surfeit. For,  no sooner had the Ambassador despatched
one such visit, than another had  to be undertaken. The same ceremonies were
gone through in precisely  the same  order  six  or seven times over  at the
houses of the other great officials, so  that  it was  often  late at  night
before the Ambassador reached home. Though Orlando  performed these tasks to
admiration and never denied that they  are, perhaps, the most important part
of a  diplomatist's  duties, he was undoubtedly fatigued by them, and  often
depressed to such a  pitch  of gloom  that  he  preferred to take his dinner
alone with his dogs. To  them, indeed, he might be heard talking  in his own
tongue.  And sometimes, it is said, he  would pass out of his own gates late
at  night so disguised that  the sentries did not know  him. Then  he  would
mingle with the crowd on the Galata Bridge; or stroll  through  the bazaars;
or throw aside his shoes and join the worshippers in the Mosques. Once, when
it was given out that he was ill of a fever, shepherds, bringing their goats
to  market, reported that  they had met an English Lord on the mountain  top
and heard him praying to his God. This  was thought to  be Orlando  himself,
and  his prayer was, no doubt, a  poem said  aloud, for it was known that he
still carried  about  with him,  in the bosom  of  his cloak, a much  scored
manuscript; and servants,  listening  at  the  door,  heard  the  Ambassador
chanting something in an odd, sing-song voice when he was alone.
     It is  with fragments such as these that we must do our best to make up
a picture of Orlando's life and character at this time. There exist, even to
this day, rumours, legends, anecdotes of a floating and unauthenticated kind
about Orlando's life  in  Constantinople (we have quoted but a few of  them)
which  go to prove that he possessed, now that he was in the prime  of life,
the power to stir the fancy and rivet the eye which will keep a memory green
long  after  all  that  more  durable qualities  can do  to  preserve it  is
forgotten. The  power is  a mysterious one  compounded of beauty, birth, and
some rarer gift, which we may call glamour and have done with it. "A million
candles", as Sasha had said,  burnt in him without his being  at the trouble
of lighting a single one.  He  moved like a stag, without any need  to think
about his legs. He spoke in his ordinary  voice and echo beat a silver gong.
Hence rumours gathered round him.  He became the  adored  of many women  and
some men.  It was  not necessary that  they should speak to him or even that
they  should  see him; they  conjured up  before  them  especially when  the
scenery  was romantic,  or  the sun  was  setting,  the figure  of  a  noble
gentleman in silk stockings. Upon  the poor and uneducated, he had  the same
power as upon the rich. Shepherds, gipsies, donkey drivers, still sing songs
about  the English  Lord  "who  dropped  his emeralds  in  the well",  which
undoubtedly  refer to Orlando, who once, it seems, tore his jewels  from him
in  a moment of rage or intoxication and  flung  them in  a fountain; whence
they were  fished by a page boy. But this romantic power, it is well  known,
is often associated with a nature of extreme  reserve. Orlando seems to have
made no  friends. As far  as  is known, he formed  no attachments. A certain
great lady came  all the  way  from England  in order to  be  near him,  and
pestered him with her attentions, but  he  continued to discharge his duties
so indefatigably that he  had not been Ambassador at the Horn for  more than
two years and a half before King Charles  signified his intention of raising
him to the highest rank  in the peerage. The envious said that this was Nell
Gwyn's tribute to the memory of a leg. But, as she had  seen him once  only,
and was  then busily engaged in pelting her  royal master with nutshells, it
is likely that it was his merits that won him his Dukedom, not his calves.
     Here we  must pause, for we have reached a moment of great significance
in his career. For the  conferring of the Dukedom was the occasion of a very
famous,  and indeed, much  disputed incident,  which we must  now  describe,
picking  our way among burnt papers and little bits of tape  as best we may.
