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 Festival Cultures
Mapping New Fields in the
Arts and Social Sciences
Edited by
Maria Nita
Jeremy H. Kidwell
Festival Cultures
Maria Nita • Jeremy H. Kidwell
Editors

Festival Cultures
Mapping New Fields in the Arts
and Social Sciences
Editors
Maria Nita Jeremy H. Kidwell
The Open University University of Birmingham
Milton Keynes, UK Birmingham, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-88391-1    ISBN 978-3-030-88392-8 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88392-8

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2022
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
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The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Contents

1 Editors’ Introduction  1
Maria Nita and Jeremy H. Kidwell

2 The Naturalization of the Alternatives in 1970s Britain

Through a 2020 XR Lens 15
Maria Nita

3 The Case for a Free Festival (1969–1974) Hippy Culture

and Pop Festivals 45
Sharif Gemie

4 “Come, Look and Hear How the Past Has Been and the
Future Will Be!” Festival Culture and Neo-Nationalism
in Hungary 65
István Povedák

5 Burning Man in Europe: Burns, Culture and

Transformation 87
Botond Vitos, Graham St John, and François Gauthier

6 Ritualized Art: Cultural Innovation and Greening at

Festivals and Protestivals115
Zsófia Szonja Illés and Maria Nita

v
vi Contents

7 Festivals: Monument Making, Mythologies and Memory141

Barbara Brayshay and Jacqui Mulville

8 Sherpagate: Tourists and Cultural Drama at Burning Man169

Graham St John

9 Festival Co-Creation and Transformation: The Case

of Tribal Gathering in Panama195
Leonore van den Ende

10 The Renewal of Festive Traditions in Mallorca: Ludic

Empowerment and Cultural Transgressions227
Pau Obrador, Antoni Vives-Riera, and Marcel Pich-Esteve

Index249
 Notes on Contributors

Barbara Brayshay, PhD, is Director of Livingmaps Network, a network

of researchers, artists and activists using participatory counter-mapping to
drive social change, and a member of Guerilla Archaeology, an outreach
initiative based at the University of Cardiff, delivering creative events and
research into the cultural significance of UK music festivals.
François Gauthier, PhD, is a professor in the Social Sciences Department
of the Université de Fribourg, Switzerland. His research interests and
fieldwork include ‘new spiritualities’, subcultures and the Burning Man
festival. He is the author of Religion, Modernity, Globalisation: Nation-
State to Market (2020), and has co-edited the Routledge International
Handbook of Religion in Global Society (2021).
Sharif Gemie, PhD, is a happily retired History professor. He has writ-
ten eight books and countless academic articles. The main topics of his
research were marginalized and minority groups in modern Europe.
Zsófia Szonja Illés is a multidisciplinary artist and designer with a socially
engaged practice. She is a lecturer on Landscape Democracy at the
LED2LEAP Living Labs and a collaborating artist at the Centre of
Contemporary Art: Glasgow as part of their ‘School for Civic Imagination’
public engagement programme. Her practice-led research looks at creat-
ing accessible and democratic engagement processes and toolkits for land
research, in order to mobilize alternative voices and experiences of the
landscape.

vii
viii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Jeremy H. Kidwell, PhD, is an interdisciplinary scholar, trained in ethics

and constructive theology, with a background in the humanities, particu-
larly literature and music. His current research includes an ethnographic
investigation of the Extinction Rebellion movement.
Jacqui Mulville, PhD, has experience in professional, field and academic
archaeology. She created Guerilla Archaeology to share her passion for the
past with the public, and combines her specialist knowledge of archaeol-
ogy with her love of the creative arts in festival outreach. She founded the
Cardiff University Festivals Research Group.
Maria Nita, PhD, is a lecturer in Religious Studies, in the Faculty of Arts
and Social Sciences at The Open University. Her research interests encom-
pass cultural theoretical approaches to religion and climate activism, with
a particular focus on rituals and protest actions.
Pau Obrador, PhD, is a senior lecturer in tourism and events manage-
ment at Northumbria University. Pau’s research interests lie at the inter-
section of tourism, place, culture, body and management. He has published
on mass tourism, the beach, dwelling-in-mobilities, family tourism, place
identities and cultural festivals and critical pedagogy.
Marcel Pich-Esteve is a cultural anthropologist. His research interests
are in the cultural politics of traditional festivals. He has published a mono-
graph on recently invented festive traditions in Mallorca. He was a visiting
researcher at the Centro de Investigaciones Sociales of Bolivia, working on
mobility issues.
István Povedák, PhD, is a researcher in the Re-Enchantment of Central-­
Eastern Europe Research Group of Charles University, Prague, and an
associate professor at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design,
Budapest. He has an MA in European Ethnology, History and Religious
Studies (University of Szeged) and a PhD in Folklore and Cultural
Anthropology (ELTE, Budapest). He has published books and articles on
modern mythologies, celebrity culture, conspiracy theories, UFO culture,
religious neo-nationalism, ethnic paganism and Romani culture. Povedák
is the president of the Hungarian Cultural Anthropology Association.
Graham St John, PhD, is a cultural anthropologist and current recipient
of a Marie Skłodowska-Curie European Fellowship forthcoming at the
University of Huddersfield (Event Horizon: An Audiography of
Transformation). Among his nine books is an intellectual biography of
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS ix

Terence McKenna (forthcoming). Graham is Executive Editor of

Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture. His website is:
edgecentral.net.
Leonore van den Ende, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department
of Organization Sciences at the VU University of Amsterdam. She is an
organization anthropologist conducting qualitative-ethnographic research
on rituals, festivals, events and projects as temporary organizational forms,
with a theoretical focus on co-creation, ritualization and transformation.
Botond Vitos, PhD, is a cultural anthropologist who was recently
involved in the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) project ‘Burning
Progeny: The European Efflorescence of Burning Man’ at the Université
de Fribourg. His research interests include event-cultures, popular music
studies, electronic dance music culture and the mediations of aesthetic
experiences. He is part of the editorial team at Dancecult: Journal of
Electronic Dance Music Culture.
Antoni Vives-Riera, PhD, is an associate professor of contemporary his-
tory at the University of Barcelona. His research interests focus on the
historical construction of national and regional identities and their every-
day reproduction through tourist practice. He is also interested in the
production of local identities through festive rituals.
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 XR Red Brigade Supporting Youth Strike 4 Climate 20

