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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/1999-0.txt b/1999-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..81a4f4a --- /dev/null +++ b/1999-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7039 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Crome Yellow, by Aldous Huxley + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Crome Yellow + +Author: Aldous Huxley + +Posting Date: September 26, 2008 [EBook #1999] +Release Date: December, 1999 +Last Updated: November 8, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CROME YELLOW *** + + + + +Produced by Sue Asscher + + + + +CROME YELLOW + +By Aldous Huxley + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +Along this particular stretch of line no express had ever passed. All +the trains--the few that there were--stopped at all the stations. +Denis knew the names of those stations by heart. Bole, Tritton, +Spavin Delawarr, Knipswich for Timpany, West Bowlby, and, finally, +Camlet-on-the-Water. Camlet was where he always got out, leaving the +train to creep indolently onward, goodness only knew whither, into the +green heart of England. + +They were snorting out of West Bowlby now. It was the next station, +thank Heaven. Denis took his chattels off the rack and piled them neatly +in the corner opposite his own. A futile proceeding. But one must have +something to do. When he had finished, he sank back into his seat and +closed his eyes. It was extremely hot. + +Oh, this journey! It was two hours cut clean out of his life; two hours +in which he might have done so much, so much--written the perfect poem, +for example, or read the one illuminating book. Instead of which--his +gorge rose at the smell of the dusty cushions against which he was +leaning. + +Two hours. One hundred and twenty minutes. Anything might be done in +that time. Anything. Nothing. Oh, he had had hundreds of hours, and what +had he done with them? Wasted them, spilt the precious minutes as though +his reservoir were inexhaustible. Denis groaned in the spirit, condemned +himself utterly with all his works. What right had he to sit in the +sunshine, to occupy corner seats in third-class carriages, to be alive? +None, none, none. + +Misery and a nameless nostalgic distress possessed him. He was +twenty-three, and oh! so agonizingly conscious of the fact. + +The train came bumpingly to a halt. Here was Camlet at last. Denis +jumped up, crammed his hat over his eyes, deranged his pile of baggage, +leaned out of the window and shouted for a porter, seized a bag in +either hand, and had to put them down again in order to open the door. +When at last he had safely bundled himself and his baggage on to the +platform, he ran up the train towards the van. + +“A bicycle, a bicycle!” he said breathlessly to the guard. He felt +himself a man of action. The guard paid no attention, but continued +methodically to hand out, one by one, the packages labelled to Camlet. +“A bicycle!” Denis repeated. “A green machine, cross-framed, name of +Stone. S-T-O-N-E.” + +“All in good time, sir,” said the guard soothingly. He was a large, +stately man with a naval beard. One pictured him at home, drinking tea, +surrounded by a numerous family. It was in that tone that he must have +spoken to his children when they were tiresome. “All in good time, sir.” + Denis’s man of action collapsed, punctured. + +He left his luggage to be called for later, and pushed off on his +bicycle. He always took his bicycle when he went into the country. It +was part of the theory of exercise. One day one would get up at six +o’clock and pedal away to Kenilworth, or Stratford-on-Avon--anywhere. +And within a radius of twenty miles there were always Norman churches +and Tudor mansions to be seen in the course of an afternoon’s excursion. +Somehow they never did get seen, but all the same it was nice to feel +that the bicycle was there, and that one fine morning one really might +get up at six. + +Once at the top of the long hill which led up from Camlet station, he +felt his spirits mounting. The world, he found, was good. The far-away +blue hills, the harvests whitening on the slopes of the ridge along +which his road led him, the treeless sky-lines that changed as he +moved--yes, they were all good. He was overcome by the beauty of those +deeply embayed combes, scooped in the flanks of the ridge beneath him. +Curves, curves: he repeated the word slowly, trying as he did so to find +some term in which to give expression to his appreciation. Curves--no, +that was inadequate. He made a gesture with his hand, as though to scoop +the achieved expression out of the air, and almost fell off his bicycle. +What was the word to describe the curves of those little valleys? They +were as fine as the lines of a human body, they were informed with the +subtlety of art... + +Galbe. That was a good word; but it was French. Le galbe evase de ses +hanches: had one ever read a French novel in which that phrase didn’t +occur? Some day he would compile a dictionary for the use of novelists. +Galbe, gonfle, goulu: parfum, peau, pervers, potele, pudeur: vertu, +volupte. + +But he really must find that word. Curves curves...Those little valleys +had the lines of a cup moulded round a woman’s breast; they seemed the +dinted imprints of some huge divine body that had rested on these hills. +Cumbrous locutions, these; but through them he seemed to be getting +nearer to what he wanted. Dinted, dimpled, wimpled--his mind wandered +down echoing corridors of assonance and alliteration ever further and +further from the point. He was enamoured with the beauty of words. + +Becoming once more aware of the outer world, he found himself on the +crest of a descent. The road plunged down, steep and straight, into a +considerable valley. There, on the opposite slope, a little higher up +the valley, stood Crome, his destination. He put on his brakes; this +view of Crome was pleasant to linger over. The facade with its three +projecting towers rose precipitously from among the dark trees of the +garden. The house basked in full sunlight; the old brick rosily glowed. +How ripe and rich it was, how superbly mellow! And at the same time, how +austere! The hill was becoming steeper and steeper; he was gaining +speed in spite of his brakes. He loosed his grip of the levers, and in +a moment was rushing headlong down. Five minutes later he was passing +through the gate of the great courtyard. The front door stood hospitably +open. He left his bicycle leaning against the wall and walked in. He +would take them by surprise. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +He took nobody by surprise; there was nobody to take. All was quiet; +Denis wandered from room to empty room, looking with pleasure at the +familiar pictures and furniture, at all the little untidy signs of life +that lay scattered here and there. He was rather glad that they were +all out; it was amusing to wander through the house as though one +were exploring a dead, deserted Pompeii. What sort of life would the +excavator reconstruct from these remains; how would he people these +empty chambers? There was the long gallery, with its rows of respectable +and (though, of course, one couldn’t publicly admit it) rather boring +Italian primitives, its Chinese sculptures, its unobtrusive, dateless +furniture. There was the panelled drawing-room, where the huge +chintz-covered arm-chairs stood, oases of comfort among the austere +flesh-mortifying antiques. There was the morning-room, with its pale +lemon walls, its painted Venetian chairs and rococo tables, its mirrors, +its modern pictures. There was the library, cool, spacious, and dark, +book-lined from floor to ceiling, rich in portentous folios. There was +the dining-room, solidly, portwinily English, with its great +mahogany table, its eighteenth-century chairs and sideboard, its +eighteenth-century pictures--family portraits, meticulous animal +paintings. What could one reconstruct from such data? There was much of +Henry Wimbush in the long gallery and the library, something of Anne, +perhaps, in the morning-room. That was all. Among the accumulations of +ten generations the living had left but few traces. + +Lying on the table in the morning-room he saw his own book of poems. +What tact! He picked it up and opened it. It was what the reviewers call +“a slim volume.” He read at hazard: + + + ”...But silence and the topless dark + + Vault in the lights of Luna Park; + + And Blackpool from the nightly gloom + + Hollows a bright tumultuous tomb.” + +He put it down again, shook his head, and sighed. “What genius I had +then!” he reflected, echoing the aged Swift. It was nearly six months +since the book had been published; he was glad to think he would never +write anything of the same sort again. Who could have been reading it, +he wondered? Anne, perhaps; he liked to think so. Perhaps, too, she had +at last recognised herself in the Hamadryad of the poplar sapling; the +slim Hamadryad whose movements were like the swaying of a young tree in +the wind. “The Woman who was a Tree” was what he had called the poem. He +had given her the book when it came out, hoping that the poem would tell +her what he hadn’t dared to say. She had never referred to it. + +He shut his eyes and saw a vision of her in a red velvet cloak, swaying +into the little restaurant where they sometimes dined together in +London--three quarters of an hour late, and he at his table, haggard +with anxiety, irritation, hunger. Oh, she was damnable! + +It occurred to him that perhaps his hostess might be in her boudoir. It +was a possibility; he would go and see. Mrs. Wimbush’s boudoir was in +the central tower on the garden front. A little staircase cork-screwed +up to it from the hall. Denis mounted, tapped at the door. “Come in.” + Ah, she was there; he had rather hoped she wouldn’t be. He opened the +door. + +Priscilla Wimbush was lying on the sofa. A blotting-pad rested on her +knees and she was thoughtfully sucking the end of a silver pencil. + +“Hullo,” she said, looking up. “I’d forgotten you were coming.” + +“Well, here I am, I’m afraid,” said Denis deprecatingly. “I’m awfully +sorry.” + +Mrs. Wimbush laughed. Her voice, her laughter, were deep and masculine. +Everything about her was manly. She had a large, square, middle-aged +face, with a massive projecting nose and little greenish eyes, the whole +surmounted by a lofty and elaborate coiffure of a curiously improbable +shade of orange. Looking at her, Denis always thought of Wilkie Bard as +the cantatrice. + + + “That’s why I’m going to + + Sing in op’ra, sing in op’ra, + + Sing in op-pop-pop-pop-pop-popera.” + +Today she was wearing a purple silk dress with a high collar and a row +of pearls. The costume, so richly dowagerish, so suggestive of the Royal +Family, made her look more than ever like something on the Halls. + +“What have you been doing all this time?” she asked. + +“Well,” said Denis, and he hesitated, almost voluptuously. He had a +tremendously amusing account of London and its doings all ripe and ready +in his mind. It would be a pleasure to give it utterance. “To begin +with,” he said... + +But he was too late. Mrs. Wimbush’s question had been what the +grammarians call rhetorical; it asked for no answer. It was a little +conversational flourish, a gambit in the polite game. + +“You find me busy at my horoscopes,” she said, without even being aware +that she had interrupted him. + +A little pained, Denis decided to reserve his story for more receptive +ears. He contented himself, by way of revenge, with saying “Oh?” rather +icily. + +“Did I tell you how I won four hundred on the Grand National this year?” + +“Yes,” he replied, still frigid and mono-syllabic. She must have told +him at least six times. + +“Wonderful, isn’t it? Everything is in the Stars. In the Old Days, +before I had the Stars to help me, I used to lose thousands. Now”--she +paused an instant--“well, look at that four hundred on the Grand +National. That’s the Stars.” + +Denis would have liked to hear more about the Old Days. But he was too +discreet and, still more, too shy to ask. There had been something of +a bust up; that was all he knew. Old Priscilla--not so old then, of +course, and sprightlier--had lost a great deal of money, dropped it +in handfuls and hatfuls on every race-course in the country. She had +gambled too. The number of thousands varied in the different legends, +but all put it high. Henry Wimbush was forced to sell some of his +Primitives--a Taddeo da Poggibonsi, an Amico di Taddeo, and four or five +nameless Sienese--to the Americans. There was a crisis. For the first +time in his life Henry asserted himself, and with good effect, it +seemed. + +Priscilla’s gay and gadding existence had come to an abrupt end. +Nowadays she spent almost all her time at Crome, cultivating a rather +ill-defined malady. For consolation she dallied with New Thought and the +Occult. Her passion for racing still possessed her, and Henry, who was a +kind-hearted fellow at bottom, allowed her forty pounds a month betting +money. Most of Priscilla’s days were spent in casting the horoscopes +of horses, and she invested her money scientifically, as the stars +dictated. She betted on football too, and had a large notebook in which +she registered the horoscopes of all the players in all the teams of +the League. The process of balancing the horoscopes of two elevens one +against the other was a very delicate and difficult one. A match between +the Spurs and the Villa entailed a conflict in the heavens so vast and +so complicated that it was not to be wondered at if she sometimes made a +mistake about the outcome. + +“Such a pity you don’t believe in these things, Denis, such a pity,” + said Mrs. Wimbush in her deep, distinct voice. + +“I can’t say I feel it so.” + +“Ah, that’s because you don’t know what it’s like to have faith. You’ve +no idea how amusing and exciting life becomes when you do believe. All +that happens means something; nothing you do is ever insignificant. It +makes life so jolly, you know. Here am I at Crome. Dull as ditchwater, +you’d think; but no, I don’t find it so. I don’t regret the Old Days +a bit. I have the Stars...” She picked up the sheet of paper that was +lying on the blotting-pad. “Inman’s horoscope,” she explained. “(I +thought I’d like to have a little fling on the billiards championship +this autumn.) I have the Infinite to keep in tune with,” she waved her +hand. “And then there’s the next world and all the spirits, and one’s +Aura, and Mrs. Eddy and saying you’re not ill, and the Christian +Mysteries and Mrs. Besant. It’s all splendid. One’s never dull for a +moment. I can’t think how I used to get on before--in the Old Days. +Pleasure--running about, that’s all it was; just running about. Lunch, +tea, dinner, theatre, supper every day. It was fun, of course, while it +lasted. But there wasn’t much left of it afterwards. There’s rather a +good thing about that in Barbecue-Smith’s new book. Where is it?” + +She sat up and reached for a book that was lying on the little table by +the head of the sofa. + +“Do you know him, by the way?” she asked. + +“Who?” + +“Mr. Barbecue-Smith.” + +Denis knew of him vaguely. Barbecue-Smith was a name in the Sunday +papers. He wrote about the Conduct of Life. He might even be the author +of “What a Young Girl Ought to Know”. + +“No, not personally,” he said. + +“I’ve invited him for next week-end.” She turned over the pages of the +book. “Here’s the passage I was thinking of. I marked it. I always mark +the things I like.” + +Holding the book almost at arm’s length, for she was somewhat +long-sighted, and making suitable gestures with her free hand, she began +to read, slowly, dramatically. + +“‘What are thousand pound fur coats, what are quarter million incomes?’” + She looked up from the page with a histrionic movement of the head; her +orange coiffure nodded portentously. Denis looked at it, fascinated. +Was it the Real Thing and henna, he wondered, or was it one of those +Complete Transformations one sees in the advertisements? + +“‘What are Thrones and Sceptres?’” + +The orange Transformation--yes, it must be a Transformation--bobbed up +again. + +“‘What are the gaieties of the Rich, the splendours of the Powerful, +what is the pride of the Great, what are the gaudy pleasures of High +Society?’” + +The voice, which had risen in tone, questioningly, from sentence to +sentence, dropped suddenly and boomed reply. + +“‘They are nothing. Vanity, fluff, dandelion seed in the wind, thin +vapours of fever. The things that matter happen in the heart. +Seen things are sweet, but those unseen are a thousand times more +significant. It is the unseen that counts in Life.’” + +Mrs. Wimbush lowered the book. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” she said. + +Denis preferred not to hazard an opinion, but uttered a non-committal +“H’m.” + +“Ah, it’s a fine book this, a beautiful book,” said Priscilla, as she +let the pages flick back, one by one, from under her thumb. “And here’s +the passage about the Lotus Pool. He compares the Soul to a Lotus Pool, +you know.” She held up the book again and read. “‘A Friend of mine has +a Lotus Pool in his garden. It lies in a little dell embowered with wild +roses and eglantine, among which the nightingale pours forth its amorous +descant all the summer long. Within the pool the Lotuses blossom, and +the birds of the air come to drink and bathe themselves in its crystal +waters...’ Ah, and that reminds me,” Priscilla exclaimed, shutting the +book with a clap and uttering her big profound laugh--“that reminds me +of the things that have been going on in our bathing-pool since you were +here last. We gave the village people leave to come and bathe here in +the evenings. You’ve no idea of the things that happened.” + +She leaned forward, speaking in a confidential whisper; every now and +then she uttered a deep gurgle of laughter. “...mixed bathing...saw them +out of my window...sent for a pair of field-glasses to make sure...no +doubt of it...” The laughter broke out again. Denis laughed too. +Barbecue-Smith was tossed on the floor. + +“It’s time we went to see if tea’s ready,” said Priscilla. She hoisted +herself up from the sofa and went swishing off across the room, striding +beneath the trailing silk. Denis followed her, faintly humming to +himself: + + + “That’s why I’m going to + + Sing in op’ra, sing in op’ra, + + Sing in op-pop-pop-pop-pop-popera.” + +And then the little twiddly bit of accompaniment at the end: “ra-ra.” + + + +CHAPTER III. + +The terrace in front of the house was a long narrow strip of turf, +bounded along its outer edge by a graceful stone balustrade. Two little +summer-houses of brick stood at either end. Below the house the ground +sloped very steeply away, and the terrace was a remarkably high one; +from the balusters to the sloping lawn beneath was a drop of thirty +feet. Seen from below, the high unbroken terrace wall, built like +the house itself of brick, had the almost menacing aspect of a +fortification--a castle bastion, from whose parapet one looked out +across airy depths to distances level with the eye. Below, in the +foreground, hedged in by solid masses of sculptured yew trees, lay the +stone-brimmed swimming-pool. Beyond it stretched the park, with its +massive elms, its green expanses of grass, and, at the bottom of the +valley, the gleam of the narrow river. On the farther side of the stream +the land rose again in a long slope, chequered with cultivation. Looking +up the valley, to the right, one saw a line of blue, far-off hills. + +The tea-table had been planted in the shade of one of the little +summer-houses, and the rest of the party was already assembled about it +when Denis and Priscilla made their appearance. Henry Wimbush had begun +to pour out the tea. He was one of those ageless, unchanging men on the +farther side of fifty, who might be thirty, who might be anything. Denis +had known him almost as long as he could remember. In all those years +his pale, rather handsome face had never grown any older; it was +like the pale grey bowler hat which he always wore, winter and +summer--unageing, calm, serenely without expression. + +Next him, but separated from him and from the rest of the world by the +almost impenetrable barriers of her deafness, sat Jenny Mullion. She was +perhaps thirty, had a tilted nose and a pink-and-white complexion, and +wore her brown hair plaited and coiled in two lateral buns over her +ears. In the secret tower of her deafness she sat apart, looking down at +the world through sharply piercing eyes. What did she think of men and +women and things? That was something that Denis had never been able to +discover. In her enigmatic remoteness Jenny was a little disquieting. +Even now some interior joke seemed to be amusing her, for she was +smiling to herself, and her brown eyes were like very bright round +marbles. + +On his other side the serious, moonlike innocence of Mary Bracegirdle’s +face shone pink and childish. She was nearly twenty-three, but one +wouldn’t have guessed it. Her short hair, clipped like a page’s, hung in +a bell of elastic gold about her cheeks. She had large blue china eyes, +whose expression was one of ingenuous and often puzzled earnestness. + +Next to Mary a small gaunt man was sitting, rigid and erect in +his chair. In appearance Mr. Scogan was like one of those extinct +bird-lizards of the Tertiary. His nose was beaked, his dark eye had the +shining quickness of a robin’s. But there was nothing soft or gracious +or feathery about him. The skin of his wrinkled brown face had a dry and +scaly look; his hands were the hands of a crocodile. His movements +were marked by the lizard’s disconcertingly abrupt clockwork speed; his +speech was thin, fluty, and dry. Henry Wimbush’s school-fellow and exact +contemporary, Mr. Scogan looked far older and, at the same time, far +more youthfully alive than did that gentle aristocrat with the face like +a grey bowler. + +Mr. Scogan might look like an extinct saurian, but Gombauld was +altogether and essentially human. In the old-fashioned natural histories +of the ‘thirties he might have figured in a steel engraving as a type of +Homo Sapiens--an honour which at that time commonly fell to Lord +Byron. Indeed, with more hair and less collar, Gombauld would have +been completely Byronic--more than Byronic, even, for Gombauld was of +Provencal descent, a black-haired young corsair of thirty, with flashing +teeth and luminous large dark eyes. Denis looked at him enviously. He +was jealous of his talent: if only he wrote verse as well as Gombauld +painted pictures! Still more, at the moment, he envied Gombauld his +looks, his vitality, his easy confidence of manner. Was it surprising +that Anne should like him? Like him?--it might even be something worse, +Denis reflected bitterly, as he walked at Priscilla’s side down the long +grass terrace. + +Between Gombauld and Mr. Scogan a very much lowered deck-chair presented +its back to the new arrivals as they advanced towards the tea-table. +Gombauld was leaning over it; his face moved vivaciously; he smiled, he +laughed, he made quick gestures with his hands. From the depths of the +chair came up a sound of soft, lazy laughter. Denis started as he heard +it. That laughter--how well he knew it! What emotions it evoked in him! +He quickened his pace. + +In her low deck-chair Anne was nearer to lying than to sitting. Her +long, slender body reposed in an attitude of listless and indolent +grace. Within its setting of light brown hair her face had a pretty +regularity that was almost doll-like. And indeed there were moments +when she seemed nothing more than a doll; when the oval face, with its +long-lashed, pale blue eyes, expressed nothing; when it was no more than +a lazy mask of wax. She was Henry Wimbush’s own niece; that bowler-like +countenance was one of the Wimbush heirlooms; it ran in the family, +appearing in its female members as a blank doll-face. But across this +dollish mask, like a gay melody dancing over an unchanging fundamental +bass, passed Anne’s other inheritance--quick laughter, light ironic +amusement, and the changing expressions of many moods. She was smiling +now as Denis looked down at her: her cat’s smile, he called it, for no +very good reason. The mouth was compressed, and on either side of it +two tiny wrinkles had formed themselves in her cheeks. An infinity +of slightly malicious amusement lurked in those little folds, in the +puckers about the half-closed eyes, in the eyes themselves, bright and +laughing between the narrowed lids. + +The preliminary greetings spoken, Denis found an empty chair between +Gombauld and Jenny and sat down. + +“How are you, Jenny?” he shouted to her. + +Jenny nodded and smiled in mysterious silence, as though the subject of +her health were a secret that could not be publicly divulged. + +“How’s London been since I went away?” Anne inquired from the depth of +her chair. + +The moment had come; the tremendously amusing narrative was waiting for +utterance. “Well,” said Denis, smiling happily, “to begin with...” + +“Has Priscilla told you of our great antiquarian find?” Henry Wimbush +leaned forward; the most promising of buds was nipped. + +“To begin with,” said Denis desperately, “there was the Ballet...” + +“Last week,” Mr. Wimbush went on softly and implacably, “we dug up fifty +yards of oaken drain-pipes; just tree trunks with a hole bored through +the middle. Very interesting indeed. Whether they were laid down by the +monks in the fifteenth century, or whether...” + +Denis listened gloomily. “Extraordinary!” he said, when Mr. Wimbush had +finished; “quite extraordinary!” He helped himself to another slice +of cake. He didn’t even want to tell his tale about London now; he was +damped. + +For some time past Mary’s grave blue eyes had been fixed upon him. “What +have you been writing lately?” she asked. It would be nice to have a +little literary conversation. + +“Oh, verse and prose,” said Denis--“just verse and prose.” + +“Prose?” Mr. Scogan pounced alarmingly on the word. “You’ve been writing +prose?” + +“Yes.” + +“Not a novel?” + +“Yes.” + +“My poor Denis!” exclaimed Mr. Scogan. “What about?” + +Denis felt rather uncomfortable. “Oh, about the usual things, you know.” + +“Of course,” Mr. Scogan groaned. “I’ll describe the plot for you. Little +Percy, the hero, was never good at games, but he was always clever. +He passes through the usual public school and the usual university and +comes to London, where he lives among the artists. He is bowed down with +melancholy thought; he carries the whole weight of the universe upon +his shoulders. He writes a novel of dazzling brilliance; he dabbles +delicately in Amour and disappears, at the end of the book, into the +luminous Future.” + +Denis blushed scarlet. Mr. Scogan had described the plan of his novel +with an accuracy that was appalling. He made an effort to laugh. “You’re +entirely wrong,” he said. “My novel is not in the least like that.” It +was a heroic lie. Luckily, he reflected, only two chapters were written. +He would tear them up that very evening when he unpacked. + +Mr. Scogan paid no attention to his denial, but went on: “Why will +you young men continue to write about things that are so entirely +uninteresting as the mentality of adolescents and artists? Professional +anthropologists might find it interesting to turn sometimes from the +beliefs of the Blackfellow to the philosophical preoccupations of the +undergraduate. But you can’t expect an ordinary adult man, like myself, +to be much moved by the story of his spiritual troubles. And after all, +even in England, even in Germany and Russia, there are more adults than +adolescents. As for the artist, he is preoccupied with problems that +are so utterly unlike those of the ordinary adult man--problems of pure +aesthetics which don’t so much as present themselves to people like +myself--that a description of his mental processes is as boring to the +ordinary reader as a piece of pure mathematics. A serious book about +artists regarded as artists is unreadable; and a book about artists +regarded as lovers, husbands, dipsomaniacs, heroes, and the like is +really not worth writing again. Jean-Christophe is the stock artist of +literature, just as Professor Radium of ‘Comic Cuts’ is its stock man of +science.” + +“I’m sorry to hear I’m as uninteresting as all that,” said Gombauld. + +“Not at all, my dear Gombauld,” Mr. Scogan hastened to explain. “As a +lover or a dipsomaniac, I’ve no doubt of your being a most fascinating +specimen. But as a combiner of forms, you must honestly admit it, you’re +a bore.” + +“I entirely disagree with you,” exclaimed Mary. She was somehow always +out of breath when she talked. And her speech was punctuated by little +gasps. “I’ve known a great many artists, and I’ve always found their +mentality very interesting. Especially in Paris. Tschuplitski, for +example--I saw a great deal of Tschuplitski in Paris this spring...” + +“Ah, but then you’re an exception, Mary, you’re an exception,” said Mr. +Scogan. “You are a femme superieure.” + +A flush of pleasure turned Mary’s face into a harvest moon. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +Denis woke up next morning to find the sun shining, the sky serene. He +decided to wear white flannel trousers--white flannel trousers and a +black jacket, with a silk shirt and his new peach-coloured tie. And +what shoes? White was the obvious choice, but there was something rather +pleasing about the notion of black patent leather. He lay in bed for +several minutes considering the problem. + +Before he went down--patent leather was his final choice--he looked at +himself critically in the glass. His hair might have been more golden, +he reflected. As it was, its yellowness had the hint of a greenish tinge +in it. But his forehead was good. His forehead made up in height what +his chin lacked in prominence. His nose might have been longer, but it +would pass. His eyes might have been blue and not green. But his coat +was very well cut and, discreetly padded, made him seem robuster than +he actually was. His legs, in their white casing, were long and elegant. +Satisfied, he descended the stairs. Most of the party had already +finished their breakfast. He found himself alone with Jenny. + +“I hope you slept well,” he said. + +“Yes, isn’t it lovely?” Jenny replied, giving two rapid little nods. +“But we had such awful thunderstorms last week.” + +Parallel straight lines, Denis reflected, meet only at infinity. He +might talk for ever of care-charmer sleep and she of meteorology till +the end of time. Did one ever establish contact with anyone? We are +all parallel straight lines. Jenny was only a little more parallel than +most. + +“They are very alarming, these thunderstorms,” he said, helping himself +to porridge. “Don’t you think so? Or are you above being frightened?” + +“No. I always go to bed in a storm. One is so much safer lying down.” + +“Why?” + +“Because,” said Jenny, making a descriptive gesture, “because lightning +goes downwards and not flat ways. When you’re lying down you’re out of +the current.” + +“That’s very ingenious.” + +“It’s true.” + +There was a silence. Denis finished his porridge and helped himself +to bacon. For lack of anything better to say, and because Mr. Scogan’s +absurd phrase was for some reason running in his head, he turned to +Jenny and asked: + +“Do you consider yourself a femme superieure?” He had to repeat the +question several times before Jenny got the hang of it. + +“No,” she said, rather indignantly, when at last she heard what Denis +was saying. “Certainly not. Has anyone been suggesting that I am?” + +“No,” said Denis. “Mr. Scogan told Mary she was one.” + +“Did he?” Jenny lowered her voice. “Shall I tell you what I think of +that man? I think he’s slightly sinister.” + +Having made this pronouncement, she entered the ivory tower of her +deafness and closed the door. Denis could not induce her to say anything +more, could not induce her even to listen. She just smiled at him, +smiled and occasionally nodded. + +Denis went out on to the terrace to smoke his after-breakfast pipe and +to read his morning paper. An hour later, when Anne came down, she found +him still reading. By this time he had got to the Court Circular and +the Forthcoming Weddings. He got up to meet her as she approached, a +Hamadryad in white muslin, across the grass. + +“Why, Denis,” she exclaimed, “you look perfectly sweet in your white +trousers.” + +Denis was dreadfully taken aback. There was no possible retort. “You +speak as though I were a child in a new frock,” he said, with a show of +irritation. + +“But that’s how I feel about you, Denis dear.” + +“Then you oughtn’t to.” + +“But I can’t help it. I’m so much older than you.” + +“I like that,” he said. “Four years older.” + +“And if you do look perfectly sweet in your white trousers, why +shouldn’t I say so? And why did you put them on, if you didn’t think you +were going to look sweet in them?” + +“Let’s go into the garden,” said Denis. He was put out; the conversation +had taken such a preposterous and unexpected turn. He had planned a very +different opening, in which he was to lead off with, “You look adorable +this morning,” or something of the kind, and she was to answer, “Do +I?” and then there was to be a pregnant silence. And now she had got in +first with the trousers. It was provoking; his pride was hurt. + +That part of the garden that sloped down from the foot of the terrace +to the pool had a beauty which did not depend on colour so much as on +forms. It was as beautiful by moonlight as in the sun. The silver of +water, the dark shapes of yew and ilex trees remained, at all hours and +seasons, the dominant features of the scene. It was a landscape in black +and white. For colour there was the flower-garden; it lay to one side +of the pool, separated from it by a huge Babylonian wall of yews. You +passed through a tunnel in the hedge, you opened a wicket in a wall, and +you found yourself, startlingly and suddenly, in the world of colour. +The July borders blazed and flared under the sun. Within its high brick +walls the garden was like a great tank of warmth and perfume and colour. + +Denis held open the little iron gate for his companion. “It’s like +passing from a cloister into an Oriental palace,” he said, and took a +deep breath of the warm, flower-scented air. “‘In fragrant volleys they +let fly...’ How does it go?” + + + “‘Well shot, ye firemen! Oh how sweet + + And round your equal fires do meet; + + Whose shrill report no ear can tell, + + But echoes to the eye and smell...’” + +“You have a bad habit of quoting,” said Anne. “As I never know the +context or author, I find it humiliating.” + +Denis apologized. “It’s the fault of one’s education. Things somehow +seem more real and vivid when one can apply somebody else’s ready-made +phrase about them. And then there are lots of lovely names and +words--Monophysite, Iamblichus, Pomponazzi; you bring them out +triumphantly, and feel you’ve clinched the argument with the mere +magical sound of them. That’s what comes of the higher education.” + +“You may regret your education,” said Anne; “I’m ashamed of my lack of +it. Look at those sunflowers! Aren’t they magnificent?” + +“Dark faces and golden crowns--they’re kings of Ethiopia. And I like +the way the tits cling to the flowers and pick out the seeds, while the +other loutish birds, grubbing dirtily for their food, look up in envy +from the ground. Do they look up in envy? That’s the literary touch, I’m +afraid. Education again. It always comes back to that.” He was silent. + +Anne had sat down on a bench that stood in the shade of an old apple +tree. “I’m listening,” she said. + +He did not sit down, but walked backwards and forwards in front of the +bench, gesticulating a little as he talked. “Books,” he said--“books. +One reads so many, and one sees so few people and so little of the +world. Great thick books about the universe and the mind and ethics. +You’ve no idea how many there are. I must have read twenty or thirty +tons of them in the last five years. Twenty tons of ratiocination. +Weighted with that, one’s pushed out into the world.” + +He went on walking up and down. His voice rose, fell, was silent a +moment, and then talked on. He moved his hands, sometimes he waved his +arms. Anne looked and listened quietly, as though she were at a lecture. +He was a nice boy, and to-day he looked charming--charming! + +One entered the world, Denis pursued, having ready-made ideas about +everything. One had a philosophy and tried to make life fit into it. +One should have lived first and then made one’s philosophy to fit +life...Life, facts, things were horribly complicated; ideas, even +the most difficult of them, deceptively simple. In the world of ideas +everything was clear; in life all was obscure, embroiled. Was it +surprising that one was miserable, horribly unhappy? Denis came to +a halt in front of the bench, and as he asked this last question he +stretched out his arms and stood for an instant in an attitude of +crucifixion, then let them fall again to his sides. + +“My poor Denis!” Anne was touched. He was really too pathetic as he +stood there in front of her in his white flannel trousers. “But does one +suffer about these things? It seems very extraordinary.” + +“You’re like Scogan,” cried Denis bitterly. “You regard me as a specimen +for an anthropologist. Well, I suppose I am.” + +“No, no,” she protested, and drew in her skirt with a gesture that +indicated that he was to sit down beside her. He sat down. “Why can’t +you just take things for granted and as they come?” she asked. “It’s so +much simpler.” + +“Of course it is,” said Denis. “But it’s a lesson to be learnt +gradually. There are the twenty tons of ratiocination to be got rid of +first.” + +“I’ve always taken things as they come,” said Anne. “It seems so +obvious. One enjoys the pleasant things, avoids the nasty ones. There’s +nothing more to be said.” + +“Nothing--for you. But, then, you were born a pagan; I am trying +laboriously to make myself one. I can take nothing for granted, I can +enjoy nothing as it comes along. Beauty, pleasure, art, women--I have +to invent an excuse, a justification for everything that’s delightful. +Otherwise I can’t enjoy it with an easy conscience. I make up a little +story about beauty and pretend that it has something to do with truth +and goodness. I have to say that art is the process by which one +reconstructs the divine reality out of chaos. Pleasure is one of the +mystical roads to union with the infinite--the ecstasies of drinking, +dancing, love-making. As for women, I am perpetually assuring myself +that they’re the broad highway to divinity. And to think that I’m only +just beginning to see through the silliness of the whole thing! It’s +incredible to me that anyone should have escaped these horrors.” + +“It’s still more incredible to me,” said Anne, “that anyone should have +been a victim to them. I should like to see myself believing that men +are the highway to divinity.” The amused malice of her smile planted two +little folds on either side of her mouth, and through their half-closed +lids her eyes shone with laughter. “What you need, Denis, is a nice +plump young wife, a fixed income, and a little congenial but regular +work.” + +“What I need is you.” That was what he ought to have retorted, that +was what he wanted passionately to say. He could not say it. His desire +fought against his shyness. “What I need is you.” Mentally he shouted +the words, but not a sound issued from his lips. He looked at her +despairingly. Couldn’t she see what was going on inside him? Couldn’t +she understand? “What I need is you.” He would say it, he would--he +would. + +“I think I shall go and bathe,” said Anne. “It’s so hot.” The +opportunity had passed. + + + +CHAPTER V. + +Mr. Wimbush had taken them to see the sights of the Home Farm, and now +they were standing, all six of them--Henry Wimbush, Mr. Scogan, Denis, +Gombauld, Anne, and Mary--by the low wall of the piggery, looking into +one of the styes. + +“This is a good sow,” said Henry Wimbush. “She had a litter of fourteen. + +“Fourteen?” Mary echoed incredulously. She turned astonished blue eyes +towards Mr. Wimbush, then let them fall onto the seething mass of elan +vital that fermented in the sty. + +An immense sow reposed on her side in the middle of the pen. Her round, +black belly, fringed with a double line of dugs, presented itself to the +assault of an army of small, brownish-black swine. With a frantic greed +they tugged at their mother’s flank. The old sow stirred sometimes +uneasily or uttered a little grunt of pain. One small pig, the runt, +the weakling of the litter, had been unable to secure a place at the +banquet. Squealing shrilly, he ran backwards and forwards, trying to +push in among his stronger brothers or even to climb over their tight +little black backs towards the maternal reservoir. + +“There ARE fourteen,” said Mary. “You’re quite right. I counted. It’s +extraordinary.” + +“The sow next door,” Mr. Wimbush went on, “has done very badly. She only +had five in her litter. I shall give her another chance. If she does no +better next time, I shall fat her up and kill her. There’s the boar,” + he pointed towards a farther sty. “Fine old beast, isn’t he? But he’s +getting past his prime. He’ll have to go too.” + +“How cruel!” Anne exclaimed. + +“But how practical, how eminently realistic!” said Mr. Scogan. “In this +farm we have a model of sound paternal government. Make them breed, +make them work, and when they’re past working or breeding or begetting, +slaughter them.” + +“Farming seems to be mostly indecency and cruelty,” said Anne. + +With the ferrule of his walking-stick Denis began to scratch the boar’s +long bristly back. The animal moved a little so as to bring himself +within easier range of the instrument that evoked in him such delicious +sensations; then he stood stock still, softly grunting his contentment. +The mud of years flaked off his sides in a grey powdery scurf. + +“What a pleasure it is,” said Denis, “to do somebody a kindness. I +believe I enjoy scratching this pig quite as much as he enjoys being +scratched. If only one could always be kind with so little expense or +trouble...” + +A gate slammed; there was a sound of heavy footsteps. + +“Morning, Rowley!” said Henry Wimbush. + +“Morning, sir,” old Rowley answered. He was the most venerable of +the labourers on the farm--a tall, solid man, still unbent, with grey +side-whiskers and a steep, dignified profile. Grave, weighty in his +manner, splendidly respectable, Rowley had the air of a great English +statesman of the mid-nineteenth century. He halted on the outskirts of +the group, and for a moment they all looked at the pigs in a silence +that was only broken by the sound of grunting or the squelch of a sharp +hoof in the mire. Rowley turned at last, slowly and ponderously and +nobly, as he did everything, and addressed himself to Henry Wimbush. + +“Look at them, sir,” he said, with a motion of his hand towards the +wallowing swine. “Rightly is they called pigs.” + +“Rightly indeed,” Mr. Wimbush agreed. + +“I am abashed by that man,” said Mr. Scogan, as old Rowley plodded off +slowly and with dignity. “What wisdom, what judgment, what a sense of +values! ‘Rightly are they called swine.’ Yes. And I wish I could, with +as much justice, say, ‘Rightly are we called men.’” + +They walked on towards the cowsheds and the stables of the cart-horses. +Five white geese, taking the air this fine morning, even as they were +doing, met them in the way. They hesitated, cackled; then, converting +their lifted necks into rigid, horizontal snakes, they rushed off in +disorder, hissing horribly as they went. Red calves paddled in the dung +and mud of a spacious yard. In another enclosure stood the bull, +massive as a locomotive. He was a very calm bull, and his face wore an +expression of melancholy stupidity. He gazed with reddish-brown eyes at +his visitors, chewed thoughtfully at the tangible memories of an earlier +meal, swallowed and regurgitated, chewed again. His tail lashed savagely +from side to side; it seemed to have nothing to do with his impassive +bulk. Between his short horns was a triangle of red curls, short and +dense. + +“Splendid animal,” said Henry Wimbush. “Pedigree stock. But he’s getting +a little old, like the boar.” + +“Fat him up and slaughter him,” Mr. Scogan pronounced, with a delicate +old-maidish precision of utterance. + +“Couldn’t you give the animals a little holiday from producing +children?” asked Anne. “I’m so sorry for the poor things.” + +Mr. Wimbush shook his head. “Personally,” he said, “I rather like seeing +fourteen pigs grow where only one grew before. The spectacle of so much +crude life is refreshing.” + +“I’m glad to hear you say so,” Gombauld broke in warmly. “Lots of life: +that’s what we want. I like pullulation; everything ought to increase +and multiply as hard as it can.” + +Gombauld grew lyrical. Everybody ought to have children--Anne ought to +have them, Mary ought to have them--dozens and dozens. He emphasised his +point by thumping with his walking-stick on the bull’s leather flanks. +Mr. Scogan ought to pass on his intelligence to little Scogans, and +Denis to little Denises. The bull turned his head to see what was +happening, regarded the drumming stick for several seconds, then turned +back again satisfied, it seemed, that nothing was happening. Sterility +was odious, unnatural, a sin against life. Life, life, and still more +life. The ribs of the placid bull resounded. + +Standing with his back against the farmyard pump, a little apart, Denis +examined the group. Gombauld, passionate and vivacious, was its centre. +The others stood round, listening--Henry Wimbush, calm and polite +beneath his grey bowler; Mary, with parted lips and eyes that shone with +the indignation of a convinced birth-controller. Anne looked on through +half-shut eyes, smiling; and beside her stood Mr. Scogan, bolt upright +in an attitude of metallic rigidity that contrasted strangely with that +fluid grace of hers which even in stillness suggested a soft movement. + +Gombauld ceased talking, and Mary, flushed and outraged, opened her +mouth to refute him. But she was too slow. Before she could utter a +word Mr. Scogan’s fluty voice had pronounced the opening phrases of a +discourse. There was no hope of getting so much as a word in edgeways; +Mary had perforce to resign herself. + +“Even your eloquence, my dear Gombauld,” he was saying--“even your +eloquence must prove inadequate to reconvert the world to a belief in +the delights of mere multiplication. With the gramophone, the cinema, +and the automatic pistol, the goddess of Applied Science has presented +the world with another gift, more precious even than these--the means of +dissociating love from propagation. Eros, for those who wish it, is now +an entirely free god; his deplorable associations with Lucina may be +broken at will. In the course of the next few centuries, who knows? +the world may see a more complete severance. I look forward to it +optimistically. Where the great Erasmus Darwin and Miss Anna Seward, +Swan of Lichfield, experimented--and, for all their scientific ardour, +failed--our descendants will experiment and succeed. An impersonal +generation will take the place of Nature’s hideous system. In vast state +incubators, rows upon rows of gravid bottles will supply the world with +the population it requires. The family system will disappear; society, +sapped at its very base, will have to find new foundations; and Eros, +beautifully and irresponsibly free, will flit like a gay butterfly from +flower to flower through a sunlit world.” + +“It sounds lovely,” said Anne. + +“The distant future always does.” + +Mary’s china blue eyes, more serious and more astonished than ever, +were fixed on Mr. Scogan. “Bottles?” she said. “Do you really think so? +Bottles...” + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +Mr. Barbecue-Smith arrived in time for tea on Saturday afternoon. He was +a short and corpulent man, with a very large head and no neck. In his +earlier middle age he had been distressed by this absence of neck, +but was comforted by reading in Balzac’s “Louis Lambert” that all the +world’s great men have been marked by the same peculiarity, and for a +simple and obvious reason: Greatness is nothing more nor less than +the harmonious functioning of the faculties of the head and heart; +the shorter the neck, the more closely these two organs approach one +another; argal...It was convincing. + +Mr. Barbecue-Smith belonged to the old school of journalists. He sported +a leonine head with a greyish-black mane of oddly unappetising hair +brushed back from a broad but low forehead. And somehow he always seemed +slightly, ever so slightly, soiled. In younger days he had gaily called +himself a Bohemian. He did so no longer. He was a teacher now, a kind +of prophet. Some of his books of comfort and spiritual teaching were in +their hundred and twentieth thousand. + +Priscilla received him with every mark of esteem. He had never been to +Crome before; she showed him round the house. Mr. Barbecue-Smith was +full of admiration. + +“So quaint, so old-world,” he kept repeating. He had a rich, rather +unctuous voice. + +Priscilla praised his latest book. “Splendid, I thought it was,” she +said in her large, jolly way. + +“I’m happy to think you found it a comfort,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. + +“Oh, tremendously! And the bit about the Lotus Pool--I thought that so +beautiful.” + +“I knew you would like that. It came to me, you know, from without.” He +waved his hand to indicate the astral world. + +They went out into the garden for tea. Mr. Barbecue-Smith was duly +introduced. + +“Mr. Stone is a writer too,” said Priscilla, as she introduced Denis. + +“Indeed!” Mr. Barbecue-Smith smiled benignly, and, looking up at Denis +with an expression of Olympian condescension, “And what sort of things +do you write?” + +Denis was furious, and, to make matters worse, he felt himself blushing +hotly. Had Priscilla no sense of proportion? She was putting them in the +same category--Barbecue-Smith and himself. They were both writers, they +both used pen and ink. To Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s question he answered, +“Oh, nothing much, nothing,” and looked away. + +“Mr. Stone is one of our younger poets.” It was Anne’s voice. He scowled +at her, and she smiled back exasperatingly. + +“Excellent, excellent,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith, and he squeezed Denis’s +arm encouragingly. “The Bard’s is a noble calling.” + +As soon as tea was over Mr. Barbecue-Smith excused himself; he had to +do some writing before dinner. Priscilla quite understood. The prophet +retired to his chamber. + +Mr. Barbecue-Smith came down to the drawing-room at ten to eight. He was +in a good humour, and, as he descended the stairs, he smiled to himself +and rubbed his large white hands together. In the drawing-room someone +was playing softly and ramblingly on the piano. He wondered who it could +be. One of the young ladies, perhaps. But no, it was only Denis, who got +up hurriedly and with some embarrassment as he came into the room. + +“Do go on, do go on,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. “I am very fond of +music.” + +“Then I couldn’t possibly go on,” Denis replied. “I only make noises.” + +There was a silence. Mr. Barbecue-Smith stood with his back to the +hearth, warming himself at the memory of last winter’s fires. He could +not control his interior satisfaction, but still went on smiling to +himself. At last he turned to Denis. + +“You write,” he asked, “don’t you?” + +“Well, yes--a little, you know.” + +“How many words do you find you can write in an hour?” + +“I don’t think I’ve ever counted.” + +“Oh, you ought to, you ought to. It’s most important.” + +Denis exercised his memory. “When I’m in good form,” he said, “I fancy +I do a twelve-hundred-word review in about four hours. But sometimes it +takes me much longer.” + +Mr. Barbecue-Smith nodded. “Yes, three hundred words an hour at your +best.” He walked out into the middle of the room, turned round on his +heels, and confronted Denis again. “Guess how many words I wrote this +evening between five and half-past seven.” + +“I can’t imagine.” + +“No, but you must guess. Between five and half-past seven--that’s two +and a half hours.” + +“Twelve hundred words,” Denis hazarded. + +“No, no, no.” Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s expanded face shone with gaiety. “Try +again.” + +“Fifteen hundred.” + +“No.” + +“I give it up,” said Denis. He found he couldn’t summon up much interest +in Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s writing. + +“Well, I’ll tell you. Three thousand eight hundred.” + +Denis opened his eyes. “You must get a lot done in a day,” he said. + +Mr. Barbecue-Smith suddenly became extremely confidential. He pulled up +a stool to the side of Denis’s arm-chair, sat down in it, and began to +talk softly and rapidly. + +“Listen to me,” he said, laying his hand on Denis’s sleeve. “You want to +make your living by writing; you’re young, you’re inexperienced. Let me +give you a little sound advice.” + +What was the fellow going to do? Denis wondered: give him an +introduction to the editor of “John o’ London’s Weekly”, or tell him +where he could sell a light middle for seven guineas? Mr. Barbecue-Smith +patted his arm several times and went on. + +“The secret of writing,” he said, breathing it into the young man’s +ear--“the secret of writing is Inspiration.” + +Denis looked at him in astonishment. + +“Inspiration...” Mr. Barbecue-Smith repeated. + +“You mean the native wood-note business?” + +Mr. Barbecue-Smith nodded. + +“Oh, then I entirely agree with you,” said Denis. “But what if one +hasn’t got Inspiration?” + +“That was precisely the question I was waiting for,” said Mr. +Barbecue-Smith. “You ask me what one should do if one hasn’t got +Inspiration. I answer: you have Inspiration; everyone has Inspiration. +It’s simply a question of getting it to function.” + +The clock struck eight. There was no sign of any of the other guests; +everybody was always late at Crome. Mr. Barbecue-Smith went on. + +“That’s my secret,” he said. “I give it you freely.” (Denis made a +suitably grateful murmur and grimace.) “I’ll help you to find your +Inspiration, because I don’t like to see a nice, steady young man like +you exhausting his vitality and wasting the best years of his life in +a grinding intellectual labour that could be completely obviated by +Inspiration. I did it myself, so I know what it’s like. Up till the +time I was thirty-eight I was a writer like you--a writer without +Inspiration. All I wrote I squeezed out of myself by sheer hard work. +Why, in those days I was never able to do more than six-fifty words an +hour, and what’s more, I often didn’t sell what I wrote.” He sighed. +“We artists,” he said parenthetically, “we intellectuals aren’t much +appreciated here in England.” Denis wondered if there was any method, +consistent, of course, with politeness, by which he could dissociate +himself from Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s “we.” There was none; and besides, +it was too late now, for Mr. Barbecue-Smith was once more pursuing the +tenor of his discourse. + +“At thirty-eight I was a poor, struggling, tired, overworked, unknown +journalist. Now, at fifty...” He paused modestly and made a little +gesture, moving his fat hands outwards, away from one another, and +expanding his fingers as though in demonstration. He was exhibiting +himself. Denis thought of that advertisement of Nestle’s milk--the two +cats on the wall, under the moon, one black and thin, the other white, +sleek, and fat. Before Inspiration and after. + +“Inspiration has made the difference,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith solemnly. +“It came quite suddenly--like a gentle dew from heaven.” He lifted his +hand and let it fall back on to his knee to indicate the descent of the +dew. “It was one evening. I was writing my first little book about the +Conduct of Life--‘Humble Heroisms’. You may have read it; it has been +a comfort--at least I hope and think so--a comfort to many thousands. +I was in the middle of the second chapter, and I was stuck. Fatigue, +overwork--I had only written a hundred words in the last hour, and I +could get no further. I sat biting the end of my pen and looking at the +electric light, which hung above my table, a little above and in front +of me.” He indicated the position of the lamp with elaborate care. “Have +you ever looked at a bright light intently for a long time?” he asked, +turning to Denis. Denis didn’t think he had. “You can hypnotise yourself +that way,” Mr. Barbecue-Smith went on. + +The gong sounded in a terrific crescendo from the hall. Still no sign of +the others. Denis was horribly hungry. + +“That’s what happened to me,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. “I was +hypnotised. I lost consciousness like that.” He snapped his fingers. +“When I came to, I found that it was past midnight, and I had written +four thousand words. Four thousand,” he repeated, opening his mouth very +wide on the “ou” of thousand. “Inspiration had come to me.” + +“What a very extraordinary thing,” said Denis. + +“I was afraid of it at first. It didn’t seem to me natural. I didn’t +feel, somehow, that it was quite right, quite fair, I might almost say, +to produce a literary composition unconsciously. Besides, I was afraid I +might have written nonsense.” + +“And had you written nonsense?” Denis asked. + +“Certainly not,” Mr. Barbecue-Smith replied, with a trace of annoyance. +“Certainly not. It was admirable. Just a few spelling mistakes and +slips, such as there generally are in automatic writing. But the style, +the thought--all the essentials were admirable. After that, Inspiration +came to me regularly. I wrote the whole of ‘Humble Heroisms’ like that. +It was a great success, and so has everything been that I have written +since.” He leaned forward and jabbed at Denis with his finger. “That’s +my secret,” he said, “and that’s how you could write too, if you +tried--without effort, fluently, well.” + +“But how?” asked Denis, trying not to show how deeply he had been +insulted by that final “well.” + +“By cultivating your Inspiration, by getting into touch with your +Subconscious. Have you ever read my little book, ‘Pipe-Lines to the +Infinite’?” + +Denis had to confess that that was, precisely, one of the few, perhaps +the only one, of Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s works he had not read. + +“Never mind, never mind,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. “It’s just a little +book about the connection of the Subconscious with the Infinite. Get +into touch with the Subconscious and you are in touch with the Universe. +Inspiration, in fact. You follow me?” + +“Perfectly, perfectly,” said Denis. “But don’t you find that the +Universe sometimes sends you very irrelevant messages?” + +“I don’t allow it to,” Mr. Barbecue-Smith replied. “I canalise it. I +bring it down through pipes to work the turbines of my conscious mind.” + +“Like Niagara,” Denis suggested. Some of Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s remarks +sounded strangely like quotations--quotations from his own works, no +doubt. + +“Precisely. Like Niagara. And this is how I do it.” He leaned forward, +and with a raised forefinger marked his points as he made them, beating +time, as it were, to his discourse. “Before I go off into my trance, I +concentrate on the subject I wish to be inspired about. Let us say I am +writing about the humble heroisms; for ten minutes before I go into the +trance I think of nothing but orphans supporting their little brothers +and sisters, of dull work well and patiently done, and I focus my mind +on such great philosophical truths as the purification and uplifting of +the soul by suffering, and the alchemical transformation of leaden evil +into golden good.” (Denis again hung up his little festoon of quotation +marks.) “Then I pop off. Two or three hours later I wake up again, and +find that inspiration has done its work. Thousands of words, comforting, +uplifting words, lie before me. I type them out neatly on my machine and +they are ready for the printer.” + +“It all sounds wonderfully simple,” said Denis. + +“It is. All the great and splendid and divine things of life are +wonderfully simple.” (Quotation marks again.) “When I have to do my +aphorisms,” Mr. Barbecue-Smith continued, “I prelude my trance by +turning over the pages of any Dictionary of Quotations or Shakespeare +Calendar that comes to hand. That sets the key, so to speak; that +ensures that the Universe shall come flowing in, not in a continuous +rush, but in aphorismic drops. You see the idea?” + +Denis nodded. Mr. Barbecue-Smith put his hand in his pocket and pulled +out a notebook. “I did a few in the train to-day,” he said, turning over +the pages. “Just dropped off into a trance in the corner of my carriage. +I find the train very conducive to good work. Here they are.” He cleared +his throat and read: + +“The Mountain Road may be steep, but the air is pure up there, and it is +from the Summit that one gets the view.” + +“The Things that Really Matter happen in the Heart.” + +It was curious, Denis reflected, the way the Infinite sometimes repeated +itself. + +“Seeing is Believing. Yes, but Believing is also Seeing. If I believe in +God, I see God, even in the things that seem to be evil.” + +Mr. Barbecue-Smith looked up from his notebook. “That last one,” he +said, “is particularly subtle and beautiful, don’t you think? Without +Inspiration I could never have hit on that.” He re-read the apophthegm +with a slower and more solemn utterance. “Straight from the Infinite,” + he commented reflectively, then addressed himself to the next aphorism. + +“The flame of a candle gives Light, but it also Burns.” + +Puzzled wrinkles appeared on Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s forehead. “I don’t +exactly know what that means,” he said. “It’s very gnomic. One could +apply it, of course to the Higher Education--illuminating, but provoking +the Lower Classes to discontent and revolution. Yes, I suppose +that’s what it is. But it’s gnomic, it’s gnomic.” He rubbed his +chin thoughtfully. The gong sounded again, clamorously, it seemed +imploringly: dinner was growing cold. It roused Mr. Barbecue-Smith from +meditation. He turned to Denis. + +“You understand me now when I advise you to cultivate your Inspiration. +Let your Subconscious work for you; turn on the Niagara of the +Infinite.” + +There was the sound of feet on the stairs. Mr. Barbecue-Smith got up, +laid his hand for an instant on Denis’s shoulder, and said: + +“No more now. Another time. And remember, I rely absolutely on your +discretion in this matter. There are intimate, sacred things that one +doesn’t wish to be generally known.” + +“Of course,” said Denis. “I quite understand.” + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +At Crome all the beds were ancient hereditary pieces of furniture. Huge +beds, like four-masted ships, with furled sails of shining coloured +stuff. Beds carved and inlaid, beds painted and gilded. Beds of walnut +and oak, of rare exotic woods. Beds of every date and fashion from the +time of Sir Ferdinando, who built the house, to the time of his namesake +in the late eighteenth century, the last of the family, but all of them +grandiose, magnificent. + +The finest of all was now Anne’s bed. Sir Julius, son to Sir Ferdinando, +had had it made in Venice against his wife’s first lying-in. Early +seicento Venice had expended all its extravagant art in the making of +it. The body of the bed was like a great square sarcophagus. Clustering +roses were carved in high relief on its wooden panels, and luscious +putti wallowed among the roses. On the black ground-work of the panels +the carved reliefs were gilded and burnished. The golden roses twined in +spirals up the four pillar-like posts, and cherubs, seated at the top +of each column, supported a wooden canopy fretted with the same carved +flowers. + +Anne was reading in bed. Two candles stood on the little table beside +her, in their rich light her face, her bare arm and shoulder took on +warm hues and a sort of peach-like quality of surface. Here and there in +the canopy above her carved golden petals shone brightly among profound +shadows, and the soft light, falling on the sculptured panel of the bed, +broke restlessly among the intricate roses, lingered in a broad caress +on the blown cheeks, the dimpled bellies, the tight, absurd little +posteriors of the sprawling putti. + +There was a discreet tap at the door. She looked up. “Come in, come in.” + A face, round and childish, within its sleek bell of golden hair, peered +round the opening door. More childish-looking still, a suit of mauve +pyjamas made its entrance. + +It was Mary. “I thought I’d just look in for a moment to say +good-night,” she said, and sat down on the edge of the bed. + +Anne closed her book. “That was very sweet of you.” + +“What are you reading?” She looked at the book. “Rather second-rate, +isn’t it?” The tone in which Mary pronounced the word “second-rate” + implied an almost infinite denigration. She was accustomed in London to +associate only with first-rate people who liked first-rate things, and +she knew that there were very, very few first-rate things in the world, +and that those were mostly French. + +“Well, I’m afraid I like it,” said Anne. There was nothing more to be +said. The silence that followed was a rather uncomfortable one. Mary +fiddled uneasily with the bottom button of her pyjama jacket. Leaning +back on her mound of heaped-up pillows, Anne waited and wondered what +was coming. + +“I’m so awfully afraid of repressions,” said Mary at last, bursting +suddenly and surprisingly into speech. She pronounced the words on +the tail-end of an expiring breath, and had to gasp for new air almost +before the phrase was finished. + +“What’s there to be depressed about?” + +“I said repressions, not depressions.” + +“Oh, repressions; I see,” said Anne. “But repressions of what?” + +Mary had to explain. “The natural instincts of sex...” she began +didactically. But Anne cut her short. + +“Yes, yes. Perfectly. I understand. Repressions! old maids and all the +rest. But what about them?” + +“That’s just it,” said Mary. “I’m afraid of them. It’s always dangerous +to repress one’s instincts. I’m beginning to detect in myself symptoms +like the ones you read of in the books. I constantly dream that I’m +falling down wells; and sometimes I even dream that I’m climbing up +ladders. It’s most disquieting. The symptoms are only too clear.” + +“Are they?” + +“One may become a nymphomaniac if one’s not careful. You’ve no idea how +serious these repressions are if you don’t get rid of them in time.” + +“It sounds too awful,” said Anne. “But I don’t see that I can do +anything to help you.” + +“I thought I’d just like to talk it over with you.” + +“Why, of course; I’m only too happy, Mary darling.” + +Mary coughed and drew a deep breath. “I presume,” she began +sententiously, “I presume we may take for granted that an intelligent +young woman of twenty-three who has lived in civilised society in the +twentieth century has no prejudices.” + +“Well, I confess I still have a few.” + +“But not about repressions.” + +“No, not many about repressions; that’s true.” + +“Or, rather, about getting rid of repressions.” + +“Exactly.” + +“So much for our fundamental postulate,” said Mary. Solemnity was +expressed in every feature of her round young face, radiated from +her large blue eyes. “We come next to the desirability of possessing +experience. I hope we are agreed that knowledge is desirable and that +ignorance is undesirable.” + +Obedient as one of those complaisant disciples from whom Socrates could +get whatever answer he chose, Anne gave her assent to this proposition. + +“And we are equally agreed, I hope, that marriage is what it is.” + +“It is.” + +“Good!” said Mary. “And repressions being what they are...” + +“Exactly.” + +“There would therefore seem to be only one conclusion.” + +“But I knew that,” Anne exclaimed, “before you began.” + +“Yes, but now it’s been proved,” said Mary. “One must do things +logically. The question is now...” + +“But where does the question come in? You’ve reached your only possible +conclusion--logically, which is more than I could have done. All that +remains is to impart the information to someone you like--someone you +like really rather a lot, someone you’re in love with, if I may express +myself so baldly.” + +“But that’s just where the question comes in,” Mary exclaimed. “I’m not +in love with anybody.” + +“Then, if I were you, I should wait till you are.” + +“But I can’t go on dreaming night after night that I’m falling down a +well. It’s too dangerous.” + +“Well, if it really is TOO dangerous, then of course you must do +something about it; you must find somebody else.” + +“But who?” A thoughtful frown puckered Mary’s brow. “It must be somebody +intelligent, somebody with intellectual interests that I can share. +And it must be somebody with a proper respect for women, somebody who’s +prepared to talk seriously about his work and his ideas and about my +work and my ideas. It isn’t, as you see, at all easy to find the right +person.” + +“Well” said Anne, “there are three unattached and intelligent men in +the house at the present time. There’s Mr. Scogan, to begin with; +but perhaps he’s rather too much of a genuine antique. And there are +Gombauld and Denis. Shall we say that the choice is limited to the last +two?” + +Mary nodded. “I think we had better,” she said, and then hesitated, with +a certain air of embarrassment. + +“What is it?” + +“I was wondering,” said Mary, with a gasp, “whether they really were +unattached. I thought that perhaps you might...you might...” + +“It was very nice of you to think of me, Mary darling,” said Anne, +smiling the tight cat’s smile. “But as far as I’m concerned, they are +both entirely unattached.” + +“I’m very glad of that,” said Mary, looking relieved. “We are now +confronted with the question: Which of the two?” + +“I can give no advice. It’s a matter for your taste.” + +“It’s not a matter of my taste,” Mary pronounced, “but of their merits. +We must weigh them and consider them carefully and dispassionately.” + +“You must do the weighing yourself,” said Anne; there was still the +trace of a smile at the corners of her mouth and round the half-closed +eyes. “I won’t run the risk of advising you wrongly.” + +“Gombauld has more talent,” Mary began, “but he is less civilised than +Denis.” Mary’s pronunciation of “civilised” gave the word a special and +additional significance. She uttered it meticulously, in the very front +of her mouth, hissing delicately on the opening sibilant. So few people +were civilised, and they, like the first-rate works of art, were mostly +French. “Civilisation is most important, don’t you think?” + +Anne held up her hand. “I won’t advise,” she said. “You must make the +decision.” + +“Gombauld’s family,” Mary went on reflectively, “comes from Marseilles. +Rather a dangerous heredity, when one thinks of the Latin attitude +towards women. But then, I sometimes wonder whether Denis is altogether +serious-minded, whether he isn’t rather a dilettante. It’s very +difficult. What do you think?” + +“I’m not listening,” said Anne. “I refuse to take any responsibility.” + +Mary sighed. “Well,” she said, “I think I had better go to bed and think +about it.” + +“Carefully and dispassionately,” said Anne. + +At the door Mary turned round. “Good-night,” she said, and wondered +as she said the words why Anne was smiling in that curious way. It +was probably nothing, she reflected. Anne often smiled for no apparent +reason; it was probably just a habit. “I hope I shan’t dream of falling +down wells again to-night,” she added. + +“Ladders are worse,” said Anne. + +Mary nodded. “Yes, ladders are much graver.” + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +Breakfast on Sunday morning was an hour later than on week-days, and +Priscilla, who usually made no public appearance before luncheon, +honoured it by her presence. Dressed in black silk, with a ruby cross as +well as her customary string of pearls round her neck, she presided. +An enormous Sunday paper concealed all but the extreme pinnacle of her +coiffure from the outer world. + +“I see Surrey has won,” she said, with her mouth full, “by four wickets. +The sun is in Leo: that would account for it!” + +“Splendid game, cricket,” remarked Mr. Barbecue-Smith heartily to no one +in particular; “so thoroughly English.” + +Jenny, who was sitting next to him, woke up suddenly with a start. +“What?” she said. “What?” + +“So English,” repeated Mr. Barbecue-Smith. + +Jenny looked at him, surprised. “English? Of course I am.” + +He was beginning to explain, when Mrs. Wimbush vailed her Sunday paper, +and appeared, a square, mauve-powdered face in the midst of orange +splendours. “I see there’s a new series of articles on the next world +just beginning,” she said to Mr. Barbecue-Smith. “This one’s called +‘Summer Land and Gehenna.’” + +“Summer Land,” echoed Mr. Barbecue-Smith, closing his eyes. “Summer +Land. A beautiful name. Beautiful--beautiful.” + +Mary had taken the seat next to Denis’s. After a night of careful +consideration she had decided on Denis. He might have less talent than +Gombauld, he might be a little lacking in seriousness, but somehow he +was safer. + +“Are you writing much poetry here in the country?” she asked, with a +bright gravity. + +“None,” said Denis curtly. “I haven’t brought my typewriter.” + +“But do you mean to say you can’t write without a typewriter?” + +Denis shook his head. He hated talking at breakfast, and, besides, he +wanted to hear what Mr. Scogan was saying at the other end of the table. + +“...My scheme for dealing with the Church,” Mr. Scogan was saying, “is +beautifully simple. At the present time the Anglican clergy wear their +collars the wrong way round. I would compel them to wear, not only their +collars, but all their clothes, turned back to frantic--coat, waistcoat, +trousers, boots--so that every clergyman should present to the world +a smooth facade, unbroken by stud, button, or lace. The enforcement of +such a livery would act as a wholesome deterrent to those intending to +enter the Church. At the same time it would enormously enhance, what +Archbishop Laud so rightly insisted on, the ‘beauty of holiness’ in the +few incorrigibles who could not be deterred.” + +“In hell, it seems,” said Priscilla, reading in her Sunday paper, “the +children amuse themselves by flaying lambs alive.” + +“Ah, but, dear lady, that’s only a symbol,” exclaimed Mr. +Barbecue-Smith, “a material symbol of a h-piritual truth. Lambs +signify...” + +“Then there are military uniforms,” Mr. Scogan went on. “When scarlet +and pipe-clay were abandoned for khaki, there were some who trembled for +the future of war. But then, finding how elegant the new tunic was, how +closely it clipped the waist, how voluptuously, with the lateral +bustles of the pockets, it exaggerated the hips; when they realized the +brilliant potentialities of breeches and top-boots, they were reassured. +Abolish these military elegances, standardise a uniform of sack-cloth +and mackintosh, you will very soon find that...” + +“Is anyone coming to church with me this morning?” asked Henry Wimbush. +No one responded. He baited his bare invitation. “I read the lessons, +you know. And there’s Mr. Bodiham. His sermons are sometimes worth +hearing.” + +“Thank you, thank you,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. “I for one prefer to +worship in the infinite church of Nature. How does our Shakespeare put +it? ‘Sermons in books, stones in the running brooks.’” He waved his arm +in a fine gesture towards the window, and even as he did so he became +vaguely, but none the less insistently, none the less uncomfortably +aware that something had gone wrong with the quotation. Something--what +could it be? Sermons? Stones? Books? + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +Mr. Bodiham was sitting in his study at the Rectory. The +nineteenth-century Gothic windows, narrow and pointed, admitted the +light grudgingly; in spite of the brilliant July weather, the room was +sombre. Brown varnished bookshelves lined the walls, filled with row +upon row of those thick, heavy theological works which the second-hand +booksellers generally sell by weight. The mantelpiece, the over-mantel, +a towering structure of spindly pillars and little shelves, were brown +and varnished. The writing-desk was brown and varnished. So were the +chairs, so was the door. A dark red-brown carpet with patterns covered +the floor. Everything was brown in the room, and there was a curious +brownish smell. + +In the midst of this brown gloom Mr. Bodiham sat at his desk. He was the +man in the Iron Mask. A grey metallic face with iron cheek-bones and a +narrow iron brow; iron folds, hard and unchanging, ran perpendicularly +down his cheeks; his nose was the iron beak of some thin, delicate bird +of rapine. He had brown eyes, set in sockets rimmed with iron; round +them the skin was dark, as though it had been charred. Dense wiry hair +covered his skull; it had been black, it was turning grey. His ears +were very small and fine. His jaws, his chin, his upper lip were dark, +iron-dark, where he had shaved. His voice, when he spoke and especially +when he raised it in preaching, was harsh, like the grating of iron +hinges when a seldom-used door is opened. + +It was nearly half-past twelve. He had just come back from church, +hoarse and weary with preaching. He preached with fury, with passion, +an iron man beating with a flail upon the souls of his congregation. +But the souls of the faithful at Crome were made of india-rubber, solid +rubber; the flail rebounded. They were used to Mr. Bodiham at Crome. The +flail thumped on india-rubber, and as often as not the rubber slept. + +That morning he had preached, as he had often preached before, on the +nature of God. He had tried to make them understand about God, what +a fearful thing it was to fall into His hands. God--they thought of +something soft and merciful. They blinded themselves to facts; still +more, they blinded themselves to the Bible. The passengers on the +“Titanic” sang “Nearer my God to Thee” as the ship was going down. Did +they realise what they were asking to be brought nearer to? A white fire +of righteousness, an angry fire... + +When Savonarola preached, men sobbed and groaned aloud. Nothing broke +the polite silence with which Crome listened to Mr. Bodiham--only an +occasional cough and sometimes the sound of heavy breathing. In the +front pew sat Henry Wimbush, calm, well-bred, beautifully dressed. There +were times when Mr. Bodiham wanted to jump down from the pulpit and +shake him into life,--times when he would have liked to beat and kill +his whole congregation. + +He sat at his desk dejectedly. Outside the Gothic windows the earth was +warm and marvellously calm. Everything was as it had always been. And +yet, and yet...It was nearly four years now since he had preached that +sermon on Matthew xxiv. 7: “For nation shall rise up against nation, and +kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, +and earthquakes, in divers places.” It was nearly four years. He had had +the sermon printed; it was so terribly, so vitally important that all +the world should know what he had to say. A copy of the little pamphlet +lay on his desk--eight small grey pages, printed by a fount of type that +had grown blunt, like an old dog’s teeth, by the endless champing and +champing of the press. He opened it and began to read it yet once again. + +“‘For nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: +and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers +places.’ + +“Nineteen centuries have elapsed since Our Lord gave utterance to those +words, and not a single one of them has been without wars, plagues, +famines, and earthquakes. Mighty empires have crashed in ruin to the +ground, diseases have unpeopled half the globe, there have been vast +natural cataclysms in which thousands have been overwhelmed by flood +and fire and whirlwind. Time and again, in the course of these nineteen +centuries, such things have happened, but they have not brought Christ +back to earth. They were ‘signs of the times’ inasmuch as they were +signs of God’s wrath against the chronic wickedness of mankind, but they +were not signs of the times in connection with the Second Coming. + +“If earnest Christians have regarded the present war as a true sign of +the Lord’s approaching return, it is not merely because it happens to +be a great war involving the lives of millions of people, not merely +because famine is tightening its grip on every country in Europe, not +merely because disease of every kind, from syphilis to spotted fever, is +rife among the warring nations; no, it is not for these reasons that we +regard this war as a true Sign of the Times, but because in its origin +and its progress it is marked by certain characteristics which seem +to connect it almost beyond a doubt with the predictions in Christian +Prophecy relating to the Second Coming of the Lord. + +“Let me enumerate the features of the present war which most clearly +suggest that it is a Sign foretelling the near approach of the Second +Advent. Our Lord said that ‘this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached +in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end +come.’ Although it would be presumptuous for us to say what degree of +evangelisation will be regarded by God as sufficient, we may at least +confidently hope that a century of unflagging missionary work has +brought the fulfilment of this condition at any rate near. True, the +larger number of the world’s inhabitants have remained deaf to the +preaching of the true religion; but that does not vitiate the fact that +the Gospel HAS been preached ‘for a witness’ to all unbelievers from the +Papist to the Zulu. The responsibility for the continued prevalence of +unbelief lies, not with the preachers, but with those preached to. + +“Again, it has been generally recognised that ‘the drying up of the +waters of the great river Euphrates,’ mentioned in the sixteenth chapter +of Revelation, refers to the decay and extinction of Turkish power, and +is a sign of the near approaching end of the world as we know it. The +capture of Jerusalem and the successes in Mesopotamia are great strides +forward in the destruction of the Ottoman Empire; though it must be +admitted that the Gallipoli episode proved that the Turk still possesses +a ‘notable horn’ of strength. Historically speaking, this drying up of +Ottoman power has been going on for the past century; the last two years +have witnessed a great acceleration of the process, and there can be no +doubt that complete desiccation is within sight. + +“Closely following on the words concerning the drying up of Euphrates +comes the prophecy of Armageddon, that world war with which the Second +Coming is to be so closely associated. Once begun, the world war can +end only with the return of Christ, and His coming will be sudden and +unexpected, like that of a thief in the night. + +“Let us examine the facts. In history, exactly as in St. John’s Gospel, +the world war is immediately preceded by the drying up of Euphrates, or +the decay of Turkish power. This fact alone would be enough to connect +the present conflict with the Armageddon of Revelation and therefore to +point to the near approach of the Second Advent. But further evidence of +an even more solid and convincing nature can be adduced. + +“Armageddon is brought about by the activities of three unclean spirits, +as it were toads, which come out of the mouths of the Dragon, the Beast, +and the False Prophet. If we can identify these three powers of evil +much light will clearly be thrown on the whole question. + +“The Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet can all be identified in +history. Satan, who can only work through human agency, has used these +three powers in the long war against Christ which has filled the last +nineteen centuries with religious strife. The Dragon, it has been +sufficiently established, is pagan Rome, and the spirit issuing from its +mouth is the spirit of Infidelity. The Beast, alternatively symbolised +as a Woman, is undoubtedly the Papal power, and Popery is the spirit +which it spews forth. There is only one power which answers to the +description of the False Prophet, the wolf in sheep’s clothing, the +agent of the devil working in the guise of the Lamb, and that power is +the so-called ‘Society of Jesus.’ The spirit that issues from the mouth +of the False Prophet is the spirit of False Morality. + +“We may assume, then, that the three evil spirits are Infidelity, +Popery, and False Morality. Have these three influences been the real +cause of the present conflict? The answer is clear. + +“The spirit of Infidelity is the very spirit of German criticism. The +Higher Criticism, as it is mockingly called, denies the possibility of +miracles, prediction, and real inspiration, and attempts to account for +the Bible as a natural development. Slowly but surely, during the last +eighty years, the spirit of Infidelity has been robbing the Germans +of their Bible and their faith, so that Germany is to-day a nation of +unbelievers. Higher Criticism has thus made the war possible; for it +would be absolutely impossible for any Christian nation to wage war as +Germany is waging it. + +“We come next to the spirit of Popery, whose influence in causing the +war was quite as great as that of Infidelity, though not, perhaps, so +immediately obvious. Since the Franco-Prussian War the Papal power has +steadily declined in France, while in Germany it has steadily increased. +To-day France is an anti-papal state, while Germany possesses a powerful +Roman Catholic minority. Two papally controlled states, Germany and +Austria, are at war with six anti-papal states--England, France, Italy, +Russia, Serbia, and Portugal. Belgium is, of course, a thoroughly papal +state, and there can be little doubt that the presence on the Allies’ +side of an element so essentially hostile has done much to hamper the +righteous cause and is responsible for our comparative ill-success. That +the spirit of Popery is behind the war is thus seen clearly enough in +the grouping of the opposed powers, while the rebellion in the Roman +Catholic parts of Ireland has merely confirmed a conclusion already +obvious to any unbiased mind. + +“The spirit of False Morality has played as great a part in this war as +the two other evil spirits. The Scrap of Paper incident is the nearest +and most obvious example of Germany’s adherence to this essentially +unchristian or Jesuitical morality. The end is German world-power, and +in the attainment of this end, any means are justifiable. It is the true +principle of Jesuitry applied to international politics. + +“The identification is now complete. As was predicted in Revelation, +the three evil spirits have gone forth just as the decay of the Ottoman +power was nearing completion, and have joined together to make the world +war. The warning, ‘Behold, I come as a thief,’ is therefore meant for +the present period--for you and me and all the world. This war will lead +on inevitably to the war of Armageddon, and will only be brought to an +end by the Lord’s personal return. + +“And when He returns, what will happen? Those who are in Christ, St. +John tells us, will be called to the Supper of the Lamb. Those who are +found fighting against Him will be called to the Supper of the Great +God--that grim banquet where they shall not feast, but be feasted on. +‘For,’ as St. John says, ‘I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he +cried in a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of +heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the Great +God; that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and +the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit +on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and +great.’ All the enemies of Christ will be slain with the sword of him +that sits upon the horse, ‘and all the fowls will be filled with their +flesh.’ That is the Supper of the Great God. + +“It may be soon or it may, as men reckon time, be long; but sooner or +later, inevitably, the Lord will come and deliver the world from its +present troubles. And woe unto them who are called, not to the Supper +of the Lamb, but to the Supper of the Great God. They will realise +then, but too late, that God is a God of Wrath as well as a God of +Forgiveness. The God who sent bears to devour the mockers of Elisha, +the God who smote the Egyptians for their stubborn wickedness, will +assuredly smite them too, unless they make haste to repent. But perhaps +it is already too late. Who knows but that to-morrow, in a moment even, +Christ may be upon us unawares, like a thief? In a little while, who +knows? The angel standing in the sun may be summoning the ravens and +vultures from their crannies in the rocks to feed upon the putrefying +flesh of the millions of unrighteous whom God’s wrath has destroyed. Be +ready, then; the coming of the Lord is at hand. May it be for all of +you an object of hope, not a moment to look forward to with terror and +trembling.” + +Mr. Bodiham closed the little pamphlet and leaned back in his chair. The +argument was sound, absolutely compelling; and yet--it was four years +since he had preached that sermon; four years, and England was at peace, +the sun shone, the people of Crome were as wicked and indifferent +as ever--more so, indeed, if that were possible. If only he could +understand, if the heavens would but make a sign! But his questionings +remained unanswered. Seated there in his brown varnished chair under the +Ruskinian window, he could have screamed aloud. He gripped the arms of +his chair--gripping, gripping for control. The knuckles of his hands +whitened; he bit his lip. In a few seconds he was able to relax the +tension; he began to rebuke himself for his rebellious impatience. + +Four years, he reflected; what were four years, after all? It must +inevitably take a long time for Armageddon to ripen to yeast itself up. +The episode of 1914 had been a preliminary skirmish. And as for the war +having come to an end--why, that, of course, was illusory. It was still +going on, smouldering away in Silesia, in Ireland, in Anatolia; the +discontent in Egypt and India was preparing the way, perhaps, for a +great extension of the slaughter among the heathen peoples. The Chinese +boycott of Japan, and the rivalries of that country and America in the +Pacific, might be breeding a great new war in the East. The prospect, +Mr. Bodiham tried to assure himself, was hopeful; the real, the genuine +Armageddon might soon begin, and then, like a thief in the night...But, +in spite of all his comfortable reasoning, he remained unhappy, +dissatisfied. Four years ago he had been so confident; God’s intention +seemed then so plain. And now? Now, he did well to be angry. And now he +suffered too. + +Sudden and silent as a phantom Mrs. Bodiham appeared, gliding +noiselessly across the room. Above her black dress her face was pale +with an opaque whiteness, her eyes were pale as water in a glass, and +her strawy hair was almost colourless. She held a large envelope in her +hand. + +“This came for you by the post,” she said softly. + +The envelope was unsealed. Mechanically Mr. Bodiham tore it open. +It contained a pamphlet, larger than his own and more elegant in +appearance. “The House of Sheeny, Clerical Outfitters, Birmingham.” He +turned over the pages. The catalogue was tastefully and ecclesiastically +printed in antique characters with illuminated Gothic initials. Red +marginal lines, crossed at the corners after the manner of an Oxford +picture frame, enclosed each page of type, little red crosses took the +place of full stops. Mr. Bodiham turned the pages. + +“Soutane in best black merino. Ready to wear; in all sizes. Clerical +frock coats. From nine guineas. A dressy garment, tailored by our own +experienced ecclesiastical cutters.” + +Half-tone illustrations represented young curates, some dapper, some +Rugbeian and muscular, some with ascetic faces and large ecstatic eyes, +dressed in jackets, in frock-coats, in surplices, in clerical evening +dress, in black Norfolk suitings. + +“A large assortment of chasubles. + +“Rope girdles. + +“Sheeny’s Special Skirt Cassocks. Tied by a string about the waist...When +worn under a surplice presents an appearance indistinguishable from that +of a complete cassock...Recommended for summer wear and hot climates.” + +With a gesture of horror and disgust Mr. Bodiham threw the catalogue +into the waste-paper basket. Mrs. Bodiham looked at him; her pale, +glaucous eyes reflected his action without comment. + +“The village,” she said in her quiet voice, “the village grows worse and +worse every day.” + +“What has happened now?” asked Mr. Bodiham, feeling suddenly very weary. + +“I’ll tell you.” She pulled up a brown varnished chair and sat down. In +the village of Crome, it seemed, Sodom and Gomorrah had come to a second +birth. + + + +CHAPTER X. + +Denis did not dance, but when ragtime came squirting out of the pianola +in gushes of treacle and hot perfume, in jets of Bengal light, then +things began to dance inside him. Little black nigger corpuscles jigged +and drummed in his arteries. He became a cage of movement, a walking +palais de danse. It was very uncomfortable, like the preliminary +symptoms of a disease. He sat in one of the window-seats, glumly +pretending to read. + +At the pianola, Henry Wimbush, smoking a long cigar through a tunnelled +pillar of amber, trod out the shattering dance music with serene +patience. Locked together, Gombauld and Anne moved with a harmoniousness +that made them seem a single creature, two-headed and four-legged. Mr. +Scogan, solemnly buffoonish, shuffled round the room with Mary. Jenny +sat in the shadow behind the piano, scribbling, so it seemed, in a +big red notebook. In arm-chairs by the fireplace, Priscilla and Mr. +Barbecue-Smith discussed higher things, without, apparently, being +disturbed by the noise on the Lower Plane. + +“Optimism,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith with a tone of finality, speaking +through strains of the “Wild, Wild Women”--“optimism is the opening out +of the soul towards the light; it is an expansion towards and into God, +it is a h-piritual self-unification with the Infinite.” + +“How true!” sighed Priscilla, nodding the baleful splendours of her +coiffure. + +“Pessimism, on the other hand, is the contraction of the soul towards +darkness; it is a focusing of the self upon a point in the Lower Plane; +it is a h-piritual slavery to mere facts; to gross physical phenomena.” + +“They’re making a wild man of me.” The refrain sang itself over in +Denis’s mind. Yes, they were; damn them! A wild man, but not wild +enough; that was the trouble. Wild inside; raging, writhing--yes, +“writhing” was the word, writhing with desire. But outwardly he was +hopelessly tame; outwardly--baa, baa, baa. + +There they were, Anne and Gombauld, moving together as though they were +a single supple creature. The beast with two backs. And he sat in +a corner, pretending to read, pretending he didn’t want to dance, +pretending he rather despised dancing. Why? It was the baa-baa business +again. + +Why was he born with a different face? Why WAS he? Gombauld had a face +of brass--one of those old, brazen rams that thumped against the walls +of cities till they fell. He was born with a different face--a woolly +face. + +The music stopped. The single harmonious creature broke in two. Flushed, +a little breathless, Anne swayed across the room to the pianola, laid +her hand on Mr. Wimbush’s shoulder. + +“A waltz this time, please, Uncle Henry,” she said. + +“A waltz,” he repeated, and turned to the cabinet where the rolls were +kept. He trod off the old roll and trod on the new, a slave at the +mill, uncomplaining and beautifully well bred. + + + “Rum; Tum; Rum-ti-ti; Tum-ti-ti...” + +The melody wallowed oozily along, like a ship moving forward over a +sleek and oily swell. The four-legged creature, more graceful, more +harmonious in its movements than ever, slid across the floor. Oh, why +was he born with a different face? + +“What are you reading?” + +He looked up, startled. It was Mary. She had broken from the +uncomfortable embrace of Mr. Scogan, who had now seized on Jenny for his +victim. + +“What are you reading?” + +“I don’t know,” said Denis truthfully. He looked at the title page; the +book was called “The Stock Breeder’s Vade Mecum.” + +“I think you are so sensible to sit and read quietly,” said Mary, fixing +him with her china eyes. “I don’t know why one dances. It’s so boring.” + +Denis made no reply; she exacerbated him. From the arm-chair by the +fireplace he heard Priscilla’s deep voice. + +“Tell me, Mr Barbecue-Smith--you know all about science, I know--” A +deprecating noise came from Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s chair. “This Einstein +theory. It seems to upset the whole starry universe. It makes me so +worried about my horoscopes. You see...” + +Mary renewed her attack. “Which of the contemporary poets do you like +best?” she asked. Denis was filled with fury. Why couldn’t this pest of +a girl leave him alone? He wanted to listen to the horrible music, to +watch them dancing--oh, with what grace, as though they had been made +for one another!--to savour his misery in peace. And she came and put +him through this absurd catechism! She was like “Mangold’s Questions”: +“What are the three diseases of wheat?”--“Which of the contemporary +poets do you like best?” + +“Blight, Mildew, and Smut,” he replied, with the laconism of one who is +absolutely certain of his own mind. + +It was several hours before Denis managed to go to sleep that night. +Vague but agonising miseries possessed his mind. It was not only Anne +who made him miserable; he was wretched about himself, the future, life +in general, the universe. “This adolescence business,” he repeated to +himself every now and then, “is horribly boring.” But the fact that he +knew his disease did not help him to cure it. + +After kicking all the clothes off the bed, he got up and sought relief +in composition. He wanted to imprison his nameless misery in words. At +the end of an hour, nine more or less complete lines emerged from among +the blots and scratchings. + + + “I do not know what I desire + + When summer nights are dark and still, + + When the wind’s many-voiced quire + + Sleeps among the muffled branches. + + I long and know not what I will: + + And not a sound of life or laughter stanches + + Time’s black and silent flow. + + I do not know what I desire, + + I do not know.” + +He read it through aloud; then threw the scribbled sheet into the +waste-paper basket and got into bed again. In a very few minutes he was +asleep. + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +Mr. Barbecue-Smith was gone. The motor had whirled him away to the +station; a faint smell of burning oil commemorated his recent departure. +A considerable detachment had come into the courtyard to speed him on +his way; and now they were walking back, round the side of the house, +towards the terrace and the garden. They walked in silence; nobody had +yet ventured to comment on the departed guest. + +“Well?” said Anne at last, turning with raised inquiring eyebrows to +Denis. + +“Well?” It was time for someone to begin. + +Denis declined the invitation; he passed it on to Mr Scogan. “Well?” he +said. + +Mr. Scogan did not respond; he only repeated the question, “Well?” + +It was left for Henry Wimbush to make a pronouncement. “A very agreeable +adjunct to the week-end,” he said. His tone was obituary. + +They had descended, without paying much attention where they were going, +the steep yew-walk that went down, under the flank of the terrace, to +the pool. The house towered above them, immensely tall, with the whole +height of the built-up terrace added to its own seventy feet of +brick façade. The perpendicular lines of the three towers soared up, +uninterrupted, enhancing the impression of height until it became +overwhelming. They paused at the edge of the pool to look back. + +“The man who built this house knew his business,” said Denis. “He was an +architect.” + +“Was he?” said Henry Wimbush reflectively. “I doubt it. The builder of +this house was Sir Ferdinando Lapith, who flourished during the reign of +Elizabeth. He inherited the estate from his father, to whom it had been +granted at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries; for Crome was +originally a cloister of monks and this swimming-pool their fish-pond. +Sir Ferdinando was not content merely to adapt the old monastic +buildings to his own purposes; but using them as a stone quarry for his +barns and byres and outhouses, he built for himself a grand new house of +brick--the house you see now.” + +He waved his hand in the direction of the house and was silent, severe, +imposing, almost menacing, Crome loomed down on them. + +“The great thing about Crome,” said Mr. Scogan, seizing the opportunity +to speak, “is the fact that it’s so unmistakably and aggressively a work +of art. It makes no compromise with nature, but affronts it and +rebels against it. It has no likeness to Shelley’s tower, in the +‘Epipsychidion,’ which, if I remember rightly--“ + + + “‘Seems not now a work of human art, + + But as it were titanic, in the heart + + Of earth having assumed its form and grown + + Out of the mountain, from the living stone, + + Lifting itself in caverns light and high.’ + +“No, no, there isn’t any nonsense of that sort about Crome. That the +hovels of the peasantry should look as though they had grown out of +the earth, to which their inmates are attached, is right, no doubt, and +suitable. But the house of an intelligent, civilised, and sophisticated +man should never seem to have sprouted from the clods. It should rather +be an expression of his grand unnatural remoteness from the cloddish +life. Since the days of William Morris that’s a fact which we in England +have been unable to comprehend. Civilised and sophisticated men have +solemnly played at being peasants. Hence quaintness, arts and crafts, +cottage architecture, and all the rest of it. In the suburbs of our +cities you may see, reduplicated in endless rows, studiedly quaint +imitations and adaptations of the village hovel. Poverty, ignorance, +and a limited range of materials produced the hovel, which possesses +undoubtedly, in suitable surroundings, its own ‘as it were titanic’ +charm. We now employ our wealth, our technical knowledge, our rich +variety of materials for the purpose of building millions of imitation +hovels in totally unsuitable surroundings. Could imbecility go further?” + +Henry Wimbush took up the thread of his interrupted discourse. “All that +you say, my dear Scogan,” he began, “is certainly very just, very true. +But whether Sir Ferdinando shared your views about architecture or if, +indeed, he had any views about architecture at all, I very much doubt. +In building this house, Sir Ferdinando was, as a matter of fact, +preoccupied by only one thought--the proper placing of his privies. +Sanitation was the one great interest of his life. In 1573 he even +published, on this subject, a little book--now extremely scarce--called, +‘Certaine Priuy Counsels’ by ‘One of Her Maiestie’s Most Honourable +Priuy Counsels, F.L. Knight’, in which the whole matter is treated with +great learning and elegance. His guiding principle in arranging the +sanitation of a house was to secure that the greatest possible distance +should separate the privy from the sewage arrangements. Hence it +followed inevitably that the privies were to be placed at the top of the +house, being connected by vertical shafts with pits or channels in the +ground. It must not be thought that Sir Ferdinando was moved only by +material and merely sanitary considerations; for the placing of his +privies in an exalted position he had also certain excellent spiritual +reasons. For, he argues in the third chapter of his ‘Priuy Counsels’, +the necessities of nature are so base and brutish that in obeying them +we are apt to forget that we are the noblest creatures of the universe. +To counteract these degrading effects he advised that the privy should +be in every house the room nearest to heaven, that it should be well +provided with windows commanding an extensive and noble prospect, +and that the walls of the chamber should be lined with bookshelves +containing all the ripest products of human wisdom, such as the Proverbs +of Solomon, Boethius’s ‘Consolations of Philosophy’, the apophthegms +of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, the ‘Enchiridion’ of Erasmus, and all +other works, ancient or modern, which testify to the nobility of the +human soul. In Crome he was able to put his theories into practice. At +the top of each of the three projecting towers he placed a privy. From +these a shaft went down the whole height of the house, that is to +say, more than seventy feet, through the cellars, and into a series of +conduits provided with flowing water tunnelled in the ground on a level +with the base of the raised terrace. These conduits emptied themselves +into the stream several hundred yards below the fish-pond. The total +depth of the shafts from the top of the towers to their subterranean +conduits was a hundred and two feet. The eighteenth century, with +its passion for modernisation, swept away these monuments of sanitary +ingenuity. Were it not for tradition and the explicit account of them +left by Sir Ferdinando, we should be unaware that these noble privies +had ever existed. We should even suppose that Sir Ferdinando built +his house after this strange and splendid model for merely aesthetic +reasons.” + +The contemplation of the glories of the past always evoked in Henry +Wimbush a certain enthusiasm. Under the grey bowler his face worked +and glowed as he spoke. The thought of these vanished privies moved +him profoundly. He ceased to speak; the light gradually died out of his +face, and it became once more the replica of the grave, polite hat which +shaded it. There was a long silence; the same gently melancholy thoughts +seemed to possess the mind of each of them. Permanence, transience--Sir +Ferdinando and his privies were gone, Crome still stood. How brightly +the sun shone and how inevitable was death! The ways of God were +strange; the ways of man were stranger still... + +“It does one’s heart good,” exclaimed Mr. Scogan at last, “to hear of +these fantastic English aristocrats. To have a theory about privies +and to build an immense and splendid house in order to put it into +practise--it’s magnificent, beautiful! I like to think of them all: the +eccentric milords rolling across Europe in ponderous carriages, bound +on extraordinary errands. One is going to Venice to buy La Bianchi’s +larynx; he won’t get it till she’s dead, of course, but no matter; he’s +prepared to wait; he has a collection, pickled in glass bottles, of +the throats of famous opera singers. And the instruments of renowned +virtuosi--he goes in for them too; he will try to bribe Paganini to part +with his little Guarnerio, but he has small hope of success. Paganini +won’t sell his fiddle; but perhaps he might sacrifice one of his +guitars. Others are bound on crusades--one to die miserably among the +savage Greeks, another, in his white top hat, to lead Italians against +their oppressors. Others have no business at all; they are just giving +their oddity a continental airing. At home they cultivate themselves at +leisure and with greater elaboration. Beckford builds towers, Portland +digs holes in the ground, Cavendish, the millionaire, lives in a stable, +eats nothing but mutton, and amuses himself--oh, solely for his private +delectation--by anticipating the electrical discoveries of half a +century. Glorious eccentrics! Every age is enlivened by their presence. +Some day, my dear Denis,” said Mr Scogan, turning a beady bright regard +in his direction--“some day you must become their biographer--‘The Lives +of Queer Men.’ What a subject! I should like to undertake it myself.” + +Mr. Scogan paused, looked up once more at the towering house, then +murmured the word “Eccentricity,” two or three times. + +“Eccentricity...It’s the justification of all aristocracies. It +justifies leisured classes and inherited wealth and privilege and +endowments and all the other injustices of that sort. If you’re to do +anything reasonable in this world, you must have a class of people who +are secure, safe from public opinion, safe from poverty, leisured, not +compelled to waste their time in the imbecile routines that go by the +name of Honest Work. You must have a class of which the members can +think and, within the obvious limits, do what they please. You must have +a class in which people who have eccentricities can indulge them and in +which eccentricity in general will be tolerated and understood. That’s +the important thing about an aristocracy. Not only is it eccentric +itself--often grandiosely so; it also tolerates and even encourages +eccentricity in others. The eccentricities of the artist and the +new-fangled thinker don’t inspire it with that fear, loathing, and +disgust which the burgesses instinctively feel towards them. It is a +sort of Red Indian Reservation planted in the midst of a vast horde of +Poor Whites--colonials at that. Within its boundaries wild men disport +themselves--often, it must be admitted, a little grossly, a little too +flamboyantly; and when kindred spirits are born outside the pale it +offers them some sort of refuge from the hatred which the Poor Whites, +en bons bourgeois, lavish on anything that is wild or out of the +ordinary. After the social revolution there will be no Reservations; +the Redskins will be drowned in the great sea of Poor Whites. What then? +Will they suffer you to go on writing villanelles, my good Denis? Will +you, unhappy Henry, be allowed to live in this house of the splendid +privies, to continue your quiet delving in the mines of futile +knowledge? Will Anne...” + +“And you,” said Anne, interrupting him, “will you be allowed to go on +talking?” + +“You may rest assured,” Mr. Scogan replied, “that I shall not. I shall +have some Honest Work to do.” + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +Blight, Mildew, and Smut...” Mary was puzzled and distressed. Perhaps +her ears had played her false. Perhaps what he had really said was, +“Squire, Binyon, and Shanks,” or “Childe, Blunden, and Earp,” or even +“Abercrombie, Drinkwater, and Rabindranath Tagore.” Perhaps. But then +her ears never did play her false. “Blight, Mildew, and Smut.” The +impression was distinct and ineffaceable. “Blight, Mildew...” she was +forced to the conclusion, reluctantly, that Denis had indeed pronounced +those improbable words. He had deliberately repelled her attempts to +open a serious discussion. That was horrible. A man who would not talk +seriously to a woman just because she was a woman--oh, impossible! +Egeria or nothing. Perhaps Gombauld would be more satisfactory. True, +his meridional heredity was a little disquieting; but at least he was +a serious worker, and it was with his work that she would associate +herself. And Denis? After all, what WAS Denis? A dilettante, an +amateur... + +Gombauld had annexed for his painting-room a little disused granary that +stood by itself in a green close beyond the farm-yard. It was a square +brick building with a peaked roof and little windows set high up in each +of its walls. A ladder of four rungs led up to the door; for the granary +was perched above the ground, and out of reach of the rats, on four +massive toadstools of grey stone. Within, there lingered a faint smell +of dust and cobwebs; and the narrow shaft of sunlight that came slanting +in at every hour of the day through one of the little windows was +always alive with silvery motes. Here Gombauld worked, with a kind of +concentrated ferocity, during six or seven hours of each day. He was +pursuing something new, something terrific, if only he could catch it. + +During the last eight years, nearly half of which had been spent in the +process of winning the war, he had worked his way industriously through +cubism. Now he had come out on the other side. He had begun by painting +a formalised nature; then, little by little, he had risen from nature +into the world of pure form, till in the end he was painting nothing but +his own thoughts, externalised in the abstract geometrical forms of +the mind’s devising. He found the process arduous and exhilarating. And +then, quite suddenly, he grew dissatisfied; he felt himself cramped and +confined within intolerably narrow limitations. He was humiliated to +find how few and crude and uninteresting were the forms he could invent; +the inventions of nature were without number, inconceivably subtle and +elaborate. He had done with cubism. He was out on the other side. But +the cubist discipline preserved him from falling into excesses of nature +worship. He took from nature its rich, subtle, elaborate forms, but his +aim was always to work them into a whole that should have the thrilling +simplicity and formality of an idea; to combine prodigious realism +with prodigious simplification. Memories of Caravaggio’s portentous +achievements haunted him. Forms of a breathing, living reality emerged +from darkness, built themselves up into compositions as luminously +simple and single as a mathematical idea. He thought of the “Call of +Matthew,” of “Peter Crucified,” of the “Lute players,” of “Magdalen.” + He had the secret, that astonishing ruffian, he had the secret! And +now Gombauld was after it, in hot pursuit. Yes, it would be something +terrific, if only he could catch it. + +For a long time an idea had been stirring and spreading, yeastily, +in his mind. He had made a portfolio full of studies, he had drawn a +cartoon; and now the idea was taking shape on canvas. A man fallen from +a horse. The huge animal, a gaunt white cart-horse, filled the upper +half of the picture with its great body. Its head, lowered towards the +ground, was in shadow; the immense bony body was what arrested the eye, +the body and the legs, which came down on either side of the picture +like the pillars of an arch. On the ground, between the legs of the +towering beast, lay the foreshortened figure of a man, the head in the +extreme foreground, the arms flung wide to right and left. A white, +relentless light poured down from a point in the right foreground. The +beast, the fallen man, were sharply illuminated; round them, beyond and +behind them, was the night. They were alone in the darkness, a universe +in themselves. The horse’s body filled the upper part of the picture; +the legs, the great hoofs, frozen to stillness in the midst of their +trampling, limited it on either side. And beneath lay the man, +his foreshortened face at the focal point in the centre, his arms +outstretched towards the sides of the picture. Under the arch of the +horse’s belly, between his legs, the eye looked through into an intense +darkness; below, the space was closed in by the figure of the prostrate +man. A central gulf of darkness surrounded by luminous forms... + +The picture was more than half finished. Gombauld had been at work all +the morning on the figure of the man, and now he was taking a rest--the +time to smoke a cigarette. Tilting back his chair till it touched the +wall, he looked thoughtfully at his canvas. He was pleased, and at the +same time he was desolated. In itself, the thing was good; he knew +it. But that something he was after, that something that would be so +terrific if only he could catch it--had he caught it? Would he ever +catch it? + +Three little taps--rat, tat, tat! Surprised, Gombauld turned his eyes +towards the door. Nobody ever disturbed him while he was at work; it +was one of the unwritten laws. “Come in!” he called. The door, which was +ajar, swung open, revealing, from the waist upwards, the form of Mary. +She had only dared to mount half-way up the ladder. If he didn’t want +her, retreat would be easier and more dignified than if she climbed to +the top. + +“May I come in?” she asked. + +“Certainly.” + +She skipped up the remaining two rungs and was over the threshold in +an instant. “A letter came for you by the second post,” she said. “I +thought it might be important, so I brought it out to you.” Her eyes, +her childish face were luminously candid as she handed him the letter. +There had never been a flimsier pretext. + +Gombauld looked at the envelope and put it in his pocket unopened. +“Luckily,” he said, “it isn’t at all important. Thanks very much all the +same.” + +There was a silence; Mary felt a little uncomfortable. “May I have a +look at what you’ve been painting?” she had the courage to say at last. + +Gombauld had only half smoked his cigarette; in any case he wouldn’t +begin work again till he had finished. He would give her the five +minutes that separated him from the bitter end. “This is the best place +to see it from,” he said. + +Mary looked at the picture for some time without saying anything. +Indeed, she didn’t know what to say; she was taken aback, she was at a +loss. She had expected a cubist masterpiece, and here was a picture of a +man and a horse, not only recognisable as such, but even aggressively +in drawing. Trompe-l’oeil--there was no other word to describe the +delineation of that foreshortened figure under the trampling feet of the +horse. What was she to think, what was she to say? Her orientations +were gone. One could admire representationalism in the Old Masters. +Obviously. But in a modern...? At eighteen she might have done so. +But now, after five years of schooling among the best judges, her +instinctive reaction to a contemporary piece of representation was +contempt--an outburst of laughing disparagement. What could Gombauld be +up to? She had felt so safe in admiring his work before. But now--she +didn’t know what to think. It was very difficult, very difficult. + +“There’s rather a lot of chiaroscuro, isn’t there?” she ventured at +last, and inwardly congratulated herself on having found a critical +formula so gentle and at the same time so penetrating. + +“There is,” Gombauld agreed. + +Mary was pleased; he accepted her criticism; it was a serious +discussion. She put her head on one side and screwed up her eyes. +“I think it’s awfully fine,” she said. “But of course it’s a little +too...too...trompe-l’oeil for my taste.” She looked at Gombauld, who +made no response, but continued to smoke, gazing meditatively all the +time at his picture. Mary went on gaspingly. “When I was in Paris this +spring I saw a lot of Tschuplitski. I admire his work so tremendously. +Of course, it’s frightfully abstract now--frightfully abstract and +frightfully intellectual. He just throws a few oblongs on to his +canvas--quite flat, you know, and painted in pure primary colours. But +his design is wonderful. He’s getting more and more abstract every day. +He’d given up the third dimension when I was there and was just thinking +of giving up the second. Soon, he says, there’ll be just the blank +canvas. That’s the logical conclusion. Complete abstraction. Painting’s +finished; he’s finishing it. When he’s reached pure abstraction he’s +going to take up architecture. He says it’s more intellectual than +painting. Do you agree?” she asked, with a final gasp. + +Gombauld dropped his cigarette end and trod on it. “Tschuplitski’s +finished painting,” he said. “I’ve finished my cigarette. But I’m going +on painting.” And, advancing towards her, he put his arm round her +shoulders and turned her round, away from the picture. + +Mary looked up at him; her hair swung back, a soundless bell of gold. +Her eyes were serene; she smiled. So the moment had come. His arm was +round her. He moved slowly, almost imperceptibly, and she moved with +him. It was a peripatetic embracement. “Do you agree with him?” she +repeated. The moment might have come, but she would not cease to be +intellectual, serious. + +“I don’t know. I shall have to think about it.” Gombauld loosened his +embrace, his hand dropped from her shoulder. “Be careful going down the +ladder,” he added solicitously. + +Mary looked round, startled. They were in front of the open door. She +remained standing there for a moment in bewilderment. The hand that +had rested on her shoulder made itself felt lower down her back; it +administered three or four kindly little smacks. Replying automatically +to its stimulus, she moved forward. + +“Be careful going down the ladder,” said Gombauld once more. + +She was careful. The door closed behind her and she was alone in the +little green close. She walked slowly back through the farmyard; she was +pensive. + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +Henry Wimbush brought down with him to dinner a budget of printed sheets +loosely bound together in a cardboard portfolio. + +“To-day,” he said, exhibiting it with a certain solemnity, “to-day I +have finished the printing of my ‘History of Crome’. I helped to set up +the type of the last page this evening.” + +“The famous History?” cried Anne. The writing and the printing of this +Magnum Opus had been going on as long as she could remember. All her +childhood long Uncle Henry’s History had been a vague and fabulous +thing, often heard of and never seen. + +“It has taken me nearly thirty years,” said Mr. Wimbush. “Twenty-five +years of writing and nearly four of printing. And now it’s finished--the +whole chronicle, from Sir Ferdinando Lapith’s birth to the death of my +father William Wimbush--more than three centuries and a half: a history +of Crome, written at Crome, and printed at Crome by my own press.” + +“Shall we be allowed to read it now it’s finished?” asked Denis. + +Mr. Wimbush nodded. “Certainly,” he said. “And I hope you will not find +it uninteresting,” he added modestly. “Our muniment room is particularly +rich in ancient records, and I have some genuinely new light to throw on +the introduction of the three-pronged fork.” + +“And the people?” asked Gombauld. “Sir Ferdinando and the rest of +them--were they amusing? Were there any crimes or tragedies in the +family?” + +“Let me see,” Henry Wimbush rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I can only +think of two suicides, one violent death, four or perhaps five broken +hearts, and half a dozen little blots on the scutcheon in the way of +misalliances, seductions, natural children, and the like. No, on the +whole, it’s a placid and uneventful record.” + +“The Wimbushes and the Lapiths were always an unadventurous, respectable +crew,” said Priscilla, with a note of scorn in her voice. “If I were to +write my family history now! Why, it would be one long continuous blot +from beginning to end.” She laughed jovially, and helped herself to +another glass of wine. + +“If I were to write mine,” Mr. Scogan remarked, “it wouldn’t exist. +After the second generation we Scogans are lost in the mists of +antiquity.” + +“After dinner,” said Henry Wimbush, a little piqued by his wife’s +disparaging comment on the masters of Crome, “I’ll read you an episode +from my History that will make you admit that even the Lapiths, in their +own respectable way, had their tragedies and strange adventures.” + +“I’m glad to hear it,” said Priscilla. + +“Glad to hear what?” asked Jenny, emerging suddenly from her private +interior world like a cuckoo from a clock. She received an explanation, +smiled, nodded, cuckooed at last “I see,” and popped back, clapping shut +the door behind her. + +Dinner was eaten; the party had adjourned to the drawing-room. + +“Now,” said Henry Wimbush, pulling up a chair to the lamp. He put on +his round pince-nez, rimmed with tortoise-shell, and began cautiously +to turn over the pages of his loose and still fragmentary book. He found +his place at last. “Shall I begin?” he asked, looking up. + +“Do,” said Priscilla, yawning. + +In the midst of an attentive silence Mr. Wimbush gave a little +preliminary cough and started to read. + +“The infant who was destined to become the fourth baronet of the name of +Lapith was born in the year 1740. He was a very small baby, weighing not +more than three pounds at birth, but from the first he was sturdy and +healthy. In honour of his maternal grandfather, Sir Hercules Occam of +Bishop’s Occam, he was christened Hercules. His mother, like many other +mothers, kept a notebook, in which his progress from month to month was +recorded. He walked at ten months, and before his second year was out +he had learnt to speak a number of words. At three years he weighed but +twenty-four pounds, and at six, though he could read and write perfectly +and showed a remarkable aptitude for music, he was no larger and heavier +than a well-grown child of two. Meanwhile, his mother had borne two +other children, a boy and a girl, one of whom died of croup during +infancy, while the other was carried off by smallpox before it reached +the age of five. Hercules remained the only surviving child. + +“On his twelfth birthday Hercules was still only three feet and two +inches in height. His head, which was very handsome and nobly shaped, +was too big for his body, but otherwise he was exquisitely proportioned, +and, for his size, of great strength and agility. His parents, in the +hope of making him grow, consulted all the most eminent physicians of +the time. Their various prescriptions were followed to the letter, but +in vain. One ordered a very plentiful meat diet; another exercise; a +third constructed a little rack, modelled on those employed by the Holy +Inquisition, on which young Hercules was stretched, with excruciating +torments, for half an hour every morning and evening. In the course of +the next three years Hercules gained perhaps two inches. After that his +growth stopped completely, and he remained for the rest of his life a +pigmy of three feet and four inches. His father, who had built the most +extravagant hopes upon his son, planning for him in his imagination +a military career equal to that of Marlborough, found himself a +disappointed man. ‘I have brought an abortion into the world,’ he would +say, and he took so violent a dislike to his son that the boy dared +scarcely come into his presence. His temper, which had been serene, +was turned by disappointment to moroseness and savagery. He avoided all +company (being, as he said, ashamed to show himself, the father of a +lusus naturae, among normal, healthy human beings), and took to solitary +drinking, which carried him very rapidly to his grave; for the year +before Hercules came of age his father was taken off by an apoplexy. His +mother, whose love for him had increased with the growth of his father’s +unkindness, did not long survive, but little more than a year after +her husband’s death succumbed, after eating two dozen of oysters, to an +attack of typhoid fever. + +“Hercules thus found himself at the age of twenty-one alone in the +world, and master of a considerable fortune, including the estate and +mansion of Crome. The beauty and intelligence of his childhood had +survived into his manly age, and, but for his dwarfish stature, he would +have taken his place among the handsomest and most accomplished young +men of his time. He was well read in the Greek and Latin authors, as +well as in all the moderns of any merit who had written in English, +French, or Italian. He had a good ear for music, and was no indifferent +performer on the violin, which he used to play like a bass viol, seated +on a chair with the instrument between his legs. To the music of the +harpsichord and clavichord he was extremely partial, but the smallness +of his hands made it impossible for him ever to perform upon these +instruments. He had a small ivory flute made for him, on which, +whenever he was melancholy, he used to play a simple country air or jig, +affirming that this rustic music had more power to clear and raise the +spirits than the most artificial productions of the masters. From an +early age he practised the composition of poetry, but, though conscious +of his great powers in this art, he would never publish any specimen of +his writing. ‘My stature,’ he would say, ‘is reflected in my verses; if +the public were to read them it would not be because I am a poet, +but because I am a dwarf.’ Several MS. books of Sir Hercules’s poems +survive. A single specimen will suffice to illustrate his qualities as a +poet.” + + + “‘In ancient days, while yet the world was young, + + Ere Abram fed his flocks or Homer sung; + + When blacksmith Tubal tamed creative fire, + + And Jabal dwelt in tents and Jubal struck the lyre; + + Flesh grown corrupt brought forth a monstrous birth + + And obscene giants trod the shrinking earth, + + Till God, impatient of their sinful brood, + + Gave rein to wrath and drown’d them in the Flood. + + Teeming again, repeopled Tellus bore + + The lubber Hero and the Man of War; + + Huge towers of Brawn, topp’d with an empty Skull, + + Witlessly bold, heroically dull. + + Long ages pass’d and Man grown more refin’d, + + Slighter in muscle but of vaster Mind, + + Smiled at his grandsire’s broadsword, bow and bill, + + And learn’d to wield the Pencil and the Quill. + + The glowing canvas and the written page + + Immortaliz’d his name from age to age, + + His name emblazon’d on Fame’s temple wall; + + For Art grew great as Humankind grew small. + + Thus man’s long progress step by step we trace; + + The Giant dies, the hero takes his place; + + The Giant vile, the dull heroic Block: + + At one we shudder and at one we mock. + + Man last appears. In him the Soul’s pure flame + + Burns brightlier in a not inord’nate frame. + + Of old when Heroes fought and Giants swarmed, + + Men were huge mounds of matter scarce inform’d; + + Wearied by leavening so vast a mass, + + The spirit slept and all the mind was crass. + + The smaller carcase of these later days + + Is soon inform’d; the Soul unwearied plays + + And like a Pharos darts abroad her mental rays. + + But can we think that Providence will stay + + Man’s footsteps here upon the upward way? + + Mankind in understanding and in grace + + Advanc’d so far beyond the Giants’ race? + + Hence impious thought! Still led by GOD’S own Hand, + + Mankind proceeds towards the Promised Land. + + A time will come (prophetic, I descry + + Remoter dawns along the gloomy sky), + + When happy mortals of a Golden Age + + Will backward turn the dark historic page, + + And in our vaunted race of Men behold + + A form as gross, a Mind as dead and cold, + + As we in Giants see, in warriors of old. + + A time will come, wherein the soul shall be + + From all superfluous matter wholly free; + + When the light body, agile as a fawn’s, + + Shall sport with grace along the velvet lawns. + + Nature’s most delicate and final birth, + + Mankind perfected shall possess the earth. + + But ah, not yet! For still the Giants’ race, + + Huge, though diminish’d, tramps the Earth’s fair face; + + Gross and repulsive, yet perversely proud, + + Men of their imperfections boast aloud. + + Vain of their bulk, of all they still retain + + Of giant ugliness absurdly vain; + + At all that’s small they point their stupid scorn + + And, monsters, think themselves divinely born. + + Sad is the Fate of those, ah, sad indeed, + + The rare precursors of the nobler breed! + + Who come man’s golden glory to foretell, + + But pointing Heav’nwards live themselves in Hell.’ + +“As soon as he came into the estate, Sir Hercules set about remodelling +his household. For though by no means ashamed of his deformity--indeed, +if we may judge from the poem quoted above, he regarded himself as being +in many ways superior to the ordinary race of man--he found the presence +of full-grown men and women embarrassing. Realising, too, that he +must abandon all ambitions in the great world, he determined to retire +absolutely from it and to create, as it were, at Crome a private +world of his own, in which all should be proportionable to himself. +Accordingly, he discharged all the old servants of the house and +replaced them gradually, as he was able to find suitable successors, +by others of dwarfish stature. In the course of a few years he had +assembled about himself a numerous household, no member of which was +above four feet high and the smallest among them scarcely two feet and +six inches. His father’s dogs, such as setters, mastiffs, greyhounds, +and a pack of beagles, he sold or gave away as too large and too +boisterous for his house, replacing them by pugs and King Charles +spaniels and whatever other breeds of dog were the smallest. His +father’s stable was also sold. For his own use, whether riding or +driving, he had six black Shetland ponies, with four very choice piebald +animals of New Forest breed. + +“Having thus settled his household entirely to his own satisfaction, it +only remained for him to find some suitable companion with whom to share +his paradise. Sir Hercules had a susceptible heart, and had more than +once, between the ages of sixteen and twenty, felt what it was to love. +But here his deformity had been a source of the most bitter humiliation, +for, having once dared to declare himself to a young lady of his choice, +he had been received with laughter. On his persisting, she had picked +him up and shaken him like an importunate child, telling him to run away +and plague her no more. The story soon got about--indeed, the young lady +herself used to tell it as a particularly pleasant anecdote--and +the taunts and mockery it occasioned were a source of the most acute +distress to Hercules. From the poems written at this period we gather +that he meditated taking his own life. In course of time, however, he +lived down this humiliation; but never again, though he often fell in +love, and that very passionately, did he dare to make any advances to +those in whom he was interested. After coming to the estate and finding +that he was in a position to create his own world as he desired it, he +saw that, if he was to have a wife--which he very much desired, being +of an affectionate and, indeed, amorous temper--he must choose her as +he had chosen his servants--from among the race of dwarfs. But to find +a suitable wife was, he found, a matter of some difficulty; for he would +marry none who was not distinguished by beauty and gentle birth. The +dwarfish daughter of Lord Bemboro he refused on the ground that besides +being a pigmy she was hunchbacked; while another young lady, an orphan +belonging to a very good family in Hampshire, was rejected by him +because her face, like that of so many dwarfs, was wizened and +repulsive. Finally, when he was almost despairing of success, he +heard from a reliable source that Count Titimalo, a Venetian nobleman, +possessed a daughter of exquisite beauty and great accomplishments, who +was by three feet in height. Setting out at once for Venice, he went +immediately on his arrival to pay his respects to the count, whom he +found living with his wife and five children in a very mean apartment +in one of the poorer quarters of the town. Indeed, the count was so far +reduced in his circumstances that he was even then negotiating (so it +was rumoured) with a travelling company of clowns and acrobats, who had +had the misfortune to lose their performing dwarf, for the sale of his +diminutive daughter Filomena. Sir Hercules arrived in time to save her +from this untoward fate, for he was so much charmed by Filomena’s grace +and beauty, that at the end of three days’ courtship he made her a +formal offer of marriage, which was accepted by her no less joyfully +than by her father, who perceived in an English son-in-law a rich and +unfailing source of revenue. After an unostentatious marriage, at which +the English ambassador acted as one of the witnesses, Sir Hercules and +his bride returned by sea to England, where they settled down, as it +proved, to a life of uneventful happiness. + +“Crome and its household of dwarfs delighted Filomena, who felt herself +now for the first time to be a free woman living among her equals in +a friendly world. She had many tastes in common with her husband, +especially that of music. She had a beautiful voice, of a power +surprising in one so small, and could touch A in alt without effort. +Accompanied by her husband on his fine Cremona fiddle, which he played, +as we have noted before, as one plays a bass viol, she would sing all +the liveliest and tenderest airs from the operas and cantatas of her +native country. Seated together at the harpsichord, they found that they +could with their four hands play all the music written for two hands +of ordinary size, a circumstance which gave Sir Hercules unfailing +pleasure. + +“When they were not making music or reading together, which they often +did, both in English and Italian, they spent their time in healthful +outdoor exercises, sometimes rowing in a little boat on the lake, but +more often riding or driving, occupations in which, because they were +entirely new to her, Filomena especially delighted. When she had become +a perfectly proficient rider, Filomena and her husband used often to go +hunting in the park, at that time very much more extensive than it is +now. They hunted not foxes nor hares, but rabbits, using a pack of +about thirty black and fawn-coloured pugs, a kind of dog which, when not +overfed, can course a rabbit as well as any of the smaller breeds. Four +dwarf grooms, dressed in scarlet liveries and mounted on white Exmoor +ponies, hunted the pack, while their master and mistress, in green +habits, followed either on the black Shetlands or on the piebald New +Forest ponies. A picture of the whole hunt--dogs, horses, grooms, and +masters--was painted by William Stubbs, whose work Sir Hercules admired +so much that he invited him, though a man of ordinary stature, to come +and stay at the mansion for the purpose of executing this picture. +Stubbs likewise painted a portrait of Sir Hercules and his lady driving +in their green enamelled calash drawn by four black Shetlands. Sir +Hercules wears a plum-coloured velvet coat and white breeches; Filomena +is dressed in flowered muslin and a very large hat with pink feathers. +The two figures in their gay carriage stand out sharply against a dark +background of trees; but to the left of the picture the trees fall away +and disappear, so that the four black ponies are seen against a pale and +strangely lurid sky that has the golden-brown colour of thunder-clouds +lighted up by the sun. + +“In this way four years passed happily by. At the end of that time +Filomena found herself great with child. Sir Hercules was overjoyed. +‘If God is good,’ he wrote in his day-book, ‘the name of Lapith will be +preserved and our rarer and more delicate race transmitted through the +generations until in the fullness of time the world shall recognise the +superiority of those beings whom now it uses to make mock of.’ On his +wife’s being brought to bed of a son he wrote a poem to the same effect. +The child was christened Ferdinando in memory of the builder of the +house. + +“With the passage of the months a certain sense of disquiet began to +invade the minds of Sir Hercules and his lady. For the child was growing +with an extraordinary rapidity. At a year he weighed as much as Hercules +had weighed when he was three. ‘Ferdinando goes crescendo,’ wrote +Filomena in her diary. ‘It seems not natural.’ At eighteen months the +baby was almost as tall as their smallest jockey, who was a man of +thirty-six. Could it be that Ferdinando was destined to become a man of +the normal, gigantic dimensions? It was a thought to which neither of +his parents dared yet give open utterance, but in the secrecy of their +respective diaries they brooded over it in terror and dismay. + +“On his third birthday Ferdinando was taller than his mother and not +more than a couple of inches short of his father’s height. ‘To-day for +the first time’ wrote Sir Hercules, ‘we discussed the situation. The +hideous truth can be concealed no longer: Ferdinando is not one of us. +On this, his third birthday, a day when we should have been rejoicing at +the health, the strength, and beauty of our child, we wept together over +the ruin of our happiness. God give us strength to bear this cross.’ + +“At the age of eight Ferdinando was so large and so exuberantly healthy +that his parents decided, though reluctantly, to send him to school. +He was packed off to Eton at the beginning of the next half. A profound +peace settled upon the house. Ferdinando returned for the summer +holidays larger and stronger than ever. One day he knocked down the +butler and broke his arm. ‘He is rough, inconsiderate, unamenable to +persuasion,’ wrote his father. ‘The only thing that will teach him +manners is corporal chastisement.’ Ferdinando, who at this age was +already seventeen inches taller than his father, received no corporal +chastisement. + +“One summer holidays about three years later Ferdinando returned to +Crome accompanied by a very large mastiff dog. He had bought it from an +old man at Windsor who had found the beast too expensive to feed. It +was a savage, unreliable animal; hardly had it entered the house when it +attacked one of Sir Hercules’s favourite pugs, seizing the creature in +its jaws and shaking it till it was nearly dead. Extremely put out by +this occurrence, Sir Hercules ordered that the beast should be chained +up in the stable-yard. Ferdinando sullenly answered that the dog was +his, and he would keep it where he pleased. His father, growing angry, +bade him take the animal out of the house at once, on pain of his utmost +displeasure. Ferdinando refused to move. His mother at this moment +coming into the room, the dog flew at her, knocked her down, and in +a twinkling had very severely mauled her arm and shoulder; in another +instant it must infallibly have had her by the throat, had not Sir +Hercules drawn his sword and stabbed the animal to the heart. Turning on +his son, he ordered him to leave the room immediately, as being unfit to +remain in the same place with the mother whom he had nearly murdered. So +awe-inspiring was the spectacle of Sir Hercules standing with one foot +on the carcase of the gigantic dog, his sword drawn and still bloody, so +commanding were his voice, his gestures, and the expression of his face +that Ferdinando slunk out of the room in terror and behaved himself +for all the rest of the vacation in an entirely exemplary fashion. His +mother soon recovered from the bites of the mastiff, but the effect on +her mind of this adventure was ineradicable; from that time forth she +lived always among imaginary terrors. + +“The two years which Ferdinando spent on the Continent, making the Grand +Tour, were a period of happy repose for his parents. But even now +the thought of the future haunted them; nor were they able to solace +themselves with all the diversions of their younger days. The Lady +Filomena had lost her voice and Sir Hercules was grown too rheumatical +to play the violin. He, it is true, still rode after his pugs, but his +wife felt herself too old and, since the episode of the mastiff, too +nervous for such sports. At most, to please her husband, she would +follow the hunt at a distance in a little gig drawn by the safest and +oldest of the Shetlands. + +“The day fixed for Ferdinando’s return came round. Filomena, sick with +vague dreads and presentiments, retired to her chamber and her bed. +Sir Hercules received his son alone. A giant in a brown travelling-suit +entered the room. ‘Welcome home, my son,’ said Sir Hercules in a voice +that trembled a little. + +“‘I hope I see you well, sir.’ Ferdinando bent down to shake hands, then +straightened himself up again. The top of his father’s head reached to +the level of his hip. + +“Ferdinando had not come alone. Two friends of his own age accompanied +him, and each of the young men had brought a servant. Not for thirty +years had Crome been desecrated by the presence of so many members of +the common race of men. Sir Hercules was appalled and indignant, but the +laws of hospitality had to be obeyed. He received the young gentlemen +with grave politeness and sent the servants to the kitchen, with orders +that they should be well cared for. + +“The old family dining-table was dragged out into the light and dusted +(Sir Hercules and his lady were accustomed to dine at a small table +twenty inches high). Simon, the aged butler, who could only just look +over the edge of the big table, was helped at supper by the three +servants brought by Ferdinando and his guests. + +“Sir Hercules presided, and with his usual grace supported a +conversation on the pleasures of foreign travel, the beauties of art and +nature to be met with abroad, the opera at Venice, the singing of the +orphans in the churches of the same city, and on other topics of a +similar nature. The young men were not particularly attentive to his +discourses; they were occupied in watching the efforts of the butler to +change the plates and replenish the glasses. They covered their laughter +by violent and repeated fits of coughing or choking. Sir Hercules +affected not to notice, but changed the subject of the conversation to +sport. Upon this one of the young men asked whether it was true, as he +had heard, that he used to hunt the rabbit with a pack of pug dogs. Sir +Hercules replied that it was, and proceeded to describe the chase in +some detail. The young men roared with laughter. + +“When supper was over, Sir Hercules climbed down from his chair and, +giving as his excuse that he must see how his lady did, bade them +good-night. The sound of laughter followed him up the stairs. Filomena +was not asleep; she had been lying on her bed listening to the sound of +enormous laughter and the tread of strangely heavy feet on the stairs +and along the corridors. Sir Hercules drew a chair to her bedside +and sat there for a long time in silence, holding his wife’s hand and +sometimes gently squeezing it. At about ten o’clock they were startled +by a violent noise. There was a breaking of glass, a stamping of feet, +with an outburst of shouts and laughter. The uproar continuing for +several minutes, Sir Hercules rose to his feet and, in spite of his +wife’s entreaties, prepared to go and see what was happening. There +was no light on the staircase, and Sir Hercules groped his way down +cautiously, lowering himself from stair to stair and standing for a +moment on each tread before adventuring on a new step. The noise was +louder here; the shouting articulated itself into recognisable words +and phrases. A line of light was visible under the dining-room door. Sir +Hercules tiptoed across the hall towards it. Just as he approached the +door there was another terrific crash of breaking glass and jangled +metal. What could they be doing? Standing on tiptoe he managed to look +through the keyhole. In the middle of the ravaged table old Simon, the +butler, so primed with drink that he could scarcely keep his balance, +was dancing a jig. His feet crunched and tinkled among the broken glass, +and his shoes were wet with spilt wine. The three young men sat round, +thumping the table with their hands or with the empty wine bottles, +shouting and laughing encouragement. The three servants leaning against +the wall laughed too. Ferdinando suddenly threw a handful of walnuts at +the dancer’s head, which so dazed and surprised the little man that he +staggered and fell down on his back, upsetting a decanter and several +glasses. They raised him up, gave him some brandy to drink, thumped +him on the back. The old man smiled and hiccoughed. ‘To-morrow,’ said +Ferdinando, ‘we’ll have a concerted ballet of the whole household.’ +‘With father Hercules wearing his club and lion-skin,’ added one of his +companions, and all three roared with laughter. + +“Sir Hercules would look and listen no further. He crossed the hall once +more and began to climb the stairs, lifting his knees painfully high +at each degree. This was the end; there was no place for him now in the +world, no place for him and Ferdinando together. + +“His wife was still awake; to her questioning glance he answered, ‘They +are making mock of old Simon. To-morrow it will be our turn.’ They were +silent for a time. + +“At last Filomena said, ‘I do not want to see to-morrow.’ + +“‘It is better not,’ said Sir Hercules. Going into his closet he wrote +in his day-book a full and particular account of all the events of the +evening. While he was still engaged in this task he rang for a servant +and ordered hot water and a bath to be made ready for him at eleven +o’clock. When he had finished writing he went into his wife’s room, and +preparing a dose of opium twenty times as strong as that which she +was accustomed to take when she could not sleep, he brought it to her, +saying, ‘Here is your sleeping-draught.’ + +“Filomena took the glass and lay for a little time, but did not drink +immediately. The tears came into her eyes. ‘Do you remember the songs we +used to sing, sitting out there sulla terrazza in the summer-time?’ She +began singing softly in her ghost of a cracked voice a few bars from +Stradella’s ‘Amor amor, non dormir piu.’ ‘And you playing on the violin, +it seems such a short time ago, and yet so long, long, long. Addio, +amore, a rivederti.’ She drank off the draught and, lying back on the +pillow, closed her eyes. Sir Hercules kissed her hand and tiptoed away, +as though he were afraid of waking her. He returned to his closet, and +having recorded his wife’s last words to him, he poured into his bath +the water that had been brought up in accordance with his orders. The +water being too hot for him to get into the bath at once, he took down +from the shelf his copy of Suetonius. He wished to read how Seneca had +died. He opened the book at random. ‘But dwarfs,’ he read, ‘he held in +abhorrence as being lusus naturae and of evil omen.’ He winced as though +he had been struck. This same Augustus, he remembered, had exhibited in +the amphitheatre a young man called Lucius, of good family, who was +not quite two feet in height and weighed seventeen pounds, but had +a stentorian voice. He turned over the pages. Tiberius, Caligula, +Claudius, Nero: it was a tale of growing horror. ‘Seneca his preceptor, +he forced to kill himself.’ And there was Petronius, who had called +his friends about him at the last, bidding them talk to him, not of the +consolations of philosophy, but of love and gallantry, while the life +was ebbing away through his opened veins. Dipping his pen once more in +the ink he wrote on the last page of his diary: ‘He died a Roman death.’ +Then, putting the toes of one foot into the water and finding that it +was not too hot, he threw off his dressing-gown and, taking a razor in +his hand, sat down in the bath. With one deep cut he severed the artery +in his left wrist, then lay back and composed his mind to meditation. +The blood oozed out, floating through the water in dissolving wreaths +and spirals. In a little while the whole bath was tinged with pink. The +colour deepened; Sir Hercules felt himself mastered by an invincible +drowsiness; he was sinking from vague dream to dream. Soon he was sound +asleep. There was not much blood in his small body.” + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +For their after-luncheon coffee the party generally adjourned to the +library. Its windows looked east, and at this hour of the day it was the +coolest place in the whole house. It was a large room, fitted, during +the eighteenth century, with white painted shelves of an elegant design. +In the middle of one wall a door, ingeniously upholstered with rows +of dummy books, gave access to a deep cupboard, where, among a pile of +letter-files and old newspapers, the mummy-case of an Egyptian lady, +brought back by the second Sir Ferdinando on his return from the Grand +Tour, mouldered in the darkness. From ten yards away and at a first +glance, one might almost have mistaken this secret door for a section of +shelving filled with genuine books. Coffee-cup in hand, Mr. Scogan +was standing in front of the dummy book-shelf. Between the sips he +discoursed. + +“The bottom shelf,” he was saying, “is taken up by an Encyclopaedia in +fourteen volumes. Useful, but a little dull, as is also Caprimulge’s +‘Dictionary of the Finnish Language’. The ‘Biographical Dictionary’ +looks more promising. ‘Biography of Men who were Born Great’, ‘Biography +of Men who Achieved Greatness’, ‘Biography of Men who had Greatness +Thrust upon Them’, and ‘Biography of Men who were Never Great at All’. +Then there are ten volumes of ‘Thom’s Works and Wanderings’, while the +‘Wild Goose Chase, a Novel’, by an anonymous author, fills no less +than six. But what’s this, what’s this?” Mr. Scogan stood on tiptoe and +peered up. “Seven volumes of the ‘Tales of Knockespotch’. The ‘Tales +of Knockespotch’,” he repeated. “Ah, my dear Henry,” he said, turning +round, “these are your best books. I would willingly give all the rest +of your library for them.” + +The happy possessor of a multitude of first editions, Mr. Wimbush could +afford to smile indulgently. + +“Is it possible,” Mr. Scogan went on, “that they possess nothing more +than a back and a title?” He opened the cupboard door and peeped inside, +as though he hoped to find the rest of the books behind it. “Phooh!” + he said, and shut the door again. “It smells of dust and mildew. How +symbolical! One comes to the great masterpieces of the past, expecting +some miraculous illumination, and one finds, on opening them, only +darkness and dust and a faint smell of decay. After all, what is +reading but a vice, like drink or venery or any other form of excessive +self-indulgence? One reads to tickle and amuse one’s mind; one +reads, above all, to prevent oneself thinking. Still--the ‘Tales of +Knockespotch’...” + +He paused, and thoughtfully drummed with his fingers on the backs of the +non-existent, unattainable books. + +“But I disagree with you about reading,” said Mary. “About serious +reading, I mean.” + +“Quite right, Mary, quite right,” Mr. Scogan answered. “I had forgotten +there were any serious people in the room.” + +“I like the idea of the Biographies,” said Denis. “There’s room for us +all within the scheme; it’s comprehensive.” + +“Yes, the Biographies are good, the Biographies are excellent,” Mr +Scogan agreed. “I imagine them written in a very elegant Regency +style--Brighton Pavilion in words--perhaps by the great Dr. Lempriere +himself. You know his classical dictionary? Ah!” Mr. Scogan raised his +hand and let it limply fall again in a gesture which implied that words +failed him. “Read his biography of Helen; read how Jupiter, disguised +as a swan, was ‘enabled to avail himself of his situation’ vis-a-vis to +Leda. And to think that he may have, must have written these biographies +of the Great! What a work, Henry! And, owing to the idiotic arrangement +of your library, it can’t be read.” + +“I prefer the ‘Wild Goose Chase’,” said Anne. “A novel in six +volumes--it must be restful.” + +“Restful,” Mr. Scogan repeated. “You’ve hit on the right word. A ‘Wild +Goose Chase’ is sound, but a bit old-fashioned--pictures of clerical +life in the fifties, you know; specimens of the landed gentry; peasants +for pathos and comedy; and in the background, always the picturesque +beauties of nature soberly described. All very good and solid, but, like +certain puddings, just a little dull. Personally, I like much better +the notion of ‘Thom’s Works and Wanderings’. The eccentric Mr. Thom of +Thom’s Hill. Old Tom Thom, as his intimates used to call him. He spent +ten years in Thibet organising the clarified butter industry on modern +European lines, and was able to retire at thirty-six with a handsome +fortune. The rest of his life he devoted to travel and ratiocination; +here is the result.” Mr. Scogan tapped the dummy books. “And now we come +to the ‘Tales of Knockespotch’. What a masterpiece and what a great man! +Knockespotch knew how to write fiction. Ah, Denis, if you could only +read Knockespotch you wouldn’t be writing a novel about the wearisome +development of a young man’s character, you wouldn’t be describing in +endless, fastidious detail, cultured life in Chelsea and Bloomsbury and +Hampstead. You would be trying to write a readable book. But then, alas! +owing to the peculiar arrangement of our host’s library, you never will +read Knockespotch.” + +“Nobody could regret the fact more than I do,” said Denis. + +“It was Knockespotch,” Mr. Scogan continued, “the great Knockespotch, +who delivered us from the dreary tyranny of the realistic novel. My +life, Knockespotch said, is not so long that I can afford to spend +precious hours writing or reading descriptions of middle-class +interiors. He said again, ‘I am tired of seeing the human mind bogged in +a social plenum; I prefer to paint it in a vacuum, freely and sportively +bombinating.’” + +“I say,” said Gombauld, “Knockespotch was a little obscure sometimes, +wasn’t he?” + +“He was,” Mr. Scogan replied, “and with intention. It made him seem even +profounder than he actually was. But it was only in his aphorisms that +he was so dark and oracular. In his Tales he was always luminous. Oh, +those Tales--those Tales! How shall I describe them? Fabulous characters +shoot across his pages like gaily dressed performers on the trapeze. +There are extraordinary adventures and still more extraordinary +speculations. Intelligences and emotions, relieved of all the imbecile +preoccupations of civilised life, move in intricate and subtle dances, +crossing and recrossing, advancing, retreating, impinging. An immense +erudition and an immense fancy go hand in hand. All the ideas of the +present and of the past, on every possible subject, bob up among +the Tales, smile gravely or grimace a caricature of themselves, then +disappear to make place for something new. The verbal surface of his +writing is rich and fantastically diversified. The wit is incessant. +The...” + +“But couldn’t you give us a specimen,” Denis broke in--“a concrete +example?” + +“Alas!” Mr. Scogan replied, “Knockespotch’s great book is like the sword +Excalibur. It remains struck fast in this door, awaiting the coming of a +writer with genius enough to draw it forth. I am not even a writer, I +am not so much as qualified to attempt the task. The extraction of +Knockespotch from his wooden prison I leave, my dear Denis, to you.” + +“Thank you,” said Denis. + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +In the time of the amiable Brantome,” Mr. Scogan was saying, “every +debutante at the French Court was invited to dine at the King’s table, +where she was served with wine in a handsome silver cup of Italian +workmanship. It was no ordinary cup, this goblet of the debutantes; +for, inside, it had been most curiously and ingeniously engraved with a +series of very lively amorous scenes. With each draught that the young +lady swallowed these engravings became increasingly visible, and the +Court looked on with interest, every time she put her nose in the cup, +to see whether she blushed at what the ebbing wine revealed. If the +debutante blushed, they laughed at her for her innocence; if she did +not, she was laughed at for being too knowing.” + +“Do you propose,” asked Anne, “that the custom should be revived at +Buckingham Palace?” + +“I do not,” said Mr. Scogan. “I merely quoted the anecdote as an +illustration of the customs, so genially frank, of the sixteenth +century. I might have quoted other anecdotes to show that the customs +of the seventeenth and eighteenth, of the fifteenth and fourteenth +centuries, and indeed of every other century, from the time of Hammurabi +onward, were equally genial and equally frank. The only century in which +customs were not characterised by the same cheerful openness was the +nineteenth, of blessed memory. It was the astonishing exception. And +yet, with what one must suppose was a deliberate disregard of history, +it looked upon its horribly pregnant silences as normal and natural and +right; the frankness of the previous fifteen or twenty thousand years +was considered abnormal and perverse. It was a curious phenomenon.” + +“I entirely agree.” Mary panted with excitement in her effort to bring +out what she had to say. “Havelock Ellis says...” + +Mr. Scogan, like a policeman arresting the flow of traffic, held up his +hand. “He does; I know. And that brings me to my next point: the nature +of the reaction.” + +“Havelock Ellis...” + +“The reaction, when it came--and we may say roughly that it set in +a little before the beginning of this century--the reaction was to +openness, but not to the same openness as had reigned in the earlier +ages. It was to a scientific openness, not to the jovial frankness +of the past, that we returned. The whole question of Amour became a +terribly serious one. Earnest young men wrote in the public prints that +from this time forth it would be impossible ever again to make a joke +of any sexual matter. Professors wrote thick books in which sex was +sterilised and dissected. It has become customary for serious young +women, like Mary, to discuss, with philosophic calm, matters of which +the merest hint would have sufficed to throw the youth of the sixties +into a delirium of amorous excitement. It is all very estimable, no +doubt. But still”--Mr. Scogan sighed.--“I for one should like to see, +mingled with this scientific ardour, a little more of the jovial spirit +of Rabelais and Chaucer.” + +“I entirely disagree with you,” said Mary. “Sex isn’t a laughing matter; +it’s serious.” + +“Perhaps,” answered Mr. Scogan, “perhaps I’m an obscene old man. For I +must confess that I cannot always regard it as wholly serious.” + +“But I tell you...” began Mary furiously. Her face had flushed with +excitement. Her cheeks were the cheeks of a great ripe peach. + +“Indeed,” Mr. Scogan continued, “it seems to me one of few permanently +and everlastingly amusing subjects that exist. Amour is the one human +activity of any importance in which laughter and pleasure preponderate, +if ever so slightly, over misery and pain.” + +“I entirely disagree,” said Mary. There was a silence. + +Anne looked at her watch. “Nearly a quarter to eight,” she said. “I +wonder when Ivor will turn up.” She got up from her deck-chair and, +leaning her elbows on the balustrade of the terrace, looked out over the +valley and towards the farther hills. Under the level evening light the +architecture of the land revealed itself. The deep shadows, the bright +contrasting lights gave the hills a new solidity. Irregularities of the +surface, unsuspected before, were picked out with light and shade. +The grass, the corn, the foliage of trees were stippled with intricate +shadows. The surface of things had taken on a marvellous enrichment. + +“Look!” said Anne suddenly, and pointed. On the opposite side of the +valley, at the crest of the ridge, a cloud of dust flushed by the +sunlight to rosy gold was moving rapidly along the sky-line. “It’s Ivor. +One can tell by the speed.” + +The dust cloud descended into the valley and was lost. A horn with the +voice of a sea-lion made itself heard, approaching. A minute later Ivor +came leaping round the corner of the house. His hair waved in the wind +of his own speed; he laughed as he saw them. + +“Anne, darling,” he cried, and embraced her, embraced Mary, very nearly +embraced Mr. Scogan. “Well, here I am. I’ve come with incredulous +speed.” Ivor’s vocabulary was rich, but a little erratic. “I’m not late +for dinner, am I?” He hoisted himself up on to the balustrade, and +sat there, kicking his heels. With one arm he embraced a large stone +flower-pot, leaning his head sideways against its hard and lichenous +flanks in an attitude of trustful affection. He had brown, wavy hair, +and his eyes were of a very brilliant, pale, improbable blue. His head +was narrow, his face thin and rather long, his nose aquiline. In old +age--though it was difficult to imagine Ivor old--he might grow to have +an Iron Ducal grimness. But now, at twenty-six, it was not the structure +of his face that impressed one; it was its expression. That was charming +and vivacious, and his smile was an irradiation. He was forever moving, +restlessly and rapidly, but with an engaging gracefulness. His frail and +slender body seemed to be fed by a spring of inexhaustible energy. + +“No, you’re not late.” + +“You’re in time to answer a question,” said Mr. Scogan. “We were arguing +whether Amour were a serious matter or no. What do you think? Is it +serious?” + +“Serious?” echoed Ivor. “Most certainly.” + +“I told you so,” cried Mary triumphantly. + +“But in what sense serious?” Mr. Scogan asked. + +“I mean as an occupation. One can go on with it without ever getting +bored.” + +“I see,” said Mr. Scogan. “Perfectly.” + +“One can occupy oneself with it,” Ivor continued, “always and +everywhere. Women are always wonderfully the same. Shapes vary a little, +that’s all. In Spain”--with his free hand he described a series of ample +curves--“one can’t pass them on the stairs. In England”--he put the tip +of his forefinger against the tip of his thumb and, lowering his hand, +drew out this circle into an imaginary cylinder--“In England they’re +tubular. But their sentiments are always the same. At least, I’ve always +found it so.” + +“I’m delighted to hear it,” said Mr. Scogan. + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +The ladies had left the room and the port was circulating. Mr. Scogan +filled his glass, passed on the decanter, and, leaning back in his +chair, looked about him for a moment in silence. The conversation +rippled idly round him, but he disregarded it; he was smiling at some +private joke. Gombauld noticed his smile. + +“What’s amusing you?” he asked. + +“I was just looking at you all, sitting round this table,” said Mr. +Scogan. + +“Are we as comic as all that?” + +“Not at all,” Mr. Scogan answered politely. “I was merely amused by my +own speculations.” + +“And what were they?” + +“The idlest, the most academic of speculations. I was looking at you one +by one and trying to imagine which of the first six Caesars you would +each resemble, if you were given the opportunity of behaving like a +Caesar. The Caesars are one of my touchstones,” Mr. Scogan explained. +“They are characters functioning, so to speak, in the void. They +are human beings developed to their logical conclusions. Hence their +unequalled value as a touchstone, a standard. When I meet someone +for the first time, I ask myself this question: Given the Caesarean +environment, which of the Caesars would this person resemble--Julius, +Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero? I take each trait of +character, each mental and emotional bias, each little oddity, and +magnify them a thousand times. The resulting image gives me his +Caesarean formula.” + +“And which of the Caesars do you resemble?” asked Gombauld. + +“I am potentially all of them,” Mr. Scogan replied, “all--with the +possible exception of Claudius, who was much too stupid to be a +development of anything in my character. The seeds of Julius’s courage +and compelling energy, of Augustus’s prudence, of the libidinousness and +cruelty of Tiberius, of Caligula’s folly, of Nero’s artistic genius and +enormous vanity, are all within me. Given the opportunities, I might +have been something fabulous. But circumstances were against me. I was +born and brought up in a country rectory; I passed my youth doing a +great deal of utterly senseless hard work for a very little money. The +result is that now, in middle age, I am the poor thing that I am. But +perhaps it is as well. Perhaps, too, it’s as well that Denis hasn’t +been permitted to flower into a little Nero, and that Ivor remains only +potentially a Caligula. Yes, it’s better so, no doubt. But it would +have been more amusing, as a spectacle, if they had had the chance to +develop, untrammelled, the full horror of their potentialities. It would +have been pleasant and interesting to watch their tics and foibles and +little vices swelling and burgeoning and blossoming into enormous and +fantastic flowers of cruelty and pride and lewdness and avarice. The +Caesarean environment makes the Caesar, as the special food and the +queenly cell make the queen bee. We differ from the bees in so far that, +given the proper food, they can be sure of making a queen every time. +With us there is no such certainty; out of every ten men placed in the +Caesarean environment one will be temperamentally good, or intelligent, +or great. The rest will blossom into Caesars; he will not. Seventy and +eighty years ago simple-minded people, reading of the exploits of the +Bourbons in South Italy, cried out in amazement: To think that such +things should be happening in the nineteenth century! And a few years +since we too were astonished to find that in our still more astonishing +twentieth century, unhappy blackamoors on the Congo and the Amazon were +being treated as English serfs were treated in the time of Stephen. +To-day we are no longer surprised at these things. The Black and Tans +harry Ireland, the Poles maltreat the Silesians, the bold Fascisti +slaughter their poorer countrymen: we take it all for granted. Since the +war we wonder at nothing. We have created a Caesarean environment and a +host of little Caesars has sprung up. What could be more natural?” + +Mr. Scogan drank off what was left of his port and refilled the glass. + +“At this very moment,” he went on, “the most frightful horrors are taking +place in every corner of the world. People are being crushed, slashed, +disembowelled, mangled; their dead bodies rot and their eyes decay with +the rest. Screams of pain and fear go pulsing through the air at the +rate of eleven hundred feet per second. After travelling for three +seconds they are perfectly inaudible. These are distressing facts; but +do we enjoy life any the less because of them? Most certainly we do not. +We feel sympathy, no doubt; we represent to ourselves imaginatively the +sufferings of nations and individuals and we deplore them. But, after +all, what are sympathy and imagination? Precious little, unless the +person for whom we feel sympathy happens to be closely involved in our +affections; and even then they don’t go very far. And a good thing too; +for if one had an imagination vivid enough and a sympathy sufficiently +sensitive really to comprehend and to feel the sufferings of other +people, one would never have a moment’s peace of mind. A really +sympathetic race would not so much as know the meaning of happiness. +But luckily, as I’ve already said, we aren’t a sympathetic race. At +the beginning of the war I used to think I really suffered, through +imagination and sympathy, with those who physically suffered. But after +a month or two I had to admit that, honestly, I didn’t. And yet I +think I have a more vivid imagination than most. One is always alone in +suffering; the fact is depressing when one happens to be the sufferer, +but it makes pleasure possible for the rest of the world.” + +There was a pause. Henry Wimbush pushed back his chair. + +“I think perhaps we ought to go and join the ladies,” he said. + +“So do I,” said Ivor, jumping up with alacrity. He turned to Mr. Scogan. +“Fortunately,” he said, “we can share our pleasures. We are not always +condemned to be happy alone.” + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +Ivor brought his hands down with a bang on to the final chord of his +rhapsody. There was just a hint in that triumphant harmony that the +seventh had been struck along with the octave by the thumb of the left +hand; but the general effect of splendid noise emerged clearly enough. +Small details matter little so long as the general effect is good. And, +besides, that hint of the seventh was decidedly modern. He turned round +in his seat and tossed the hair back out of his eyes. + +“There,” he said. “That’s the best I can do for you, I’m afraid.” + +Murmurs of applause and gratitude were heard, and Mary, her large china +eyes fixed on the performer, cried out aloud, “Wonderful!” and gasped +for new breath as though she were suffocating. + +Nature and fortune had vied with one another in heaping on Ivor +Lombard all their choicest gifts. He had wealth and he was perfectly +independent. He was good looking, possessed an irresistible charm of +manner, and was the hero of more amorous successes than he could well +remember. His accomplishments were extraordinary for their number and +variety. He had a beautiful untrained tenor voice; he could improvise, +with a startling brilliance, rapidly and loudly, on the piano. He was a +good amateur medium and telepathist, and had a considerable first-hand +knowledge of the next world. He could write rhymed verses with an +extraordinary rapidity. For painting symbolical pictures he had a +dashing style, and if the drawing was sometimes a little weak, the +colour was always pyrotechnical. He excelled in amateur theatricals +and, when occasion offered, he could cook with genius. He resembled +Shakespeare in knowing little Latin and less Greek. For a mind like his, +education seemed supererogatory. Training would only have destroyed his +natural aptitudes. + +“Let’s go out into the garden,” Ivor suggested. “It’s a wonderful +night.” + +“Thank you,” said Mr. Scogan, “but I for one prefer these still more +wonderful arm-chairs.” His pipe had begun to bubble oozily every time he +pulled at it. He was perfectly happy. + +Henry Wimbush was also happy. He looked for a moment over his pince-nez +in Ivor’s direction and then, without saying anything, returned to +the grimy little sixteenth-century account books which were now his +favourite reading. He knew more about Sir Ferdinando’s household +expenses than about his own. + +The outdoor party, enrolled under Ivor’s banner, consisted of Anne, +Mary, Denis, and, rather unexpectedly, Jenny. Outside it was warm and +dark; there was no moon. They walked up and down the terrace, and Ivor +sang a Neapolitan song: “Stretti, stretti”--close, close--with something +about the little Spanish girl to follow. The atmosphere began to +palpitate. Ivor put his arm round Anne’s waist, dropped his head +sideways onto her shoulder, and in that position walked on, singing as +he walked. It seemed the easiest, the most natural, thing in the world. +Denis wondered why he had never done it. He hated Ivor. + +“Let’s go down to the pool,” said Ivor. He disengaged his embrace and +turned round to shepherd his little flock. They made their way along the +side of the house to the entrance of the yew-tree walk that led down to +the lower garden. Between the blank precipitous wall of the house and +the tall yew trees the path was a chasm of impenetrable gloom. Somewhere +there were steps down to the right, a gap in the yew hedge. Denis, who +headed the party, groped his way cautiously; in this darkness, one +had an irrational fear of yawning precipices, of horrible spiked +obstructions. Suddenly from behind him he heard a shrill, startled, +“Oh!” and then a sharp, dry concussion that might have been the sound +of a slap. After that, Jenny’s voice was heard pronouncing, “I am going +back to the house.” Her tone was decided, and even as she pronounced the +words she was melting away into the darkness. The incident, whatever it +had been, was closed. Denis resumed his forward groping. From somewhere +behind Ivor began to sing again, softly: + + + “Phillis plus avare que tendre + + Ne gagnant rien à refuser, + + Un jour exigea à Silvandre + + Trente moutons pour un baiser.” + +The melody drooped and climbed again with a kind of easy languor; the +warm darkness seemed to pulse like blood about them. + + + “Le lendemain, nouvelle affaire: + + Pour le berger le troc fut bon...” + +“Here are the steps,” cried Denis. He guided his companions over the +danger, and in a moment they had the turf of the yew-tree walk under +their feet. It was lighter here, or at least it was just perceptibly +less dark; for the yew walk was wider than the path that had led them +under the lea of the house. Looking up, they could see between the high +black hedges a strip of sky and a few stars. + + + “Car il obtint de la bergere...” + +Went on Ivor, and then interrupted himself to shout, “I’m going to run +down,” and he was off, full speed, down the invisible slope, singing +unevenly as he went: + + + “Trente baisers pour un mouton.” + +The others followed. Denis shambled in the rear, vainly exhorting +everyone to caution: the slope was steep, one might break one’s neck. +What was wrong with these people, he wondered? They had become like +young kittens after a dose of cat-nip. He himself felt a certain +kittenishness sporting within him; but it was, like all his emotions, +rather a theoretical feeling; it did not overmasteringly seek to express +itself in a practical demonstration of kittenishness. + +“Be careful,” he shouted once more, and hardly were the words out of his +mouth when, thump! there was the sound of a heavy fall in front of +him, followed by the long “F-f-f-f-f” of a breath indrawn with pain and +afterwards by a very sincere, “Oo-ooh!” Denis was almost pleased; he had +told them so, the idiots, and they wouldn’t listen. He trotted down the +slope towards the unseen sufferer. + +Mary came down the hill like a runaway steam-engine. It was tremendously +exciting, this blind rush through the dark; she felt she would never +stop. But the ground grew level beneath her feet, her speed