It was at the end of the great fast of Ramadan that  the  Order of the  Bath
and  the patent  of nobility arrived in a frigate commanded  by  Sir  Adrian
Scrope;  and  Orlando  made this the  occasion  for  an  entertainment  more
splendid than any that has been known before or since in Constantinople. The
night  was  fine;  the  crowd  immense,  and  the  windows  of  the  Embassy
brilliantly illuminated. Again, details  are lacking,  for the fire  had its
way  with  all  such records, and has  left only tantalizing fragments which
leave the most  important points obscure.  From  the  diary of  John  Fenner
Brigge,  however, an English  naval  officer, who  was among the guests,  we
gather  that people  of all nationalities  "were packed like  herrings in  a
barrel"  in the  courtyard.  The crowd  pressed so unpleasantly  close  that
Brigge  soon  climbed  into  a  Judas  tree,  the   better  to  observe  the
proceedings.  The rumour  had  got  about  among  the  natives (and here  is
additional proof  of Orlando's  mysterious  power over the imagination) that
some  kind of miracle was to be performed. "Thus,"  writes  Brigge (but  his
manuscript   is  full  of  burns  and  holes,  some  sentences  being  quite
illegible),  "when  the rockets  began  to soar  into  the  air,  there  was
considerable  uneasiness  among  us  lest  the native  population  should be
seized...fraught with unpleasant consequences to all...English ladies in the
company,  I own that my hand went to my cutlass.  Happily," he  continues in
his  somewhat  long-winded  style,  "these  fears seemed,  for  the  moment,
groundless  and,  observing  the  demeanour of  the natives...I came to  the
conclusion that this demonstration of our skill in the art of pyrotechny was
valuable, if only because it  impressed upon  them...the  superiority of the
British...Indeed,  the sight was one of indescribable magnificence.  I found
myself  alternately  praising the  Lord  that he had permitted...and wishing
that my poor, dear mother...By  the  Ambassador's orders, the  long windows,
which are so imposing a feature of Eastern architecture, for though ignorant
in many ways...were thrown wide;  and  within, we could see a tableau vivant
or theatrical display  in which English ladies and gentlemen...represented a
masque the work  of one...The words were inaudible, but the sight of so many
of  our  countrymen  and  women,  dressed  with  the  highest  elegance  and
distinction...moved me to  emotions  of which  I am  certainly  not ashamed,
though unable...I was intent upon observing the astonishing conduct of  Lady
- which  was of  a nature to fasten the  eyes of all upon her,  and to bring
discredit upon her sex  and country,  when" - unfortunately a  branch of the
Judas tree broke, Lieutenant Brigge fell to the ground, and the rest  of the
entry records only his gratitude to Providence (who plays a very  large part
in the diary) and the exact nature of his injuries.
     Happily, Miss Penelope Hartopp, daughter of  the General of that  name,
saw the scene from inside and carries on the tale in a  letter, much defaced
too, which  ultimately reached  a female  friend  at  Tunbridge Wells.  Miss
Penelope was  no  less lavish in  her  enthusiasm than  the gallant officer.
"Ravishing," she exclaims ten times on  one page, "wondrous...utterly beyond
description...gold   plate...candelabras...negroes  in   plush   breeches...
pyramids  of  ice...fountains  of  negus...jellies  made  to  represent  His
Majesty's  ships...swans  made to represent  water lilies...birds  in golden
cages...gentlemen in slashed crimson  velvet...Ladies' headdresses  AT LEAST
six  foot high...musical boxes....Mr  Peregrine said I  looked  QUITE lovely
which I only repeat to you,  my dearest, because I know...Oh!  how  I longed
for you all!...surpassing anything we have seen at  the Pantiles...oceans to
drink...some  gentlemen  overcome...Lady Betty ravishing....Poor Lady Bonham
made  the  unfortunate  mistake  of  sitting down  without  a chair  beneath
her...Gentlemen  all  very  gallant...wished  a  thousand times for you  and
dearest Betsy...But the sight  of all others, the cynosure  of all eyes...as
all admitted, for none  could be so  vile as to deny it, was the  Ambassador
himself. Such  a leg! Such  a countenance!!  Such princely manners!!! To see
him come into the room! To  see him go  out again! And something INTERESTING
in the expression, which makes one feel, one scarcely knows why, that he has
SUFFERED! They say a lady was the cause of it.  The heartless monster!!! How
can  one  of  our  REPUTED  TENDER  SEX have  had  the effrontery!!!  He  is
unmarried, and half  the ladies in the place  are  wild for  love of him...A
thousand, thousand kisses to Tom, Gerry, Peter, and dearest Mew" [presumably
her cat].
     From  the Gazette  of the time,  we gather  that "as the  clock  struck
twelve, the Ambassador appeared  on the  centre Balcony  which was hung with
priceless rugs. Six Turks of  the Imperial Body Guard, each over six foot in
height, held torches to his right and left. Rockets rose into the air at his
appearance, and a great shout went up from the people, which the  Ambassador
acknowledged,  bowing deeply, and  speaking a few  words  of  thanks in  the
Turkish  language,  which it  was one of his accomplishments  to  speak with
fluency. Next,  Sir Adrian  Scrope,  in the full dress of a British Admiral,
advanced; the Ambassador knelt on one knee; the Admiral placed the Collar of
the Most Noble Order of the Bath round his neck, then pinned the Star to his
breast; after which another gentleman of the diplomatic corps advancing in a
stately manner placed on his shoulders  the ducal robes, and handed him on a
crimson cushion, the ducal coronet."