September 2019, Bath, UK 40
Fig. 2.2 Die-in, XR, Bristol 2019, UK 41
Fig. 4.1 Busy festival marketplace 72
Fig. 4.2 Shaman drum for sale at MOGY festival 73
Fig. 4.3 ‘Kézikönyv városból menekülőknek’/‘Handbook for Refugees
from Cities’ 74
Fig. 4.4 Holy tent at MOGY festival 76
Fig. 4.5 Parade in traditional dress at MOGY festival 77
Fig. 4.6 Healers and festival goers in a healing tent 80
Fig. 5.1 Burning Man’s Global Regional Network (Courtesy of
Burning Man and Google Maps) 92
Fig. 5.2 Word Cloud (S1 and S2 Aggregate): “Motivations to
Participate in European Events” 95
Fig. 5.3 Intergalactic Arbeitsamt. (Photo by Botond Vitos) 103
Fig. 5.4 Erecting the Tripod. (Photo by Botond Vitos) 106
Fig. 6.1 Green Christian altar, Annual Retreat, 2010 118
Fig. 6.2 Green Christians praying through painting, Annual
Retreat, 2012 119
Fig. 6.3 ‘Locked up’ Greenbelt Festival Art, 2018 120
Fig. 6.4 XR activists raising awareness about Carbon and pollution, in
Bath and Bristol, UK, 2019 121
Fig. 6.5 Lengyeltóti ‘Youth Building Camp’, Hungary, 1974, Courtesy
of Tamás Urbán/ Fortepan 123
Fig. 6.6 ‘Tea Totem’ installation, Hello Wood festival, 2015
(with Moomoo Architects) 126

xi
xii List of Figures

Fig. 6.7 The performative ‘Carnival Table’ installation, Hello Wood,

2019 (with architects Lemonot and Space Saloon) 128
Fig. 6.8 ‘Fire Table’ installation, 2017 (with AU Workshop and Simon
Platter)129
Fig. 6.9 ‘Forest’ installation, Platan Gallery, 2016 (with Moomoo
Architects)130
Fig. 6.10 ‘Bees/Wax’ performance lecture and soirée, Design Week
Budapest, 2018 (with AU Workshop) 132
Fig. 6.11 ‘Smoke’ installation, Taste Modern Gallery, 2016
(with AU Workshop) 133
Fig. 7.1 The Swan Circle Glastonbury Festival 2017 148
Fig. 7.2 The Swan Circle—Archaeological Site Plan 154
Fig. 7.3 Swan Circle drone survey (Ariel Cam 2017) 155
Fig. 7.4 XR Human sculpture at the Swan Circle 2019. (Photo by
Andre Pattenden) 161
Fig. 9.1 Aztec dance ceremony (Photo: Leonore van den Ende (2020)) 208
Fig. 9.2 Volunteer booth. (Photo: Leonore van den Ende (2020)) 212
Fig. 9.3 Attendees building a wall during a permaculture workshop.
(Photo: Leonore van den Ende (2020)) 214
Fig. 9.4 Invitation leaflet to a meeting for uniting the tribes 217
Fig. 10.1 A large straw bale in l’Embalat, the Threshing Festival in
Sencelles. (Photo: Marcel Pich) 232
Fig. 10.2 The symbolic burial of a chicken in El Cosso in Felanitx.
(Photo: Marcel Pich) 233
Fig. 10.3 Much entering the village square in La Mucada in Sineu.
(Photo: Marcel Pich) 240
 CHAPTER 1

Editors’ Introduction

Maria Nita and Jeremy H. Kidwell

Although we still find ourselves in ‘Corona limbo’ as we conclude this

introduction in May 2021, not entirely sure if art and performance festi-
vals will fully recover, or the new hybrid blended, face-to-face and virtual,
forms they will take, after the 2020–2021 lockdowns, the pause button hit
by Covid-19 makes it possible for us to look at the last half-century of
modern arts and performance festivals and take stock of this phenomenon.
Modern festivals, by which we mean the arts and performance festivals
that started in the 1960s, are intricately connected to the new forms of
global pilgrimage that had emerged with the hippie trail a decade earlier
(Gemie and Ireland 2017; Nita and Gemie 2020). As new global cultural
forms of travel, dwelling and festivity, festivals have transformed contem-
porary cultures, representing the most important type of cultural event of
the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. With huge festivals like
Burning Man spreading outside of their fields—or in this case an

M. Nita (*)
The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
e-mail: maria.nita@open.ac.uk
J. H. Kidwell
University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
e-mail: j.kidwell@bham.ac.uk

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2022
M. Nita, J. H. Kidwell (eds.), Festival Cultures,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88392-8_1
2 M. NITA AND J. H. KIDWELL

enormous playa—and taking root across the globe—through offspring

festivals and new social media festival communities, it appears that festivals
have already moved on from their original festival-pilgrimage model, to
novel cultural forms. Rooted in the more territorialised 1960s communes
and intentional communities, festivals are becoming new communal forms
of communication and organisation, where people experiment with differ-
ent models of communication, during workshops, retreats and, increas-
ingly post-Covid, online groups. Present-day festivals are no longer just
annual events rooted in place like Glastonbury Festival, they are new
global forms of social organisation that are transforming local cultures,
being part of both local and global economies and politics
Bowman (2009; 2016), Nita (2017), Szmigin et al. (2017).
This volume brings together scholarship from Anthropology, Cultural
Geography, Archaeology, Religious Studies, History and Contemporary
Art, aiming to go beyond disciplinary boundaries and bring together new
research perspectives in the study of contemporary festival cultures.
Despite a growing scholarship concerned with festival research, the aca-
demic sectors engaged with this growing field, such as tourism and events
studies or music and performance studies, have not yet managed to cross
over and forge a transdisciplinary field, although such a new area of study
is understood as important from all sides (see Mair and Weber 2019).
Furthermore, although recent approaches propose that we should study
festivals within a specialised field (Giorgi et al. 2011), in relation to issues
intersecting community, communication and politics, the inter-­discursivity
of these events and their post-1960s diachronic development in the con-
text of growing globalisation is not sufficiently stressed. Ultimately, this
volume shows that by studying festival cultures, we can start to study the
vicinities and intersections within our respective disciplinary boundaries,
as we engage with contemporary cultures.
Festivals have been seen in recent times as forms of contemporary spiri-
tuality or ‘spiritual tourism’ (Norman 2011), or even as ‘post-secular tour-
ism’, whereby in the absence of both faith and religious authority festivals
and pilgrimages are constructed by the experiences of ‘post-secular tour-
ists’ (Nilsson and Tesfahuney 2016). We are not so much concerned in
this volume with defining what festivals are, or with differentiating them
from other cultural forms—we are particularly interested in advancing a
diachronic, historical and geo-political perspective for examining the cul-
tural processes involved in modern festival cultures. In our contemporary
glocal cultures, modern festivals, their satellites and progenies—pilgrim-
ages, retreats, conferences, protestivals, art workshops—and growing
 1 EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION 3

