{"id":72274,"date":"2014-06-05T19:30:05","date_gmt":"2014-06-05T23:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=72274"},"modified":"2014-06-05T19:07:17","modified_gmt":"2014-06-05T23:07:17","slug":"a-thing-that-ends-in-dying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/05\/a-thing-that-ends-in-dying\/","title":{"rendered":"A Thing That Ends in Dying"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"ivy<\/a>

Ivy Compton-Burnett<\/p><\/div>\n

Happy birthday to Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett, who wrote dialogue so witty, lively, and fluent it makes Aaron Sorkin look like\u2014uh\u2014well, you get the idea\u2014I\u2019m sure one of them would be savvy enough to fill in the blank. \u201cShe was very, very clever,\u201d Rebecca West said of Compton-Burnett in her 1981 Art of Fiction interview<\/a>. \u201cYou\u2019d have to be very tasteless not to see she had something unique to give her age.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here, in the way of proof positive, is the beginning of The Present and the Past<\/em>, her 1953 novel, which starts with a lot of winsome talk about poultry, death, and cake.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cOh, dear, oh, dear!\u201d said Henry Clare.<\/p>\n

His sister glanced in his direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are pecking the sick one. They are angry because it is ill.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps it is because they are anxious,\u201d said Megan, looking at the hens in the hope of discerning this feeling.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will soon be dead,\u201d said Henry, sitting on a log with his hands on his knees. \u201cIt must be having death-pangs now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another member of the family was giving his attention to the fowls. He was earnestly thrusting cake through the wire for their entertainment. When he dropped a piece he picked it up and put it into his own mouth, as though it had been rendered unfit for poultry\u2019s consumption. His elders appeared to view his attitude either in indifference or sympathy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are death-pangs like?\u201d said Henry, in another tone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d said his sister, keeping her eyes from the sufferer of them. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t think the hen is having them. It seems not to know anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Henry was a tall, solid boy of eight, with rough, dark hair, pale, wide eyes, formless, infantine features, and something vulnerable about him that seemed inconsistent with himself. His sister, a year younger and smaller for her age, had narrower, deeper eyes, a regular, oval face, sudden, nervous movements, and something resistant in her that was again at variance with what was beneath.<\/p>\n

Tobias at three had small, dark, busy eyes, a fluffy, colourless head, a face that changed with the weeks and evinced an uncertain charm, and a withdrawn expression consistent with his absorption in his own interests. He was still pushing crumbs through the wire when his shoulder was grasped by a hand above him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWasting your cake on the hens! You know you were to eat it yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toby continued his task as though unaware of interruption.<\/p>\n

\u201cCouldn\u2019t one of you others have stopped him?\u201d<\/p>\n

The latter also seemed unaware of any break.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t do that,\u201d said the nursemaid, seizing Toby\u2019s arm so that he dropped the cake. \u201cDidn\u2019t you hear me speak?\u201d<\/p>\n

Toby still seemed not to do so. He retrieved the cake, took a bite himself and resumed his work.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t eat it now,\u201d said Eliza. \u201cGive it all to the hens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toby followed the injunction, and she waited until the cake was gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow if I give you another piece, will you eat it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCan we have another piece too?\u201d said the other children, appearing to notice her for the first time.<\/p>\n

She distributed the cake, and Toby turned to the wire, but when she pulled him away, stood eating contentedly.<\/p>\n

\u201cSoon be better now,\u201d he said, with reference to the hen and his dealings with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t get any cake,\u201d said Henry. \u201cThe others had it all. They took it and then pecked the sick one. Oh, dear, oh, dear!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cHe did get some,\u201d said Toby, looking from face to face for reassurance. \u201cToby gave it to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

He turned to inspect the position, which was now that the hens, no longer competing for crumbs, had transferred their activity to their disabled companion.<\/p>\n

\u201cPecking him!\u201d said Toby, moving from foot to foot. \u201cPecking him when he is ill! Fetch William. Fetch him.\u201d<\/p>\n

A pleasant, middle-aged man, known as the head gardener by virtue of his once having had subordinates, entered the run and transferred the hen to a separate coop.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is better, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCall Toby \u2018sir\u2019,\u201d said the latter, smiling to himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe will be by herself now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSir,\u201d supplied Toby.<\/p>\n