     At  length, with a  gesture of  extraordinary majesty  and grace, first
bowing  profoundly, then raising himself  proudly erect,  Orlando  took  the
golden circlet of strawberry leaves and placed it, with a gesture which none
that saw it ever forgot, upon his brows. It was at this point that the first
disturbance began.  Either the  people had expected  a miracle -  some say a
shower of gold was prophesied to fall from the skies - which did not happen,
or this was the signal chosen for the attack to begin; nobody seems to know;
but as the coronet settled  on Orlando's  brows a great uproar  rose.  Bells
began  ringing; the harsh cries of  the prophets were heard above the shouts
of the people; many Turks fell flat to the ground and touched the earth with
their foreheads.  A door burst open. The natives pressed into the banqueting
rooms. Women shrieked. A certain  lady, who was said to be dying for love of
Orlando,  seized a candelabra  and  dashed it to the ground.  What might not
have happened, had it not been for the presence  of Sir Adrian Scrope  and a
squad  of British blue-jackets, nobody can say. But the  Admiral ordered the
bugles to be sounded;  a hundred blue-jackets stood instantly  at attention;
the disorder was quelled, and quiet, at least for the time being, fell  upon
the scene.
     So far, we  are on the  firm, if rather narrow, ground  of  ascertained
truth. But nobody has ever known exactly  what took place later  that night.
The testimony of the sentries  and others seems, however, to prove  that the
Embassy was empty of company, and shut up for the night in the  usual way by
two  A.M. The Ambassador was seen to  go  to  his room,  still  wearing  the
insignia of his rank, and shut the  door. Some say he locked  it,  which was
against his custom.  Others maintain that they heard music of a rustic kind,
such  as  shepherds play,  later  that  night  in  the  courtyard under  the
Ambassador's window. A  washer-woman, who was kept awake by toothache,  said
that she  saw  a man's figure, wrapped in a cloak or dressing gown, come out
upon the balcony. Then, she said, a woman,  much  muffled, but apparently of
the peasant class, was drawn up by means of a rope which the man let down to
her  on  to  the  balcony.  There,  the  washer-woman  said,  they  embraced
passionately  "like lovers", and  went into  the room together,  drawing the
curtains so that no more could be seen.
     Next  morning,  the Duke,  as  we must now call him, was  found by  his
secretaries  sunk  in  profound  slumber  amid  bed  clothes that  were much
tumbled. The room  was in some disorder, his coronet  having  rolled  on the
floor, and  his cloak and garter being flung all of a  heap on  a chair. The
table was  littered with  papers.  No suspicion  was  felt  at first, as the
fatigues of the night had been great.  But when afternoon  came and he still
slept, a doctor was summoned. He applied remedies which had been used on the
previous occasion,  plasters,  nettles, emetics, etc., but without  success.
Orlando slept on. His secretaries then thought  it their duty to examine the
papers on the table. Many were scribbled over with poetry, in which frequent
mention was made of an oak  tree. There were also various state  papers  and
others of  a  private  nature  concerning the management of his  estates  in
England.  But  at   length   they  came  upon  a  document  of  far  greater
significance. It was nothing  less,  indeed,  than a deed of marriage, drawn
up, signed,  and witnessed  between  his  Lordship,  Orlando, Knight  of the
Garter,  etc., etc., etc., and Rosina Pepita, a dancer, father unknown,  but
reputed a gipsy, mother also unknown but reputed a seller of old iron in the
market-place over against the Galata  Bridge. The secretaries looked at each
other in dismay. And  still Orlando slept.  Morning and evening they watched
him, but, save that his breathing was  regular and his cheeks still  flushed
their  habitual deep  rose,  he gave no sign  of life.  Whatever  science or
ingenuity could do to waken him they did. But still he slept.
     On  the seventh  day  of his trance (Thursday, May the 10th)  the first
shot was fired of that terrible  and bloody insurrection of which Lieutenant
Brigge  had detected the first symptoms. The Turks rose  against the Sultan,
set fire to the town, and put every foreigner they could find, either to the
sword or to the  bastinado.  A few English managed to escape; but, as  might
have been expected, the gentlemen of the British Embassy preferred to die in
defence of their red boxes, or, in extreme cases, to swallow bunches of keys
rather  than  let them fall into the hands of the Infidel. The rioters broke
into Orlando's  room,  but seeing him stretched to all appearances dead they
left him untouched, and only robbed him of his coronet  and the robes of the
Garter.
     And now again obscurity descends, and would indeed that it were deeper!