forms of online gatherings, post Covid 19—facilitate dynamic cultural

exchanges between ‘cultures in motion’ (Coleman and Eade 2004)
engaged in processes of (re-)negotiation of twenty-first-century global
identities. The cultural impact of these new forms of communal dwelling
needs to be examined against the backdrop of other current trends that
are impacting ethno-religious identities, which, at least in a Western
European context, are understood to move towards secularisation, indi-
vidualisation and pluralisation (Müller 2012). The chapters we have
gathered here show that contemporary festivals—Burning Man and con-
temporary Burner culture in Europe—need to be seen in a historical per-
spective as ‘festival cultures’, since they were formed, shaped or at the very
least hybridised by the transatlantic counter-culture of the 1960s, and thus
they can provide a north pole for a study of culture in our contemporary
society, or a means of cultural mapping.
An overarching question about modern festivals posed by this volume
is whether modern festivals are sites for the liberal, rational, self-expressive
values which Ronald Inglehart et al. (see Inglehart 1977; WVS 2019)
claim to represent postmaterial values, like universalism and environmen-
talism. Are these sites for self-expression hubs of departure from preceding
traditional and survival-oriented values? The chapters in this volume show
that whilst festivals can certainly be sites where values are ‘at play’, these
conflicting value axes are far more curbed and complex inside the festival
field. Thus, festivals appear to create sites of convergence for both local
and global, nationalism and universalism, secular and religious, self-­
expression and survival, individualism and communalism. Modern festi-
vals themselves have created new global identities and contributed to a
change and transformation of the very notion of locality, by creating new
urban—rural dynamics. Thus, Burning Man festivalgoers in the Nevada
desert have become global ‘burners’, whilst the town of Glastonbury has
become the ‘heart chakra’ of the world (Bowman 2005). Yet, whilst
Glastonbury remains a local town, Glastonbury Festival is a yearly hub
that connects it to a web of networks, beyond its expected organic links
and routes. Pilton village does not just become a city overnight and then
goes back to being a village, but in fact it must be expected that this expo-
sure to a global network and an urban environment would disrupt impor-
tant cultural boundaries. This yearly fracturing of the norm creates an
interruption in local rural identities and at the same time gives the festival-
goers a special ephemeral local identity, as they become part of the
Glastonbury scene.
4 M. NITA AND J. H. KIDWELL

Festivals, Globalisation, Tradition and Change

The notion of festivals as cultural laboratories is particularly important
when considering their role in cultural innovation and value change in the
context of important contemporary global challenges (Nita, 2016, 2017,
2018). Ecocritics have long urged ‘a re-imagining’ of humans’ relation-
ships with other species and an engagement of the ‘sociological imagina-
tion’ with the climate crisis (Norgaard 2018). It is this task—of enabling
new ecological understanding—which is understood as a key ingredient in
addressing our ecological crisis. Kari Marie Norgaard (2018) argues that
the social sciences need to provide a better understanding of this crisis, not
only by reflecting on how society is responding or not responding to it, but
also by deploying the ‘sociological imagination’ to reflect on how humans
might be able to respond. Festivals have been sites for countercultural
experiments with deep ecology for over five decades, the green futures
fields at Glastonbury Festival being perhaps a fitting epitome of this.
Festivals’ proliferation after 1960s, although complex, is recognised by
scholarship as relating ‘to a response from communities seeking to re-­
assert their identities in the face of a feeling of cultural dislocation brought
about by rapid structural change, social mobility and globalisation pro-
cesses’ (Picard and Robinson 2006, 2). Globalisation is of course an
important factor in the growth of festival cultures, but we need to consider
a full spectrum of responses to globalisation processes. Festivals can indeed
help communities re-assert their identities, but they can also help dissolve
local identities, by building temporary global communities. They can
respond to local and global political, economic and environmental
changes. And they do not do this with ‘one voice’, but naturally within
their own dominant and marginal discourses. Moreover, in tandem with
increased globalisation, the post-1960s era of late modernity or postmo-
dernity was marked by important technological, cultural, social and envi-
ronmental changes, most importantly the environmental and societal
effects of anthropogenic climate change. Modern festivals have to be con-
sidered in conjunction with these developments. Hence the Burning Man
festival in the Nevada desert is seen by some scholars as an experiment in
community resilience in response to climate change, whereby the arid cli-
mate of the desert represents a projection of the future of mankind (Pike
2005, 247). Thus we need to investigate festivals against the backdrop of
significant global trends, such as the decline of institutionalised religious
traditions as well as political, economic and socio-cultural and
 1 EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION 5

environmental changes. This in turn can shine a light on the role of festi-
vals in the development and transmission of tradition/s on one hand and
the roles festivals play in showcasing innovation and experimentation with
cultural change on the other.
Many scholars have argued that increased mobility and globalisation in
our contemporary world is impacting the established channels for cultural
transmission, thus leading to increased secularisation and a loss of tradi-
tional cultural values (Voas 2005; Bruce 2002). Others have shown that
the transmission of religious and other cultural elements may continue
despite decline or disruptions in such institutions as the church, communi-
ties of place and the traditional family (Davies 1994). At the same time, we
increasingly live in a world dominated by change, uncertainty and risk, and
scholars have recognised that the implications of living with unprece-
dented global risk in a detraditionalised society involve the development
of new types of subversive social movements (Macnaughton and Urry
1998, 70). Festivals appear to have developed in this context and against
such global trends, yet during the past five decades they have themselves
changed significantly, with some public and academic voices deploring
their descent into an increasingly corporate ethos (Flinn and Frew 2014).
An important contribution our book is making to the field is the attention
the authors have given to the treatment of traditional cultural practices,
suggesting a role for festivals as acculturative hubs, assisting society to
make sense of change. Whilst it is tempting to see modern festivals as
either acculturative hubs or laboratories for cultural change, the chapters
in this volume clearly show that festivals have a complex relationship with
tradition, cultural change and cultural innovation, whereby they can act as
sites of both commemoration and re-imagining of the past, whilst experi-
menting with new alternative futures, and do so on a wide dystopian vs.
utopian spectrum of possibilities.
In the West, festivals enabled syncretic cultural processes that allowed
for the integration of countercultural values and discourses into the more
mainstream social landscape (Nita and Gemie 2020). In Britain an accep-
tance of the hippies’ countercultural lifestyles and identities was aided by
the Christian clergy, who were able to recognise the Christian roots and
values of the counterculture (ibid.). For Nita, who grew up in the 1980s
in communist Romania, in Eastern Europe, the equivalent of modern fes-
tivals were Ceausescu’s Homage Shows—large-scale festivities that
included art and performance in a carefully orchestrated spectacle, which
became equivalent to ‘the Ceausescu’ personality cult. The Shows were
6 M. NITA AND J. H. KIDWELL

