MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON IHAVE been occupied this week in transferring myself from one part of London to another. This process of changing houses is one that I recommend to those who enjoy the spectacle of skill and energy, who are affected by the transience of material possessions, or who wish to subject to the test of ordeal by battle the strength and beauty of their own characters. Few human activities present us with so simultaneous a conflict and fusion of regret and hope; regret that yet another dusty chapter of life should be closed for ever; hope in the wider, fresher, cleaner life that now, amid new surroundings, is to open. We spend the last forlorn night in the room that has been ours for many years; we wake to observe that the familiar pictures have been removed from the white walls and that their place is marked by straight lines of dust. Our breakfast, served to us on an occasional table with occasional cups, is a provisional affair; lumbering down the street the furniture vans appear, manoeuvring as slowly as battleships in Valetta harbour. Strange strong men enter and whisk away from us the occasional table; with a whisk disappears from below us the occasional chair, last survivor of this destruction. We stand lonely on the bare boards as the dust rises and the sound of bumps and panting reache&us from the hall. To the depressing sense of impermanence thereby imposed there is added an unusual consciousness of lack of occupation; it is as when an unlighted train plunges into a tunnel and we sit there staring into darkness with an open book upon our knees, aware that there was an orifice of light and life behind us and that some- where in the remoter distance is another orifice, on passing which there will be light and sunshine again, cows and fields, and the book waiting for us upon our knees.
* * * * I am confirmed on such occasions in my dislike of the pro- cesses known as " tidying away " or " putting things in a safe place." I am not myself afflicted by acquisitive instincts and- have no propensity to hide and hoard. My waste-paper-basket is made of leather and is as large as a regimental drum; without a sense of guilt I throw into it the string from book-parcels, odd bits of wire, and such keys as I am unable to identify. Yet those who are responsible for the management and maintenance of my mundane life are inclined to retrieve these unwanted objects, to twist the bits of string into horrid little lovers' knots, to hoard the wire, and to tidy the keys away into drawers. When we move house these relics of a forgotten-past are disclosed. A drawer when opened will rattle ominously, and in its recesses will be found a rusty hinge, four screws, the two of clubs from some forgotten pack of patience cards, and a ticket dated April 1938 for admission to the Jardin d'Acclimatation. A cupboard when lifted lightly on to the shoulders of these strange strong men will be accompanied by the tinkle of falling glass, and unwelcome picture-frames will come to light. The lower layers of my own clothes reveal extraordinary items of apparel, such as a pair of knee breeches, a sword-sling, or those heavy socks that are worn, when they ascend the Alps, by younger men. Even more dangerous is the system known as ' putting things in a safe place." This pernicious habit is due, not to the hoard- ing instinct, but to the even more unenviable vice of suspicion. Being a trustful man, I have never acquired the habit of lock and key; never, moreover, have any of my possessions, apart from books, been stolen by my friends; and the amount of time and anxiety I have saved myself by my careless ways is not to be computed. But the careful housewife will spend distressing hours striving to recollect in what safe place she hid my links. * * * * The vans in the street below will cast their moorings and put to sea; as we bid farewell to the empty rooms our feet echo dolefully on bare boards. The practice among the more enlightened furniture-removers is, I find, to park the vans for the intervening night in some depOt or repository, intent on resuming the battle when daylight dawns. In preparation for this combat small coloured labels have been affixed to the furni- ture, bearing such inscriptions as " ground-floor front " or " top floor back." The next day-we are faced by the empty rooms of our intended home, but before long come sounds outside, the panting and the bumping are resumed, and one by one our familiar possessions lurch and lumber into the house. It is at this stage that the strength and beauty Of our characters are put to the test. Our new dwelling has been painted, papered and washed in order to be in a fit state to receive the inflow. When our tables, cabinets and chairs are set in these clean rooms, their natural shabbiness becomes apparent; to surmount the- despair occasioned by this shame requires great dignity of soul. Moreover, however exact may have been our preparatory measurements, many of our possessions will have expanded during the night, and have acquired that extra inch that prevents them from fitting into the space between the window and the door. Back they go into the centre of the room until such con- gestion occurs that we can no longer step as men step in normal life, but have to insert our legs with the right foot sideways. * * The lassitude caused by such acrobatics lias,1 find, a wasting effect upon the nerves. One dashes into the ground-floor back in order to place a mirror upon the chest of drawers, and is caught in the doorway by a refrigerator moving blindly but relent- lessly. One hurries into the bedroom carrying 'a favourite pic- ture, only to be brought up sharply by someone treading carelessly upon the length of cord that trails behind. One steps back to gauge the straightness of an engraving, and the bust of the young Octavian (never one of my favourite men) falls to the floor. Anxious to accomplish something deft and useful, one starts arranging the- new note-paper and envelopes in the drawer of the writing-table, to discover that one's fingers, dusted with the grime of labour, have left Bertillon tokens upon the clean white sheets. One hastens to cleanse oneself in the bath- room, only to find that the water has been turned off; all that greets one is a grimy sigh. Distracted by these misfortunes, one is apt to become snappy with those who think they are assisting, but who are in fact merely getting in the way. At such moments we find that we are averse from the bright ideas of others. We have taken great trouble, and manifested considerable skill, in affixing above the chimneypiece a painting of Orpheus and the animals, only to be told by idle observers that we have hung the beastly thing at least a foot too high. The hammer, which, in order not to mislay it, we had placed in a porcelain vase, hal been removed " to a place of safety " by some careful house- wife and cannot again be found. The bag of nails that rested so conveniently to hand upon the lamp-shade is dislodged by some busy interloper and flings its contents upon the sofa in a shower of iron rain. Our eyes 'fill with slow and bitter tears of rage. * Slowly the daylight fails. It is then diseovered that all our lamps are fitted with three prongs, whereas all our new plugs have two holes only; a naked bulb glowers at us high up in the ceiling. We decide in our exhaustion to complete the day's work by detaching from the furniture the small coloured labels that had been affixed. We then find that someone with a tidy mind has removed to a safe and unidentifiable place our knives and scissors. We sink into an armchair and then remove the tin-tacks from the cushions. The cleaner, fresher, better, life that we had hoped for appears remote. We pick up The Economist and are transported to the world of facts. After all, what does it matter whether you or I move from one place to another ? The only thing that matters is that we should pre- serve our inquisitiveness and our amusement at what happens round us in the circus of life. If we be any good at all, the displacement of the moment has no effect whatsoever upon our interior monologues. They talk to us about human suffer- ing. They warn us about human difficulties. They teach us not to be harsh about old gentlemen who conduct them- selves in deleterious or comic ways. They teach us to conserve our calm.
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