his youth doing hard work for little money. As a result, he is middle aged with nothing to show for his life. He adds that while it would have been amusing to watch Denis become a Nero or Gombauld a Caligula, it is ultimately better that those remained potentialities. In the right environment, he says, a Caesar might flourish, but most will not. He points out that “little Caesars” appeared in the 19th and 20th centuries, committing violent acts against others but that this is no longer a surprising phenomenon (83).

He then says that at that very moment, people around the world are dying in horribly violent ways, and while other people can be aware of their deaths, that knowledge does not make them enjoy their lives any less. Others may imagine the deaths of strangers, but those deaths will not truly have any impact on them unless one of the people who dies is a relative or friend. To Mr. Scogan, this is evidence that humans are not truly sympathetic. He says that at the beginning of the war, he thought he suffered alongside those who were wounded and killed, but he eventually admitted that he did not truly feel their pain. He argues that humans ultimately suffer alone, but that enables the rest of the world to live their lives in peace.

After a pause, Henry suggests they join the women. Ivor agrees, saying that they are not doomed to be happy alone.

Ivor strikes the last note of a song on the piano, happy with the quality of the music. The group applauds gratefully. Ivor is a particularly accomplished and fortunate man: handsome, charming, a talented singer and pianist, and a confident amateur actor and cook. He has also experienced great success with women. However, believing that formal education would only hinder his natural abilities, he does not see it as important.

Ivor suggests a walk in the garden. Mr. Scogan and Henry decline, but Anne, Denis, Mary, and Jenny agree. As they walk, Ivor sings an Italian song and casually puts his arm around Anne’s waist, dropping his head onto her shoulder. Denis watches jealously, wishing he had thought to do that. At Ivor’s recommendation, the group walks down the slope to the pool. Denis leads the group, feeling an irrational fear of sudden precipices in the darkness, and suddenly he hears a voice exclaim from surprise and Jenny say she is going back to the house.

Ivor begins to sing again, and Denis leads the group to a set of stairs on the right of the slope. Ivor shouts that he is going to run down the hill, which he does while singing, and the others do the same. Denis is annoyed, wondering if they will hurt themselves. He soon hears someone fall and feels slightly pleased that he was right.

Mary runs down the hill, enjoying the exhilarating speed, and Ivor catches her around the waist. Unable to see her in the dark, he mistakes her for Anne, and when she corrects him, they laugh and walk off together. Ivor sings another song and kisses her. He thinks to himself that it does not matter whether he is kissing Anne or Mary: They are not that different, and the general effect is the same either way.

At the bottom of the hill, Denis finds Anne, who has injured her ankle, knee, and hand. He lights a match to help her see her wounds; while she is not upset by them, Denis feels deeply distressed and increasingly protective of her. They sit on the grass, listening to Ivor sing, and Denis begins kissing Anne. She tells him to stop, arguing that it would ruin their friendship. She does not see Denis as a possible romantic partner because he seems so young. When Denis insists on carrying her back to the house, he loses his balance and has to put her back down immediately. Anne laughs, saying she would rather walk, and Denis feels humiliated. He regrets losing the momentary superiority he had over her by trying to carry her.

Denis helps Anne upstairs and returns to the drawing room. Priscilla, who is wearing a sea-green dress and a diamond necklace, is looking at some of Ivor’s drawings. They are “sketches of Spirit Life,” made during contact with “the other world” (91). Priscilla, much to her frustration, has never successfully communicated with the spirit world. She asks Denis what happened to everyone else, and he tells her that Anne is in bed and that Ivor and Mary are still in the garden. He tries to read but is distracted by the silence. An hour later, Mary and Ivor come in and report that they stayed in the garden to watch the moon rise. Mary adds that there were meteorite showers. Ivor begins playing the piano.

On her way to bed, Mary stops to talk to Anne, who tells her what happened to her ankle. Mary is relieved, as she had suspected that Anne had disappeared intentionally to leave her alone with Ivor and she does not want their encounter to have been manufactured. She tells Anne about her time with Ivor in the garden, and the two women say goodnight affectionately.

The next morning, Ivor and Mary attend a Catholic mass. Ivor is a practicing Catholic, but Mary simply wants to see what a Catholic service is like. Meanwhile, at the Crome parish church, Mr. Bodiham gives a sermon on 1 Kings 6:18. He connects this verse to a local concern: the longstanding controversy concerning a war memorial. Henry wants to start a memorial library focused on local history and believes that the villagers will enjoy activities like searching for fossils and artifacts. The villagers want a memorial water supply. Mr. Bodiham wants a religious memorial that includes marble or stained glass. No one has been able to agree on the best idea, and too little money has been allotted to construct any of them. Mr. Bodiham preaches on the subject every few months, and in this sermon, he links the town’s proposed war memorial to Solomon’s temple.