engaged in constructing a microcosmos of an ‘ideal’ Romanian society,

with farmers, factory workers, historical figures and school children com-
ing together to be paraded on huge stages. The Shows constructed a
Romanian nationalistic culture, by excluding minorities and countercul-
tural tendencies. For example, such groups as the Roma and the Tatar
people in Romania—two ethnic groups with distinct cultural roots—were
never showcased in the historical and cultural parade of Romanian nation-
alism during the Homage Shows. Moreover, Roma celebrations and fes-
tivities were seen as disruptive, destructive or simply offensive in everyday
Romanian discourse. For example, the word ‘tiganie’—in Romanian
meaning anything from a dirty affair to a chaotic event—is etymologically
derived from the word ‘tigan’—‘gypsy’ in Romanian. Like the early hip-
pies, the Roma were demonised and vilified, yet unlike the Christian clergy
in Britain, in the case of the British hippies the Romanian Orthodox
church did not stand for Roma rights—at least not in any collective and
outspoken way. Festivals are therefore sites where individual and commu-
nity identities, rights and relationships, can be negotiated, contested,
invented, ignored or excluded.
The book’s nine chapters bring together different interdisciplinary per-
spectives, and methodological and theoretical approaches from History,
Religious Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, and Contemporary Art.
These perspectives demonstrate that such a rich cross-section of the festival
studies field is not only possible, but very much needed and that a new
transdisciplinary field of studies looking at Festival Cultures can help us
make sense of wider global developments. Among all these perspectives, a
diachronic outlook is evident, whether we are looking at historical or con-
temporary developments, or both. We cannot understand how cultural
elements settle on old terrains unless we look at that landscape and its sedi-
ment. In this diachronic and transdisciplinary perspective, we can more
clearly see how festivals, as global forms, are collectively assembling an
inter-discursivity which can provide a lens through which personal narra-
tives from festivalgoers or festival organisers can be framed and understood.
In Chap. 2, Nita looks at the connections between the free festival cul-
ture in 1970s Britain, and the Extinction Rebellion (XR) protestivals of
the last couple of years (2018–2020). This chapter attempts to trace the
relationships between a process of ‘naturalisation’ of the hippie culture in
the 1970s and the ways in which the Extinction Rebellion movement is
understood in the public sphere. Whilst festivals offered a main window
into the hippies and alternative lifestyles in 1970s Britain, their public
 1 EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION 7

image was shaped by some key groups that had various degrees of influ-
ence in largely integrating or naturalising the hippies. Nita talks here about
the liberal and conservative broadsheet and tabloid media, the Christian
clergy, and the public officials who spoke about or on behalf of the hippies.
Certainly, the echo of the vilifying voices still resounds, and my chapter
discusses how these anti-hippie discourses were revived with Extinction
Rebellion’s arrival on the public stage. What is notable is XR’s more main-
stream outreach, which suggests that the alternative—mainstream bound-
ary of the 1970s has morphed into a liberal/conservative value schism.
Nita examines in her chapter the processes of ‘naturalisation’ of the alter-
natives in British culture, by which she means ‘the negotiations of their
status, rights and identities in relation to broader cultural forms and val-
ues’. Nita discusses festivals as one mode of alternative dwelling, alongside
other alternative living arrangements, such as hippies living in remote
country areas (off-grid), which become windows into their intentional
countercultural lifestyles. It is in the context of these alternative dwellings,
Nita argues, that both alternatives and their supporters depict, present and
demonstrate the semiotic equivalence between new postmaterial values
and Christian values.
In Chap. 3, Sharif Gemie continues this historical outlook, and investi-
gates the relationships between hippie culture and modern festival culture,
as he argues that the hippie culture defined what a pop festival ought to be
in the early 1970s. Gemie considers here the biggest pop festival in British
history: the Isle of Wight Festival of 1970, which he claims became the
‘anti-model’ for counter-cultural activists. The reaction to Isle of Wight
1970 was evident in the free festivals that followed, Glastonbury 1971 and
Windsor 1972–1974. Gemie brings to light personal accounts from festi-
valgoers and festival organisers, attendees and participants, as he looks at
how these testimonies fit into what became the modern festival. Gemie’s
analysis shows how this new model of a ‘small is beautiful’ festival, with its
fields for art, crafts, performance, ‘alternative technologies and experi-
mental architecture’, gained new dimensions by advertising itself as par-
ticipatory, welcoming and inviting: a pastoral tone, a ‘back to nature
ethos’, a connection to place, locality and history, like Stonehenge and
Glastonbury. This participatory aspect of the modern festival can be
understood—according to Gemie—to have survived the growth of the
festival: although Glastonbury is no longer a country fayre, it offers a con-
tinuity to this alternative model through its ‘semi-spontaneous’ culture.
8 M. NITA AND J. H. KIDWELL

Chapter 4, by István Povedák, presents material from a multi-sited eth-

nography of Hungarian festivals as he examines the ‘heritage-preserving
festival’ against the backdrop of festival culture as a global movement.
Povedák provides a detailed analysis of the material culture in this field,
depicting a New Age cum Contemporary Paganism in Hungary, where
ancient Hungarian mythology, esotericism, alternative history, Hungarian
eco-villages, folk music performances and patriotic rock concerts come
together. Povedák shows that in the last two decades a movement of
‘heritage-­preserving’ festivals has gained increasing popularity and politi-
cal support, ranging from small gatherings to big ones like Kurultaj,
attracting 150–250,000 people a year. These occasions stand out for their
distinctive ‘Hungarian neo-nationalist festival brand’, and considering the
Capital Hill riots in the United States in January 2021, this milieu of
pseudo-scientific, radically right-wing beliefs and practices gains new sig-
nificance and importance. Povedák’s examination of neo-nationalist
Hungarian festival culture demonstrates that neo-nationalist festivals con-
struct a symbolic dimension of an imagined Hungarian identity and tradi-
tion. Povedák’s insights throw light on understanding neo-nationalism as
a global movement that relies on similar cultural strategies (i.e. esoteri-
cism) for propagation and development, and suggest that we can better
understand this construction of a political identity by examining the mate-
rial culture of these festivals.
In Chap. 5, Botond Vitos, Graham St John and François Gauthier pres-
ent qualitative findings from a multi-methodological project comprising
ethnographic research in Germany and surveys targeted at European
Burning Man participants (or ‘Burners’). The authors understand ‘burns—
Black Rock City and its worldwide progeny events—as experimental het-
erotopia, or “counter spaces,” that enable a proliferation of ritualesque
and carnivalesque performance modes’. This is a fascinating look at Burner
culture and its mechanisms of cultural change, through the way in which
‘progeny’ events are committed to key principles (‘the 10 principles’),
whilst also enabling freedom of expression and innovation. Vitos, St John
and Gauthier focus on the Burner principles of ‘Gifting’ and ‘Leaving No
Trace’, which are highlighted in German Burner initiatives. These princi-
ples are reflected in a multitude of cultural contexts, and are not confined
to festival sites, because, as we have argued in this Introduction, festivals
are spilling out of their fields and are becoming year-round events, as
Vitos, St John and Gauthier show, via workshops, lectures, beach clean-­
ups and picnics in the park. The significance of understanding European
 1 EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION 9