Would, we almost have it in our hearts to exclaim, that it were so deep that
we could see nothing whatever  through its opacity! Would that we might here
take  the pen  and write Finis to our work! Would  that  we  might spare the
reader what is to come and say to him in so many words, Orlando died and was
buried. But here, alas,  Truth, Candour,  and  Honesty, the austere Gods who
keep watch  and ward by the inkpot of the biographer, cry  No! Putting their
silver  trumpets to their lips they  demand  in one  blast, Truth! And again
they  cry  Truth! and sounding  yet a third time in concert they peal forth,
The Truth and nothing but the Truth!
     At which - Heaven be praised! for it affords us a breathing space - the
doors gently  open, as if a  breath  of the gentlest and holiest zephyr  had
wafted them apart, and three figures enter. First, comes our Lady of Purity;
whose brows are bound with fillets of the whitest lamb's wool; whose hair is
as  an avalanche of the driven  snow; and  in whose  hand  reposes the white
quill of a virgin goose. Following her, but with a statelier step, comes our
Lady  of  Chastity;  on whose  brow  is  set like  a  turret of  burning but
unwasting  fire  a diadem of  icicles;  her eyes  are  pure  stars, and  her
fingers,  if  they touch you,  freeze you to the  bone.  Close  behind  her,
sheltering indeed in the shadow  of her more stately sisters, comes our Lady
of Modesty, frailest and fairest of  the three; whose face is  only shown as
the young moon shows when it is thin and sickle shaped and half hidden among
clouds. Each advances towards  the centre  of  the room where  Orlando still
lies sleeping; and with gestures at once  appealing and commanding, OUR LADY
OF PURITY speaks first:
     "I am  the guardian of the sleeping fawn;  the  snow is dear to me; and
the moon rising; and  the  silver  sea. With  my robes  I cover the speckled
hen's eggs  and the brindled sea shell; I  cover  vice and  poverty. On  all
things frail or  dark or  doubtful, my  veil descends. Wherefore, speak not,
reveal not. Spare, O spare!"
     Here the trumpets peal forth.
     "Purity Avaunt! Begone Purity!"
     Then OUR LADY OF CHASTITY speaks:
     "I am she whose touch  freezes and  whose glance turns to stone. I have
stayed the star in its  dancing,  and the wave as it falls. The highest Alps
are my dwelling place;  and  when I walk,  the lightnings flash in  my hair;
where my eyes fall, they kill. Rather  than let Orlando wake, I will  freeze
him to the bone. Spare, O spare!"
     Here the trumpets peal forth.
     "Chastity Avaunt! Begone Chastity!"
     Then OUR LADY OF MODESTY speaks, so low that one can hardly hear:
     "I am she that men call Modesty. Virgin I am and ever shall be. Not for
me the fruitful  fields and the fertile vineyard.  Increase is odious to me;
and when  the apples burgeon or the flocks  breed,  I run, I  run; I let  my
mantle fall. My hair covers my eyes. I do not see. Spare, O spare!"
     Again the trumpets peal forth:
     "Modesty Avaunt! Begone Modesty!?"
     With gestures of grief and lamentation the three sisters now join hands
and dance slowly, tossing their veils and singing as they go:
     "Truth come  not out from your horrid den. Hide deeper,  fearful Truth.
For you flaunt in the brutal gaze of the sun things that were better unknown
and undone; you unveil  the shameful; the dark you  make  clear, Hide! Hide!
Hide!"
     Here  they  make  as  if to  cover  Orlando with  their draperies.  The
trumpets, meanwhile, still blare forth,
     "The Truth and nothing but the Truth."
     At  this  the Sisters try to  cast  their veils over the  mouths of the
trumpets so as  to muffle  them, but in vain, for now all the trumpets blare
forth together,
     "Horrid Sisters, go!"
     The sisters become  distracted and  wail in unison, still circling  and
flinging their veils up and down.
     "It has not always been so! But men want us no longer; the women detest
us. We go; we  go. I  (PURITY SAYS THIS) to the hen roost. I  (CHASTITY SAYS
THIS) to the still unravished heights of  Surrey. I  (MODESTY SAYS THIS)  to
any cosy nook where there are ivy and curtains in plenty."
     "For  there, not  here  (all  speak  together joining  hands and making
gestures  of  farewell  and  despair  towards  the bed  where  Orlando  lies
sleeping) dwell  still in nest and boudoir,  office  and lawcourt those  who
love  us;  those  who honour us,  virgins and city men; lawyers and doctors;
those who prohibit; those who deny; those who reverence without knowing why;
those  who praise without understanding; the still very numerous (Heaven  be
praised) tribe  of the respectable;  who prefer  to see  not; desire to know
not; love the darkness; those still worship us, and with reason; for we have
given them Wealth, Prosperity, Comfort, Ease.  To them we go,  you we leave.
Come, Sisters, come! This is no place for us here."
