The Little willow

                                          Frances Tower

                           


                                                                  Question # 1
                                                     Discuss the title of the story?

                 This is a touching tale of an unexpressed love. The strength of unrequited love gives depth and width to the idea of life and existence. A young quiet girl falls in love with a war-beaten soldier who comes to her home and kindles the deep and compassionate relation of love in Lisby’s naïve heart. Their love is sacred like a candle burning in a hermit’s cave whose flashes never go out but it brightens the whole world with its suppressed light.
                A little willow made of jade and crystal becomes the symbol of their silent love. On Simon’s departure Lisby gives him the most precious thing that she owns…a little willow tree “for luck”. He keeps it as a token of his love with himself even on the war front. This tree becomes the symbol of his beloved Lisby who silently runs like deep waters but never shows any ripples on the surface. She burns with the heat of Simon’s love but never lets any spark out in front of him or anyone else. When the bombshell hits Simon and he gets injured the little willow present in his kit is also smashed. Their love bond is physically broken as Simon is going to die. But the bond of soul is bound to prosper, as his death is to bring the expression of his deep love for Lisby.
So the title of the story is the symbol of the relation of love and its nature. It is the outward emblem of the union of two quiet but extremely beautiful souls.

                                                                Question # 2
                                Portray the setting of their drawing room?      

                   Brenda, charlotte and Lisby lived in the “Courthouse” in the suburb of London. They were very brilliant girls with their exquisite taste and mannerism. They had superb friends like artists, painters, writers and soldiers. Charlotte was a stage decorator. Their drawing room was very graceful and exotic in its appearance. The walls were painted in white bright colour with reflections of colours clearly striking on the walls. There was a thick black hearthrug in the middle with pink roses printed on it. It was a rug woven by some Balkan peasant perhaps. Tables and shelves were stacked with a large number of books on varied subjects. On the grand piano, there were number of photographs arranged in a mysterious fashion. Over the fireplace a dark smoky painting of some old master hung and gave a strangely unusual look to the otherwise bright room. According to Simon a dark picture in a bright room gave it a spiritual worth and quality.
Amid all this dramatic and romantic setting, the three sisters were waiting for their stories to unfold with different tinges of love, death, romance, weddings and tragedy.

                                                            Question # 3
                                   What was the important feature of those girls?

                 The sisters portrayed in “The Little Willow” were exceptionally charming and talented. The two elder sisters were extraordinarily seductive. They always lured the boys and made them captive of their magnetism. They played with the hearts of young men. They were not the modern girls but were the type of girls who had always been… a man’s rose of beauty, his cup of hemlock. They were the phenomenal ladies with all the charms and manners of beauty and love. They had superb friends and were very creative by nature. Charlotte was a stage designer while Brenda was an expert in playing piano. They were a brilliant host that’s why in the wartime their house had become a place of refuge for many young men who came on vacations from the front. The boys coming in to their home fell victim to one or the other elder miss Avery. While the youngest sister Lisby was not that expressive and imposing. She remained silent most of the time. The elder sisters were like powerful electric lamps but Lisby was silent and serene like the soothing moonlight.

                                                                 Question # 4
                                                      How was Lisby different?

                 Lisby was the youngest Avery sister. She was not as dynamic and vivacious as her two elder sisters were. They were all glitz and glamour while she was like a silent mignonette. She did not have a poetic imagination of herself and was very recessive. When people came to their home she did not try to impose herself on them rather she would remain silent and detached. But if her elder sisters were neglecting a guest, she would give company to him. She was an unusual girl in her attitude. She had spent her first term salary, as a teacher, on buying a beautiful willow tree that was made of jade and crystal. She had superb artistic taste as she had insisted forcefully on hanging the smoky old painting of an Angel in their bright room. She liked that picture for its holiness.
                Her sisters were physically valued but she was spiritually deep and exalted. She thought about many famous paintings like “La Belle Ferroniere”,  “Piero Della Francesca” and El Greco’s “Christ in the Temple”. Charlotte her eldest sister complimented Lisby by calling her as serene and deep as the moonlight while she compared herself and Brenda with arc lamps. Lisby liked Simon Byrne for the intricacy and passion of his personality. She did not value his status or any other factor but she liked him spiritually. She never expressed her love for him in words but expressed it through her eyes and her gesture of giving away her most treasured willow tree to him.
Thus Lisby was a different girl a perfect heroine for the tragedy and romance connected to war times.