Burners in the context of this growing transatlantic culture is hugely

important. Burning Man’s European Leadership Summit, mounted annu-
ally in different European cities since 2014 as well as in Israel, suggests
perhaps that we can look for the Judeo-Christian cultural roots of Gifting.
By investigating Burner culture in Europe, Vitos, St John and Gauthier
show that to understand its acculturative mechanisms, we must examine
its cultural sediments, not only in ‘the principles’ but also in their specific
cultural appropriation.
Chapter 6 is a less conventional academic article, being written as an
interview or discussion between artist and research designer Zsófia Szonja
Illés and an academic, Maria Nita, who talk about artistic engagement
through curating new practices of imagination and design at festivals. Illés
discusses the creation of her artistic installations through unique collabo-
rations and experiments, showing that the design process in this context is
fully mediated by festival processes, and that this offers an opportunity to
investigate new practices of imagination, creativity and cultural innova-
tion. The chapter offers an epistemological discussion of art and imagina-
tion, asking how imagination and art engage the public, the audience, the
festivalgoers. Illés and Nita reflect on the relationships and exchanges
between the artist and the temporary communities made up of festival
publics and built around artistic structures. Illés and Nita discuss the
implications of practices of cooperative and collaborative artistic engage-
ment at festivals, developed as a way to provoke, challenge and involve the
festival public with issues of social and environmental justice. They ask if
the festival becomes a site for public pedagogy within a distinct cultural
and political context.
In Chap. 7, Barbara Brayshay and Jacqui Mulville explore a unique
feature of Glastonbury Festival, its stone circle, which was created for the
event, in 1992, and known as the Swan Circle. This monument was built
in the style of a megalithic stone circle, which the authors argue should
be analysed through the lens of contemporary archaeology. Brayshay and
Mulville use the concept of place as lens for examining the festival site,
whilst using tools from cultural archeology. This involves not only con-
sidering the relationship between festival and place, but also considering
the making and memorialisation of place as ‘monument’, as well as their
implied ‘inter-­monumentality’—that is, the Swan Circle’s relationship to
Stonehenge. The questions that arise from their investigation address
fundamental issues in understanding festival cultures linked to the
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and wishing of a “Merry Christmas”; a few were still in the drawing-
room sorting out musical property.
Catherine felt a heavy hand on her shoulder. She turned ...
Verreker!...
In the half-light he looked almost demoniacally ugly. A great fur
overcoat hung ponderously to within a few inches of the ground, and
his hands were encased in huge fur gloves. Under his arm he carried
a rather incongruous cloth cap.
“Excuse me,” he began gruffly, “I’ve got a word to say to you.”
She pursed her lips scornfully.
“Be quick, then,” she said. “I haven’t much time to spare.” She
was being deliberately rude.
“I suppose you noticed I went out while you were playing?” he
went on.
“Did you?” As much as to say: “How should I know? Do you
imagine I keep careful watch upon all your movements?”
“The fact is, I went out because I remember your saying that you
never played well if I were present....”
“Did I say that?” (She was in a deliberately, irritatingly
obstructionist mood.)
“... So I thought I’d oblige.... Afterwards it occurred to me it would
be misunderstood.... That’s all.... It wasn’t anything else. Of course
you’re not obliged to believe me.”
“Why shouldn’t I believe you?” she said, with no discoverable
motive.
“I know of no reason at all,” he replied coldly.
Pause.
“And, as it happened, you did play rather well. Distinctly better
than usual.”
“Did I? ... How do you know?”
 “I listened behind the door.”
“Did you?”
She tapped her foot petulantly on the floor.... Pause.... Then ...
“All the same, I really don’t see quite what you mean.” She was
merely trying to annoy him. He had come to her humbly, and he was
going to be spurned. Yet from the look in his eyes she knew that this
last remark had been a mistake. He was not the kind of man who
waits to be spurned....
“Oh, well,” he said brusquely, “I’m glad I don’t need to
apologize.... Good-night!”
She called “Good-night!” so faintly that she was sure he never
heard it.
He was gone....

§9
Along the Bockley High Street she remarked thoughtfully to
George: “I didn’t know Verreker patronized your musical evenings.”
George replied: “Oh, it wasn’t that he came for. It was Helen. She
persuaded him to play.”
Catherine was surprised.
“Helen? Does Helen know him?”
“Oh, rather. She translates his books into French.” Again
Catherine was surprised. “Books? I didn’t know he wrote books! On
music, I suppose?”
“No, not on music.”
“On what, then?”
“Economic history.”
Once again Catherine was surprised....
 “He’s a curious chap,” George went on. “Economist and musician
combined. Queer compound. Helen likes him. She says his music’s
all the better for having the brains of an economist put into it, also his
economics don’t lose anything from being infused with a dash of
temperament. Can’t say I understand it myself, anyway.”

§ 10
And at the corner of Gifford Road he suddenly said: “I suppose
our engagement needn’t be a particularly long one, need it?”
She said: “Why? Do you want to break it off?”
He laughed, not altogether uproariously.
“No, no.... I mean—you know what I mean. Look here, why
shouldn’t we get married in the New Year?”
“Married?” she echoed vaguely. She looked at him as if the very
last thing an engaged girl thinks of is of getting married.
“Why not?” he said, point blank.
“I know of no reason at all,” she replied coldly, and was conscious
that she was echoing something she had heard before. The
stateliness of the phrase fascinated her.
“Then——” he began, and kissed her passionately. But the
passion did not thrill her. It was weak and watery compared with the
stuff in “Jeau d’Eaux.” Besides, she had grown blasé of his kisses.
Every night, week after week....
He kissed her again. He fondled her hair. He got hold of heaps of
it and crushed it voluptuously in his hand. This was a new
experience, and not devoid of interest to her. But even this became
stale in a very short time. He kissed her once more.
“Please!” she said, after some minutes of this sort of thing. “I
must go.... Really I must.”
So, with a long, lingering, sentimental caress he left her. And as
she climbed the stairs to the attic bedroom that night her one thought
was: “Fancy me marrying George Trant! Me!”
The idea at firsy seemed fantastic.
But after a while she accepted it as a more or less logical
sequence. And he was undoubtedly in love with her. And she with
him? Oh yes. At least.... “Why not?” she asked herself, and echo
within her answered solemnly, “I know of no reason at all....”
 CHAPTER XII
DISCONTENT
§1
HER first periodic “supervision” by Razounov took place early in the
New Year, and once again coincided with an engagement of
Razounov to play Chopin at the Bockley Hippodrome.
He puffed serenely at a cigarette while she played the Kreutzer
Sonata. At the end he said:
“Nicely, oh yais, quite nicely.... And thees ees—let me see—thees
ees Mees—Mees—”
“Weston,” put in Verreker.
“Ah, yais, ... plays quite nicely, eh? ... A leetle more technique,
and—more—more—what ees the word?—characterization, eh?”
Verreker nodded.
But Catherine was disappointed. For it was perfectly evident not
only that Razounov had failed to recognize her, but that her name
when told him had recalled nothing in his mind.