     They retire in haste, waving their draperies over their heads, as if to
shut  out something that they dare not  look upon  and close the door behind
them.
     We  are,  therefore, now  left  entirely  alone in the  room  with  the
sleeping Orlando and the trumpeters. The trumpeters, ranging themselves side
by side in order, blow one terrific blast:
     "THE TRUTH!"
     at which Orlando woke.
     He  stretched himself. He rose. He stood  upright in complete nakedness
before us, and while  the  trumpets pealed Truth!  Truth! Truth! we have  no
choice left but confess - he was a woman.
     <img alt="0x01 graphic" src="StrangeNoGraphicData">


     The  sound of the trumpets died away and Orlando stood  stark naked. No
human being, since the world began, has ever looked more ravishing. His form
combined  in one the  strength of  a  man  and a  woman's grace. As he stood
there, the silver trumpets prolonged their  note,  as if  reluctant to leave
the  lovely sight  which their blast had called forth; and Chastity, Purity,
and Modesty, inspired, no doubt,  by Curiosity, peeped  in at the  door  and
threw a  garment like a towel at the naked form which,  unfortunately,  fell
short by  several inches.  Orlando  looked himself  up  and down  in  a long
looking-glass,  without  showing  any  signs   of  discomposure,  and  went,
presumably, to his bath.
     We may  take advantage of this  pause in the narrative  to make certain
statements. Orlando had become  a woman  -  there is  no denying it. But  in
every other respect,  Orlando remained precisely as he had been.  The change
of sex, though it altered their future, did nothing whatever to  alter their
identity. Their  faces  remained, as their portraits  prove, practically the
same. His memory - but in future we  must, for convention's sake, say  "her"
for "his", and  "she" for "he" - her memory then, went back  through all the
events of  her past  life  without encountering  any  obstacle. Some  slight
haziness  there may have  been, as if  a few dark drops had fallen  into the
clear pool of memory; certain things  had become a  little dimmed; but  that
was all.  The  change  seemed  to  have  been  accomplished  painlessly  and
completely and in such a way that Orlando herself showed no  surprise at it.
Many people, taking this into account, and holding that such a change of sex
is against nature, have  been at great  pains to prove (1)  that Orlando had
always  been a  woman,  (2)  that  Orlando  is at  this  moment  a man.  Let
biologists and  psychologists determine.  It is  enough for us to  state the
simple fact; Orlando  was a man  till the  age of  thirty;  when he became a
woman and has remained so ever since.
     But let other  pens treat  of  sex and  sexuality; we  quit such odious
subjects as soon as we  can. Orlando had now washed, and  dressed herself in
those  Turkish coats and trousers which can be worn  indifferently by either
sex;  and was forced to consider her position. That it  was  precarious  and
embarrassing in  the extreme  must be the first thought  of every reader who
has followed her story with sympathy. Young, noble, beautiful, she had woken
to find herself in a  position than which we can conceive none more delicate
for  a young lady  of rank. We should not  have blamed her had she  rung the
bell,  screamed,  or   fainted.  But  Orlando  showed   no  such   signs  of
perturbation.  All  her actions  were deliberate  in the extreme,  and might
indeed have  been  thought  to  show  tokens  of  premeditation.  First, she
carefully  examined  the  papers  on the table; took  such  as seemed to  be
written  in  poetry,  and  secreted them in  her bosom; next she  called her
Seleuchi hound, which had never left her  bed all these  days,  though  half
famished with hunger,  fed  and combed  him; then stuck a pair of pistols in
her  belt; finally  wound about her  person several  strings of emeralds and
pearls of the  finest orient  which had  formed part  of  her  Ambassadorial
wardrobe. This  done, she leant out of the window, gave one low whistle, and
descended the  shattered  and  bloodstained  staircase, now strewn with  the
litter  of waste-paper  baskets, treaties, despatches, seals,  sealing  wax,
etc., and so entered  the courtyard. There, in the shadow  of  a  giant  fig
tree, waited an old gipsy on a donkey. He led another by the bridle. Orlando
swung her leg over it; and thus, attended by a lean dog, riding a donkey, in
company of a  gipsy,  the Ambassador of Great Britain at  the  Court of  the
Sultan left Constantinople.