                                                            Question # 5
                                 Analyze the relation between Simon and Lisby?

                 Charlotte’s friend brought Simon Byrne to their home in his vacations and after that he used to visit that house time and again. He belonged to South Africa and was not acquainted with anyone in London. He was a silent and reserved person. He loved art and music. It was he who at once judged the spiritual worth of a smoky painting in a bright room that had amazed Lisby too. It was only because of her that such a painting was left hanging there. Similarly, he was deeply moved by Brenda’s piano playing. The music was meant to ensnare him in Brenda’s love but he praised the music but remained indifferent to the musician who on her side used to claim that Simon was in love with her though it was not true.

                 The relation of Lisby and Simon was quite unobtrusive as Lisby was never sure of his feelings for her or her own feelings for him. They had the same spiritual frequency level that joined their hearts. The things that made Simon laugh made her laugh too though others did not even notice those things. He used to hum the tunes that had been haunting Lisby’ s mind for several days. He praised her willow tree not for its outward beauty but for the concept behind it. He told her that when he had been lost in the desert he dreamt of willow and water. The coolness and glitter of that willow tree struck his heart as it had stricken Lisby’s heart that fell in love with it in an antique shop. He never said a single word about his love neither did Lisby ever utter anything. They regarded love as something sacred and exalted so they never spoke of it even to each other and he went away without knowing about Lisby’s feelings. But in the depth of his heart he knew that Lisby was his sweetheart. Lisby too always thought about him though ironically, she used to expect a letter from him to Brenda. On the day of his death, the last thing that he had spoken about was the confession his love for Lisby.  Their love relation was intriguing and complex exactly corresponding to their specific personalities.

                                                                 Question # 6
                                                       Who was Captain Oliver?

             After the war Charlotte got married to Richard Harkness and Brenda was engaged to Gerald. A friend of Richard Harkness, Captain Oliver too came on their wedding. He was a doctor and had been in the same camp where Simon was a prisoner. He had something to tell… but to whom …he didn’t know. He had been with Simon at the time of his death and had his confession of love to be delivered to his unidentified beloved. He was not sure about her because Simon had not even named her. Captain was a handsome lad and Brenda was trying desperately to get his attention but he was a different man. After much deliberation, he wisely made a decision. He told Lisby that he wanted to confide something in her because she seemed the most apt person to him. He told her about Simon’s last days when he got injured in an attack and was made a prisoner in Germany. His wound was very grave and it later became the cause of his death. At the night before his death he talked to captain Oliver and dictated a letter to his mother in his usual poetic style. Oliver asked him about anyone else thinking that the memory of his beloved will soothe him a bit. At this Simon said blissfully that there was a girl who never knew… she was his girl. He expressed his deep soft feelings for her. He told Oliver that his beloved had given him a little willow tree that was shattered when the shell got him.
               This was a painful reality for Lisby who came to know about her first love through a third man and that too after the death of her lover. When Simon was about to depart after his vacations and Lisby came out to see him off, he promised that he would try to come in spirit if not in flesh and he had fulfilled his promise. His soul was there with its love and intensity of his passion for the little silent girl of his own sort. The death made his love eternal.
             “The Little Willow” creates an ice-chilled, frosty, cool atmosphere; sometimes of quietude, solemnity, and sometimes of death. Simon keeps the willow as a token of Lisby’s love that gives him solace and strength before and at the time of his death. He dies a whole man, perfect in his faith in love and thus defeats death with the power of his sacred love.