§2
At her next lesson with Verreker she said: “Razounov didn’t
remember me, apparently——”
Verreker replied quite casually: “Oh no, why should he?”
She coloured slightly.
 “Well,” she said, with some acerbity, “considering he took the
trouble to send for me after hearing me play at that club concert, I
think he might at least——”
Verreker faced her suddenly.
“What’s that?” he said.
“What’s what?”
“What you’ve just been talking about. I don’t understand in the
least.... You say he heard you at a concert?”
“Well, I presume so, anyway. What remarkably short memories
you musical people have! Razounov apparently heard me at the
concert, and sent me a message to come and see him the next day.
You ought to remember that: it was you yourself who brought it. You
tracked me down to the Forest Hotel.”
“Yes, yes. I remember that.... But the concert?”
She was becoming more and more sarcastic as his mystification
increased.
“Oh yes, the concert. I played Liszt’s Concert Etude in A flat (the
one you don’t like). As I remarked before, presumably Razounov
heard me, or else why should he send for me to——”
“I am afraid you have presumed falsely,” he interrupted. (She
shivered at the stateliness of the phrasing: it reminded her of “I know
of no reason at all.”) “Razounov could not possibly have heard you
play. He never attends local concerts. Besides, he must have been
on at the Hippo——”
“Then why did he send for me?” she cried shrilly.
He scratched his chin reflectively. She hated him for that gesture.
“I believe—I think he did tell me once.... I fancy it was something
rather unusual. Somebody—I can’t tell you who, because I believe
I’m pledged to secrecy—wrote to Razounov offering to pay for a
course of lessons for you. His name was to be kept out of it. I mean,
the name of the person.”
 He frowned irritably at the slip of his tongue, and still more at the
rash correction which had given prominence to it.
“A man?” she ejaculated.
“I can’t tell you that.”
“I know it was. Because you said ‘his.’”
“Then why did you ask me?”
She swung round on the stool and clasped her hands below her
knees. Her eyes were fiercely bright.
“What are Razounov’s fees?” she said quietly.
“Three guineas a lesson.”
“And yours?”
“For purposes of musical instruction I am Razounov. He only
supervises. It is a fortunate arrangement, because I am a much
better teacher than he.”
She looked at him a little amazed. For the first time she caught
herself admiring him. She admired the calm, straightforward,
unqualified way he had said that he was a much better teacher than
Razounov. It was not conceit. She was glad he knew how to
appraise himself. She admired him for not being afraid to do so. In
her eyes was the message: “So you too have found out that
overmodesty is not a virtue? So have I.”
But it was impossible to remark upon it. She plunged into the
financial side of the question.
“So somebody has been paying three guineas a week for me?”
(And she thought: “Whoever is it?”)
“Certainly. You don’t imagine Razounov would give lessons for
nothing, do you?”
“That is to say, you wouldn’t give lessons for nothing, isn’t it?”
“Certainly. I am not a philanthropist. I have other interests
besides music. Music is only my way of getting a living. I never even
reduce my fees except—except—well——”
“Yes?—except when?”
He turned away his head as he replied: “Except in cases where
the pupil has no money yet supreme musical genius.”
She flared up passionately.
“Look here,” she said, “why d’you keep on rubbing it in? How do
you know I shan’t be a great pianist? I say, how do you know? I tell
you, I don’t believe you. You wait; you’ll see me at the top before
long. And then you’ll have to eat your words. You’re got a good
opinion of yourself, haven’t you? Well, so have I. See? ... And I tell
you I will get to the top! I’ll show you you’re wrong! See?”
“I hope you will,” he said quietly. And added: “I’m glad my
criticism doesn’t discourage you. It isn’t meant to.”
To which she was on the point of replying: “But it has discouraged
me. There have been times when——” She did not say that. There
came a pause. Then she reverted to the financial side of the
business.
“So somebody’s already paid nearly a hundred pounds for me.”
“Sixty, I believe. The last quarter has not been paid yet.”
(And then the idea came to her immediately—George Trant!)
“Aren’t your fees payable in advance?” she asked sharply.
“As a general rule, yes.”
“Then why did you make an exception in my case?”
“Because I know the person fairly well, and am confident of being
paid soon. That’s all.”
“Is it?”
“Certainly,” he replied brusquely. “If your anonymous benefactor
doesn’t pay up within the next couple of months the arrangement
between you and me will terminate on the first of March. As I said
before, I am not a philanthropist.”
 “Obviously not.”
“I hope it is obvious. I have often been mistaken for one.”
“Curious! I can scarcely believe it.... Have you the address of my
anonymous benefactor?”
“I dare say I have it somewhere about. Why?”
“Because I want you to write and tell him something.”
“Indeed? And what am I to tell him?”
“Tell him he needn’t trouble to pay the last quarter’s fees. I will
pay them myself.”
“I hope you can easily spare the money——”
“Of course I can. I shouldn’t offer to pay if I couldn’t. I’m not a
philanthropist.”
“Very well, then. I will write and tell him what you say.”
Pause. He was beginning to look rather annoyed.
“And there’s just one other thing,” she said, putting on her hat
ready for departure.
“What’s that?”
“Our arrangement will not terminate on the first of March. I shall
continue and pay myself.”
“As you wish....” He shrugged his shoulders.
And she thought as she went out: “That was a neat stroke for me.
But it’s going to be confoundedly expensive....”

§3
Henceforward Catherine assumed that George was her
anonymous benefactor. His inability to pay the last quarter’s fees
synchronized with his encounter with the Bishop’s Stortford
magistrates, resulting in a bill, including costs and all expenses, of
nearly twenty-five pounds. Undoubtedly it was George who was
financing her. And the question arose: Why? And the only possible
answer was that this quixotic and expensive undertaking was done
out of love for her. Catherine did not particularly like it. She was not
even vaguely grateful. She almost thought: He had no right to do it
without asking me. And if he had asked me I shouldn’t have let him.
Anyway, it was done behind my back. Treating me like a little child
that doesn’t know what is best for itself....
At times she became violently angry with him for his absolute
silence. Does he intend to carry the secret with him to the grave?
she asked herself. The absurd ease with which he parried any
attempts to entangle him in a confession intensely annoyed her. “I
don’t believe he intends ever to tell me,” she thought. “And if I’m ever
a well-known pianist he’ll congratulate himself in secret by thinking: ‘I
started her. I gave her her first chance. She’d have been nothing but
for me. And she doesn’t know it!’” The thought of George’s romantic
self-satisfaction at such a juncture oppressed her strangely.
There was also the subtle disappointment of discovering that
Razounov had not “found” her as great pianists are supposed to
“find” promising talent. But she was becoming accustomed to the
shattering of her idealist creations. Besides, she was at this time
deriving a good deal of hard satisfaction from her rapid and steady
advancement, and no amount of retrospective disillusionment could
cast a shadow across the future. Only she was annoyed at the
quixotism of George Trant.
One evening she asked him point-blank:
“Did you pay for my first quarter’s lessons with Razounov?”
She expected the blow by its very suddenness would tell. He
started very slightly.
“Me?” he said, in a tone of bewilderment which, if not genuine,
was at least consummate acting. “Me?—I don’t understand. What do
you——”
“Well, somebody did,” she replied curtly, annoyed that her blow
had been parried. “And I thought it might be you.”
 “Good heavens, no!” he said, and at that moment she did not
know whether to believe him or not.