\u201cWill it get well?\u201d said Henry. \u201cI can\u2019t say, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHenry and Toby both \u2018sir\u2019,\u201d said Toby. \u201cMegan too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I am not,\u201d said his sister.<\/p>\n

\u201cPoor Megan, not \u2018sir\u2019!\u201d said Toby, sadly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last hen that was ill was put in a coop to die,\u201d said Henry, resuming his seat and the mood it seemed to engender in him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, it died after it was there,\u201d said Megan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is better, miss,\u201d said William.<\/p>\n

\u201cMiss,\u201d said Toby, in a quiet, complex tone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey go away alone to die,\u201d said Henry. \u201cAll birds do that, and a hen is a bird. But it can\u2019t when it is shut in a coop. It can\u2019t act according to its nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps it ought not to do a thing that ends in dying,\u201d said Megan.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething in that, miss,\u201d said William.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do you stay by the fowls,\u201d said Eliza, \u201cwhen there is the garden for you to play in?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are only allowed to play in part of it,\u201d said Henry, as though giving an explanation.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, dear, oh, dear!\u201d said Eliza, in perfunctory mimicry.<\/p>\n

\u201cWilliam forgot to let out the hens,\u201d said Megan, \u201cand Toby would not leave them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toby tried to propel some cake to the hen in the coop, failed and stood absorbed in the scramble of the others for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll want one little crumb. Poor hens!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat did I tell you?\u201d said Eliza, again grasping his arm.<\/p>\n

He pulled it away and openly applied himself to inserting cake between the wires.<\/p>\n

\u201cToby not eat it now,\u201d he said in a dutiful tone.<\/p>\n

\u201cA good thing he does not have all his meals here,\u201d said William.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is trouble wherever he has them,\u201d said Eliza. \u201cAnd the end is waste.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sick hen roused to life and flung itself against the coop in a frenzy to join the feast.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will kill itself,\u201d said Henry. \u201cNo one will let it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

William did so and the hen rushed forth, cast itself into the fray, staggered and fell.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is dead,\u201d said Henry, almost before this was the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cPoor hen fall down,\u201d said Toby, in the tone of one who knew the experience. \u201cBut soon be well again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot in this world,\u201d said William.<\/p>\n

\u201cSir,\u201d said Toby, to himself. \u201cNo, miss.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt won\u2019t go to another world,\u201d said Henry. \u201cIt was ill and pecked in this one, and it won\u2019t have any other.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was only pecked on its last day,\u201d said Megan. \u201cAnd everything is ill before it dies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last thing it felt was hunger, and that was not satisfied.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt did not know it would not be. It thought it would.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt did that, miss,\u201d said William. \u201cAnd it was dead before it knew.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no water in the coop,\u201d said Henry, \u201cand sick things are parched with thirst.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWalking on him,\u201d said Toby, in a dubious tone.<\/p>\n

\u201cEliza, the hens are walking on the dead one!\u201d said Megan, in a voice that betrayed her.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is in their way, miss,\u201d said William, giving a full account of the position.<\/p>\n

Megan looked away from the hens, and Henry stood with his eyes on them. Toby let the matter leave his mind, or found that it did so.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow what is all this?\u201d said another voice, as the head nurse appeared on the scene, and was led by some instinct to turn her eyes at once on Megan. \u201cWhat is the matter with you all?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the hens has died,\u201d said Eliza, in rapid summary. \u201cToby has given them his cake and hardly taken a mouthful. The other hens walked on the dead one and upset Miss Megan. Master Henry has one of his moods.\u201d<\/p>\n

Megan turned aside with a covert glance at William.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing the truth about things isn\u2019t a mood,\u201d said Henry.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Happy birthday to Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett, who wrote dialogue so witty, lively, and fluent it makes Aaron Sorkin look like\u2014uh\u2014well, you get the idea\u2014I\u2019m sure one of them would be savvy enough to fill in the blank. \u201cShe was very, very clever,\u201d Rebecca West said of Compton-Burnett in her 1981 Art of Fiction interview. \u201cYou\u2019d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[9158,10239,2186,14190,569,13729,14191],"class_list":["post-72274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture","tag-birthdays","tag-cakes","tag-death","tag-hens","tag-ivy-compton-burnett","tag-novelists","tag-the-present-and-the-past"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHappy Birthday, Ivy Compton-Burnett<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Read an excerpt from 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