insensibly +slackened, and suddenly she was caught by an extended arm and brought to +an abrupt halt. + +“Well,” said Ivor as he tightened his embrace, “you’re caught now, +Anne.” + +She made an effort to release herself. “It’s not Anne. It’s Mary.” + +Ivor burst into a peal of amused laughter. “So it is!” he exclaimed. “I +seem to be making nothing but floaters this evening. I’ve already made +one with Jenny.” He laughed again, and there was something so jolly +about his laughter that Mary could not help laughing too. He did not +remove his encircling arm, and somehow it was all so amusing and natural +that Mary made no further attempt to escape from it. They walked along +by the side of the pool, interlaced. Mary was too short for him to be +able, with any comfort, to lay his head on her shoulder. He rubbed his +cheek, caressed and caressing, against the thick, sleek mass of her +hair. In a little while he began to sing again; the night trembled +amorously to the sound of his voice. When he had finished he kissed her. +Anne or Mary: Mary or Anne. It didn’t seem to make much difference which +it was. There were differences in detail, of course; but the general +effect was the same; and, after all, the general effect was the +important thing. + +Denis made his way down the hill. + +“Any damage done?” he called out. + +“Is that you, Denis? I’ve hurt my ankle so--and my knee, and my hand. +I’m all in pieces.” + +“My poor Anne,” he said. “But then,” he couldn’t help adding, “it was +silly to start running downhill in the dark.” + +“Ass!” she retorted in a tone of tearful irritation; “of course it was.” + +He sat down beside her on the grass, and found himself breathing the faint, +delicious atmosphere of perfume that she carried always with her. + +“Light a match,” she commanded. “I want to look at my wounds.” + +He felt in his pockets for the match-box. The light spurted and then +grew steady. Magically, a little universe had been created, a world of +colours and forms--Anne’s face, the shimmering orange of her dress, her +white, bare arms, a patch of green turf--and round about a darkness that +had become solid and utterly blind. Anne held out her hands; both were +green and earthy with her fall, and the left exhibited two or three red +abrasions. + +“Not so bad,” she said. But Denis was terribly distressed, and his +emotion was intensified when, looking up at her face, he saw that the +trace of tears, involuntary tears of pain, lingered on her eyelashes. +He pulled out his handkerchief and began to wipe away the dirt from +the wounded hand. The match went out; it was not worth while to light +another. Anne allowed herself to be attended to, meekly and gratefully. +“Thank you,” she said, when he had finished cleaning and bandaging her +hand; and there was something in her tone that made him feel that she +had lost her superiority over him, that she was younger than he, +had become, suddenly, almost a child. He felt tremendously large and +protective. The feeling was so strong that instinctively he put his +arm about her. She drew closer, leaned against him, and so they sat in +silence. Then, from below, soft but wonderfully clear through the still +darkness, they heard the sound of Ivor’s singing. He was going on with +his half-finished song: + + + “Le lendemain Phillis plus tendre, + + Ne voulant deplaire au berger, + + Fut trop heureuse de lui rendre + + Trente moutons pour un baiser.” + +There was a rather prolonged pause. It was as though time were being +allowed for the giving and receiving of a few of those thirty kisses. +Then the voice sang on: + + + “Le lendemain Phillis peu sage + + Aurait donne moutons et chien + + Pour un baiser que le volage + + À Lisette donnait pour rien.” + +The last note died away into an uninterrupted silence. + +“Are you better?” Denis whispered. “Are you comfortable like this?” + +She nodded a Yes to both questions. + +“Trente moutons pour un baiser.” The sheep, the woolly mutton--baa, +baa, baa...? Or the shepherd? Yes, decidedly, he felt himself to be +the shepherd now. He was the master, the protector. A wave of courage +swelled through him, warm as wine. He turned his head, and began to kiss +her face, at first rather randomly, then, with more precision, on the +mouth. + +Anne averted her head; he kissed the ear, the smooth nape that this +movement presented him. “No,” she protested; “no, Denis.” + +“Why not?” + +“It spoils our friendship, and that was so jolly.” + +“Bosh!” said Denis. + +She tried to explain. “Can’t you see,” she said, “it isn’t...it isn’t +our stunt at all.” It was true. Somehow she had never thought of Denis +in the light of a man who might make love; she had never so much as +conceived the possibilities of an amorous relationship with him. He was +so absurdly young, so...so...she couldn’t find the adjective, but she +knew what she meant. + +“Why isn’t it our stunt?” asked Denis. “And, by the way, that’s a +horrible and inappropriate expression.” + +“Because it isn’t.” + +“But if I say it is?” + +“It makes no difference. I say it isn’t.” + +“I shall make you say it is.” + +“All right, Denis. But you must do it another time. I must go in and get +my ankle into hot water. It’s beginning to swell.” + +Reasons of health could not be gainsaid. Denis got up reluctantly, and +helped his companion to her feet. She took a cautious step. “Ooh!” She +halted and leaned heavily on his arm. + +“I’ll carry you,” Denis offered. He had never tried to carry a woman, +but on the cinema it always looked an easy piece of heroism. + +“You couldn’t,” said Anne. + +“Of course I can.” He felt larger and more protective than ever. “Put +your arms round my neck,” he ordered. She did so and, stooping, he +picked her up under the knees and lifted her from the ground. Good +heavens, what a weight! He took five staggering steps up the slope, then +almost lost his equilibrium, and had to deposit his burden suddenly, +with something of a bump. + +Anne was shaking with laughter. “I said you couldn’t, my poor Denis.” + +“I can,” said Denis, without conviction. “I’ll try again.” + +“It’s perfectly sweet of you to offer, but I’d rather walk, thanks.” She +laid her hand on his shoulder and, thus supported, began to limp slowly +up the hill. + +“My poor Denis!” she repeated, and laughed again. Humiliated, he was +silent. It seemed incredible that, only two minutes ago, he should +have been holding her in his embrace, kissing her. Incredible. She was +helpless then, a child. Now she had regained all her superiority; she +was once more the far-off being, desired and unassailable. Why had he +been such a fool as to suggest that carrying stunt? He reached the house +in a state of the profoundest depression. + +He helped Anne upstairs, left her in the hands of a maid, and came down +again to the drawing-room. He was surprised to find them all sitting +just where he had left them. He had expected that, somehow, everything +would be quite different--it seemed such a prodigious time since he went +away. All silent and all damned, he reflected, as he looked at them. Mr. +Scogan’s pipe still wheezed; that was the only sound. Henry Wimbush was +still deep in his account books; he had just made the discovery that Sir +Ferdinando was in the habit of eating oysters the whole summer through, +regardless of the absence of the justifying R. Gombauld, in horn-rimmed +spectacles, was reading. Jenny was mysteriously scribbling in her red +notebook. And, seated in her favourite arm-chair at the corner of the +hearth, Priscilla was looking through a pile of drawings. One by one she +held them out at arm’s length and, throwing back her mountainous orange +head, looked long and attentively through half-closed eyelids. She wore +a pale sea-green dress; on the slope of her mauve-powdered decolletage +diamonds twinkled. An immensely long cigarette-holder projected at an +angle from her face. Diamonds were embedded in her high-piled +coiffure; they glittered every time she moved. It was a batch of Ivor’s +drawings--sketches of Spirit Life, made in the course of tranced tours +through the other world. On the back of each sheet descriptive titles +were written: “Portrait of an Angel, 15th March ‘20;” “Astral Beings +at Play, 3rd December ‘19;” “A Party of Souls on their Way to a Higher +Sphere, 21st May ‘21.” Before examining the drawing on the obverse of +each sheet, she turned it over to read the title. Try as she could--and +she tried hard--Priscilla had never seen a vision or succeeded in +establishing any communication with the Spirit World. She had to be +content with the reported experiences of others. + +“What have you done with the rest of your party?” she asked, looking up +as Denis entered the room. + +He explained. Anne had gone to bed, Ivor and Mary were still in the +garden. He selected a book and a comfortable chair, and tried, as far as +the disturbed state of his mind would permit him, to compose himself +for an evening’s reading. The lamplight was utterly serene; there was no +movement save the stir of Priscilla among her papers. All silent and all +damned, Denis repeated to himself, all silent and all damned... + +It was nearly an hour later when Ivor and Mary made their appearance. + +“We waited to see the moon rise,” said Ivor. + +“It was gibbous, you know,” Mary explained, very technical and +scientific. + +“It was so beautiful down in the garden! The trees, the scent of the +flowers, the stars...” Ivor waved his arms. “And when the moon came up, +it was really too much. It made me burst into tears.” He sat down at the +piano and opened the lid. + +“There were a great many meteorites,” said Mary to anyone who would +listen. “The earth must just be coming into the summer shower of them. +In July and August...” + +But Ivor had already begun to strike the keys. He played the garden, +the stars, the scent of flowers, the rising moon. He even put in a +nightingale that was not there. Mary looked on and listened with parted +lips. The others pursued their occupations, without appearing to be +seriously disturbed. On this very July day, exactly three hundred and +fifty years ago, Sir Ferdinando had eaten seven dozen oysters. The +discovery of this fact gave Henry Wimbush a peculiar pleasure. He had +a natural piety which made him delight in the celebration of memorial +feasts. The three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the seven dozen +oysters...He wished he had known before dinner; he would have ordered +champagne. + +On her way to bed Mary paid a call. The light was out in Anne’s room, +but she was not yet asleep. + +“Why didn’t you come down to the garden with us?” Mary asked. + +“I fell down and twisted my ankle. Denis helped me home.” + +Mary was full of sympathy. Inwardly, too, she was relieved to find +Anne’s non-appearance so simply accounted for. She had been vaguely +suspicious, down there in the garden--suspicious of what, she hardly +knew; but there had seemed to be something a little louche in the way +she had suddenly found herself alone with Ivor. Not that she minded, of +course; far from it. But she didn’t like the idea that perhaps she was +the victim of a put-up job. + +“I do hope you’ll be better to-morrow,” she said, and she commiserated +with Anne on all she had missed--the garden, the stars, the scent of +flowers, the meteorites through whose summer shower the earth was now +passing, the rising moon and its gibbosity. And then they had had such +interesting conversation. What about? About almost everything. Nature, +art, science, poetry, the stars, spiritualism, the relations of the +sexes, music, religion. Ivor, she thought, had an interesting mind. + +The two young ladies parted affectionately. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +The nearest Roman Catholic church was upwards of twenty miles away. +Ivor, who was punctilious in his devotions, came down early to breakfast +and had his car at the door, ready to start, by a quarter to ten. It was +a smart, expensive-looking machine, enamelled a pure lemon yellow and +upholstered in emerald green leather. There were two seats--three if you +squeezed tightly enough--and their occupants were protected from +wind, dust, and weather by a glazed sedan that rose, an elegant +eighteenth-century hump, from the midst of the body of the car. + +Mary had never been to a Roman Catholic service, thought it would be an +interesting experience, and, when the car moved off through the great +gates of the courtyard, she was occupying the spare seat in the sedan. +The sea-lion horn roared, faintlier, faintlier, and they were gone. + +In the parish church of Crome Mr. Bodiham preached on 1 Kings vi. 18: +“And the cedar of the house within was carved with knops”--a sermon of +immediately local interest. For the past two years the problem of the +War Memorial had exercised the minds of all those in Crome who had +enough leisure, or mental energy, or party spirit to think of such +things. Henry Wimbush was all for a library--a library of local +literature, stocked with county histories, old maps of the district, +monographs on the local antiquities, dialect dictionaries, handbooks +of the local geology and natural history. He liked to think of the +villagers, inspired by such reading, making up parties of a Sunday +afternoon to look for fossils and flint arrow-heads. The villagers +themselves favoured the idea of a memorial reservoir and water supply. +But the busiest and most articulate party followed Mr. Bodiham in +demanding something religious in character--a second lich-gate, for +example, a stained-glass window, a monument of marble, or, if possible, +all three. So far, however, nothing had been done, partly because the +memorial committee had never been able to agree, partly for the more +cogent reason that too little money had been subscribed to carry out any +of the proposed schemes. Every three or four months Mr. Bodiham preached +a sermon on the subject. His last had been delivered in March; it was +high time that his congregation had a fresh reminder. + +“And the cedar of the house within was carved with knops.” + +Mr. Bodiham touched lightly on Solomon’s temple. From thence he passed +to temples and churches in general. What were the characteristics of +these buildings dedicated to God? Obviously, the fact of their, from +a human point of view, complete uselessness. They were unpractical +buildings “carved with knops.” Solomon might have built a +library--indeed, what could be more to the taste of the world’s wisest +man? He might have dug a reservoir--what more useful in a parched city +like Jerusalem? He did neither; he built a house all carved with knops, +useless and unpractical. Why? Because he was dedicating the work to God. +There had been much talk in Crome about the proposed War Memorial. A +War Memorial was, in its very nature, a work dedicated to God. It was a +token of thankfulness that the first stage in the culminating world-war +had been crowned by the triumph of righteousness; it was at the same +time a visibly embodied supplication that God might not long delay the +Advent which alone could bring the final peace. A library, a reservoir? +Mr. Bodiham scornfully and indignantly condemned the idea. These were +works dedicated to man, not to God. As a War Memorial they were totally +unsuitable. A lich-gate had been suggested. This was an object which +answered perfectly to the definition of a War Memorial: a useless work +dedicated to God and carved with knops. One lich-gate, it was true, +already existed. But nothing would be easier than to make a second +entrance into the churchyard; and a second entrance would need a second +gate. Other suggestions had been made. Stained-glass windows, a monument +of marble. Both these were admirable, especially the latter. It was high +time that the War Memorial was erected. It might soon be too late. +At any moment, like a thief in the night, God might come. Meanwhile a +difficulty stood in the way. Funds were inadequate. All should subscribe +according to their means. Those who had lost relations in the war might +reasonably be expected to subscribe a sum equal to that which they would +have had to pay in funeral expenses if the relative had died while at +home. Further delay was disastrous. The War Memorial must be built at +once. He appealed to the patriotism and the Christian sentiments of all +his hearers. + +Henry Wimbush walked home thinking of the books he would present to the +War Memorial Library, if ever it came into existence. He took the path +through the fields; it was pleasanter than the road. At the first +stile a group of village boys, loutish young fellows all dressed in the +hideous ill-fitting black which makes a funeral of every English Sunday +and holiday, were assembled, drearily guffawing as they smoked their +cigarettes. They made way for Henry Wimbush, touching their caps as he +passed. He returned their salute; his bowler and face were one in their +unruffled gravity. + +In Sir Ferdinando’s time, he reflected, in the time of his son, Sir +Julius, these young men would have had their Sunday diversions even at +Crome, remote and rustic Crome. There would have been archery, skittles, +dancing--social amusements in which they would have partaken as members +of a conscious community. Now they had nothing, nothing except Mr. +Bodiham’s forbidding Boys’ Club and the rare dances and concerts +organised by himself. Boredom or the urban pleasures of the county +metropolis were the alternatives that presented themselves to these poor +youths. Country pleasures were no more; they had been stamped out by the +Puritans. + +In Manningham’s Diary for 1600 there was a queer passage, he remembered, +a very queer passage. Certain magistrates in Berkshire, Puritan +magistrates, had had wind of a scandal. One moonlit summer night they +had ridden out with their posse and there, among the hills, they had +come upon a company of men and women, dancing, stark naked, among the +sheepcotes. The magistrates and their men had ridden their horses into +the crowd. How self-conscious the poor people must suddenly have felt, +how helpless without their clothes against armed and booted horsemen! +The dancers were arrested, whipped, gaoled, set in the stocks; the +moonlight dance is never danced again. What old, earthy, Panic rite came +to extinction here? he wondered. Who knows?--perhaps their ancestors had +danced like this in the moonlight ages before Adam and Eve were so much +as thought of. He liked to think so. And now it was no more. These weary +young men, if they wanted to dance, would have to bicycle six miles to +the town. The country was desolate, without life of its own, without +indigenous pleasures. The pious magistrates had snuffed out for ever a +little happy flame that had burned from the beginning of time. + + + “And as on Tullia’s tomb one lamp burned clear, + + Unchanged for fifteen hundred year...” + +He repeated the lines to himself, and was desolated to think of all the +murdered past. + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +Henry Wimbush’s long cigar burned aromatically. The “History of Crome” + lay on his knee; slowly he turned over the pages. + +“I can’t decide what episode to read you to-night,” he said +thoughtfully. “Sir Ferdinando’s voyages are not without interest. Then, +of course, there’s his son, Sir Julius. It was he who suffered from the +delusion that his perspiration engendered flies; it drove him finally to +suicide. Or there’s Sir Cyprian.” He turned the pages more rapidly. “Or +Sir Henry. Or Sir George...No, I’m inclined to think I won’t read about +any of these.” + +“But you must read something,” insisted Mr. Scogan, taking his pipe out +of his mouth. + +“I think I shall read about my grandfather,” said Henry Wimbush, “and +the events that led up to his marriage with the eldest daughter of the +last Sir Ferdinando.” + +“Good,” said Mr. Scogan. “We are listening.” + +“Before I begin reading,” said Henry Wimbush, looking up from the +book and taking off the pince-nez which he had just fitted to his +nose--“before I begin, I must say a few preliminary words about Sir +Ferdinando, the last of the Lapiths. At the death of the virtuous and +unfortunate Sir Hercules, Ferdinando found himself in possession of the +family fortune, not a little increased by his father’s temperance and +thrift; he applied himself forthwith to the task of spending it, which +he did in an ample and jovial fashion. By the time he was forty he had +eaten and, above all, drunk and loved away about half his capital, and +would infallibly have soon got rid of the rest in the same manner, if +he had not had the good fortune to become so madly enamoured of the +Rector’s daughter as to make a proposal of marriage. The young lady +accepted him, and in less than a year had become the absolute mistress +of Crome and her husband. An extraordinary reformation made itself +apparent in Sir Ferdinando’s character. He grew regular and economical +in his habits; he even became temperate, rarely drinking more than +a bottle and a half of port at a sitting. The waning fortune of the +Lapiths began once more to wax, and that in despite of the hard times +(for Sir Ferdinando married in 1809 in the height of the Napoleonic +Wars). A prosperous and dignified old age, cheered by the spectacle of +his children’s growth and happiness--for Lady Lapith had already borne +him three daughters, and there seemed no good reason why she should not +bear many more of them, and sons as well--a patriarchal decline into the +family vault, seemed now to be Sir Ferdinando’s enviable destiny. But +Providence willed otherwise. To Napoleon, cause already of such infinite +mischief, was due, though perhaps indirectly, the untimely and violent +death which put a period to this reformed existence. + +“Sir Ferdinando, who was above all things a patriot, had adopted, from +the earliest days of the conflict with the French, his own peculiar +method of celebrating our victories. When the happy news reached London, +it was his custom to purchase immediately a large store of liquor and, +taking a place on whichever of the outgoing coaches he happened to light +on first, to drive through the country proclaiming the good news to all +he met on the road and dispensing it, along with the liquor, at every +stopping-place to all who cared to listen or drink. Thus, after the +Nile, he had driven as far as Edinburgh; and later, when the coaches, +wreathed with laurel for triumph, with cypress for mourning, were +setting out with the news of Nelson’s victory and death, he sat through +all a chilly October night on the box of the Norwich ‘Meteor’ with a +nautical keg of rum on his knees and two cases of old brandy under the +seat. This genial custom was one of the many habits which he abandoned +on his marriage. The victories in the Peninsula, the retreat from +Moscow, Leipzig, and the abdication of the tyrant all went uncelebrated. +It so happened, however, that in the summer of 1815 Sir Ferdinando was +staying for a few weeks in the capital. There had been a succession of +anxious, doubtful days; then came the glorious news of Waterloo. It was +too much for Sir Ferdinando; his joyous youth awoke again within him. He +hurried to his wine merchant and bought a dozen bottles of 1760 brandy. +The Bath coach was on the point of starting; he bribed his way on to +the box and, seated in glory beside the driver, proclaimed aloud the +downfall of the Corsican bandit and passed about the warm liquid joy. +They clattered through Uxbridge, Slough, Maidenhead. Sleeping Reading +was awakened by the great news. At Didcot one of the ostlers was so +much overcome by patriotic emotions and the 1760 brandy that he found it +impossible to do up the buckles of the harness. The night began to grow +chilly, and Sir Ferdinando found that it was not enough to take a nip +at every stage: to keep up his vital warmth he was compelled to drink +between the stages as well. They were approaching Swindon. The coach +was travelling at a dizzy speed--six miles in the last half-hour--when, +without having manifested the slightest premonitory symptom of +unsteadiness, Sir Ferdinando suddenly toppled sideways off his seat +and fell, head foremost, into the road. An unpleasant jolt awakened the +slumbering passengers. The coach was brought to a standstill; the +guard ran back with a light. He found Sir Ferdinando still alive, but +unconscious; blood was oozing from his mouth. The back wheels of the +coach had passed over his body, breaking most of his ribs and both arms. +His skull was fractured in two places. They picked him up, but he was +dead before they reached the next stage. So perished Sir Ferdinando, +a victim to his own patriotism. Lady Lapith did not marry again, but +determined to devote the rest of her life to the well-being of her three +children--Georgiana, now five years old, and Emmeline and Caroline, +twins of two.” + +Henry Wimbush paused, and once more put on his pince-nez. “So much +by way of introduction,” he said. “Now I can begin to read about my +grandfather.” + +“One moment,” said Mr. Scogan, “till I’ve refilled my pipe.” + +Mr. Wimbush waited. Seated apart in a corner of the room, Ivor was +showing Mary his sketches of Spirit Life. They spoke together in +whispers. + +Mr. Scogan had lighted his pipe again. “Fire away,” he said. + +Henry Wimbush fired away. + +“It was in the spring of 1833 that my grandfather, George Wimbush, first +made the acquaintance of the ‘three lovely Lapiths,’ as they were always +called. He was then a young man of twenty-two, with curly yellow hair +and a smooth pink face that was the mirror of his youthful and ingenuous +mind. He had been educated at Harrow and Christ Church, he enjoyed +hunting and all other field sports, and, though his circumstances were +comfortable to the verge of affluence, his pleasures were temperate and +innocent. His father, an East Indian merchant, had destined him for a +political career, and had gone to considerable expense in acquiring a +pleasant little Cornish borough as a twenty-first birthday gift for his +son. He was justly indignant when, on the very eve of George’s majority, +the Reform Bill of 1832 swept the borough out of existence. The +inauguration of George’s political career had to be postponed. At the +time he got to know the lovely Lapiths he was waiting; he was not at all +impatient. + +“The lovely Lapiths did not fail to impress him. Georgiana, the eldest, +with her black ringlets, her flashing eyes, her noble aquiline profile, +her swan-like neck, and sloping shoulders, was orientally dazzling; and +the twins, with their delicately turned-up noses, their blue eyes, and +chestnut hair, were an identical pair of ravishingly English charmers. + +“Their conversation at this first meeting proved, however, to be so +forbidding that, but for the invincible attraction exercised by their +beauty, George would never have had the courage to follow up the +acquaintance. The twins, looking up their noses at him with an air of +languid superiority, asked him what he thought of the latest French +poetry and whether he liked the ‘Indiana’ of George Sand. But what +was almost worse was the question with which Georgiana opened her +conversation with him. ‘In music,’ she asked, leaning forward and +fixing him with her large dark eyes, ‘are you a classicist or a +transcendentalist?’ George did not lose his presence of mind. He had +enough appreciation of music to know that he hated anything classical, +and so, with a promptitude which did him credit, he replied, ‘I am a +transcendentalist.’ Georgiana smiled bewitchingly. ‘I am glad,’ she +said; ‘so am I. You went to hear Paganini last week, of course. “The +prayer of Moses”--ah!’ She closed her eyes. ‘Do you know anything more +transcendental than that?’ ‘No,’ said George, ‘I don’t.’ He hesitated, +was about to go on speaking, and then decided that after all it would be +wiser not to say--what was in fact true--that he had enjoyed above all +Paganini’s Farmyard Imitations. The man had made his fiddle bray like +an ass, cluck like a hen, grunt, squeal, bark, neigh, quack, bellow, and +growl; that last item, in George’s estimation, had almost compensated +for the tediousness of the rest of the concert. He smiled with pleasure +at the thought of it. Yes, decidedly, he was no classicist in music; he +was a thoroughgoing transcendentalist. + +“George followed up this first introduction by paying a call on the +young ladies and their mother, who occupied, during the season, a small +but elegant house in the neighbourhood of Berkeley Square. Lady Lapith +made a few discreet inquiries, and having found that George’s financial +position, character, and family were all passably good, she asked him to +dine. She hoped and expected that her daughters would all marry into +the peerage; but, being a prudent woman, she knew it was advisable to +prepare for all contingencies. George Wimbush, she thought, would make +an excellent second string for one of the twins. + +“At this first dinner, George’s partner was Emmeline. They talked of +Nature. Emmeline protested that to her high mountains were a feeling and +the hum of human cities torture. George agreed that the country was very +agreeable, but held that London during the season also had its charms. +He noticed with surprise and a certain solicitous distress that Miss +Emmeline’s appetite was poor, that it didn’t, in fact, exist. Two +spoonfuls of soup, a morsel of fish, no bird, no meat, and three +grapes--that was her whole dinner. He looked from time to time at her +two sisters; Georgiana and Caroline seemed to be quite as abstemious. +They waved away whatever was offered them with an expression of delicate +disgust, shutting their eyes and averting their faces from the proffered +dish, as though the lemon sole, the duck, the loin of veal, the trifle, +were objects revolting to the sight and smell. George, who thought the +dinner capital, ventured to comment on the sisters’ lack of appetite. + +“‘Pray, don’t talk to me of eating,’ said Emmeline, drooping like a +sensitive plant. ‘We find it so coarse, so unspiritual, my sisters and +I. One can’t think of one’s soul while one is eating.’ + +“George agreed; one couldn’t. ‘But one must live,’ he said. + +“‘Alas!’ Emmeline sighed. ‘One must. Death is very beautiful, don’t you +think?’ She broke a corner off a piece of toast and began to nibble +at it languidly. ‘But since, as you say, one must live...’ She made a +little gesture of resignation. ‘Luckily a very little suffices to keep +one alive.’ She put down her corner of toast half eaten. + +“George regarded her with some surprise. She was pale, but she looked +extraordinarily healthy, he thought; so did her sisters. Perhaps if +you were really spiritual you needed less food. He, clearly, was not +spiritual. + +“After this he saw them frequently. They all liked him, from Lady Lapith +downwards. True, he was not very romantic or poetical; but he was such a +pleasant, unpretentious, kind-hearted young man, that one couldn’t +help liking him. For his part, he thought them wonderful, wonderful, +especially Georgiana. He enveloped them all in a warm, protective +affection. For they needed protection; they were altogether too frail, +too spiritual for this world. They never ate, they were always pale, +they often complained of fever, they talked much and lovingly of death, +they frequently swooned. Georgiana was the most ethereal of all; of the +three she ate least, swooned most often, talked most of death, and was +the palest--with a pallor that was so startling as to appear positively +artificial. At any moment, it seemed, she might loose her precarious +hold on this material world and become all spirit. To George the thought +was a continual agony. If she were to die... + +“She contrived, however, to live through the season, and that in spite +of the numerous balls, routs, and other parties of pleasure which, in +company with the rest of the lovely trio, she never failed to attend. In +the middle of July the whole household moved down to the country. George +was invited to spend the month of August at Crome. + +“The house-party was distinguished; in the list of visitors figured +the names of two marriageable young men of title. George had hoped that +country air, repose, and natural surroundings might have restored to +the three sisters their appetites and the roses of their cheeks. He was +mistaken. For dinner, the first evening, Georgiana ate only an olive, +two or three salted almonds, and half a peach. She was as pale as ever. +During the meal she spoke of love. + +“‘True love,’ she said, ‘being infinite and eternal, can only be +consummated in eternity. Indiana and Sir Rodolphe celebrated the mystic +wedding of their souls by jumping into Niagara. Love is incompatible +with life. The wish of two people who truly love one another is not to +live together but to die together.’ + +“‘Come, come, my dear,’ said Lady Lapith, stout and practical. ‘What +would become of the next generation, pray, if all the world acted on +your principles?’ + +“‘Mamma!...’ Georgiana protested, and dropped her eyes. + +“‘In my young days,’ Lady Lapith went on, ‘I should have been laughed +out of countenance if I’d said a thing like that. But then in my young +days souls weren’t as fashionable as they are now and we didn’t think +death was at all poetical. It was just unpleasant.’ + +“‘Mamma!...’ Emmeline and Caroline implored in unison. + +“‘In my young days--’ Lady Lapith was launched into her subject; +nothing, it seemed, could stop her now. ‘In my young days, if you didn’t +eat, people told you you needed a dose of rhubarb. Nowadays...’ + +“There was a cry; Georgiana had swooned sideways on to Lord Timpany’s +shoulder. It was a desperate expedient; but it was successful. Lady +Lapith was stopped. + +“The days passed in an uneventful round of pleasures. Of all the gay +party George alone was unhappy. Lord Timpany was paying his court to +Georgiana, and it was clear that he was not unfavourably received. +George looked on, and his soul was a hell of jealousy and despair. The +boisterous company of the young men became intolerable to him; he shrank +from them, seeking gloom and solitude. One morning, having broken away +from them on some vague pretext, he returned to the house alone. The +young men were bathing in the pool below; their cries and laughter +floated up to him, making the quiet house seem lonelier and more silent. +The lovely sisters and their mamma still kept their chambers; they did +not customarily make their appearance till luncheon, so that the male +guests had the morning to themselves. George sat down in the hall and +abandoned himself to thought. + +“At any moment she might die; at any moment she might become Lady +Timpany. It was terrible, terrible. If she died, then he would die +too; he would go to seek her beyond the grave. If she became Lady +Timpany...ah, then! The solution of the problem would not be so simple. +If she became Lady Timpany: it was a horrible thought. But then suppose +she were in love with Timpany--though it seemed incredible that anyone +could be in love with Timpany--suppose her life depended on Timpany, +suppose she couldn’t live without him? He was fumbling his way along +this clueless labyrinth of suppositions when the clock struck twelve. On +the last stroke, like an automaton released by the turning clockwork, a +little maid, holding a large covered tray, popped out of the door that +led from the kitchen regions into the hall. From his deep arm-chair +George watched her (himself, it was evident, unobserved) with an idle +curiosity. She pattered across the room and came to a halt in front of +what seemed a blank expense of panelling. She reached out her hand and, +to George’s extreme astonishment, a little door swung open, revealing +the foot of a winding staircase. Turning sideways in order to get her +tray through the narrow opening, the little maid darted in with a rapid +crab-like motion. The door closed behind her with a click. A minute +later it opened again and the maid, without her tray, hurried back +across the hall and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. George +tried to recompose his thoughts, but an invincible curiosity drew his +mind towards the hidden door, the staircase, the little maid. It was in +vain he told himself that the matter was none of his business, that to +explore the secrets of that surprising door, that mysterious staircase +within, would be a piece of unforgivable rudeness and indiscretion. +It was in vain; for five minutes he struggled heroically with his +curiosity, but at the end of that time he found himself standing in +front of the innocent sheet of panelling through which the little maid +had disappeared. A glance sufficed to show him the position of the +secret door--secret, he perceived, only to those who looked with +a careless eye. It was just an ordinary door let in flush with the +panelling. No latch nor handle betrayed its position, but an unobtrusive +catch sunk in the wood invited the thumb. George was astonished that he +had not noticed it before; now he had seen it, it was so obvious, +almost as obvious as the cupboard door in the library with its lines +of imitation shelves and its dummy books. He pulled back the catch and +peeped inside. The staircase, of which the degrees were made not +of stone but of blocks of ancient oak, wound up and out of sight. +A slit-like window admitted the daylight; he was at the foot of the +central tower, and the little window looked out over the terrace; they +were still shouting and splashing in the pool below. + +“George closed the door and went back to his seat. But his curiosity +was not satisfied. Indeed, this partial satisfaction had but whetted +its appetite. Where did the staircase lead? What was the errand of the +little maid? It was no business of his, he kept repeating--no business +of his. He tried to read, but his attention wandered. A quarter-past +twelve sounded on the harmonious clock. Suddenly determined, George +rose, crossed the room, opened the hidden door, and began to ascend +the stairs. He passed the first window, corkscrewed round, and came +to another. He paused for a moment to look out; his heart beat +uncomfortably, as though he were affronting some unknown danger. What +he was doing, he told himself, was extremely ungentlemanly, horribly +underbred. He tiptoed onward and upward. One turn more, then half a +turn, and a door confronted him. He halted before it, listened; he could +hear no sound. Putting his eye to the keyhole, he saw nothing but a +stretch of white sunlit wall. Emboldened, he turned the handle and +stepped across the threshold. There he halted, petrified by what he saw, +mutely gaping. + +“In the middle of a pleasantly sunny little room--‘it is now Priscilla’s +boudoir,’ Mr. Wimbush remarked parenthetically--stood a small circular +table of mahogany. Crystal, porcelain, and silver,--all the shining +apparatus of an elegant meal--were mirrored in its polished depths. The +carcase of a cold chicken, a bowl of fruit, a great ham, deeply gashed +to its heart of tenderest white and pink, the brown cannon ball of +a cold plum-pudding, a slender Hock bottle, and a decanter of claret +jostled one another for a place on this festive board. And round the +table sat the three sisters, the three lovely Lapiths--eating! + +“At George’s sudden entrance they had all looked towards the door, and +now they sat, petrified by the same astonishment which kept George fixed +and staring. Georgiana, who sat immediately facing the door, gazed at +him with dark, enormous eyes. Between the thumb and forefinger of her +right hand she was holding a drumstick of the dismembered chicken; her +little finger, elegantly crooked, stood apart from the rest of her hand. +Her mouth was open, but the drumstick had never reached its destination; +it remained, suspended, frozen, in mid-air. The other two sisters had +turned round to look at the intruder. Caroline still grasped her knife +and fork; Emmeline’s fingers were round the stem of her claret glass. +For what seemed a very long time, George and the three sisters stared +at one another in silence. They were a group of statues. Then suddenly +there was movement. Georgiana dropped her chicken bone, Caroline’s knife +and fork clattered on her plate. The movement propagated itself, grew +more decisive; Emmeline sprang to her feet, uttering a cry. The wave of +panic reached George; he turned and, mumbling something unintelligible +as he went, rushed out of the room and down the winding stairs. He came +to a standstill in the hall, and there, all by himself in the quiet +house, he began to laugh. + +“At luncheon it was noticed that the sisters ate a little more than +usual. Georgiana toyed with some French beans and a spoonful of +calves’-foot jelly. ‘I feel a little stronger to-day,’ she said to Lord +Timpany, when he congratulated her on this increase of appetite; ‘a +little more material,’ she added, with a nervous laugh. Looking up, she +caught George’s eye; a blush suffused her cheeks and she looked hastily +away. + +“In the garden that afternoon they found themselves for a moment alone. + +“You won’t tell anyone, George? Promise you won’t tell anyone,’ she +implored. ‘It would make us look so ridiculous. And besides, eating IS +unspiritual, isn’t it? Say you won’t tell anyone.’ + +“‘I will,’ said George brutally. ‘I’ll tell everyone, unless...’ + +“‘It’s blackmail.’ + +“‘I don’t care, said George. ‘I’ll give you twenty-four hours to +decide.’ + +“Lady Lapith was disappointed, of course; she had hoped for better +things--for Timpany and a coronet. But George, after all, wasn’t so bad. +They were married at the New Year. + +“My poor grandfather!” Mr. Wimbush added, as he closed his book and +put away his pince-nez. “Whenever I read in the papers about oppressed +nationalities, I think of him.” He relighted his cigar. “It was +a maternal government, highly centralised, and there were no +representative institutions.” + +Henry Wimbush ceased speaking. In the silence that ensued Ivor’s +whispered commentary on the spirit sketches once more became audible. +Priscilla, who had been dozing, suddenly woke up. + +“What?” she said in the startled tones of one newly returned to +consciousness; “what?” + +Jenny caught the words. She looked up, smiled, nodded reassuringly. +“It’s about a ham,” she said. + +“What’s about a ham?” + +“What Henry has been reading.” She closed the red notebook lying on +her knees and slipped a rubber band round it. “I’m going to bed,” she +announced, and got up. + +“So am I,” said Anne, yawning. But she lacked the energy to rise from +her arm-chair. + +The night was hot and oppressive. Round the open windows the curtains +hung unmoving. Ivor, fanning himself with the portrait of an Astral +Being, looked out into the darkness and drew a breath. + +“The air’s like wool,” he declared. + +“It will get cooler after midnight,” said Henry Wimbush, and cautiously +added, “perhaps.” + +“I shan’t sleep, I know.” + +Priscilla turned her head in his direction; the monumental coiffure +nodded exorbitantly at her slightest movement. “You must make an +effort,” she said. “When I can’t sleep, I concentrate my will: I say, +‘I will sleep, I am asleep!’ And pop! off I go. That’s the power of +thought.” + +“But does it work on stuffy nights?” Ivor inquired. “I simply cannot +sleep on a stuffy night.” + +“Nor can I,” said Mary, “except out of doors.” + +“Out of doors! What a wonderful idea!” In the end they decided to sleep +on the towers--Mary on the western tower, Ivor on the eastern. There +was a flat expanse of leads on each of the towers, and you could get a +mattress through the trap doors that opened on to them. Under the stars, +under the gibbous moon, assuredly they would sleep. The mattresses were +hauled up, sheets and blankets were spread, and an hour later the two +insomniasts, each on his separate tower, were crying their good-nights +across the dividing gulf. + +On Mary the sleep-compelling charm of the open air did not work with its +expected magic. Even through the mattress one could not fail to be aware +that the leads were extremely hard. Then there were noises: the owls +screeched tirelessly, and once, roused by some unknown terror, all the +geese of the farmyard burst into a sudden frenzy of cackling. The stars +and the gibbous moon demanded to be looked at, and when one meteorite +had streaked across the sky, you could not help waiting, open-eyed and +alert, for the next. Time passed; the moon climbed higher and higher in +the sky. Mary felt less sleepy than she had when she first came out. +She sat up and looked over the parapet. Had Ivor been able to sleep? she +wondered. And as though in answer to her mental question, from +behind the chimney-stack at the farther end of the roof a white form +noiselessly emerged--a form that, in the moonlight, was recognisably +Ivor’s. Spreading his arms to right and left, like a tight-rope dancer, +he began to walk forward along the roof-tree of the house. He swayed +terrifyingly as he advanced. Mary looked on speechlessly; perhaps he was +walking in his sleep! Suppose he were to wake up suddenly, now! If she +spoke or moved it might mean his death. She dared look no more, but sank +back on her pillows. She listened intently. For what seemed an immensely +long time there was no sound. Then there was a patter of feet on the +tiles, followed by a scrabbling noise and a whispered “Damn!” And +suddenly Ivor’s head and shoulders appeared above the parapet. One leg +followed, then the other. He was on the leads. Mary pretended to wake up +with a start. + +“Oh!” she said. “What are you doing here?” + +“I couldn’t sleep,” he explained, “so I came along to see if you +couldn’t. One gets bored by oneself on a tower. Don’t you find it so?” + +It was light before five. Long, narrow clouds barred the east, their +edges bright with orange fire. The sky was pale and watery. With the +mournful scream of a soul in pain, a monstrous peacock, flying heavily +up from below, alighted on the parapet of the tower. Ivor and Mary +started broad awake. + +“Catch him!” cried Ivor, jumping up. “We’ll have a feather.” The +frightened peacock ran up and down the parapet in an absurd distress, +curtseying and bobbing and clucking; his long tail swung ponderously +back and forth as he turned and turned again. Then with a flap and swish +he launched himself upon the air and sailed magnificently earthward, +with a recovered dignity. But he had left a trophy. Ivor had his +feather, a long-lashed eye of purple and green, of blue and gold. He +handed it to his companion. + +“An angel’s feather,” he said. + +Mary looked at it for a moment, gravely and intently. Her purple pyjamas +clothed her with an ampleness that hid the lines of her body; she looked +like some large, comfortable, unjointed toy, a sort of Teddy-bear--but +a Teddy bear with an angel’s head, pink cheeks, and hair like a bell +of gold. An angel’s face, the feather of an angel’s wing...Somehow the +whole atmosphere of this sunrise was rather angelic. + +“It’s extraordinary to think of sexual selection,” she said at last, +looking up from her contemplation of the miraculous feather. + +“Extraordinary!” Ivor echoed. “I select you, you select me. What luck!” + +He put his arm round her shoulders and they stood looking eastward. The +first sunlight had begun to warm and colour the pale light of the dawn. +Mauve pyjamas and white pyjamas; they were a young and charming couple. +The rising sun touched their faces. It was all extremely symbolic; +but then, if you choose to think so, nothing in this world is not +symbolical. Profound and beautiful truth! + +“I must be getting back to my tower,” said Ivor at last. + +“Already?” + +“I’m afraid so. The varletry will soon be up and about.” + +“Ivor...” There was a prolonged and silent farewell. + +“And now,” said Ivor, “I repeat my tight-rope stunt.” + +Mary threw her arms round his neck. “You mustn’t, Ivor. It’s dangerous. +Please.” + +He had to yield at last to her entreaties. “All right,” he said, “I’ll +go down through the house and up at the other end.” + +He vanished through the trap door into the darkness that still lurked +within the shuttered house. A minute later he had reappeared on the +farther tower; he waved his hand, and then sank down, out of sight, +behind the parapet. From below, in the house, came the thin wasp-like +buzzing of an alarum-clock. He had gone back just in time. + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +Ivor was gone. Lounging behind the wind-screen in his yellow sedan he +was whirling across rural England. Social and amorous engagements of the +most urgent character called him from hall to baronial hall, from castle +to castle, from Elizabethan manor-house to Georgian mansion, over +the whole expanse of the kingdom. To-day in Somerset, to-morrow in +Warwickshire, on Saturday in the West riding, by Tuesday morning in +Argyll--Ivor never rested. The whole summer through, from the +beginning of July till the end of September, he devoted himself to his +engagements; he was a martyr to them. In the autumn he went back to +London for a holiday. Crome had been a little incident, an evanescent +bubble on the stream of his life; it belonged already to the past. By +tea-time he would be at Gobley, and there would be Zenobia’s welcoming +smile. And on Thursday morning--but that was a long, long way ahead. He +would think of Thursday morning when Thursday morning arrived. Meanwhile +there was Gobley, meanwhile Zenobia. + +In the visitor’s book at Crome Ivor had left, according to his +invariable custom in these cases, a poem. He had improvised it +magisterially in the ten minutes preceding his departure. Denis and Mr. +Scogan strolled back together from the gates of the courtyard, whence +they had bidden their last farewells; on the writing-table in the hall +they found the visitor’s book, open, and Ivor’s composition scarcely +dry. Mr. Scogan read it aloud: + + + “The magic of those immemorial kings, + + Who webbed enchantment on the bowls of night. + + Sleeps in the soul of all created things; + + In the blue sea, th’ Acroceraunian height, + + In the eyed butterfly’s auricular wings + + And orgied visions of the anchorite; + + In all that singing flies and flying sings, + + In rain, in pain, in delicate delight. + + But much more magic, much more cogent spells + + Weave here their wizardries about my soul. + + Crome calls me like the voice of vesperal bells, + + Haunts like a ghostly-peopled necropole. + + Fate tears me hence. Hard fate! since far from Crome + + My soul must weep, remembering its Home.” + +“Very nice and tasteful and tactful,” said Mr. Scogan, when he had +finished. “I am only troubled by the butterfly’s auricular wings. You +have a first-hand knowledge of the workings of a poet’s mind, Denis; +perhaps you can explain.” + +“What could be simpler,” said Denis. “It’s a beautiful word, and Ivor +wanted to say that the wings were golden.” + +“You make it luminously clear.” + +“One suffers so much,” Denis went on, “from the fact that beautiful +words don’t always mean what they ought to mean. Recently, for example, +I had a whole poem ruined, just because the word ‘carminative’ didn’t +mean what it ought to have meant. Carminative--it’s admirable, isn’t +it?” + +“Admirable,” Mr. Scogan agreed. “And what does it mean?” + +“It’s a word I’ve treasured from my earliest infancy,” said Denis, +“treasured and loved. They used to give me cinnamon when I had a +cold--quite useless, but not disagreeable. One poured it drop by drop +out of narrow bottles, a golden liquor, fierce and fiery. On the label +was a list of its virtues, and among other things it was described as +being in the highest degree carminative. I adored the word. ‘Isn’t it +carminative?’ I used to say to myself when I’d taken my dose. It seemed +so wonderfully to describe that sensation of internal warmth, that glow, +that--what shall I call it?--physical self-satisfaction which +followed the drinking of cinnamon. Later, when I discovered alcohol, +‘carminative’ described for me that similar, but nobler, more spiritual +glow which wine evokes not only in the body but in the soul as well. +The carminative virtues of burgundy, of rum, of old brandy, of Lacryma +Christi, of Marsala, of Aleatico, of stout, of gin, of champagne, of +claret, of the raw new wine of this year’s Tuscan vintage--I compared +them, I classified them. Marsala is rosily, downily carminative; gin +pricks and refreshes while it warms. I had a whole table of carmination +values. And now”--Denis spread out his hands, palms upwards, +despairingly--“now I know what carminative really means.” + +“Well, what DOES it mean?” asked Mr. Scogan, a little impatiently. + +“Carminative,” said Denis, lingering lovingly over the syllables, +“carminative. I imagined vaguely that it had something to do with +carmen-carminis, still more vaguely with caro-carnis, and its +derivations, like carnival and carnation. Carminative--there was the +idea of singing and the idea of flesh, rose-coloured and warm, with +a suggestion of the jollities of mi-Careme and the masked holidays of +Venice. Carminative--the warmth, the glow, the interior ripeness were +all in the word. Instead of which...” + +“Do come to the point, my dear Denis,” protested Mr. Scogan. “Do come to +the point.” + +“Well, I wrote a poem the other day,” said Denis; “I wrote a poem about +the effects of love.” + +“Others have done the same before you,” said Mr. Scogan. “There is no +need to be ashamed.” + +“I was putting forward the notion,” Denis went on, “that the effects +of love were often similar to the effects of wine, that Eros could +intoxicate as well as Bacchus. Love, for example, is essentially +carminative. It gives one the sense of warmth, the glow. + + ’_And passion carminative as wine_...’ + +was what I wrote. Not only was the line elegantly sonorous; it was also, +I flattered myself, very aptly compendiously expressive. Everything +was in the word carminative--a detailed, exact foreground, an immense, +indefinite hinterland of suggestion. + + ’_And passion carminative as wine_...’ + +I was not ill-pleased. And then suddenly it occurred to me that I had +never actually looked up the word in a dictionary. Carminative had grown +up with me from the days of the cinnamon bottle. It had always been +taken for granted. Carminative: for me the word was as rich in content +as some tremendous, elaborate work of art; it was a complete landscape +with figures. + + ’_And passion carminative as wine_...’ + +It was the first time I had ever committed the word to writing, and all +at once I felt I would like lexicographical authority for it. A small +English-German dictionary was all I had at hand. I turned up C, ca, +car, carm. There it was: ‘Carminative: windtreibend.’ Windtreibend!” he +repeated. Mr. Scogan laughed. Denis shook his head. “Ah,” he said, “for +me it was no laughing matter. For me it marked the end of a chapter, the +death of something young and precious. There were the years--years +of childhood and innocence--when I had believed that carminative +meant--well, carminative. And now, before me lies the rest of my +life--a day, perhaps, ten years, half a century, when I shall know that +carminative means windtreibend. + + + ‘Plus ne suis ce que j’ai ete + + Et ne le saurai jamais etre.’ + +It is a realisation that makes one rather melancholy.” + +“Carminative,” said Mr. Scogan thoughtfully. + +“Carminative,” Denis repeated, and they were silent for a time. “Words,” + said Denis at last, “words--I wonder if you can realise how much I love +them. You are too much preoccupied with mere things and ideas and people +to understand the full beauty of words. Your mind is not a literary +mind. The spectacle of Mr. Gladstone finding thirty-four rhymes to +the name ‘Margot’ seems to you rather pathetic than anything else. +Mallarmé’s envelopes with their versified addresses leave you cold, +unless they leave you pitiful; you can’t see that + + + ‘Apte à ne point te cabrer, hue! + + Poste et j’ajouterai, dia! + + Si tu ne fuis onze-bis Rue + + Balzac, chez cet Hérédia,’ + +is a little miracle.” + +“You’re right,” said Mr. Scogan. “I can’t.” + +“You don’t feel it to be magical?” + +“No.” + +“That’s the test for the literary mind,” said Denis; “the feeling of +magic, the sense that words have power. The technical, verbal part of +literature is simply a development of magic. Words are man’s first and +most grandiose invention. With language he created a whole new universe; +what wonder if he loved words and attributed power to them! With fitted, +harmonious words the magicians summoned rabbits out of empty hats and +spirits from the elements. Their descendants, the literary men, still +go on with the process, morticing their verbal formulas together, and, +before the power of the finished spell, trembling with delight and awe. +Rabbits out of empty hats? No, their spells are more subtly powerful, +for they evoke emotions out of empty minds. Formulated by their art the +most insipid statements become enormously significant. For example, I +proffer the constatation, ‘Black ladders lack bladders.’ A self-evident +truth, one on which it would not have been worth while to insist, had +I chosen to formulate it in such words as ‘Black fire-escapes have no +bladders,’ or, ‘Les echelles noires manquent de vessie.’ But since I +put it as I do, ‘Black ladders lack bladders,’ it becomes, for all +its self-evidence, significant, unforgettable, moving. The creation by +word-power of something out of nothing--what is that but magic? And, I +may add, what is that but literature? Half the world’s greatest poetry +is simply ‘Les echelles noires manquent de vessie,’ translated into +magic significance as, ‘Black ladders lack bladders.’ And you can’t +appreciate words. I’m sorry for you.” + +“A mental carminative,” said Mr. Scogan reflectively. “That’s what you +need.” + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +Perched on its four stone mushrooms, the little granary stood two or +three feet above the grass of the green close. Beneath it there was a +perpetual shade and a damp growth of long, luxuriant grasses. Here, in +the shadow, in the green dampness, a family of white ducks had sought +shelter from the afternoon sun. Some stood, preening themselves, some +reposed with their long bellies pressed to the ground, as though the +cool grass were water. Little social noises burst fitfully forth, and +from time to time some pointed tail would execute a brilliant Lisztian +tremolo. Suddenly their jovial repose was shattered. A prodigious thump +shook the wooden flooring above their heads; the whole granary trembled, +little fragments of dirt and crumbled wood rained down among them. +With a loud, continuous quacking the ducks rushed out from beneath this +nameless menace, and did not stay their flight till they were safely in +the farmyard. + +“Don’t lose your temper,” Anne was saying. “Listen! You’ve frightened +the ducks. Poor dears! no wonder.” She was sitting sideways in a low, +wooden chair. Her right elbow rested on the back of the chair and she +supported her cheek on her hand. Her long, slender body drooped into +curves of a lazy grace. She was smiling, and she looked at Gombauld +through half-closed eyes. + +“Damn you!” Gombauld repeated, and stamped his foot again. He glared at +her round the half-finished portrait on the easel. + +“Poor ducks!” Anne repeated. The sound of their quacking was faint in +the distance; it was inaudible. + +“Can’t you see you make me lose my time?” he asked. “I can’t work with +you dangling about distractingly like this.” + +“You’d lose less time if you stopped talking and stamping your feet and +did a little painting for a change. After all, what am I dangling about +for, except to be painted?” + +Gombauld made a noise like a growl. “You’re awful,” he said, with +conviction. “Why do you ask me to come and stay here? Why do you tell me +you’d like me to paint your portrait?” + +“For the simple reasons that I like you--at least, when you’re in a good +temper--and that I think you’re a good painter.” + +“For the simple reason”--Gombauld mimicked her voice--“that you want +me to make love to you and, when I do, to have the amusement of running +away.” + +Anne threw back her head and laughed. “So you think it amuses me to have +to evade your advances! So like a man! If you only knew how gross and +awful and boring men are when they try to make love and you don’t want +them to make love! If you could only see yourselves through our eyes!” + +Gombauld picked up his palette and brushes and attacked his canvas with +the ardour of irritation. “I suppose you’ll be saying next that you +didn’t start the game, that it was I who made the first advances, and +that you were the innocent victim who sat still and never did anything +that could invite or allure me on.” + +“So like a man again!” said Anne. “It’s always the same old story about +the woman tempting the man. The woman lures, fascinates, invites; and +man--noble man, innocent man--falls a victim. My poor Gombauld! Surely +you’re not going to sing that old song again. It’s so unintelligent, and +I always thought you were a man of sense.” + +“Thanks,” said Gombauld. + +“Be a little objective,” Anne went on. “Can’t you see that you’re simply +externalising your own emotions? That’s what you men are always doing; +it’s so barbarously naive. You feel one of your loose desires for some +woman, and because you desire her strongly you immediately accuse her +of luring you on, of deliberately provoking and inviting the desire. You +have the mentality of savages. You might just as well say that a plate +of strawberries and cream deliberately lures you on to feel greedy. In +ninety-nine cases out of a hundred women are as passive and innocent as +the strawberries and cream.” + +“Well, all I can say is that this must be the hundredth case,” said +Gombauld, without looking up. + +Anne shrugged her shoulders and gave vent to a sigh. “I’m at a loss to +know whether you’re more silly or more rude.” + +After painting for a little time in silence Gombauld began to speak +again. “And then there’s Denis,” he said, renewing the conversation as +though it had only just been broken off. “You’re playing the same game +with him. Why can’t you leave that wretched young man in peace?” + +Anne flushed with a sudden and uncontrollable anger. “It’s perfectly +untrue about Denis,” she said indignantly. “I never dreamt of playing +what you beautifully call the same game with him.” Recovering her calm, +she added in her ordinary cooing voice and with her exacerbating smile, +“You’ve become very protective towards poor Denis all of a sudden.” + +“I have,” Gombauld replied, with a gravity that was somehow a little too +solemn. “I don’t like to see a young man...” + +“...being whirled along the road to ruin,” said Anne, continuing his +sentence for him. “I admire your sentiments and, believe me, I share +them.” + +She was curiously irritated at what Gombauld had said about Denis. It +happened to be so completely untrue. Gombauld might have some slight +ground for his reproaches. But Denis--no, she had never flirted with +Denis. Poor boy! He was very sweet. She became somewhat pensive. + +Gombauld painted on with fury. The restlessness of an unsatisfied +desire, which, before, had distracted his mind, making work impossible, +seemed now to have converted itself into a kind of feverish energy. When +it was finished, he told himself, the portrait would be diabolic. He was +painting her in the pose she had naturally adopted at the first sitting. +Seated sideways, her elbow on the back of the chair, her head and +shoulders turned at an angle from the rest of her body, towards the +front, she had fallen into an attitude of indolent abandonment. He had +emphasised the lazy curves of her body; the lines sagged as they crossed +the canvas, the grace of the painted figure seemed to be melting into +a kind of soft decay. The hand that lay along the knee was as limp as +a glove. He was at work on the face now; it had begun to emerge on the +canvas, doll-like in its regularity and listlessness. It was Anne’s +face--but her face as it would be, utterly unillumined by the inward +lights of thought and emotion. It was the lazy, expressionless mask +which was sometimes her face. The portrait was terribly like; and at the +same time it was the most malicious of lies. Yes, it would be diabolic +when it was finished, Gombauld decided; he wondered what she would think +of it. + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +For the sake of peace and quiet Denis had retired earlier on this same +afternoon to his bedroom. He wanted to work, but the hour was a drowsy +one, and lunch, so recently eaten, weighed heavily on body and mind. The +meridian demon was upon him; he was possessed by that bored and hopeless +post-prandial melancholy which the coenobites of old knew and feared +under the name of “accidie.” He felt, like Ernest Dowson, “a little +weary.” He was in the mood to write something rather exquisite and +gentle and quietist in tone; something a little droopy and at the same +time--how should he put it?--a little infinite. He thought of Anne, of +love hopeless and unattainable. Perhaps that was the ideal kind of love, +the hopeless kind--the quiet, theoretical kind of love. In this sad mood +of repletion he could well believe it. He began to write. One elegant +quatrain had flowed from beneath his pen: + + + “A brooding love which is at most + + The stealth of moonbeams when they slide, + + Evoking colour’s bloodless ghost, + + O’er some scarce-breathing breast or side...” + +when his attention was attracted by a sound from outside. He looked down +from his window; there they were, Anne and Gombauld, talking, laughing +together. They crossed the courtyard in front, and passed out of sight +through the gate in the right-hand wall. That was the way to the +green close and the granary; she was going to sit for him again. His +pleasantly depressing melancholy was dissipated by a puff of violent +emotion; angrily he threw his quatrain into the waste-paper basket and +ran downstairs. “The stealth of moonbeams,” indeed! + +In the hall he saw Mr. Scogan; the man seemed to be lying in wait. Denis +tried to escape, but in vain. Mr. Scogan’s eye glittered like the eye of +the Ancient Mariner. + +“Not so fast,” he said, stretching out a small saurian hand with pointed +nails--“not so fast. I was just going down to the flower garden to take +the sun. We’ll go together.” + +Denis abandoned himself; Mr. Scogan put on his hat and they went out arm +in arm. On the shaven turf of the terrace Henry Wimbush and Mary were +playing a solemn game of bowls. They descended by the yew-tree walk. +It was here, thought Denis, here that Anne had fallen, here that he +had kissed her, here--and he blushed with retrospective shame at the +memory--here that he had tried to carry her and failed. Life was awful! + +“Sanity!” said Mr. Scogan, suddenly breaking a long silence. +“Sanity--that’s what’s wrong with me and that’s what will be wrong with +you, my dear Denis, when you’re old enough to be sane or insane. In +a sane world I should be a great man; as things are, in this curious +establishment, I am nothing at all; to all intents and purposes I don’t +exist. I am just Vox et praeterea nihil.” + +Denis made no response; he was thinking of other things. “After all,” + he said to himself--“after all, Gombauld is better looking than I, more +entertaining, more confident; and, besides, he’s already somebody and +I’m still only potential...” + +“Everything that ever gets done in this world is done by madmen,” Mr. +Scogan went on. Denis tried not to listen, but the tireless insistence +of Mr. Scogan’s discourse gradually compelled his attention. “Men such +as I am, such as you may possibly become, have never achieved anything. +We’re too sane; we’re merely reasonable. We lack the human touch, the +compelling enthusiastic mania. People are quite ready to listen to the +philosophers for a little amusement, just as they would listen to a +fiddler or a mountebank. But as to acting on the advice of the men of +reason--never. Wherever the choice has had to be made between the man of +reason and the madman, the world has unhesitatingly followed the madman. +For the madman appeals to what is fundamental, to passion and +the instincts; the philosophers to what is superficial and +supererogatory--reason.” + +They entered the garden; at the head of one of the alleys stood a green +wooden bench, embayed in the midst of a fragrant continent of lavender +bushes. It was here, though the place was shadeless and one breathed +hot, dry perfume instead of air--it was here that Mr. Scogan elected to +sit. He thrived on untempered sunlight. + +“Consider, for example, the case of Luther and Erasmus.” He took out +his pipe and began to fill it as he talked. “There was Erasmus, a man +of reason if ever there was one. People listened to him at first--a +new virtuoso performing on that elegant and resourceful instrument, the +intellect; they even admired and venerated him. But did he move them to +behave as he wanted them to behave--reasonably, decently, or at least a +little less porkishly than usual? He did not. And then Luther appears, +violent, passionate, a madman insanely convinced about matters in which +there can be no conviction. He shouted, and men rushed to follow +him. Erasmus was no longer listened to; he was reviled for his +reasonableness. Luther was serious, Luther was reality--like the Great +War. Erasmus was only reason and decency; he lacked the power, being a +sage, to move men to action. Europe followed Luther and embarked on +a century and a half of war and bloody persecution. It’s a melancholy +story.” Mr. Scogan lighted a match. In the intense light the flame was +all but invisible. The smell of burning tobacco began to mingle with the +sweetly acrid smell of the lavender. + +“If you want to get men to act reasonably, you must set about persuading +them in a maniacal manner. The very sane precepts of the founders of +religions are only made infectious by means of enthusiasms which to a +sane man must appear deplorable. It is humiliating to find how impotent +unadulterated sanity is. Sanity, for example, informs us that the only +way in which we can preserve civilisation is by behaving decently and +intelligently. Sanity appeals and argues; our rulers persevere in their +customary porkishness, while we acquiesce and obey. The only hope is a +maniacal crusade; I am ready, when it comes, to beat a tambourine with +the loudest, but at the same time I shall feel a little ashamed of +myself. However”--Mr. Scogan shrugged his shoulders and, pipe in hand, +made a gesture of resignation--“It’s futile to complain that things are +as they are. The fact remains that sanity unassisted is useless. What +we want, then, is a sane and reasonable exploitation of the forces of +insanity. We sane men will have the power yet.” Mr. Scogan’s eyes shone +with a more than ordinary brightness, and, taking his pipe out of his +mouth, he gave vent to his loud, dry, and somehow rather fiendish laugh. + +“But I don’t want power,” said Denis. He was sitting in limp discomfort +at one end of the bench, shading his eyes from the intolerable light. +Mr. Scogan, bolt upright at the other end, laughed again. + +“Everybody wants power,” he said. “Power in some form or other. The sort +of power you hanker for is literary power. Some people want power +to persecute other human beings; you expend your lust for power in +persecuting words, twisting them, moulding them, torturing them to obey +you. But I divagate.” + +“Do you?” asked Denis faintly. + +“Yes,” Mr. Scogan continued, unheeding, “the time will come. We men +of intelligence will learn to harness the insanities to the service of +reason. We can’t leave the world any longer to the direction of chance. +We can’t allow dangerous maniacs like Luther, mad about dogma, like +Napoleon, mad about himself, to go on casually appearing and turning +everything upside down. In the past it didn’t so much matter; but our +modern machine is too delicate. A few more knocks like the Great War, +another Luther or two, and the whole concern will go to pieces. In +future, the men of reason must see that the madness of the world’s +maniacs is canalised into proper channels, is made to do useful work, +like a mountain torrent driving a dynamo...” + +“Making electricity to light a Swiss hotel,” said Denis. “You ought to +complete the simile.” + +Mr. Scogan waved away the interruption. “There’s only one thing to be +done,” he said. “The men of intelligence must combine, must conspire, +and seize power from the imbeciles and maniacs who now direct us. They +must found the Rational State.” + +The heat that was slowly paralysing all Denis’s mental and bodily +faculties, seemed to bring to Mr. Scogan additional vitality. He talked +with an ever-increasing energy, his hands moved in sharp, quick, precise +gestures, his eyes shone. Hard, dry, and continuous, his voice went +on sounding and sounding in Denis’s ears with the insistence of a +mechanical noise. + +“In the Rational State,” he heard Mr. Scogan saying, “human beings will +be separated out into distinct species, not according to the colour of +their eyes or the shape of their skulls, but according to the qualities +of their mind and temperament. Examining psychologists, trained to what +would now seem an almost superhuman clairvoyance, will test each child +that is born and assign it to its proper species. Duly labelled and +docketed, the child will be given the education suitable to members of +its species, and will be set, in adult life, to perform those functions +which human beings of his variety are capable of performing.” + +“How many species will there be?” asked Denis. + +“A great many, no doubt,” Mr. Scogan answered; “the classification will +be subtle and elaborate. But it is not in the power of a prophet to go +into details, nor is it his business. I will do more than indicate the +three main species into which the subjects of the Rational State will be +divided.” + +He paused, cleared his throat, and coughed once or twice, evoking in +Denis’s mind the vision of a table with a glass and water-bottle, and, +lying across one corner, a long white pointer for the lantern pictures. + +“The three main species,” Mr. Scogan went on, “will be these: the +Directing Intelligences, the Men of Faith, and the Herd. Among the +Intelligences will be found all those capable of thought, those who know +how to attain a certain degree of freedom--and, alas, how limited, even +among the most intelligent, that freedom is!--from the mental bondage of +their time. A select body of Intelligences, drawn from among those who +have turned their attention to the problems of practical life, will +be the governors of the Rational State. They will employ as their +instruments of power the second great species of humanity--the men of +Faith, the Madmen, as I have been calling them, who believe in things +unreasonably, with passion, and are ready to die for their beliefs and +their desires. These wild men, with their fearful potentialities for +good or for mischief, will no longer be allowed to react casually to +a casual environment. There will be no more Caesar Borgias, no more +Luthers and Mohammeds, no more Joanna Southcotts, no more Comstocks. The +old-fashioned Man of Faith and Desire, that haphazard creature of brute +circumstance, who might drive men to tears and repentance, or who might +equally well set them on to cutting one another’s throats, will be +replaced by a new sort of madman, still externally the same, still +bubbling with a seemingly spontaneous enthusiasm, but, ah, how very +different from the madman of the past! For the new Man of Faith will be +expending his passion, his desire, and his enthusiasm in the propagation +of some reasonable idea. He will be, all unawares, the tool of some +superior intelligence.” + +Mr. Scogan chuckled maliciously; it was as though he were taking a +revenge, in the name of reason, on enthusiasts. “From their earliest +years, as soon, that is, as the examining psychologists have assigned +them their place in the classified scheme, the Men of Faith will have +had their special education under the eye of the Intelligences. Moulded +by a long process of suggestion, they will go out into the world, +preaching and practising with a generous mania the coldly reasonable +projects of the Directors from above. When these projects are +accomplished, or when the ideas that were useful a decade ago have +ceased to be useful, the Intelligences will inspire a new generation of +madmen with a new eternal truth. The principal function of the Men of +Faith will be to move and direct the Multitude, that third great species +consisting of those countless millions who lack intelligence and are +without valuable enthusiasm. When any particular effort is required of +the Herd, when it is thought necessary, for the sake of solidarity, that +humanity shall be kindled and united by some single enthusiastic desire +or idea, the Men of Faith, primed with some simple and satisfying creed, +will be sent out on a mission of evangelisation. At ordinary times, when +the high spiritual temperature of a Crusade would be unhealthy, the +Men of Faith will be quietly and earnestly busy with the great work of +education. In the upbringing of the Herd, humanity’s almost boundless +suggestibility will be scientifically exploited. Systematically, from +earliest infancy, its members will be assured that there is no happiness +to be found except in work and obedience; they will be made to believe +that they are happy, that they are tremendously important beings, and +that everything they do is noble and significant. For the lower species +the earth will be restored to the centre of the universe and man to +pre-eminence on the earth. Oh, I envy the lot of the commonality in the +Rational State! Working their eight hours a day, obeying their betters, +convinced of their own grandeur and significance and immortality, they +will be marvellously happy, happier than any race of men has ever been. +They will go through life in a rosy state of intoxication, from which +they will never awake. The Men of Faith will play the cup-bearers at +this lifelong bacchanal, filling and ever filling again with the warm +liquor that the Intelligences, in sad and sober privacy behind the +scenes, will brew for the intoxication of their subjects.” + +“And what will be my place in the Rational State?” Denis drowsily +inquired from under his shading hand. + +Mr. Scogan looked at him for a moment in silence. “It’s difficult to see +where you would fit in,” he said at last. “You couldn’t do manual work; +you’re too independent and unsuggestible to belong to the larger Herd; +you have none of the characteristics required in a Man of Faith. As for +the Directing Intelligences, they will have to be marvellously clear and +merciless and penetrating.” He paused and shook his head. “No, I can see +no place for you; only the lethal chamber.” + +Deeply hurt, Denis emitted the imitation of a loud Homeric laugh. “I’m +getting sunstroke here,” he said, and got up. + +Mr. Scogan followed his example, and they walked slowly away down the +narrow path, brushing the blue lavender flowers in their passage. Denis +pulled a sprig of lavender and sniffed at it; then some dark leaves of +rosemary that smelt like incense in a cavernous church. They passed a +bed of opium poppies, dispetaled now; the round, ripe seedheads were +brown and dry--like Polynesian trophies, Denis thought; severed heads +stuck on poles. He liked the fancy enough to impart it to Mr. Scogan. + +“Like Polynesian trophies...” Uttered aloud, the fancy seemed less +charming and significant than it did when it first occurred to him. + +There was a silence, and in a growing wave of sound the whir of the +reaping machines swelled up from the fields beyond the garden and then +receded into a remoter hum. + +“It is satisfactory to think,” said Mr. Scogan, as they strolled slowly +onward, “that a multitude of people are toiling in the harvest fields in +order that we may talk of Polynesia. Like every other good thing in this +world, leisure and culture have to be paid for. Fortunately, however, +it is not the leisured and the cultured who have to pay. Let us be +duly thankful for that, my dear Denis--duly thankful,” he repeated, and +knocked the ashes out of his pipe. + +Denis was not listening. He had suddenly remembered Anne. She was with +Gombauld--alone with him in his studio. It was an intolerable thought. + +“Shall we go and pay a call on Gombauld?” he suggested carelessly. “It +would be amusing to see what he’s doing now.” + +He laughed inwardly to think how furious Gombauld would be when he saw +them arriving. + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +Gombauld was by no means so furious at their apparition as Denis had +hoped and expected he would be. Indeed, he was rather pleased than +annoyed when the two faces, one brown and pointed, the other round and +pale, appeared in the frame of the open door. The energy born of his +restless irritation was dying within him, returning to its emotional +elements. A moment more and he would have been losing his temper +again--and Anne would be keeping hers, infuriatingly. Yes, he was +positively glad to see them. + +“Come in, come in,” he called out hospitably. + +Followed by Mr. Scogan, Denis climbed the little ladder and stepped over +the threshold. He looked suspiciously from Gombauld to his sitter, and +could learn nothing from the expression of their faces except that they +both seemed pleased to see the visitors. Were they really glad, or were +they cunningly simulating gladness? He wondered. + +Mr. Scogan, meanwhile, was looking at the portrait. + +“Excellent,” he said approvingly, “excellent. Almost too true to +character, if that is possible; yes, positively too true. But I’m +surprised to find you putting in all this psychology business.” He +pointed to the face, and with his extended finger followed the slack +curves of the painted figure. “I thought you were one of the fellows who +went in exclusively for balanced masses and impinging planes.” + +Gombauld laughed. “This is a little infidelity,” he said. + +“I’m sorry,” said Mr. Scogan. “I for one, without ever having had +the slightest appreciation of painting, have always taken particular +pleasure in Cubismus. I like to see pictures from which nature has been +completely banished, pictures which are exclusively the product of the +human mind. They give me the same pleasure as I derive from a good piece +of reasoning or a mathematical problem or an achievement of engineering. +Nature, or anything that reminds me of nature, disturbs me; it is +too large, too complicated, above all too utterly pointless and +incomprehensible. I am at home with the works of man; if I choose to +set my mind to it, I can understand anything that any man has made or +thought. That is why I always travel by Tube, never by bus if I can +possibly help it. For, travelling by bus, one can’t avoid seeing, even +in London, a few stray works of God--the sky, for example, an occasional +tree, the flowers in the window-boxes. But travel by Tube and you see +nothing but the works of man--iron riveted into geometrical forms, +straight lines of concrete, patterned expanses of tiles. All is human +and the product of friendly and comprehensible minds. All philosophies +and all religions--what are they but spiritual Tubes bored through the +universe! Through these narrow tunnels, where all is recognisably human, +one travels comfortable and secure, contriving to forget that all round +and below and above them stretches the blind mass of earth, endless +and unexplored. Yes, give me the Tube and Cubismus every time; give me +ideas, so snug and neat and simple and well made. And preserve me from +nature, preserve me from all that’s inhumanly large and complicated and +obscure. I haven’t the courage, and, above all, I haven’t the time to +start wandering in that labyrinth.” + +While Mr. Scogan was discoursing, Denis had crossed over to the farther +side of the little square chamber, where Anne was sitting, still in her +graceful, lazy pose, on the low chair. + +“Well?” he demanded, looking at her almost fiercely. What was he asking +of her? He hardly knew himself. + +Anne looked up at him, and for answer echoed his “Well?” in another, a +laughing key. + +Denis had nothing more, at the moment, to say. Two or three canvases +stood in the corner behind Anne’s chair, their faces turned to the wall. +He pulled them out and began to look at the paintings. + +“May I see too?” Anne requested. + +He stood them in a row against the wall. Anne had to turn round in her +chair to look at them. There was the big canvas of the man fallen from +the horse, there was a painting of flowers, there was a small landscape. +His hands on the back of the chair, Denis leaned over her. From behind +the easel at the other side of the room Mr. Scogan was talking away. +For a long time they looked at the pictures, saying nothing; or, rather, +Anne looked at the pictures, while Denis, for the most part, looked at +Anne. + +“I like the man and the horse; don’t you?” she said at last, looking up +with an inquiring smile. + +Denis nodded, and then in a queer, strangled voice, as though it had +cost him a great effort to utter the words, he said, “I love you.” + +It was a remark which Anne had heard a good many times before and mostly +heard with equanimity. But on this occasion--perhaps because they had +come so unexpectedly, perhaps for some other reason--the words provoked +in her a certain surprised commotion. + +“My poor Denis,” she managed to say, with a laugh; but she was blushing +as she spoke. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +It was noon. Denis, descending from his chamber, where he had been +making an unsuccessful effort to write something about nothing in +particular, found the drawing-room deserted. He was about to go out into +the garden when his eye fell on a familiar but mysterious object--the +large red notebook in which he had so often seen Jenny quietly and +busily scribbling. She had left it lying on the window-seat. The +temptation was great. He picked up the book and slipped off the elastic +band that kept it discreetly closed. + +“Private. Not to be opened,” was written in capital letters on the +cover. He raised his eyebrows. It was the sort of thing one wrote in +one’s Latin Grammar while one was still at one’s preparatory school. + + + “Black is the raven, black is the rook, + + But blacker the thief who steals this book!” + +It was curiously childish, he thought, and he smiled to himself. He +opened the book. What he saw made him wince as though he had been +struck. + +Denis was his own severest critic; so, at least, he had always believed. +He liked to think of himself as a merciless vivisector probing into the +palpitating entrails of his own soul; he was Brown Dog to himself. +His weaknesses, his absurdities--no one knew them better than he did. +Indeed, in a vague way he imagined that nobody beside himself was aware +of them at all. It seemed, somehow, inconceivable that he should appear +to other people as they appeared to him; inconceivable that they ever +spoke of him among themselves in that same freely critical and, to be +quite honest, mildly malicious tone in which he was accustomed to talk +of them. In his own eyes he had defects, but to see them was a privilege +reserved to him alone. For the rest of the world he was surely an image +of flawless crystal. It was almost axiomatic. + +On opening the red notebook that crystal image of himself crashed to +the ground, and was irreparably shattered. He was not his own severest +critic after all. The discovery was a painful one. + +The fruit of Jenny’s unobtrusive scribbling lay before him. A caricature +of himself, reading (the book was upside-down). In the background a +dancing couple, recognisable as Gombauld and Anne. Beneath, the legend: +“Fable of the Wallflower and the Sour Grapes.” Fascinated and horrified, +Denis pored over the drawing. It was masterful. A mute, inglorious +Rouveyre appeared in every one of those cruelly clear lines. The +expression of the face, an assumed aloofness and superiority tempered +by a feeble envy; the attitude of the body and limbs, an attitude of +studious and scholarly dignity, given away by the fidgety pose of the +turned-in feet--these things were terrible. And, more terrible still, +was the likeness, was the magisterial certainty with which his physical +peculiarities were all recorded and subtly exaggerated. + +Denis looked deeper into the book. There were caricatures of other +people: of Priscilla and Mr. Barbecue-Smith; of Henry Wimbush, of Anne +and Gombauld; of Mr. Scogan, whom Jenny had represented in a light that +was more than slightly sinister, that was, indeed, diabolic; of Mary and +Ivor. He scarcely glanced at them. A fearful desire to know the worst +about himself possessed him. He turned over the leaves, lingering at +nothing that was not his own image. Seven full pages were devoted to +him. + +“Private. Not to be opened.” He had disobeyed the injunction; he had +only got what he deserved. Thoughtfully he closed the book, and slid the +rubber band once more into its place. Sadder and wiser, he went out on +to the terrace. And so this, he reflected, this was how Jenny employed +the leisure hours in her ivory tower apart. And he had thought her a +simple-minded, uncritical creature! It was he, it seemed, who was the +fool. He felt no resentment towards Jenny. No, the distressing thing +wasn’t Jenny herself; it was what she and the phenomenon of her red +book represented, what they stood for and concretely symbolised. They +represented all the vast conscious world of men outside himself; they +symbolised something that in his studious solitariness he was apt not to +believe in. He could stand at Piccadilly Circus, could watch the +crowds shuffle past, and still imagine himself the one fully conscious, +intelligent, individual being among all those thousands. It seemed, +somehow, impossible that other people should be in their way as +elaborate and complete as he in his. Impossible; and yet, periodically +he would make some painful discovery about the external world and the +horrible reality of its consciousness and its intelligence. The red +notebook was one of these discoveries, a footprint in the sand. It put +beyond a doubt the fact that the outer world really existed. + +Sitting on the balustrade of the terrace, he ruminated this unpleasant +truth for some time. Still chewing on it, he strolled pensively down +towards the swimming-pool. A peacock and his hen trailed their shabby +finery across the turf of the lower lawn. Odious birds! Their necks, +thick and greedily fleshy at the roots, tapered up to the cruel inanity +of their brainless heads, their flat eyes and piercing beaks. The +fabulists were right, he reflected, when they took beasts to illustrate +their tractates of human morality. Animals resemble men with all the +truthfulness of a caricature. (Oh, the red notebook!) He threw a piece +of stick at the slowly pacing birds. They rushed towards it, thinking it +was something to eat. + +He walked on. The profound shade of a giant ilex tree engulfed him. Like +a great wooden octopus, it spread its long arms abroad. + + + “Under the spreading ilex tree...” + +He tried to remember who the poem was by, but couldn’t. + + + “The smith, a brawny man is he, + + With arms like rubber bands.” + +Just like his; he would have to try and do his Muller exercises more +regularly. + +He emerged once more into the sunshine. The pool lay before him, +reflecting in its bronze mirror the blue and various green of the +summer day. Looking at it, he thought of Anne’s bare arms and seal-sleek +bathing-dress, her moving knees and feet. + + + “And little Luce with the white legs, + + And bouncing Barbary...” + +Oh, these rags and tags of other people’s making! Would he ever be able +to call his brain his own? Was there, indeed, anything in it that was +truly his own, or was it simply an education? + +He walked slowly round the water’s edge. In an embayed recess among +the surrounding yew trees, leaning her back against the pedestal of a +pleasantly comic version of the Medici Venus, executed by some nameless +mason of the seicento, he saw Mary pensively sitting. + +“Hullo!” he said, for he was passing so close to her that he had to say +something. + +Mary looked up. “Hullo!” she answered in a melancholy, uninterested +tone. + +In this alcove hewed out of the dark trees, the atmosphere seemed to +Denis agreeably elegiac. He sat down beside her under the shadow of the +pudic goddess. There was a prolonged silence. + +At breakfast that morning Mary had found on her plate a picture postcard +of Gobley Great Park. A stately Georgian pile, with a facade sixteen +windows wide; parterres in the foreground; huge, smooth lawns receding +out of the picture to right and left. Ten years more of the hard times +and Gobley, with all its peers, will be deserted and decaying. Fifty +years, and the countryside will know the old landmarks no more. They +will have vanished as the monasteries vanished before them. At the +moment, however, Mary’s mind was not moved by these considerations. + +On the back of the postcard, next to the address, was written, in Ivor’s +bold, large hand, a single quatrain. + + + “Hail, maid of moonlight! Bride of the sun, farewell! + + Like bright plumes moulted in an angel’s flight, + + There sleep within my heart’s most mystic cell + + Memories of morning, memories of the night.” + +There followed a postscript of three lines: “Would you mind asking one +of the housemaids to forward the packet of safety-razor blades I left in +the drawer of my washstand. Thanks.--Ivor.” + +Seated under the Venus’s immemorial gesture, Mary considered life +and love. The abolition of her repressions, so far from bringing the +expected peace of mind, had brought nothing but disquiet, a new and +hitherto unexperienced misery. Ivor, Ivor...She couldn’t do without him +now. It was evident, on the other hand, from the poem on the back of the +picture postcard, that Ivor could very well do without her. He was at +Gobley now, so was Zenobia. Mary knew Zenobia. She thought of the last +verse of the song he had sung that night in the garden. + + + “Le lendemain, Phillis peu sage + + Aurait donne moutons et chien + + Pour un baiser que le volage + + A Lisette donnait pour rien.” + +Mary shed tears at the memory; she had never been so unhappy in all her +life before. + +It was Denis who first broke the silence. “The individual,” he began in +a soft and sadly philosophical tone, “is not a self-supporting universe. +There are times when he comes into contact with other individuals, when +he is forced to take cognisance of the existence of other universes +besides himself.” + +He had contrived this highly abstract generalisation as a preliminary +to a personal confidence. It was the first gambit in a conversation that +was to lead up to Jenny’s caricatures. + +“True,” said Mary; and, generalising for herself, she added, “When one +individual comes into intimate contact with another, she--or he, of +course, as the case may be--must almost inevitably receive or inflict +suffering.” + +“One is apt,” Denis went on, “to be so spellbound by the spectacle of +one’s own personality that one forgets that the spectacle presents +itself to other people as well as to oneself.” + +Mary was not listening. “The difficulty,” she said, “makes itself +acutely felt in matters of sex. If one individual seeks intimate contact +with another individual in the natural way, she is certain to receive or +inflict suffering. If on the other hand, she avoids contacts, she risks +the equally grave sufferings that follow on unnatural repressions. As +you see, it’s a dilemma.” + +“When I think of my own case,” said Denis, making a more decided move in +the desired direction, “I am amazed how ignorant I am of other people’s +mentality in general, and above all and in particular, of their opinions +about myself. Our minds are sealed books only occasionally opened to +the outside world.” He made a gesture that was faintly suggestive of the +drawing off of a rubber band. + +“It’s an awful problem,” said Mary thoughtfully. “One has to have had +personal experience to realise quite how awful it is.” + +“Exactly.” Denis nodded. “One has to have had first-hand experience.” He +leaned towards her and slightly lowered his voice. “This very morning, +for example...” he began, but his confidences were cut short. The deep +voice of the gong, tempered by distance to a pleasant booming, floated +down from the house. It was lunch-time. Mechanically Mary rose to her +feet, and Denis, a little hurt that she should exhibit such a desperate +anxiety for her food and so slight an interest in his spiritual +experiences, followed her. They made their way up to the house without +speaking. + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +I hope you all realise,” said Henry Wimbush during dinner, “that next +Monday is Bank Holiday, and that you will all be expected to help in the +Fair.” + +“Heavens!” cried Anne. “The Fair--I had forgotten all about it. What a +nightmare! Couldn’t you put a stop to it, Uncle Henry?” + +Mr. Wimbush sighed and shook his head. “Alas,” he said, “I fear I +cannot. I should have liked to put an end to it years ago; but the +claims of Charity are strong.” + +“It’s not charity we want,” Anne murmured rebelliously; “it’s justice.” + +“Besides,” Mr. Wimbush went on, “the Fair has become an institution. Let +me see, it must be twenty-two years since we started it. It was a modest +affair then. Now...” he made a sweeping movement with his hand and was +silent. + +It spoke highly for Mr. Wimbush’s public spirit that he still continued +to tolerate the Fair. Beginning as a sort of glorified church +bazaar, Crome’s yearly Charity Fair had grown into a noisy thing of +merry-go-rounds, cocoanut shies, and miscellaneous side shows--a real +genuine fair on the grand scale. It was the local St. Bartholomew, and +the people of all the neighbouring villages, with even a contingent from +the county town, flocked into the park for their Bank Holiday amusement. +The local hospital profited handsomely, and it was this fact alone which +prevented Mr. Wimbush, to whom the Fair was a cause of recurrent and +never-diminishing agony, from putting a stop to the nuisance which +yearly desecrated his park and garden. + +“I’ve made all the arrangements already,” Henry Wimbush went on. “Some +of the larger marquees will be put up to-morrow. The swings and the +merry-go-round arrive on Sunday.” + +“So there’s no escape,” said Anne, turning to the rest of the party. +“You’ll all have to do something. As a special favour you’re allowed +to choose your slavery. My job is the tea tent, as usual, Aunt +Priscilla...” + +“My dear,” said Mrs. Wimbush, interrupting her, “I have more important +things to think about than the Fair. But you need have no doubt that I +shall do my best when Monday comes to encourage the villagers.” + +“That’s splendid,” said Anne. “Aunt Priscilla will encourage the +villagers. What will you do, Mary?” + +“I won’t do anything where I have to stand by and watch other people +eat.” + +“Then you’ll look after the children’s sports.” + +“All right,” Mary agreed. “I’ll look after the children’s sports.” + +“And Mr. Scogan?” + +Mr. Scogan reflected. “May I be allowed to tell fortunes?” he asked at +last. “I think I should be good at telling fortunes.” + +“But you can’t tell fortunes in that costume!” + +“Can’t I?” Mr. Scogan surveyed himself. + +“You’ll have to be dressed up. Do you still persist?” + +“I’m ready to suffer all indignities.” + +“Good!” said Anne; and turning to Gombauld, “You must be our lightning +artist,” she said. “‘Your portrait for a shilling in five minutes.’” + +“It’s a pity I’m not Ivor,” said Gombauld, with a laugh. “I could throw +in a picture of their Auras for an extra sixpence.” + +Mary flushed. “Nothing is to be gained,” she said severely, “by speaking +with levity of serious subjects. And, after all, whatever your personal +views may be, psychical research is a perfectly serious subject.” + +“And what about Denis?” + +Denis made a deprecating gesture. “I have no accomplishments,” he said, +“I’ll just be one of those men who wear a thing in their buttonholes and +go about telling people which is the way to tea and not to walk on the +grass.” + +“No, no,” said Anne. “That won’t do. You must do something more than +that.” + +“But what? All the good jobs are taken, and I can do nothing but lisp in +numbers.” + +“Well, then, you must lisp,” concluded Anne. “You must write a poem for +the occasion--an ‘Ode on Bank Holiday.’ We’ll print it on Uncle Henry’s +press and sell it at twopence a copy.” + +“Sixpence,” Denis protested. “It’ll be worth sixpence.” + +Anne shook her head. “Twopence,” she repeated firmly. “Nobody will pay +more than twopence.” + +“And now there’s Jenny,” said Mr Wimbush. “Jenny,” he said, raising his +voice, “what will you do?” + +Denis thought of suggesting that she might draw caricatures at sixpence +an execution, but decided it would be wiser to go on feigning ignorance +of her talent. His mind reverted to the red notebook. Could it really be +true that he looked like that? + +“What will I do,” Jenny echoed, “what will I do?” She frowned +thoughtfully for a moment; then her face brightened and she smiled. +“When I was young,” she said, “I learnt to play the drums.” + +“The drums?” + +Jenny nodded, and, in proof of her assertion, agitated her knife +and fork, like a pair of drumsticks, over her plate. “If there’s any +opportunity of playing the drums...” she began. + +“But of course,” said Anne, “there’s any amount of opportunity. We’ll +put you down definitely for the drums. That’s the lot,” she added. + +“And a very good lot too,” said Gombauld. “I look forward to my Bank +Holiday. It ought to be gay.” + +“It ought indeed,” Mr Scogan assented. “But you may rest assured that it +won’t be. No holiday is ever anything but a disappointment.” + +“Come, come,” protested Gombauld. “My holiday at Crome isn’t being a +disappointment.” + +“Isn’t it?” Anne turned an ingenuous mask towards him. + +“No, it isn’t,” he answered. + +“I’m delighted to hear it.” + +“It’s in the very nature of things,” Mr. Scogan went on; “our holidays +can’t help being disappointments. Reflect for a moment. What is a +holiday? The ideal, the Platonic Holiday of Holidays is surely a +complete and absolute change. You agree with me in my definition?” Mr. +Scogan glanced from face to face round the table; his sharp nose moved +in a series of rapid jerks through all the points of the compass. There +was no sign of dissent; he continued: “A complete and absolute change; +very well. But isn’t a complete and absolute change precisely the thing +we can never have--never, in the very nature of things?” Mr. Scogan +once more looked rapidly about him. “Of course it is. As ourselves, as +specimens of Homo Sapiens, as members of a society, how can we hope to +have anything like an absolute change? We are tied down by the frightful +limitation of our human faculties, by the notions which society imposes +on us through our fatal suggestibility, by our own personalities. For +us, a complete holiday is out of the question. Some of us struggle +manfully to take one, but we never succeed, if I may be allowed to +express myself metaphorically, we never succeed in getting farther than +Southend.” + +“You’re depressing,” said Anne. + +“I mean to be,” Mr. Scogan replied, and, expanding the fingers of his +right hand, he went on: “Look at me, for example. What sort of a holiday +can I take? In endowing me with passions and faculties Nature has been +horribly niggardly. The full range of human potentialities is in +any case distressingly limited; my range is a limitation within a +limitation. Out of the ten octaves that make up the human instrument, +I can compass perhaps two. Thus, while I may have a certain amount +of intelligence, I have no aesthetic sense; while I possess the +mathematical faculty, I am wholly without the religious emotions; while +I am naturally addicted to venery, I have little ambition and am not +at all avaricious. Education has further limited my scope. Having been +brought up in society, I am impregnated with its laws; not only should +I be afraid of taking a holiday from them, I should also feel it painful +to try to do so. In a word, I have a conscience as well as a fear of +gaol. Yes, I know it by experience. How often have I tried to take +holidays, to get away from myself, my own boring nature, my insufferable +mental surroundings!” Mr. Scogan sighed. “But always without +success,” he added, “always without success. In my youth I was always +striving--how hard!--to feel religiously and aesthetically. Here, said +I to myself, are two tremendously important and exciting emotions. Life +would be richer, warmer, brighter, altogether more amusing, if I could +feel them. I try to feel them. I read the works of the mystics. They +seemed to me nothing but the most deplorable claptrap--as indeed they +always must to anyone who does not feel the same emotion as the authors +felt when they were writing. For it is the emotion that matters. The +written work is simply an attempt to express emotion, which is in itself +inexpressible, in terms of intellect and logic. The mystic objectifies +a rich feeling in the pit of the stomach into a cosmology. For other +mystics that cosmology is a symbol of the rich feeling. For the +unreligious it is a symbol of nothing, and so appears merely grotesque. +A melancholy fact! But I divagate.” Mr. Scogan checked himself. “So much +for the religious emotion. As for the aesthetic--I was at even greater +pains to cultivate that. I have looked at all the right works of art +in every part of Europe. There was a time when, I venture to believe, +I knew more about Taddeo da Poggibonsi, more about the cryptic Amico +di Taddeo, even than Henry does. To-day, I am happy to say, I have +forgotten most of the knowledge I then so laboriously acquired; but +without vanity I can assert that it was prodigious. I don’t pretend, of +course, to know anything about nigger sculpture or the later seventeenth +century in Italy; but about all the periods that were fashionable before +1900 I am, or was, omniscient. Yes, I repeat it, omniscient. But did +that fact make me any more appreciative of art in general? It did not. +Confronted by a picture, of which I could tell you all the known and +presumed history--the date when it was painted, the character of the +painter, the influences that had gone to make it what it was--I felt +none of that strange excitement and exaltation which is, as I am +informed by those who do feel it, the true aesthetic emotion. I felt +nothing but a certain interest in the subject of the picture; or more +often, when the subject was hackneyed and religious, I felt nothing but +a great weariness of spirit. Nevertheless, I must have gone on looking +at pictures for ten years before I would honestly admit to myself that +they merely bored me. Since then I have given up all attempts to take +a holiday. I go on cultivating my old stale daily self in the resigned +spirit with which a bank clerk performs from ten till six his daily +task. A holiday, indeed! I’m sorry for you, Gombauld, if you still look +forward to having a holiday.” + +Gombauld shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps,” he said, “my standards +aren’t as elevated as yours. But personally I found the war quite as +thorough a holiday from all the ordinary decencies and sanities, all the +common emotions and preoccupations, as I ever want to have.” + +“Yes,” Mr. Scogan thoughtfully agreed. “Yes, the war was certainly +something of a holiday. It was a step beyond Southend; it was +Weston-super-Mare; it was almost Ilfracombe.” + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +A little canvas village of tents and booths had sprung up, just beyond +the boundaries of the garden, in the green expanse of the park. A crowd +thronged its streets, the men dressed mostly in black--holiday best, +funeral best--the women in pale muslins. Here and there tricolour +bunting hung inert. In the midst of the canvas town, scarlet and gold +and crystal, the merry-go-round glittered in the sun. The balloon-man +walked among the crowd, and above his head, like a huge, inverted +bunch of many-coloured grapes, the balloons strained upwards. With a +scythe-like motion the boat-swings reaped the air, and from the funnel +of the engine which worked the roundabout rose a thin, scarcely wavering +column of black smoke. + +Denis had climbed to the top of one of Sir Ferdinando’s towers, and +there, standing on the sun-baked leads, his elbows resting on the +parapet, he surveyed the scene. The steam-organ sent up prodigious +music. The clashing of automatic cymbals beat out with inexorable +precision the rhythm of piercingly sounded melodies. The harmonies were +like a musical shattering of glass and brass. Far down in the bass +the Last Trump was hugely blowing, and with such persistence, such +resonance, that its alternate tonic and dominant detached themselves +from the rest of the music and made a tune of their own, a loud, +monotonous see-saw. + +Denis leaned over the gulf of swirling noise. If he threw himself over +the parapet, the noise would surely buoy him up, keep him suspended, +bobbing, as a fountain balances a ball on its breaking crest. Another +fancy came to him, this time in metrical form. + + + “My soul is a thin white sheet of parchment stretched + + Over a bubbling cauldron.” + +Bad, bad. But he liked the idea of something thin and distended being +blown up from underneath. + + + “My soul is a thin tent of gut...” + +or better-- + + + “My soul is a pale, tenuous membrane...” + +That was pleasing: a thin, tenuous membrane. It had the right anatomical +quality. Tight blown, quivering in the blast of noisy life. It was time +for him to descend from the serene empyrean of words into the actual +vortex. He went down slowly. “My soul is a thin, tenuous membrane...” + +On the terrace stood a knot of distinguished visitors. There was old +Lord Moleyn, like a caricature of an English milord in a French comic +paper: a long man, with a long nose and long, drooping moustaches and +long teeth of old ivory, and lower down, absurdly, a short covert coat, +and below that long, long legs cased in pearl-grey trousers--legs that +bent unsteadily at the knee and gave a kind of sideways wobble as +he walked. Beside him, short and thick-set, stood Mr. Callamay, the +venerable conservative statesman, with a face like a Roman bust, and +short white hair. Young girls didn’t much like going for motor drives +alone with Mr. Callamay; and of old Lord Moleyn one wondered why he +wasn’t living in gilded exile on the island of Capri among the other +distinguished persons who, for one reason or another, find it impossible +to live in England. They were talking to Anne, laughing, the one +profoundly, the other hootingly. + +A black silk balloon towing a black-and-white striped parachute proved +to be old Mrs. Budge from the big house on the other side of the valley. +She stood low on the ground, and the spikes of her black-and-white +sunshade menaced the eyes of Priscilla Wimbush, who towered over her--a +massive figure dressed in purple and topped with a queenly toque on +which the nodding black plumes recalled the splendours of a first-class +Parisian funeral. + +Denis peeped at them discreetly from the window of the morning-room. +His eyes were suddenly become innocent, childlike, unprejudiced. They +seemed, these people, inconceivably fantastic. And yet they really +existed, they functioned by themselves, they were conscious, they +had minds. Moreover, he was like them. Could one believe it? But the +evidence of the red notebook was conclusive. + +It would have been polite to go and say, “How d’you do?” But at the +moment Denis did not want to talk, could not have talked. His soul was a +tenuous, tremulous, pale membrane. He would keep its sensibility intact +and virgin as long as he could. Cautiously he crept out by a side +door and made his way down towards the park. His soul fluttered as he +approached the noise and movement of the fair. He paused for a moment on +the brink, then stepped in and was engulfed. + +Hundreds of people, each with his own private face and all of them real, +separate, alive: the thought was disquieting. He paid twopence and saw +the Tatooed Woman; twopence more, the Largest Rat in the World. From the +home of the Rat he emerged just in time to see a hydrogen-filled balloon +break loose for home. A child howled up after it; but calmly, a perfect +sphere of flushed opal, it mounted, mounted. Denis followed it with his +eyes until it became lost in the blinding sunlight. If he could but send +his soul to follow it!... + +He sighed, stuck his steward’s rosette in his buttonhole, and started to +push his way, aimlessly but officially, through the crowd. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +Mr. Scogan had been accommodated in a little canvas hut. Dressed in a +black skirt and a red bodice, with a yellow-and-red bandana handkerchief +tied round his black wig, he looked--sharp-nosed, brown, and +wrinkled--like the Bohemian Hag of Frith’s Derby Day. A placard pinned +to the curtain of the doorway announced the presence within the tent of +“Sesostris, the Sorceress of Ecbatana.” Seated at a table, Mr. Scogan +received his clients in mysterious silence, indicating with a movement +of the finger that they were to sit down opposite him and to extend +their hands for his inspection. He then examined the palm that was +presented him, using a magnifying glass and a pair of horn spectacles. +He had a terrifying way of shaking his head, frowning and clicking with +his tongue as he looked at the lines. Sometimes he would whisper, as +though to himself, “Terrible, terrible!” or “God preserve us!” sketching +out the sign of the cross as he uttered the words. The clients who came +in laughing grew suddenly grave; they began to take the witch seriously. +She was a formidable-looking woman; could it be, was it possible, that +there was something in this sort of thing after all? After all, they +thought, as the hag shook her head over their hands, after all...And +they waited, with an uncomfortably beating heart, for the oracle to +speak. After a long and silent inspection, Mr. Scogan would suddenly +look up and ask, in a hoarse whisper, some horrifying question, such as, +“Have you ever been hit on the head with a hammer by a young man with +red hair?” When the answer was in the negative, which it could hardly +fail to be, Mr. Scogan would nod several times, saying, “I was afraid +so. Everything is still to come, still to come, though it can’t be +very far off now.” Sometimes, after a long examination, he would just +whisper, “Where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise,” and refuse +to divulge any details of a future too appalling to be envisaged without +despair. Sesostris had a success of horror. People stood in a queue +outside the witch’s booth waiting for the privilege of hearing sentence +pronounced upon them. + +Denis, in the course of his round, looked with curiosity at this crowd +of suppliants before the shrine of the oracle. He had a great desire +to see how Mr. Scogan played his part. The canvas booth was a rickety, +ill-made structure. Between its walls and its sagging roof were long +gaping chinks and crannies. Denis went to the tea-tent and borrowed a +wooden bench and a small Union Jack. With these he hurried back to the +booth of Sesostris. Setting down the bench at the back of the booth, +he climbed up, and with a great air of busy efficiency began to tie the +Union Jack to the top of one of the tent-poles. Through the crannies in +the canvas he could see almost the whole of the interior of the tent. +Mr. Scogan’s bandana-covered head was just below him; his terrifying +whispers came clearly up. Denis looked and listened while the witch +prophesied financial losses, death by apoplexy, destruction by air-raids +in the next war. + +“Is there going to be another war?” asked the old lady to whom he had +predicted this end. + +“Very soon,” said Mr. Scogan, with an air of quiet confidence. + +The old lady was succeeded by a girl dressed in white muslin, garnished +with pink ribbons. She was wearing a broad hat, so that Denis could not +see her face; but from her figure and the roundness of her bare arms +he judged her young and pleasing. Mr. Scogan looked at her hand, then +whispered, “You are still virtuous.” + +The young lady giggled and exclaimed, “Oh, lor’!” + +“But you will not remain so for long,” added Mr. Scogan sepulchrally. +The young lady giggled again. “Destiny, which interests itself in small +things no less than in great, has announced the fact upon your hand.” + Mr. Scogan took up the magnifying-glass and began once more to examine +the white palm. “Very interesting,” he said, as though to himself--“very +interesting. It’s as clear as day.” He was silent. + +“What’s clear?” asked the girl. + +“I don’t think I ought to tell you.” Mr. Scogan shook his head; the +pendulous brass ear-rings which he had screwed on to his ears tinkled. + +“Please, please!” she implored. + +The witch seemed to ignore her remark. “Afterwards, it’s not at all +clear. The fates don’t say whether you will settle down to married life +and have four children or whether you will try to go on the cinema +and have none. They are only specific about this one rather crucial +incident.” + +“What is it? What is it? Oh, do tell me!” + +The white muslin figure leant eagerly forward. + +Mr. Scogan sighed. “Very well,” he said, “if you must know, you +must know. But if anything untoward happens you must blame your +own curiosity. Listen. Listen.” He lifted up a sharp, claw-nailed +forefinger. “This is what the fates have written. Next Sunday afternoon +at six o’clock you will be sitting on the second stile on the footpath +that leads from the church to the lower road. At that moment a man will +appear walking along the footpath.” Mr. Scogan looked at her hand again +as though to refresh his memory of the details of the scene. “A man,” he +repeated--“a small man with a sharp nose, not exactly good looking nor +precisely young, but fascinating.” He lingered hissingly over the word. +“He will ask you, ‘Can you tell me the way to Paradise?’ and you will +answer, ‘Yes, I’ll show you,’ and walk with him down towards the little +hazel copse. I cannot read what will happen after that.” There was a +silence. + +“Is it really true?” asked white muslin. + +The witch gave a shrug of the shoulders. “I merely tell you what I read +in your hand. Good afternoon. That will be sixpence. Yes, I have change. +Thank you. Good afternoon.” + +Denis stepped down from the bench; tied insecurely and crookedly to the +tentpole, the Union Jack hung limp on the windless air. “If only I could +do things like that!” he thought, as he carried the bench back to the +tea-tent. + +Anne was sitting behind a long table filling thick white cups from an +urn. A neat pile of printed sheets lay before her on the table. Denis +took one of them and looked at it affectionately. It was his poem. They +had printed five hundred copies, and very nice the quarto broadsheets +looked. + +“Have you sold many?” he asked in a casual tone. + +Anne put her head on one side deprecatingly. “Only three so far, I’m +afraid. But I’m giving a free copy to everyone who spends more than a +shilling on his tea. So in any case it’s having a circulation.” + +Denis made no reply, but walked slowly away. He looked at the broadsheet +in his hand and read the lines to himself relishingly as he walked +along: + + + “This day of roundabouts and swings, + + Struck weights, shied cocoa-nuts, tossed rings, + + Switchbacks, Aunt Sallies, and all such small + + High jinks--you call it ferial? + + A holiday? But paper noses + + Sniffed the artificial roses + + Of round Venetian cheeks through half + + Each carnival year, and masks might laugh + + At things the naked face for shame + + Would blush at--laugh and think no blame. + + A holiday? But Galba showed + + Elephants on an airy road; + + Jumbo trod the tightrope then, + + And in the circus armed men + + Stabbed home for sport and died to break + + Those dull imperatives that make + + A prison of every working day, + + Where all must drudge and all obey. + + Sing Holiday! You do not know + + How to be free. The Russian snow + + Flowered with bright blood whose roses spread + + Petals of fading, fading red + + That died into the snow again, + + Into the virgin snow; and men + + From all ancient bonds were freed. + + Old law, old custom, and old creed, + + Old right and wrong there bled to death; + + The frozen air received their breath, + + A little smoke that died away; + + And round about them where they lay + + The snow bloomed roses. Blood was there + + A red gay flower and only fair. + + Sing Holiday! Beneath the Tree + + Of Innocence and Liberty, + + Paper Nose and Red Cockade + + Dance within the magic shade + + That makes them drunken, merry, and strong + + To laugh and sing their ferial song: + + ‘Free, free...!’ + + + But Echo answers + + Faintly to the laughing dancers, + + ‘Free’--and faintly laughs, and still, + + Within the hollows of the hill, + + Faintlier laughs and whispers, ‘Free,’ + + Fadingly, diminishingly: + + ‘Free,’ and laughter faints away... + + Sing Holiday! Sing Holiday!” + +He folded the sheet carefully and put it in his pocket. The thing had +its merits. Oh, decidedly, decidedly! But how unpleasant the crowd +smelt! He lit a cigarette. The smell of cows was preferable. He passed +through the gate in the park wall into the garden. The swimming-pool was +a centre of noise and activity. + +“Second Heat in the Young Ladies’ Championship.” It was the polite +voice of Henry Wimbush. A crowd of sleek, seal-like figures in black +bathing-dresses surrounded him. His grey bowler hat, smooth, round, and +motionless in the midst of a moving sea, was an island of aristocratic +calm. + +Holding his tortoise-shell-rimmed pince-nez an inch or two in front of +his eyes, he read out names from a list. + +“Miss Dolly Miles, Miss Rebecca Balister, Miss Doris Gabell...” + +Five young persons ranged themselves on the brink. From their seats of +honour at the other end of the pool, old Lord Moleyn and Mr. Callamay +looked on with eager interest. + +Henry Wimbush raised his hand. There was an expectant silence. “When I +say ‘Go,’ go. Go!” he said. There was an almost simultaneous splash. + +Denis pushed his way through the spectators. Somebody plucked him by the +sleeve; he looked down. It was old Mrs. Budge. + +“Delighted to see you again, Mr. Stone,” she said in her rich, husky +voice. She panted a little as she spoke, like a short-winded lap-dog. +It was Mrs. Budge who, having read in the “Daily Mirror” that the +Government needed peach stones--what they needed them for she never +knew--had made the collection of peach stones her peculiar “bit” of war +work. She had thirty-six peach trees in her walled garden, as well as +four hot-houses in which trees could be forced, so that she was able +to eat peaches practically the whole year round. In 1916 she ate 4200 +peaches, and sent the stones to the Government. In 1917 the military +authorities called up three of her gardeners, and what with this and the +fact that it was a bad year for wall fruit, she only managed to eat 2900 +peaches during that crucial period of the national destinies. In 1918 +she did rather better, for between January 1st and the date of the +Armistice she ate 3300 peaches. Since the Armistice she had relaxed her +efforts; now she did not eat more than two or three peaches a day. Her +constitution, she complained, had suffered; but it had suffered for a +good cause. + +Denis answered her greeting by a vague and polite noise. + +“So nice to see the young people enjoying themselves,” Mrs. Budge went +on. “And the old people too, for that matter. Look at old Lord Moleyn +and dear Mr. Callamay. Isn’t it delightful to see the way they enjoy +themselves?” + +Denis looked. He wasn’t sure whether it was so very delightful after +all. Why didn’t they go and watch the sack races? The two old gentlemen +were engaged at the moment in congratulating the winner of the race; it +seemed an act of supererogatory graciousness; for, after all, she had +only won a heat. + +“Pretty little thing, isn’t she?” said Mrs. Budge huskily, and panted +two or three times. + +“Yes,” Denis nodded agreement. Sixteen, slender, but nubile, he said to +himself, and laid up the phrase in his memory as a happy one. Old Mr. +Callamay had put on his spectacles to congratulate the victor, and Lord +Moleyn, leaning forward over his walking-stick, showed his long ivory +teeth, hungrily smiling. + +“Capital performance, capital,” Mr. Callamay was saying in his deep +voice. + +The victor wriggled with embarrassment. She stood with her hands behind +her back, rubbing one foot nervously on the other. Her wet bathing-dress +shone, a torso of black polished marble. + +“Very good indeed,” said Lord Moleyn. His voice seemed to come from just +behind his teeth, a toothy voice. It was as though a dog should suddenly +begin to speak. He smiled again, Mr. Callamay readjusted his spectacles. + +“When I say ‘Go,’ go. Go!” + +Splash! The third heat had started. + +“Do you know, I never could learn to swim,” said Mrs. Budge. + +“Really?” + +“But I used to be able to float.” + +Denis imagined her floating--up and down, up and down on a great green +swell. A blown black bladder; no, that wasn’t good, that wasn’t good at +all. A new winner was being congratulated. She was atrociously stubby +and fat. The last one, long and harmoniously, continuously curved from +knee to breast, had been an Eve by Cranach; but this, this one was a bad +Rubens. + +“...go--go--go!” Henry Wimbush’s polite level voice once more pronounced +the formula. Another batch of young ladies dived in. + +Grown a little weary of sustaining a conversation with Mrs. Budge, +Denis conveniently remembered that his duties as a steward called him +elsewhere. He pushed out through the lines of spectators and made his +way along the path left clear behind them. He was thinking again that +his soul was a pale, tenuous membrane, when he was startled by hearing +a thin, sibilant voice, speaking apparently from just above his head, +pronounce the single word “Disgusting!” + +He looked up sharply. The path along which he was walking passed under +the lee of a wall of clipped yew. Behind the hedge the ground sloped +steeply up towards the foot of the terrace and the house; for one +standing on the higher ground it was easy to look over the dark barrier. +Looking up, Denis saw two heads overtopping the hedge immediately above +him. He recognised the iron mask of Mr. Bodiham and the pale, colourless +face of his wife. They were looking over his head, over the heads of the +spectators, at the swimmers in the pond. + +“Disgusting!” Mrs. Bodiham repeated, hissing softly. + +The rector turned up his iron mask towards the solid cobalt of the sky. +“How long?” he said, as though to himself; “how long?” He lowered his +eyes again, and they fell on Denis’s upturned curious face. There was an +abrupt movement, and Mr. and Mrs. Bodiham popped out of sight behind the +hedge. + +Denis continued his promenade. He wandered past the merry-go-round, +through the thronged streets of the canvas village; the membrane of +his soul flapped tumultuously in the noise and laughter. In a roped-off +space beyond, Mary was directing the children’s sports. Little creatures +seethed round about her, making a shrill, tinny clamour; others +clustered about the skirts and trousers of their parents. Mary’s face +was shining in the heat; with an immense output of energy she started a +three-legged race. Denis looked on in admiration. + +“You’re wonderful,” he said, coming up behind her and touching her on +the arm. “I’ve never seen such energy.” + +She turned towards him a face, round, red, and honest as the setting +sun; the golden bell of her hair swung silently as she moved her head +and quivered to rest. + +“Do you know, Denis,” she said, in a low, serious voice, gasping a +little as she spoke--“do you know that there’s a woman here who has had +three children in thirty-one months?” + +“Really,” said Denis, making rapid mental calculations. + +“It’s appalling. I’ve been telling her about the Malthusian League. One +really ought...” + +But a sudden violent renewal of the metallic yelling announced the fact +that somebody had won the race. Mary became once more the centre of a +dangerous vortex. It was time, Denis thought, to move on; he might be +asked to do something if he stayed too long. + +He turned back towards the canvas village. The thought of tea was +making itself insistent in his mind. Tea, tea, tea. But the tea-tent was +horribly thronged. Anne, with an unusual expression of grimness on her +flushed face, was furiously working the handle of the urn; the brown +liquid spurted incessantly into the proffered cups. Portentous, in +the farther corner of the tent, Priscilla, in her royal toque, was +encouraging the villagers. In a momentary lull Denis could hear her +deep, jovial laughter and her manly voice. Clearly, he told himself, +this was no place for one who wanted tea. He stood irresolute at the +entrance to the tent. A beautiful thought suddenly came to him; if he +went back to the house, went unobtrusively, without being observed, if +he tiptoed into the dining-room and noiselessly opened the little doors +of the sideboard--ah, then! In the cool recess within he would find +bottles and a siphon; a bottle of crystal gin and a quart of soda water, +and then for the cups that inebriate as well as cheer... + +A minute later he was walking briskly up the shady yew-tree walk. Within +the house it was deliciously quiet and cool. Carrying his well-filled +tumbler with care, he went into the library. There, the glass on the +corner of the table beside him, he settled into a chair with a volume of +Sainte-Beuve. There was nothing, he found, like a Causerie du Lundi for +settling and soothing the troubled spirits. That tenuous membrane of his +had been too rudely buffeted by the afternoon’s emotions; it required a +rest. + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +Towards sunset the fair itself became quiescent. It was the hour for the +dancing to begin. At one side of the village of tents a space had been +roped off. Acetylene lamps, hung round it on posts, cast a piercing +white light. In one corner sat the band, and, obedient to its scraping +and blowing, two or three hundred dancers trampled across the dry +ground, wearing away the grass with their booted feet. Round this patch +of all but daylight, alive with motion and noise, the night seemed +preternaturally dark. Bars of light reached out into it, and every now +and then a lonely figure or a couple of lovers, interlaced, would cross +the bright shaft, flashing for a moment into visible existence, to +disappear again as quickly and surprisingly as they had come. + +Denis stood by the entrance of the enclosure, watching the swaying, +shuffling crowd. The slow vortex brought the couples round and round +again before him, as though he were passing them in review. There +was Priscilla, still wearing her queenly toque, still encouraging the +villagers--this time by dancing with one of the tenant farmers. There +was Lord Moleyn, who had stayed on to the disorganised, passoverish +meal that took the place of dinner on this festal day; he one-stepped +shamblingly, his bent knees more precariously wobbly than ever, with a +terrified village beauty. Mr. Scogan trotted round with another. Mary +was in the embrace of a young farmer of heroic proportions; she was +looking up at him, talking, as Denis could see, very seriously. What +about? he wondered. The Malthusian League, perhaps. Seated in the corner +among the band, Jenny was performing wonders of virtuosity upon the +drums. Her eyes shone, she smiled to herself. A whole subterranean life +seemed to be expressing itself in those loud rat-tats, those long rolls +and flourishes of drumming. Looking at her, Denis ruefully remembered +the red notebook; he wondered what sort of a figure he was cutting now. +But the sight of Anne and Gombauld swimming past--Anne with her eyes +almost shut and sleeping, as it were, on the sustaining wings of +movement and music--dissipated these preoccupations. Male and female +created He them...There they were, Anne and Gombauld, and a hundred +couples more--all stepping harmoniously together to the old tune of Male +and Female created He them. But Denis sat apart; he alone lacked his +complementary opposite. They were all coupled but he; all but he... + +Somebody touched him on the shoulder and he looked up. It was Henry +Wimbush. + +“I never showed you our oaken drainpipes,” he said. “Some of the ones +we dug up are lying quite close to here. Would you like to come and see +them?” + +Denis got up, and they walked off together into the darkness. The music +grew fainter behind them. Some of the higher notes faded out altogether. +Jenny’s drumming and the steady sawing of the bass throbbed on, tuneless +and meaningless in their ears. Henry Wimbush halted. + +“Here we are,” he said, and, taking an electric torch out of his pocket, +he cast a dim beam over two or three blackened sections of tree trunk, +scooped out into the semblance of pipes, which were lying forlornly in a +little depression in the ground. + +“Very interesting,” said Denis, with a rather tepid enthusiasm. + +They sat down on the grass. A faint white glare, rising from behind a +belt of trees, indicated the position of the dancing-floor. The music +was nothing but a muffled rhythmic pulse. + +“I shall be glad,” said Henry Wimbush, “when this function comes at last +to an end.” + +“I can believe it.” + +“I do not know how it is,” Mr. Wimbush continued, “but the spectacle +of numbers of my fellow-creatures in a state of agitation moves in me +a certain weariness, rather than any gaiety or excitement. The fact is, +they don’t very much interest me. They’re aren’t in my line. You follow +me? I could never take much interest, for example, in a collection of +postage stamps. Primitives or seventeenth-century books--yes. They are +my line. But stamps, no. I don’t know anything about them; they’re not +my line. They don’t interest me, they give me no emotion. It’s rather +the same with people, I’m afraid. I’m more at home with these pipes.” + He jerked his head sideways towards the hollowed logs. “The trouble with +the people and events of the present is that you never know anything +about them. What do I know of contemporary politics? Nothing. What do I +know of the people I see round about me? Nothing. What they think of +me or of anything else in the world, what they will do in five minutes’ +time, are things I can’t guess at. For all I know, you may suddenly jump +up and try to murder me in a moment’s time.” + +“Come, come,” said Denis. + +“True,” Mr. Wimbush continued, “the little I know about your past is +certainly reassuring. But I know nothing of your present, and neither +you nor I know anything of your future. It’s appalling; in living +people, one is dealing with unknown and unknowable quantities. One can +only hope to find out anything about them by a long series of the most +disagreeable and boring human contacts, involving a terrible expense +of time. It’s the same with current events; how can I find out anything +about them except by devoting years to the most exhausting first-hand +study, involving once more an endless number of the most unpleasant +contacts? No, give me the past. It doesn’t change; it’s all there +in black and white, and you can get to know about it comfortably and +decorously and, above all, privately--by reading. By reading I know a +great deal of Caesar Borgia, of St. Francis, of Dr. Johnson; a few weeks +have made me thoroughly acquainted with these interesting characters, +and I have been spared the tedious and revolting process of getting to +know them by personal contact, which I should have to do if they were +living now. How gay and delightful life would be if one could get rid +of all the human contacts! Perhaps, in the future, when machines have +attained to a state of perfection--for I confess that I am, like +Godwin and Shelley, a believer in perfectibility, the perfectibility +of machinery--then, perhaps, it will be possible for those who, like +myself, desire it, to live in a dignified seclusion, surrounded by the +delicate attentions of silent and graceful machines, and entirely secure +from any human intrusion. It is a beautiful thought.” + +“Beautiful,” Denis agreed. “But what about the desirable human contacts, +like love and friendship?” + +The black silhouette against the darkness shook its head. “The pleasures +even of these contacts are much exaggerated,” said the polite level +voice. “It seems to me doubtful whether they are equal to the pleasures +of private reading and contemplation. Human contacts have been so highly +valued in the past only because reading was not a common accomplishment +and because books were scarce and difficult to reproduce. The world, you +must remember, is only just becoming literate. As reading becomes more +and more habitual and widespread, an ever-increasing number of people +will discover that books will give them all the pleasures of social +life and none of its intolerable tedium. At present people in search +of pleasure naturally tend to congregate in large herds and to make a +noise; in future their natural tendency will be to seek solitude and +quiet. The proper study of mankind is books.” + +“I sometimes think that it may be,” said Denis; he was wondering if Anne +and Gombauld were still dancing together. + +“Instead of which,” said Mr. Wimbush, with a sigh, “I must go and see if +all is well on the dancing-floor.” They got up and began to walk slowly +towards the white glare. “If all these people were dead,” Henry Wimbush +went on, “this festivity would be extremely agreeable. Nothing would be +pleasanter than to read in a well-written book of an open-air ball that +took place a century ago. How charming! one would say; how pretty +and how amusing! But when the ball takes place to-day, when one finds +oneself involved in it, then one sees the thing in its true light. It +turns out to be merely this.” He waved his hand in the direction of +the acetylene flares. “In my youth,” he went on after a pause, “I +found myself, quite fortuitously, involved in a series of the most +phantasmagorical amorous intrigues. A novelist could have made his +fortune out of them, and even if I were to tell you, in my bald style, +the details of these adventures, you would be amazed at the romantic +tale. But I assure you, while they were happening--these romantic +adventures--they seemed to me no more and no less exciting than any +other incident of actual life. To climb by night up a rope-ladder to a +second-floor window in an old house in Toledo seemed to me, while I was +actually performing this rather dangerous feat, an action as obvious, as +much to be taken for granted, as--how shall I put it?