§4
He had been clever up to then. Afterwards he became too clever.
One of those periodic spasms of brilliance overwhelmed him.
The next morning she received a letter, typewritten, plain paper
and envelope, with the non-committal postmark: London, W. It ran:
The person who has undertaken the expenses of Miss Weston’s
musical training wishes it to be understood that he desires to remain
anonymous. Should he be questioned on the point by anyone he will
feel himself justified in adopting any attitude, even one involving
departures from the truth, which seems to him best calculated to
preserve the anonymity he so earnestly desires. Hence it is obvious
that enquiry, however persistent, can elicit no reliable information.
When Catherine read this she laughed outright. The absurdity,
the sublime ridiculousness of the thing tickled her. She knew now
beyond all doubt that it was George Trant. For this note had “George
Trant” written all over it. Only he could have devised something so
inanely clever and at the same time so incredibly stupid.
The fact of its being posted only three hours after their interview
of the evening before was enough to convince her. He must have
gone home direct, written it (he had a typewriter at home, she knew),
and gone up to London, W., immediately to catch the eleven o’clock
post. She pondered on his choice of London, W. Probably he thought
a London postmark would be least likely to give a clue. E.C., the
most common, would suggest Leadenhall Street, so he chose W.
That, probably, was his line of argument.
It was not a bad joke, she agreed. Yet if he acted upon it she
could conceive herself getting angry....

§5
 Her opinion of George went up somewhat after the receipt of this
letter. She was immensely struck by its absurdity, yet she had to
admit that in addition to being a joke it was quite a clever joke. For
several weeks she did not mention the affair, and he too avoided all
reference to it. Then she began again to be annoyed at his silence.
Besides, she was immensely curious to know what his attitude would
be. The full flavour of the joke had yet to be tasted.
An incident—trivial in itself—lowered her opinion of him
incalculably.
She had gone for her usual weekly lesson from Verreker. It was
springtime, and “Claremont” was being painted, both inside and out.
The music-room in which she took her lessons was crowded with
furniture from other rooms, and for the first time she saw the
evidences of Verreker’s labours apart from the world of music. Large
book-cases had been dumped anyhow against the walls, and tables
littered with papers filled up the usually spacious centre of the room.
The piano had been pulled into a corner. She had several minutes to
wait, and spent the time perusing the titles on his bookshelves.
There was a fairly large collection of modern novels, including most
of the works of Wells, Bennett, Conrad, Hardy, Chesterton and
others; complete sets of the works of Shaw and Ibsen, most of the
plays of Galsworthy, Granville Barker and Henry Arthur Jones; and
some hundreds of miscellaneous French novels. A complete
bookcase was occupied by works on economics and economic
history—she read the names of Cunningham, Ashley, Maitland,
Vinogradoff, Seebohm and Money. Then there was a shelf entirely
devoted to Government Blue-Book publications, Reports of
Commissions, quarterly and monthly reviews, loose-leaf binders full
to bursting with documents, and such like. It was a very impressive
array. She was conscious of her own extreme ignorance. Scarcely
anything that was here had she read. She was not particularly fond
of reading....
On the table near his desk she saw a yellow-backed copy of
Ibsen’s Ghosts....
 One result of their frequent bickering was that their conversation
had acquired a good deal of familiarity....
“Rather a muddle,” he commented, as she was preparing to go
after the lesson. He waved a hand comprehensively round the room.
“You’ve a lot of books,” she said.
“Yes; and I read them.” (As much as to say: “If you had a lot of
books you wouldn’t read them.” In other words, a purely gratuitous
insult. But she ignored it.)
“Reading Ghosts?” she remarked, taking up the yellow-backed
book from the table.
“Re-reading it,” he corrected.
Something erratic and perfectly incomprehensible prompted her
next utterance.
“Absolute biological nightmare,” she said casually. (It was
something she had once heard George say.)
He looked at her queerly.
“Have you read it?”
“No,” she said, and blushed. She knew his next question would
be, “Then how do you know?” so she added: “I once heard
somebody say that about it.” She plunged further in sheer
desperation. “Don’t you think it’s rather a biological nightmare?” she
persisted, with passionate eagerness, as much as to say: “Please
don’t make a fool of me. Please let the matter pass this once.”
“I confess,” he replied coldly, “it never appeared to me in that,
light.... But, of course ...”
(Truly he was a master of stately phrasing!)
Naturally she regarded it as George’s fault primarily. It was clear
she had overestimated George’s critical faculties....

§6
 She was so annoyed with George on the way home that she
arrived at the astonishing decision: I will not marry him....
That evening, under the trees of the Bockley High Road, she
produced the typewritten anonymous letter and asked him point-
blank: “Did you write this?”
“No,” he said immediately.
“Did you type it, then?” (It showed her mean opinion of him that
she judged him capable of such a quibble.)
“No.”
“Do you know its contents?”
“How should I?”
“Then please read it.” She handed it to him.
“If you like,” he said, and read it. “Well?” he remarked, after doing
so.
“How am I to know if you are telling the truth?”
“You have only my word.”
“But, according to the letter, you may be telling me a lie.”
“That is presuming that I wrote it.”
“And you didn’t?”
“No.”
Pause. Then suddenly she stopped and faced him defiantly.
“I don’t believe you!” she snapped.
“Well——”
“Look here. You did write this thing. Tell the truth. Own up to it. It’s
very clever and all that, but it shouldn’t be kept up seriously like this.
I’m certain you wrote that letter.”
“You don’t take my word for it?”
“Not in this case.”
 “In other words, I’m a liar. Eh?”
“I suppose it comes to that.”
“Well, you’re very polite, I must say. Perhaps you’ve a few more
things you’d like to say about me?”
“Don’t try to be sarcastic. But there is one thing if you really want
to know.”
“What’s that?”
She paused, and then hurled it at him with terrible effect.
“I don’t love you a bit.... Not a tiny bit....”
She saw him whiten. It was thrilling to see how he kept his
emotion under control. She almost admired him in that moment.
“Is that so?” he said heavily.
“Yes.”
He bit his lip fiercely.
“Then our engagement, I presume, is—is dissolved?”
“Presumably.... Here’s your ring.”
Here occurred a touch of bathos. She tried to get the ring off her
finger, but it would not pass the first joint.
“Let me try,” he said humbly, and the episode became almost
farcical. It came off after a little coaxing. But the dramatic possibilities
of the incident had been ruined.
“Well,” he said stiffly, “I suppose that’s all. It’s your doing, not
mine. You’re breaking up our prospects without the least shadow of
reason.”
It did seem to her an incredibly wanton thing that she was doing.
And at this particular moment, if he had uttered her name slowly and
passionately she would have burst into tears and been reconciled to
him. But he missed the opportunity.
“I shall return your letters,” he continued coldly. (There were not
many of them, she reflected.)
 “Good-bye,” she said.
They shook hands. And she thought: “Fancy having been kissed
every night for months and months and suddenly turning to a
handshake!” That, more than anything, perhaps, indicated to her the
full significance of what had happened. That and the peculiar
sensation of chilliness round her finger where the ring had been.
As she turned into Gifford Road she asked herself seriously the
question: “What has come over me? Am I mad? ...”

