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Henry Masterman Mist Diaries and Prisoners Pie Magazine

Diaries of Heny Masterman Mist and a copy of Prisoners’ Pie, the Ruhleben Camp magazine. Learn more.

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BC Archives MS-2570

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it was beautiful. For several moments he luxuriated in the [exquisite] mood of the forgotten poem.

The window was opened quietly. The odious strains [reached] him once more. Turning, he saw her stepping out on to the balcony. How exquisitely pale she was. He remembered the other night...one could be Paris in her arms..... A waltz had commenced in the room. "Close the door" he begged, shuddering. She smiled wearily. "So you feel how hateful it all is?" she asked, closing the windows. Without answering he drew her to his side, and stood looking out at the stars. Silence enveloped them for a moment. Then a screaming taxi-cab turned the street corner, and whirled, hooting vehemently, beneath the balcony towards the river. He shuddered again. "To call that dancing," he said tensely.

"So you really do understand?" she asked, "You also want to break with the horrible sham?" "If only one could" he said, bitterly. "O! for the old green dancing places and the Morris bells!" - "You are always so remote" she said, smiling. The motor-horn shrieked from the distance. "That is the dance," she said, with shining eyes, "The great dance of living, of feeling, of absorbing the fierce life of the world in the sounds and sensations of [common struggling] things." He stared at her, unable to believe his ears. She -- she whom he had made the living emblem of his dreams. Her look grew bitter "But I've done with it all for good" she said, "It can't go on." She pressed close to him. "Take me away, dear," she whispered, "Take me right out of it all, to somewhere where I shall not hear this mockery of music -- somewhere where I shall be able to dance with every sense and pulse of my body." He stared at her. So this was what all his devotion, all his long hours of sonnet-writing in the long, lonely nights had come to? His dream-idols fell crumbling at his feet. He must dispel the madness. He began to talk rapidly to her. Did you not understand? -- Could she rob him of all his secret inspirations? -- Would she smirch their perfect romance with the vulgar light of publicity? -- Her husband was too coarse in grain to comprehend - - - - - She cut him short. "O, I believe you're afraid" she said, gazing at him incredulously. "Afraid?" he began - - - "O, whether you are or not" she said, dully, "It is going to end. I can bear it no longer. If not you, then I must seek a deliverer. There is Mr. X. I do not hate him so much as him, and he would let one feel." Then suddenly, "But you must! I have given all of myself to you. I must have something in my life." He tried to speak, but she stepped towards the window. "I give you an hour to think" she said. Then, as he touched her arm, "Think how much I have given for you," she whispered, trembling a little and passed into the room. Blankly he stared after her, then turned and leaned his throbbing head against the balcony-edge. So this was all the return for his golden dreams. She was just a woman after all. He swayed, mute with anguish, for a moment, then, with a groan, raised himself and went inside. Crossing the room, full of laughing people,

BC Archives, MS-2570 Box 1 File 6 / MIST, Henry Masterman / Ruhleben magazine, Prisoners’ Pie, 1916.

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