The sermon states that buildings dedicated to God are by their very nature useless and points out that Solomon intentionally constructed an impractical, decorative building. It argues that Crome’s war memorial should be dedicated to God as a token of thanks for giving “triumph” to the side of “righteousness” (95). A library or reservoir would be a monument to man, not to God. Moreover, the sermon claims, the memorial should be built soon, because at any moment, Christ might return to Earth. The sermon proposes that, in order to deal with the inadequate funding, families who lost someone in the war donate the amount they would have paid for a funeral if the deceased had died at home.

Henry walks back to Crome through the fields, thinking wistfully about the possibility of a war memorial library. He sees a group of young village men smoking and laughing without much enthusiasm. Henry feels nostalgic for a time when young villagers would have spent Sunday at Crome participating in community events and socializing. Now, thanks to the influence of the Puritans, rural young people have to choose between country boredom and pleasure in the city. Henry remembers a passage from a 17th-century diary that described Puritan magistrates violently breaking up a naked rural dance party. He feels sad that such events do not exist anymore.

Henry opens the History of Crome and reads aloud the story of his grandfather, who married the eldest daughter of the last Ferdinando Lapith. He starts with a preamble about Ferdinando, son of Hercules Lapith, whom he described in his previous story. This Ferdinando ate and drank away most of the family fortune before falling in love with and marrying the daughter of a local rector in 1809. After the marriage, he became responsible and temperate; the fortune began to increase, and Lady Lapith gave birth to three daughters. However, during the Napoleonic Wars, Ferdinando developed the habit of riding from town to town with a large store of liquor after every English victory and sharing the news and liquor with anyone who wanted it. After the English won the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, he completed the same ritual, but drank too much, fell out of the coach, and died as a result of a skull fracture.

Henry pauses while his listeners prepare for the rest of the story. He picks up in 1833, when his grandfather, George Wimbush, met Ferdinando Lapith’s three daughters. George was young, handsome, and wealthy, but also naïve. The eldest daughter, Georgiana, had dark hair and “flashing eyes,” while the younger twins, Emmeline and Caroline, had brown hair and blue eyes. George was intimidated by their beauty and brilliance, but he began calling on them regularly. Lady Lapith recognized George’s potential as a husband for one of the twins but had higher hopes for Georgiana’s match.

George soon noticed that while they looked perfectly healthy, the three girls rarely ate. They told him they found eating to be unspiritual and coarse. They often romanticized death and complained of being sick, leading George to feel increasingly protective of them, especially Georgiana. One summer, they invited George to spend August at Crome along with a distinguished list of guests. During the first dinner, Georgiana claimed that love and life are incompatible and that love only truly exists within eternity after death. Lady Lapith scolded her, and Georgiana swooned onto the shoulder of another young suitor, Lord Timpany. Over the next several days, George grew increasingly jealous of Lord Timpany, whose attentions Georgiana clearly welcomed. He was also equally fearful that Georgiana would die.

One morning, George watched a maid carrying a large tray go up a staircase hidden in the wall. After battling with himself for a few moments, George went up the staircase himself, finding a door at the top. Looking through the keyhole, he saw the three Lapith sisters eating a lavish meal in a sunny room. When they saw him, they panicked, and George ran back down the stairs, stopping in the hallway to laugh. Later that day, Georgiana asked George not to reveal their secret; he agreed, but only if she would marry him. They married that year.

Finished with the story, Henry closes the book. Priscilla wakes up suddenly, having dozed off, and Jenny tells her that the story was about a ham. The night is particularly hot. Mary mentions sleeping outside, and Ivor excitedly suggests that they do it. Mary goes to the western tower and Ivor goes to the eastern tower, each carrying their mattress and blankets.

Mary is kept awake by all the sights and sounds of the natural world. She looks at the eastern tower and suddenly sees a figure emerge from behind the chimney: Ivor is balancing on a ridgepole and walking shakily toward the house. Mary panics, concerned that he might be sleepwalking and could fall, but she does not want to wake him. However, he appears on the parapet of her tower, saying he also could not sleep.

The two are startled awake a little before sunrise when a peacock flies onto the parapet. Ivor tries to catch the bird to get a feather; the peacock is frightened away, but Ivor gets the feather, which he refers to as an “angel’s feather” (110). Mary exclaims about the wonder of sexual selection, and Ivor agrees, pointing out that they have selected each other. He puts his arm around her, and they watch the sun rise. When Ivor goes back to his tower, Mary insists that he go through the house rather than balancing on the ridgepole again. As soon as he is back in his tower, they hear an alarm clock go off inside.