     They rode  for  several  days and  nights and  met  with  a  variety of
adventures, some at the hands of men, some at the hands of nature, in all of
which Orlando acquitted herself with courage. Within a week they reached the
high ground outside Broussa, which was then  the chief camping ground of the
gipsy tribe to which Orlando had  allied herself.  Often she  had  looked at
those mountains from her  balcony  at the Embassy;  often had  longed to  be
there; and  to  find  oneself  where  one  has  longed  to be  always,  to a
reflective mind, gives food for thought. For some time, however, she was too
well pleased with the change to spoil it by thinking. The pleasure of having
no documents to seal  or  sign, no flourishes to make, no calls to pay,  was
enough. The gipsies  followed  the grass;  when it was grazed down, on  they
moved again. She  washed  in streams if she  washed at  all; no  boxes, red,
blue,  or green, were  presented to her;  there  was not a  key, let alone a
golden key, in the whole camp; as for  "visiting", the word was unknown. She
milked  the goats; she  collected brushwood; she stole  a hen's egg now  and
then,  but always put a  coin or a pearl in place  of it; she herded cattle;
she stripped vines;  she trod the grape; she filled  the goat-skin and drank
from it; and when she remembered how, at about  this time of day, she should
have  been  making  the motions  of  drinking  and  smoking  over  an  empty
coffee-cup and a  pipe which lacked tobacco, she laughed aloud, cut  herself
another hunch of bread, and begged for a puff from old Rustum's pipe, filled
though it was with cow dung.
     The gipsies, with whom it is  obvious that she must have been in secret
communication before the revolution, seem to have  looked upon her as one of
themselves (which  is  always  the highest compliment a people can pay), and
her dark  hair  and  dark complexion bore out  the  belief  that she was, by
birth, one of them and had been snatched by an English  Duke from a nut tree
when  she was  a baby and taken  to that barbarous land where people live in
houses because they are too feeble and diseased to stand the open air. Thus,
though in  many  ways  inferior  to them, they were  willing to help her  to
become  more  like  them;  taught  her  their  arts  of   cheese-making  and
basket-weaving,  their science of stealing  and bird-snaring, and were  even
prepared to consider letting her marry among them.
     But Orlando had  contracted in England some of the customs  or diseases
(whatever you choose to consider them) which cannot, it seems,  be expelled.
One evening, when they were all sitting round  the camp  fire and the sunset
was blazing over the Thessalian hills, Orlando exclaimed:
     "How good to eat!"
     (The gipsies have no word for "beautiful". This is the nearest.)
     All the  young men and women  burst out laughing uproariously.  The sky
good to eat, indeed! The elders,  however, who  had seen  more of foreigners
than  they had,  became suspicious. They noticed that Orlando often sat  for
whole  hours  doing nothing whatever, except look here and then there;  they
would come upon her on some  hill-top  staring  straight in front of her, no
matter  whether the goats were grazing  or straying.  They began  to suspect
that  she  had  other beliefs than their  own, and the  older  men and women
thought it probable that she had fallen into the  clutches of the vilest and
cruellest among all the Gods,  which is Nature. Nor were they far wrong. The
English disease, a love of Nature, was inborn in her, and here, where Nature
was so much larger and  more  powerful  than in England, she  fell into  its
hands as she had never done before. The malady is too  well  known,  and has
been, alas,  too  often  described  to  need  describing afresh,  save  very
briefly. There were mountains; there were  valleys; there were streams.  She
climbed  the mountains; roamed the valleys; sat on the banks of the streams.
She likened  the  hills to ramparts, to the breasts of doves, and the flanks
of kine. She compared the flowers to enamel and the turf to Turkey rugs worn
thin. Trees were withered hags, and sheep were grey boulders. Everything, in
fact, was something else.  She found the tarn on the mountain-top and almost
threw herself in to seek the  wisdom  she  thought lay hid there;  and when,
from  the  mountain-top, she beheld far off, across  the Sea of Marmara, the
plains of Greece, and made out  (her eyes were admirable) the Acropolis with
a white streak or two,  which must, she thought, be  the Parthenon, her soul
expanded with her eyeballs, and she prayed that she might  share the majesty
of the  hills,  know  the serenity  of the plains, etc. etc.,  as  all  such
believers  do. Then, looking down, the red hyacinth, the purple iris wrought
her to cry out in ecstasy at the goodness, the beauty of nature; raising her
eyes again, she beheld the eagle soaring, and imagined its raptures and made
them  her  own. Returning home,  she saluted each star,  each peak, and each
watch-fire as  if  they signalled to her alone; and at last,  when she flung
herself  upon her mat in  the gipsies' tent, she could not help bursting out
again,  How good to eat! How  good to eat! (For  it is  a  curious fact that
though human beings have such imperfect means  of  communication, that  they
can  only say "good  to eat"  when  they mean "beautiful" and the other  way
about, they will yet endure ridicule and misunderstanding  rather than  keep
any experience to themselves.) All the young gipsies laughed. But  Rustum el
Sadi,  the old man who  had  brought Orlando out  of  Constantinople on  his
donkey, sat silent. He had a nose like a scimitar; his  cheeks were furrowed
as if from the age-long descent of  iron  hail; he  was brown and keen-eyed,
and as he sat tugging at his hookah he observed Orlando narrowly. He had the
deepest suspicion  that her  God was Nature. One day he found her  in tears.
