Sinister Street

By Compton Mackenzie.

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To the Reverend E. D. Stone

My dear Mr. Stone,

Since you have on several occasions deprecated the length of my books, I feel that your name upon the dedicatory page of this my longest book deserves explanation, if not apology.

When I first conceived the idea of “Sinister Street,” I must admit I did not realize that in order to present my theme fully in accord with my own prejudice, I should require so much space. But by the time I had written one hundred pages I knew that, unless I was prepared against my judgment to curtail the original scheme, I must publish my book in a form slightly different from the usual.

The exigencies of commercial production forbid a six shilling novel of eight or nine hundred pages, and as I saw no prospect of confining myself even to that length, I decided to publish in two volumes, each to contain two divisions of my tale.

You will say that this is an aggravation of the whole matter and the most impenitent sort of an apology. Yet are a thousand pages too long for the history of twenty-five years of a man’s life, that is to say if one holds as I hold that childhood makes the instrument, youth tunes the strings, and early manhood plays the melody?

The tradition of the English novel has always favoured length and leisure; nor do I find that my study of French and Russian literature leads me to strain after brevity. I do not send forth this volume as the first of a trilogy. It is actually the first half of a complete book. At the same time, feeling as I do that in these days of competitive reading, the sudden vision of over a thousand pages would be inevitably depressing, I give you the opportunity of rest at the five-hundredth page, which reaches a climax at least as conclusive as any climax can be that is not death. I do not pretend that I shall not be greatly disappointed if next January or February you feel disinclined to read “Dreaming Spires” and “Romantic Education,” which will complete the second volume. Yet I will be so considerate as to find someone else to bear the brunt of dedication, and after all there will be no compulsion either upon you or upon the public to resume.

Yours ever affectionately,
Compton Mackenzie

Let me add in postscript that “Sinister Street” is a symbolic title which bears no reference to an heraldic euphemism.

Phillack, August 3, 1913.

“The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted.”

Sinister Street

Book I

The Prison House

“What youth, Goddess—what guest
Of Gods or mortals?”

“Slow on your dials the shadows creep,
So many hours for food and sleep,
So many hours till study tire,
So many hours for heart’s desire.”

I

The New World

From a world of daisies as big as moons and of mountainous green hillocks Michael Fane came by some unrealized method of transport to the thin red house, that as yet for his mind could not claim an individual existence amid the uniformity of a long line of fellows. His arrival coincided with a confusion of furniture, with the tramp of men backwards and forwards from a cavernous vehicle very dry and dusty. He found himself continually being lifted out of the way of washstands and skeleton chests of drawers. He was invited to sit down and keep quiet, and almost in the same breath to walk about and avoid hindrance. Finally, Nurse led him up many resonant stairs to the night-nursery which at present consisted of two square cots that with japanned iron bars stood gauntly in a wilderness of oilcloth surrounded by four walls patterned with a prolific vegetation. Michael was dumped down upon a grey pillow and invited to see how well his sister Stella was behaving. Nurse’s observation was true enough: Stella was rosily asleep in an undulation of blankets, and Michael, threatened by many whispers and bony finger-shakes, was not at all inclined to wake her up. Nurse retired in an aura of importance, and Michael set out to establish an intimacy with the various iron bars of his cage. For a grown-up person these would certainly have seemed much more alike than even the houses of Carlington Road, West Kensington: for Michael each bar possessed a personality. Minute scratches unnoticed by the heedless adult world lent variety of expression: slight irregularities infused certain groups with an air of deliberate consultation. From the four corners royal bars, crowned with brass, dominated their subjects. Passions, intrigues, rumours, ambitions, revenges were perceived by Michael to be seething below the rigid exterior of these iron bars: even military operations were sometimes discernible. This cot was guarded by a romantic population, with one or two of whose units Michael could willingly have dispensed: one bar in particular, set very much askew, seemed sly and malignant. Michael disliked being looked at by anybody or anything, and this bar had a persistent inquisitiveness which already worried him. “Why does he look at me?” Michael would presently ask, and “Nobody wants to look at such an ugly little boy,” Nurse would presently reply. So one more intolerable question would overshadow his peace of mind.

Meanwhile, far below, the tramp of men continued, until suddenly an immense roar filled the room. Some of the bars shivered and clinked, and Michael’s heart nearly stopped. The roar died away only to be succeeded by another roar from the opposite direction. Stella woke up crying. Michael was too deeply frightened so to soothe himself, as he sat clutching the pointed ears of the grey pillow. Stella, feeling that the fretful tears of a sudden awakening were insufficient, set up a bellow of dismay. Michael was motionless, only aware of a gigantic heart that shook him horribly. At last the footsteps of Nurse could be heard, and over them, the quick “tut-tut-tuts” that voiced her irritation.

“You naughty boy, to wake up your little sister.”

“What was that noise?” asked Michael.

“Your own noise,” said Nurse sharply.

“It wasn’t. It was lions.”

“And if it was lions, what next?” said Nurse. “Lions will always come, when little boys are naughty. Lions don’t like naughty boys.”

“Michael doesn’t like lions.”

He took refuge in the impersonal speech of earlier days, and with a grave obstinacy of demeanour resisted the unreasonableness of his nurse.

“What was that noise, Nanny? Do tell me.”

“Why a train, of course. There’s a mollycoddle. Tut-tut!”

“A train like we rode in from down in the country?”

“Yes, a train like we rode in from down in the country!” Nurse mimicked him in an outrageous falsetto.

“Not lions at all?”

“Not if you’re a good boy.”