§7
More than once during the next few weeks she wished for a
reconciliation with George. It was not so much a desire for him as a
sense of despair at being once more wholly alone and adrift. Now
she was back again where she was when she first came to Gifford
Road. With redoubled energy she laboured at her music, and soon
the idea of a recital in a London concert hall began to dance
attractively in her vision. She extended her reputation by playing in
other suburbs; she thought even of setting up as a private teacher of
the pianoforte. With the surplus earnings of a few months she bought
an upright piano of decent tone and installed it in the basement
sitting-room at Gifford Road.
George wrote to her once, a long letter of mingled pleading and
expostulation. He mentioned that he had not yet told his parents
what had happened, so that if she desired to change her mind it
would be easy to do so. He laid stress on the difficulty he should find
in giving Helen and his father and mother an adequate explanation
of their separation.
After the receipt of this letter Catherine ceased her vague
misgivings. She replied immediately in a letter, short by comparison
with his, whose every sentence was the result of careful
excogitation:
It is no good thinking of our ever becoming engaged again,
because if we did we should soon quarrel. We simply aren’t made for
one another, and however kind and sympathetic we try to be there’ll
always be something lacking that sooner or later we shan’t be able
to do without....
I am bound to confess that the idea of marriage with you always
struck me as fantastic and improbable. I never, I believe, considered
it seriously. I knew something would happen to put an end to our
plans....
... Of course I am in the wrong. You have been very kind to me
and from the ordinary point of view you would doubtless have made
a very good husband. You are quite entitled to consider yourself
shabbily treated. I am wholly in the wrong. But I am not going to
make myself everlastingly unhappy just to put myself in the right.
And whether you would have made me a good husband or not, I
should certainly have made you a bad wife. I am a peculiar person,
and I would never marry a man just because he would make a good
husband.... Surely you don’t imagine I am going to marry you just to
let you out of the difficulty of explaining things at home? ... A thing
like that proves at once the complete misunderstanding that exists
between us two.... You must tell your parents and Helen exactly what
has happened, viz. that I have jilted you. If you were a woman you
could claim a few hundred pounds damages for breach of promise....
Tell them I have jilted you because I could not bear the thought of
marrying you. Blame me entirely: I am heartless and a flirt, cruel,
treacherous and anything else you like. Only I am not such a fool as
to marry somebody I don’t want to marry....
Don’t imagine I am in love with somebody else. At present I am
not in love with anybody. At one time I thought I was in love with you,
but I am doubtful if it ever was so really. I think it was just that you
hypnotized me by being in love with me yourself. I mean, I was so
interested in your experience....
I don’t ask you to forgive me. Because forgiving won’t make any
difference. I may have done right or I may have done wrong, but I
have done what I would do over again if I had to. There is no
repentance in me. It is idle to pretend I am sorry. I am extraordinarily
glad to have got out of a difficult position....
 This letter, by the way, is the first sincere letter I have ever written
to you. I do not mean that the others were all insincere: I mean that,
compared with this one for truth and sincerity, the others were simply
—nothing....
As to my present attitude towards you I will be offensively
straightforward. I do not like you. That ought to convince you finally
of the uselessness of answering this letter....

§8
A cold May day, so chilly that a fire seemed the most welcome
thing on earth. Seven in the evening, and it was the last lesson of the
quarter. When she reached “Claremont,” Verreker was not there. He
had been up to the City, and a slight accident outside Liverpool
Street Station had delayed the trains. The maid showed her into the
music-room and left her alone. She sat in one of the big chairs by the
fire and felt astonishingly miserable. The room had regained its
normal condition; the surplus furniture, the books, papers, writing-
desk, etc., had been taken away: but a grandfather clock that had
not originally been there now occupied a permanent position in the
corner. The embers were burning low, and shadows were darkening
all around: the black and white vista of piano keys straggled
obscurely in the background; the clock was ticking sleepily away. Far
into the dim distance of the ceiling loomed the polished splendour of
the raised sound-board....
Why did she feel miserable?
It was something in her soul.
She got up and sat down at the piano.
With no discoverable motive she commenced to play the piece
that she now knew was Chopin’s Black Note Etude (in G flat). It was
the one she had heard years ago when she stood in the scented
dusk of the Ridgeway in front of the house with the corner bay-
window. Since then she had learned it thoroughly and played it many
times on concert platforms. But as she played it now it sounded new,
or rather, it sounded as if she had heard it only once before, and that
was many years ago in the summer twilight. All between was a gap,
a void which only the Chopin Etude could bridge....
(In her strange mood she was playing it most abominably, by the
way.)
She paused in the middle. Her eyes were like dark gems amidst
the red glory of her hair.
“I’m not in love with any person,” she told herself with incredible
calmness. “I’m not in love with anybody in the world. But I’m in love
with Something. Some Thing! Very deeply, very passionately, I am.
And I don’t know what it is.... I keep finding it and losing it again. But
it’s in this”—she started the first few bars of the Chopin piece—“it’s
all everywhere in that. I knew it was there when I stood and listened
to it years ago. Oh, it’s there. And I’ve heard and seen it in other
places, too. But as yet it’s been only a thing.... But some day, maybe,
I’ll tack it on to somebody living, and then ... God help me! ...”
Her fingers flew over the keys, and the great octaves began to
sing out in the left hand.
“I’ll have to be careful,” she went on in thought—“careful, or else
some day I’ll go mad.... But it’s there, whatever it is.... Something
that’s in that and that’s in me as well, and they’re nearly tearing me
to shreds to get closer to one another. That’s how it feels.... And I
told him I wasn’t in love with anybody ... But if I should catch a
glimpse of this something in any living being! Nothing should ever
keep us apart! Nothing could! Neither life nor death—nor miles—nor
anything.”
She let her hands fall down the keyboard in a great culminating
Niagara of octaves. Two chords like the blare of trumpets, and ...
The door opened and Verreker entered.
She paused with her hands poised on the keys.
“Well,” he began cheerily, “it’s the last lesson of the quarter, isn’t
it?”
“Yes,” she said quietly.
 He was warming his hands in front of the fire.
“Confoundedly cold for May,” he remarked parenthetically.
“You’ve been taking lessons of me for a year now, haven’t you?”
“Just over a year.”
He stood with his back to the fire.
“Well,” he continued, “you’ve not done badly. In fact, you’ve—
you’ve improved—er—quite—er—beyond my expectations. I admit
that.”
It was the biggest compliment he had ever paid her. Pleasure
surged in her blood. She flushed.
“And,” he went on, “I don’t want to go on taking your money when
you’re no longer likely to benefit much. As a matter of fact, you’ve
come to a point at which my lessons are no longer worth three
guineas each to you. You can teach yourself as well as I can teach
you. I’ve led you out to the open sea, and now the time’s come for—
for dropping the pilot. See?”
She nodded.
“So I don’t recommend you to have another quarter with me. I
think it would be money wasted.”
She nodded.
“Of course I shall be glad to help you in any way I can if you need
it.”
She nodded.
“And if you ever wish me to give you advice on any point of
theory or technique I shall be pleased to do so.”
She nodded.
Pause.
“... I’ve just been up to town to get some new music in manuscript
from a new author. It’s quite good stuff and very modern. I’ll run it
over if you’d care to hear it.”