Interpreting this to mean that her God had punished her, he told her that he
was not surprised. He showed her the fingers  of  his left hand, withered by
the  frost; he  showed her his right foot, crushed where a  rock had fallen.
This,  he  said, was  what her  God  did  to men.  When  she  said, "But  so
beautiful", using the English word, he shook his head; and when she repeated
it he was angry. He saw that she did  not believe what he believed, and that
was enough, wise and ancient as he was, to enrage him.
     This  difference of  opinion disturbed Orlando, who  had been perfectly
happy until now. She began to think, was Nature beautiful or cruel; and then
she asked herself what this beauty was; whether it was in things themselves,
or only in herself; so she went on to  the nature of reality, which  led her
to truth, which in its turn led to Love, Friendship, Poetry  (as in the days
on  the high  mound  at home); which meditations, since she could impart  no
word  of  them, made her long, as she had never longed before, for  pen  and
ink.
     "Oh! if only I could write!" she cried (for  she had the odd conceit of
those  who write  that words written  are shared). She had  no ink;  and but
little paper. But  she  made  ink from berries and wine;  and  finding a few
margins  and blank spaces  in the manuscript of "The Oak  Tree", managed  by
writing  a  kind of shorthand,  to describe the scenery  in  a  long,  blank
version poem, and to  carry on a dialogue with herself about this Beauty and
Truth concisely enough. This kept her extremely happy for hours on  end. But
the  gipsies  became suspicious. First, they noticed that she was less adept
than  before  at milking and cheese-making; next, she often hesitated before
replying; and once a gipsy boy who had been asleep, woke in a terror feeling
her  eyes  upon  him. Sometimes this constraint would be felt by  the  whole
tribe,  numbering  some dozens of grown men and women. It  sprang  from  the
sense they had (and their senses are very sharp and much in advance of their
vocabulary)  that  whatever they  were doing  crumbled like  ashes  in their
hands.  An old  woman making a  basket, a  boy skinning a  sheep,  would  be
singing or crooning contentedly at their work, when Orlando would  come into
the camp, fling herself down by the fire and gaze into the flames.  She need
not even look at them,  and yet they felt, here  is someone  who doubts; (we
make  a rough-and-ready translation from the gipsy language) here is someone
who does  not  do the thing for the sake  of doing; nor looks  for looking's
sake; here is  someone  who  believes neither in sheep-skin  nor basket; but
sees (here they looked apprehensively about the tent) something else. Then a
vague but most unpleasant feeling would begin to work in the boy and in  the
old  woman. They  broke  their withys; they  cut their fingers. A great rage
filled them. They  wished  Orlando would leave the tent and never come  near
them again. Yet she was  of a  cheerful and willing disposition, they owned;
and one of her pearls was enough to buy the finest herd of goats in Broussa.
     Slowly, she began to feel  that there  was some  difference between her
and the gipsies which  made her hesitate sometimes to marry and settle  down
among them for ever. At first she tried to account for it by saying that she
came  of an ancient  and  civilized  race,  whereas these  gipsies  were  an
ignorant people,  not much  better  than savages. One night  when they  were
questioning her about England she could  not help with some pride describing
the house where she was born, how it had 365  bedrooms and  had  been in the
possession of her family for four  or five hundred years. Her ancestors were
earls, or even dukes, she added. At this she noticed again that the  gipsies
were uneasy; but not angry  as before when  she  had  praised the  beauty of
nature.  Now they  were courteous, but  concerned as people of fine breeding
are when a stranger has been made to reveal his low birth or poverty. Rustum
followed her out of the  tent  alone and said that she need not mind if  her
father were a Duke, and possessed all the  bedrooms  and furniture  that she
described. They would none of them think the worse of her for that. Then she
was  seized  with a shame that she had never felt before. It  was clear that
Rustum and the other gipsies thought a descent of four or five hundred years
only  the meanest possible.  Their own  families  went back at least two  or
three thousand years. To  the gipsy whose ancestors had  built the  Pyramids
centuries before Christ was born, the genealogy of Howards and  Plantagenets
was  no  better and no worse than  that of the  Smiths and the Joneses: both
were negligible.  Moreover, where  the  shepherd  boy had a  lineage of such
antiquity, there was  nothing specially  memorable or desirable  in  ancient
birth; vagabonds  and beggars all  shared  it.  And  then, though he was too
courteous to  speak openly, it was clear  that the gipsy  thought that there
was no more vulgar ambition  than to  possess  bedrooms by the hundred (they
were on top of a hill as they spoke; it was night; the mountains rose around
them) when  the whole earth is ours. Looked at from the gipsy point of view,
a  Duke,  Orlando understood,  was nothing  but  a profiteer  or robber  who
snatched land and money from people who rated these things  of little worth,
and could think of nothing better to  do  than  to  build three  hundred and
sixty-five bedrooms when one  was enough, and none was even better than one.
She  could not  deny that  her ancestors had accumulated  field after field;
house after  house; honour after honour; yet had none of them been saints or
heroes,  or  great benefactors of the human race.  Nor could she counter the
argument  (Rustum  was  too  much  of  a  gentleman  to  press  it, but  she
understood) that  any man who did now what  her  ancestors had done three or
four  hundred  years  ago  would be  denounced - and by her own  family most
loudly - for a vulgar upstart, an adventurer, a nouveau riche.
     She sought to answer such arguments by  the familiar if  oblique method
of finding the  gipsy life itself rude  and barbarous;  and so, in  a  short
time,  much  bad blood  was bred between  them. Indeed, such  differences of
opinion are enough to cause bloodshed and revolution. Towns have been sacked
for less, and a million martyrs have suffered at the stake rather than yield
an inch upon any of the points here debated.  No  passion is stronger in the
breast of man than the desire to make others believe as he believes. Nothing
so cuts at  the root of his happiness and fills him with rage  as the  sense
that another rates low what he prizes high.  Whigs and Tories, Liberal party
and Labour party - for what do they battle  except their own prestige? It is
not love of truth  but desire  to prevail that sets  quarter against quarter
and makes parish desire the downfall of parish. Each seeks peace of mind and
subserviency rather than the triumph of truth and the exaltation of virtue -
but these moralities belong, and should be left to the historian, since they
are as dull as ditch water.
     "Four  hundred  and  seventy-six bedrooms mean nothing to them," sighed
Orlando.
     "She prefers a sunset to a flock of goats," said the gipsies.
     What was to be done, Orlando could not think. To  leave the gipsies and
become once more an Ambassador seemed to her intolerable. But it was equally
impossible to remain for ever where there was neither ink nor writing paper,
neither  reverence  for  the  Talbots  nor  respect for  a  multiplicity  of
bedrooms. So  she was  thinking,  one  fine morning on the  slopes  of Mount
Athos, when minding her goats. And then Nature, in  whom she trusted, either
played her a trick or worked a miracle - again, opinions differ too much for
it to be possible to say which. Orlando was gazing rather disconsolately  at
the  steep hill-side in front of her. It was now midsummer,  and  if we must
compare the  landscape to anything, it would have been to a  dry bone; to  a
sheep's skeleton; to a  gigantic skull picked white  by a thousand vultures.
The heat was  intense, and the little fig  tree under which Orlando lay only
served to print patterns of fig-leaves upon her light burnous.
     Suddenly a shadow, though  there was nothing to cast a shadow, appeared
on  the  bald mountain-side  opposite. It deepened  quickly and soon a green
hollow showed where there had  been barren rock before. As  she  looked, the
hollow deepened and widened, and a great park-like space opened in the flank
of the hill.  Within, she could see an undulating and grassy lawn; she could
see  oak trees dotted here  and there; she could see  the  thrushes  hopping
among the branches. She could see the deer stepping delicately from shade to
shade,  and  could even  hear  the hum of insects and the  gentle  sighs and
shivers of a summer's day in England. After she had gazed entranced for some
time,  snow began falling; soon  the whole landscape was covered and  marked
with  violet shades  instead  of yellow  sunlight. Now she  saw heavy  carts
coming along the roads, laden with tree trunks,  which they were taking, she
knew, to be sawn for firewood; and  then appeared the roofs and belfries and
towers  and courtyards of her  own home. The snow was  falling steadily, and
she could now hear the slither  and  flop which it made as it slid down  the
roof and fell to the ground. The smoke went up from a thousand chimneys. All
was  so clear and minute that she  could see a  daw pecking for worms in the
snow. Then, gradually, the violet shadows deepened and closed over the carts
and  the lawns and the great house itself. All was  swallowed up.  Now there
was nothing left of the grassy  hollow,  and instead of the green lawns  was
only the blazing hill-side which  a thousand vultures  seemed to have picked
bare. At this, she burst into a passion of tears, and  striding back to  the
gipsies' camp, told them that she must sail for England the very next day.
     It was happy for her that she did so. Already the young men had plotted
her death. Honour, they said,  demanded  it, for  she  did not think as they
did. Yet they would have been sorry to cut her throat; and wel