--as quotidian as +catching the 8.52 from Surbiton to go to business on a Monday morning. +Adventures and romance only take on their adventurous and romantic +qualities at second-hand. Live them, and they are just a slice of life +like the rest. In literature they become as charming as this dismal ball +would be if we were celebrating its tercentenary.” They had come to +the entrance of the enclosure and stood there, blinking in the dazzling +light. “Ah, if only we were!” Henry Wimbush added. + +Anne and Gombauld were still dancing together. + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +It was after ten o’clock. The dancers had already dispersed and the +last lights were being put out. To-morrow the tents would be struck, the +dismantled merry-go-round would be packed into waggons and carted away. +An expanse of worn grass, a shabby brown patch in the wide green of the +park, would be all that remained. Crome Fair was over. + +By the edge of the pool two figures lingered. + +“No, no, no,” Anne was saying in a breathless whisper, leaning +backwards, turning her head from side to side in an effort to escape +Gombauld’s kisses. “No, please. No.” Her raised voice had become +imperative. + +Gombauld relaxed his embrace a little. “Why not?” he said. “I will.” + +With a sudden effort Anne freed herself. “You won’t,” she retorted. +“You’ve tried to take the most unfair advantage of me.” + +“Unfair advantage?” echoed Gombauld in genuine surprise. + +“Yes, unfair advantage. You attack me after I’ve been dancing for two +hours, while I’m still reeling drunk with the movement, when I’ve lost +my head, when I’ve got no mind left but only a rhythmical body! It’s as +bad as making love to someone you’ve drugged or intoxicated.” + +Gombauld laughed angrily. “Call me a White Slaver and have done with +it.” + +“Luckily,” said Anne, “I am now completely sobered, and if you try and +kiss me again I shall box your ears. Shall we take a few turns round the +pool?” she added. “The night is delicious.” + +For answer Gombauld made an irritated noise. They paced off slowly, side +by side. + +“What I like about the painting of Degas...” Anne began in her most +detached and conversational tone. + +“Oh, damn Degas!” Gombauld was almost shouting. + +From where he stood, leaning in an attitude of despair against the +parapet of the terrace, Denis had seen them, the two pale figures in +a patch of moonlight, far down by the pool’s edge. He had seen the +beginning of what promised to be an endless passionate embracement, +and at the sight he had fled. It was too much; he couldn’t stand it. In +another moment, he felt, he would have burst into irrepressible tears. + +Dashing blindly into the house, he almost ran into Mr. Scogan, who was +walking up and down the hall smoking a final pipe. + +“Hullo!” said Mr. Scogan, catching him by the arm; dazed and hardly +conscious of what he was doing or where he was, Denis stood there for +a moment like a somnambulist. “What’s the matter?” Mr. Scogan went on. +“you look disturbed, distressed, depressed.” + +Denis shook his head without replying. + +“Worried about the cosmos, eh?” Mr. Scogan patted him on the arm. “I +know the feeling,” he said. “It’s a most distressing symptom. ‘What’s +the point of it all? All is vanity. What’s the good of continuing to +function if one’s doomed to be snuffed out at last along with everything +else?’ Yes, yes. I know exactly how you feel. It’s most distressing if +one allows oneself to be distressed. But then why allow oneself to be +distressed? After all, we all know that there’s no ultimate point. But +what difference does that make?” + +At this point the somnambulist suddenly woke up. “What?” he said, +blinking and frowning at his interlocutor. “What?” Then breaking away he +dashed up the stairs, two steps at a time. + +Mr. Scogan ran to the foot of the stairs and called up after him. “It +makes no difference, none whatever. Life is gay all the same, always, +under whatever circumstances--under whatever circumstances,” he added, +raising his voice to a shout. But Denis was already far out of hearing, +and even if he had not been, his mind to-night was proof against all +the consolations of philosophy. Mr. Scogan replaced his pipe between his +teeth and resumed his meditative pacing. “Under any circumstances,” he +repeated to himself. It was ungrammatical to begin with; was it true? +And is life really its own reward? He wondered. When his pipe had burned +itself to its stinking conclusion he took a drink of gin and went to +bed. In ten minutes he was deeply, innocently asleep. + +Denis had mechanically undressed and, clad in those flowered silk +pyjamas of which he was so justly proud, was lying face downwards on +his bed. Time passed. When at last he looked up, the candle which he +had left alight at his bedside had burned down almost to the socket. He +looked at his watch; it was nearly half-past one. His head ached, his +dry, sleepless eyes felt as though they had been bruised from behind, +and the blood was beating within his ears a loud arterial drum. He got +up, opened the door, tiptoed noiselessly along the passage, and began +to mount the stairs towards the higher floors. Arrived at the servants’ +quarters under the roof, he hesitated, then turning to the right he +opened a little door at the end of the corridor. Within was a pitch-dark +cupboard-like boxroom, hot, stuffy, and smelling of dust and old +leather. He advanced cautiously into the blackness, groping with his +hands. It was from this den that the ladder went up to the leads of +the western tower. He found the ladder, and set his feet on the rungs; +noiselessly, he lifted the trap-door above his head; the moonlit sky was +over him, he breathed the fresh, cool air of the night. In a moment +he was standing on the leads, gazing out over the dim, colourless +landscape, looking perpendicularly down at the terrace seventy feet +below. + +Why had he climbed up to this high, desolate place? Was it to look at +the moon? Was it to commit suicide? As yet he hardly knew. Death--the +tears came into his eyes when he thought of it. His misery assumed +a certain solemnity; he was lifted up on the wings of a kind of +exaltation. It was a mood in which he might have done almost anything, +however foolish. He advanced towards the farther parapet; the drop was +sheer there and uninterrupted. A good leap, and perhaps one might clear +the narrow terrace and so crash down yet another thirty feet to the +sun-baked ground below. He paused at the corner of the tower, looking +now down into the shadowy gulf below, now up towards the rare stars and +the waning moon. He made a gesture with his hand, muttered something, +he could not afterwards remember what; but the fact that he had said +it aloud gave the utterance a peculiarly terrible significance. Then he +looked down once more into the depths. + +“What ARE you doing, Denis?” questioned a voice from somewhere very +close behind him. + +Denis uttered a cry of frightened surprise, and very nearly went over +the parapet in good earnest. His heart was beating terribly, and he was +pale when, recovering himself, he turned round in the direction from +which the voice had come. + +“Are you ill?” + +In the profound shadow that slept under the eastern parapet of the +tower, he saw something he had not previously noticed--an oblong +shape. It was a mattress, and someone was lying on it. Since that first +memorable night on the tower, Mary had slept out every evening; it was a +sort of manifestation of fidelity. + +“It gave me a fright,” she went on, “to wake up and see you waving your +arms and gibbering there. What on earth were you doing?” + +Denis laughed melodramatically. “What, indeed!” he said. If she hadn’t +woken up as she did, he would be lying in pieces at the bottom of the +tower; he was certain of that, now. + +“You hadn’t got designs on me, I hope?” Mary inquired, jumping too +rapidly to conclusions. + +“I didn’t know you were here,” said Denis, laughing more bitterly and +artificially than before. + +“What IS the matter, Denis?” + +He sat down on the edge of the mattress, and for all reply went on +laughing in the same frightful and improbable tone. + +An hour later he was reposing with his head on Mary’s knees, and she, +with an affectionate solicitude that was wholly maternal, was running +her fingers through his tangled hair. He had told her everything, +everything: his hopeless love, his jealousy, his despair, his +suicide--as it were providentially averted by her interposition. He had +solemnly promised never to think of self-destruction again. And now his +soul was floating in a sad serenity. It was embalmed in the sympathy +that Mary so generously poured. And it was not only in receiving +sympathy that Denis found serenity and even a kind of happiness; it +was also in giving it. For if he had told Mary everything about his +miseries, Mary, reacting to these confidences, had told him in return +everything, or very nearly everything, about her own. + +“Poor Mary!” He was very sorry for her. Still, she might have guessed +that Ivor wasn’t precisely a monument of constancy. + +“Well,” she concluded, “one must put a good face on it.” She wanted to +cry, but she wouldn’t allow herself to be weak. There was a silence. + +“Do you think,” asked Denis hesitatingly--“do you really think that +she...that Gombauld...” + +“I’m sure of it,” Mary answered decisively. There was another long +pause. + +“I don’t know what to do about it,” he said at last, utterly dejected. + +“You’d better go away,” advised Mary. “It’s the safest thing, and the +most sensible.” + +“But I’ve arranged to stay here three weeks more.” + +“You must concoct an excuse.” + +“I suppose you’re right.” + +“I know I am,” said Mary, who was recovering all her firm +self-possession. “You can’t go on like this, can you?” + +“No, I can’t go on like this,” he echoed. + +Immensely practical, Mary invented a plan of action. Startlingly, in the +darkness, the church clock struck three. + +“You must go to bed at once,” she said. “I’d no idea it was so late.” + +Denis clambered down the ladder, cautiously descended the creaking +stairs. His room was dark; the candle had long ago guttered to +extinction. He got into bed and fell asleep almost at once. + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +Denis had been called, but in spite of the parted curtains he had +dropped off again into that drowsy, dozy state when sleep becomes a +sensual pleasure almost consciously savoured. In this condition he might +have remained for another hour if he had not been disturbed by a violent +rapping at the door. + +“Come in,” he mumbled, without opening his eyes. The latch clicked, a +hand seized him by the shoulder and he was rudely shaken. + +“Get up, get up!” + +His eyelids blinked painfully apart, and he saw Mary standing over him, +bright-faced and earnest. + +“Get up!” she repeated. “You must go and send the telegram. Don’t you +remember?” + +“O Lord!” He threw off the bed-clothes; his tormentor retired. + +Denis dressed as quickly as he could and ran up the road to the village +post office. Satisfaction glowed within him as he returned. He had sent +a long telegram, which would in a few hours evoke an answer ordering +him back to town at once--on urgent business. It was an act performed, +a decisive step taken--and he so rarely took decisive steps; he felt +pleased with himself. It was with a whetted appetite that he came in to +breakfast. + +“Good-morning,” said Mr. Scogan. “I hope you’re better.” + +“Better?” + +“You were rather worried about the cosmos last night.” + +Denis tried to laugh away the impeachment. “Was I?” he lightly asked. + +“I wish,” said Mr. Scogan, “that I had nothing worse to prey on my mind. +I should be a happy man.” + +“One is only happy in action,” Denis enunciated, thinking of the +telegram. + +He looked out of the window. Great florid baroque clouds floated high +in the blue heaven. A wind stirred among the trees, and their shaken +foliage twinkled and glittered like metal in the sun. Everything seemed +marvellously beautiful. At the thought that he would soon be leaving +all this beauty he felt a momentary pang; but he comforted himself by +recollecting how decisively he was acting. + +“Action,” he repeated aloud, and going over to the sideboard he helped +himself to an agreeable mixture of bacon and fish. + +Breakfast over, Denis repaired to the terrace, and, sitting there, +raised the enormous bulwark of the “Times” against the possible assaults +of Mr. Scogan, who showed an unappeased desire to go on talking about +the Universe. Secure behind the crackling pages, he meditated. In +the light of this brilliant morning the emotions of last night seemed +somehow rather remote. And what if he had seen them embracing in the +moonlight? Perhaps it didn’t mean much after all. And even if it did, +why shouldn’t he stay? He felt strong enough to stay, strong enough to +be aloof, disinterested, a mere friendly acquaintance. And even if he +weren’t strong enough... + +“What time do you think the telegram will arrive?” asked Mary suddenly, +thrusting in upon him over the top of the paper. + +Denis started guiltily. “I don’t know at all,” he said. + +“I was only wondering,” said Mary, “because there’s a very good train at +3.27, and it would be nice if you could catch it, wouldn’t it?” + +“Awfully nice,” he agreed weakly. He felt as though he were making +arrangements for his own funeral. Train leaves Waterloo 3.27. No +flowers...Mary was gone. No, he was blowed if he’d let himself be +hurried down to the Necropolis like this. He was blowed. The sight of +Mr. Scogan looking out, with a hungry expression, from the drawing-room +window made him precipitately hoist the “Times” once more. For a long +while he kept it hoisted. Lowering it at last to take another cautious +peep at his surroundings, he found himself, with what astonishment! +confronted by Anne’s faint, amused, malicious smile. She was standing +before him,--the woman who was a tree,--the swaying grace of her +movement arrested in a pose that seemed itself a movement. + +“How long have you been standing there?” he asked, when he had done +gaping at her. + +“Oh, about half an hour, I suppose,” she said airily. “You were so very +deep in your paper--head over ears--I didn’t like to disturb you.” + +“You look lovely this morning,” Denis exclaimed. It was the first time +he had ever had the courage to utter a personal remark of the kind. + +Anne held up her hand as though to ward off a blow. “Don’t bludgeon me, +please.” She sat down on the bench beside him. He was a nice boy, she +thought, quite charming; and Gombauld’s violent insistences were really +becoming rather tiresome. “Why don’t you wear white trousers?” she +asked. “I like you so much in white trousers.” + +“They’re at the wash,” Denis replied rather curtly. This white-trouser +business was all in the wrong spirit. He was just preparing a scheme +to manoeuvre the conversation back to the proper path, when Mr. Scogan +suddenly darted out of the house, crossed the terrace with clockwork +rapidity, and came to a halt in front of the bench on which they were +seated. + +“To go on with our interesting conversation about the cosmos,” he began, +“I become more and more convinced that the various parts of the concern +are fundamentally discrete...But would you mind, Denis, moving a shade +to your right?” He wedged himself between them on the bench. “And if +you would shift a few inches to the left, my dear Anne...Thank you. +Discrete, I think, was what I was saying.” + +“You were,” said Anne. Denis was speechless. + +They were taking their after luncheon coffee in the library when the +telegram arrived. Denis blushed guiltily as he took the orange envelope +from the salver and tore it open. “Return at once. Urgent family +business.” It was too ridiculous. As if he had any family business! +Wouldn’t it be best just to crumple the thing up and put it in his +pocket without saying anything about it? He looked up; Mary’s large blue +china eyes were fixed upon him, seriously, penetratingly. He blushed +more deeply than ever, hesitated in a horrible uncertainty. + +“What’s your telegram about?” Mary asked significantly. + +He lost his head, “I’m afraid,” he mumbled, “I’m afraid this means +I shall have to go back to town at once.” He frowned at the telegram +ferociously. + +“But that’s absurd, impossible,” cried Anne. She had been standing by +the window talking to Gombauld; but at Denis’s words she came swaying +across the room towards him. + +“It’s urgent,” he repeated desperately. + +“But you’ve only been here such a short time,” Anne protested. + +“I know,” he said, utterly miserable. Oh, if only she could understand! +Women were supposed to have intuition. + +“If he must go, he must,” put in Mary firmly. + +“Yes, I must.” He looked at the telegram again for inspiration. “You +see, it’s urgent family business,” he explained. + +Priscilla got up from her chair in some excitement. “I had a distinct +presentiment of this last night,” she said. “A distinct presentiment.” + +“A mere coincidence, no doubt,” said Mary, brushing Mrs. Wimbush out of +the conversation. “There’s a very good train at 3.27.” She looked at the +clock on the mantelpiece. “You’ll have nice time to pack.” + +“I’ll order the motor at once.” Henry Wimbush rang the bell. The funeral +was well under way. It was awful, awful. + +“I am wretched you should be going,” said Anne. + +Denis turned towards her; she really did look wretched. He abandoned +himself hopelessly, fatalistically to his destiny. This was what came of +action, of doing something decisive. If only he’d just let things drift! +If only... + +“I shall miss your conversation,” said Mr. Scogan. + +Mary looked at the clock again. “I think perhaps you ought to go and +pack,” she said. + +Obediently Denis left the room. Never again, he said to himself, never +again would he do anything decisive. Camlet, West Bowlby, Knipswich for +Timpany, Spavin Delawarr; and then all the other stations; and then, +finally, London. The thought of the journey appalled him. And what on +earth was he going to do in London when he got there? He climbed wearily +up the stairs. It was time for him to lay himself in his coffin. + +The car was at the door--the hearse. The whole party had assembled to +see him go. Good-bye, good-bye. Mechanically he tapped the barometer +that hung in the porch; the needle stirred perceptibly to the left. A +sudden smile lighted up his lugubrious face. + +“‘It sinks and I am ready to depart,’” he said, quoting Landor with an +exquisite aptness. He looked quickly round from face to face. Nobody had +noticed. He climbed into the hearse. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Crome Yellow, by Aldous Huxley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CROME YELLOW *** + +***** This file should be named 1999-0.txt or 1999-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/9/1999/ + +Produced by Sue Asscher + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/1999-0.zip b/1999-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..eb0fd2c --- /dev/null +++ b/1999-0.zip diff --git a/1999-8.txt b/1999-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a407ee5 --- /dev/null +++ b/1999-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7039 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Crome Yellow, by Aldous Huxley + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Crome Yellow + +Author: Aldous Huxley + +Posting Date: September 26, 2008 [EBook #1999] +Release Date: December, 1999 +[Last updated: February 22, 2015] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CROME YELLOW *** + + + + +Produced by Sue Asscher + + + + +CROME YELLOW + +By Aldous Huxley + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +Along this particular stretch of line no express had ever passed. All +the trains--the few that there were--stopped at all the stations. +Denis knew the names of those stations by heart. Bole, Tritton, +Spavin Delawarr, Knipswich for Timpany, West Bowlby, and, finally, +Camlet-on-the-Water. Camlet was where he always got out, leaving the +train to creep indolently onward, goodness only knew whither, into the +green heart of England. + +They were snorting out of West Bowlby now. It was the next station, +thank Heaven. Denis took his chattels off the rack and piled them neatly +in the corner opposite his own. A futile proceeding. But one must have +something to do. When he had finished, he sank back into his seat and +closed his eyes. It was extremely hot. + +Oh, this journey! It was two hours cut clean out of his life; two hours +in which he might have done so much, so much--written the perfect poem, +for example, or read the one illuminating book. Instead of which--his +gorge rose at the smell of the dusty cushions against which he was +leaning. + +Two hours. One hundred and twenty minutes. Anything might be done in +that time. Anything. Nothing. Oh, he had had hundreds of hours, and what +had he done with them? Wasted them, spilt the precious minutes as though +his reservoir were inexhaustible. Denis groaned in the spirit, condemned +himself utterly with all his works. What right had he to sit in the +sunshine, to occupy corner seats in third-class carriages, to be alive? +None, none, none. + +Misery and a nameless nostalgic distress possessed him. He was +twenty-three, and oh! so agonizingly conscious of the fact. + +The train came bumpingly to a halt. Here was Camlet at last. Denis +jumped up, crammed his hat over his eyes, deranged his pile of baggage, +leaned out of the window and shouted for a porter, seized a bag in +either hand, and had to put them down again in order to open the door. +When at last he had safely bundled himself and his baggage on to the +platform, he ran up the train towards the van. + +"A bicycle, a bicycle!" he said breathlessly to the guard. He felt +himself a man of action. The guard paid no attention, but continued +methodically to hand out, one by one, the packages labelled to Camlet. +"A bicycle!" Denis repeated. "A green machine, cross-framed, name of +Stone. S-T-O-N-E." + +"All in good time, sir," said the guard soothingly. He was a large, +stately man with a naval beard. One pictured him at home, drinking tea, +surrounded by a numerous family. It was in that tone that he must have +spoken to his children when they were tiresome. "All in good time, sir." +Denis's man of action collapsed, punctured. + +He left his luggage to be called for later, and pushed off on his +bicycle. He always took his bicycle when he went into the country. It +was part of the theory of exercise. One day one would get up at six +o'clock and pedal away to Kenilworth, or Stratford-on-Avon--anywhere. +And within a radius of twenty miles there were always Norman churches +and Tudor mansions to be seen in the course of an afternoon's excursion. +Somehow they never did get seen, but all the same it was nice to feel +that the bicycle was there, and that one fine morning one really might +get up at six. + +Once at the top of the long hill which led up from Camlet station, he +felt his spirits mounting. The world, he found, was good. The far-away +blue hills, the harvests whitening on the slopes of the ridge along +which his road led him, the treeless sky-lines that changed as he +moved--yes, they were all good. He was overcome by the beauty of those +deeply embayed combes, scooped in the flanks of the ridge beneath him. +Curves, curves: he repeated the word slowly, trying as he did so to find +some term in which to give expression to his appreciation. Curves--no, +that was inadequate. He made a gesture with his hand, as though to scoop +the achieved expression out of the air, and almost fell off his bicycle. +What was the word to describe the curves of those little valleys? They +were as fine as the lines of a human body, they were informed with the +subtlety of art... + +Galbe. That was a good word; but it was French. Le galbe evase de ses +hanches: had one ever read a French novel in which that phrase didn't +occur? Some day he would compile a dictionary for the use of novelists. +Galbe, gonfle, goulu: parfum, peau, pervers, potele, pudeur: vertu, +volupte. + +But he really must find that word. Curves curves...Those little valleys +had the lines of a cup moulded round a woman's breast; they seemed the +dinted imprints of some huge divine body that had rested on these hills. +Cumbrous locutions, these; but through them he seemed to be getting +nearer to what he wanted. Dinted, dimpled, wimpled--his mind wandered +down echoing corridors of assonance and alliteration ever further and +further from the point. He was enamoured with the beauty of words. + +Becoming once more aware of the outer world, he found himself on the +crest of a descent. The road plunged down, steep and straight, into a +considerable valley. There, on the opposite slope, a little higher up +the valley, stood Crome, his destination. He put on his brakes; this +view of Crome was pleasant to linger over. The facade with its three +projecting towers rose precipitously from among the dark trees of the +garden. The house basked in full sunlight; the old brick rosily glowed. +How ripe and rich it was, how superbly mellow! And at the same time, how +austere! The hill was becoming steeper and steeper; he was gaining +speed in spite of his brakes. He loosed his grip of the levers, and in +a moment was rushing headlong down. Five minutes later he was passing +through the gate of the great courtyard. The front door stood hospitably +open. He left his bicycle leaning against the wall and walked in. He +would take them by surprise. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +He took nobody by surprise; there was nobody to take. All was quiet; +Denis wandered from room to empty room, looking with pleasure at the +familiar pictures and furniture, at all the little untidy signs of life +that lay scattered here and there. He was rather glad that they were +all out; it was amusing to wander through the house as though one +were exploring a dead, deserted Pompeii. What sort of life would the +excavator reconstruct from these remains; how would he people these +empty chambers? There was the long gallery, with its rows of respectable +and (though, of course, one couldn't publicly admit it) rather boring +Italian primitives, its Chinese sculptures, its unobtrusive, dateless +furniture. There was the panelled drawing-room, where the huge +chintz-covered arm-chairs stood, oases of comfort among the austere +flesh-mortifying antiques. There was the morning-room, with its pale +lemon walls, its painted Venetian chairs and rococo tables, its mirrors, +its modern pictures. There was the library, cool, spacious, and dark, +book-lined from floor to ceiling, rich in portentous folios. There was +the dining-room, solidly, portwinily English, with its great +mahogany table, its eighteenth-century chairs and sideboard, its +eighteenth-century pictures--family portraits, meticulous animal +paintings. What could one reconstruct from such data? There was much of +Henry Wimbush in the long gallery and the library, something of Anne, +perhaps, in the morning-room. That was all. Among the accumulations of +ten generations the living had left but few traces. + +Lying on the table in the morning-room he saw his own book of poems. +What tact! He picked it up and opened it. It was what the reviewers call +"a slim volume." He read at hazard:= + + +```"...But silence and the topless dark + +```Vault in the lights of Luna Park; + +```And Blackpool from the nightly gloom + +```Hollows a bright tumultuous tomb."= + +He put it down again, shook his head, and sighed. "What genius I had +then!" he reflected, echoing the aged Swift. It was nearly six months +since the book had been published; he was glad to think he would never +write anything of the same sort again. Who could have been reading it, +he wondered? Anne, perhaps; he liked to think so. Perhaps, too, she had +at last recognised herself in the Hamadryad of the poplar sapling; the +slim Hamadryad whose movements were like the swaying of a young tree in +the wind. "The Woman who was a Tree" was what he had called the poem. He +had given her the book when it came out, hoping that the poem would tell +her what he hadn't dared to say. She had never referred to it. + +He shut his eyes and saw a vision of her in a red velvet cloak, swaying +into the little restaurant where they sometimes dined together in +London--three quarters of an hour late, and he at his table, haggard +with anxiety, irritation, hunger. Oh, she was damnable! + +It occurred to him that perhaps his hostess might be in her boudoir. It +was a possibility; he would go and see. Mrs. Wimbush's boudoir was in +the central tower on the garden front. A little staircase cork-screwed +up to it from the hall. Denis mounted, tapped at the door. "Come in." +Ah, she was there; he had rather hoped she wouldn't be. He opened the +door. + +Priscilla Wimbush was lying on the sofa. A blotting-pad rested on her +knees and she was thoughtfully sucking the end of a silver pencil. + +"Hullo," she said, looking up. "I'd forgotten you were coming." + +"Well, here I am, I'm afraid," said Denis deprecatingly. "I'm awfully +sorry." + +Mrs. Wimbush laughed. Her voice, her laughter, were deep and masculine. +Everything about her was manly. She had a large, square, middle-aged +face, with a massive projecting nose and little greenish eyes, the whole +surmounted by a lofty and elaborate coiffure of a curiously improbable +shade of orange. Looking at her, Denis always thought of Wilkie Bard as +the cantatrice.= + + +```"That's why I'm going to + +```Sing in op'ra, sing in op'ra, + +```Sing in op-pop-pop-pop-pop-popera."= + +Today she was wearing a purple silk dress with a high collar and a row +of pearls. The costume, so richly dowagerish, so suggestive of the Royal +Family, made her look more than ever like something on the Halls. + +"What have you been doing all this time?" she asked. + +"Well," said Denis, and he hesitated, almost voluptuously. He had a +tremendously amusing account of London and its doings all ripe and ready +in his mind. It would be a pleasure to give it utterance. "To begin +with," he said... + +But he was too late. Mrs. Wimbush's question had been what the +grammarians call rhetorical; it asked for no answer. It was a little +conversational flourish, a gambit in the polite game. + +"You find me busy at my horoscopes," she said, without even being aware +that she had interrupted him. + +A little pained, Denis decided to reserve his story for more receptive +ears. He contented himself, by way of revenge, with saying "Oh?" rather +icily. + +"Did I tell you how I won four hundred on the Grand National this year?" + +"Yes," he replied, still frigid and mono-syllabic. She must have told +him at least six times. + +"Wonderful, isn't it? Everything is in the Stars. In the Old Days, +before I had the Stars to help me, I used to lose thousands. Now"--she +paused an instant--"well, look at that four hundred on the Grand +National. That's the Stars." + +Denis would have liked to hear more about the Old Days. But he was too +discreet and, still more, too shy to ask. There had been something of +a bust up; that was all he knew. Old Priscilla--not so old then, of +course, and sprightlier--had lost a great deal of money, dropped it +in handfuls and hatfuls on every race-course in the country. She had +gambled too. The number of thousands varied in the different legends, +but all put it high. Henry Wimbush was forced to sell some of his +Primitives--a Taddeo da Poggibonsi, an Amico di Taddeo, and four or five +nameless Sienese--to the Americans. There was a crisis. For the first +time in his life Henry asserted himself, and with good effect, it +seemed. + +Priscilla's gay and gadding existence had come to an abrupt end. +Nowadays she spent almost all her time at Crome, cultivating a rather +ill-defined malady. For consolation she dallied with New Thought and the +Occult. Her passion for racing still possessed her, and Henry, who was a +kind-hearted fellow at bottom, allowed her forty pounds a month betting +money. Most of Priscilla's days were spent in casting the horoscopes +of horses, and she invested her money scientifically, as the stars +dictated. She betted on football too, and had a large notebook in which +she registered the horoscopes of all the players in all the teams of +the League. The process of balancing the horoscopes of two elevens one +against the other was a very delicate and difficult one. A match between +the Spurs and the Villa entailed a conflict in the heavens so vast and +so complicated that it was not to be wondered at if she sometimes made a +mistake about the outcome. + +"Such a pity you don't believe in these things, Denis, such a pity," +said Mrs. Wimbush in her deep, distinct voice. + +"I can't say I feel it so." + +"Ah, that's because you don't know what it's like to have faith. You've +no idea how amusing and exciting life becomes when you do believe. All +that happens means something; nothing you do is ever insignificant. It +makes life so jolly, you know. Here am I at Crome. Dull as ditchwater, +you'd think; but no, I don't find it so. I don't regret the Old Days +a bit. I have the Stars..." She picked up the sheet of paper that was +lying on the blotting-pad. "Inman's horoscope," she explained. "(I +thought I'd like to have a little fling on the billiards championship +this autumn.) I have the Infinite to keep in tune with," she waved her +hand. "And then there's the next world and all the spirits, and one's +Aura, and Mrs. Eddy and saying you're not ill, and the Christian +Mysteries and Mrs. Besant. It's all splendid. One's never dull for a +moment. I can't think how I used to get on before--in the Old Days. +Pleasure--running about, that's all it was; just running about. Lunch, +tea, dinner, theatre, supper every day. It was fun, of course, while it +lasted. But there wasn't much left of it afterwards. There's rather a +good thing about that in Barbecue-Smith's new book. Where is it?" + +She sat up and reached for a book that was lying on the little table by +the head of the sofa. + +"Do you know him, by the way?" she asked. + +"Who?" + +"Mr. Barbecue-Smith." + +Denis knew of him vaguely. Barbecue-Smith was a name in the Sunday +papers. He wrote about the Conduct of Life. He might even be the author +of "What a Young Girl Ought to Know". + +"No, not personally," he said. + +"I've invited him for next week-end." She turned over the pages of the +book. "Here's the passage I was thinking of. I marked it. I always mark +the things I like." + +Holding the book almost at arm's length, for she was somewhat +long-sighted, and making suitable gestures with her free hand, she began +to read, slowly, dramatically. + +"'What are thousand pound fur coats, what are quarter million incomes?'" +She looked up from the page with a histrionic movement of the head; her +orange coiffure nodded portentously. Denis looked at it, fascinated. +Was it the Real Thing and henna, he wondered, or was it one of those +Complete Transformations one sees in the advertisements? + +"'What are Thrones and Sceptres?'" + +The orange Transformation--yes, it must be a Transformation--bobbed up +again. + +"'What are the gaieties of the Rich, the splendours of the Powerful, +what is the pride of the Great, what are the gaudy pleasures of High +Society?'" + +The voice, which had risen in tone, questioningly, from sentence to +sentence, dropped suddenly and boomed reply. + +"'They are nothing. Vanity, fluff, dandelion seed in the wind, thin +vapours of fever. The things that matter happen in the heart. +Seen things are sweet, but those unseen are a thousand times more +significant. It is the unseen that counts in Life.'" + +Mrs. Wimbush lowered the book. "Beautiful, isn't it?" she said. + +Denis preferred not to hazard an opinion, but uttered a non-committal +"H'm." + +"Ah, it's a fine book this, a beautiful book," said Priscilla, as she +let the pages flick back, one by one, from under her thumb. "And here's +the passage about the Lotus Pool. He compares the Soul to a Lotus Pool, +you know." She held up the book again and read. "'A Friend of mine has +a Lotus Pool in his garden. It lies in a little dell embowered with wild +roses and eglantine, among which the nightingale pours forth its amorous +descant all the summer long. Within the pool the Lotuses blossom, and +the birds of the air come to drink and bathe themselves in its crystal +waters...' Ah, and that reminds me," Priscilla exclaimed, shutting the +book with a clap and uttering her big profound laugh--"that reminds me +of the things that have been going on in our bathing-pool since you were +here last. We gave the village people leave to come and bathe here in +the evenings. You've no idea of the things that happened." + +She leaned forward, speaking in a confidential whisper; every now and +then she uttered a deep gurgle of laughter. "...mixed bathing...saw them +out of my window...sent for a pair of field-glasses to make sure...no +doubt of it..." The laughter broke out again. Denis laughed too. +Barbecue-Smith was tossed on the floor. + +"It's time we went to see if tea's ready," said Priscilla. She hoisted +herself up from the sofa and went swishing off across the room, striding +beneath the trailing silk. Denis followed her, faintly humming to +himself:= + + +```"That's why I'm going to + +```Sing in op'ra, sing in op'ra, + +```Sing in op-pop-pop-pop-pop-popera."= + +And then the little twiddly bit of accompaniment at the end: "ra-ra." + + + +CHAPTER III. + +The terrace in front of the house was a long narrow strip of turf, +bounded along its outer edge by a graceful stone balustrade. Two little +summer-houses of brick stood at either end. Below the house the ground +sloped very steeply away, and the terrace was a remarkably high one; +from the balusters to the sloping lawn beneath was a drop of thirty +feet. Seen from below, the high unbroken terrace wall, built like +the house itself of brick, had the almost menacing aspect of a +fortification--a castle bastion, from whose parapet one looked out +across airy depths to distances level with the eye. Below, in the +foreground, hedged in by solid masses of sculptured yew trees, lay the +stone-brimmed swimming-pool. Beyond it stretched the park, with its +massive elms, its green expanses of grass, and, at the bottom of the +valley, the gleam of the narrow river. On the farther side of the stream +the land rose again in a long slope, chequered with cultivation. Looking +up the valley, to the right, one saw a line of blue, far-off hills. + +The tea-table had been planted in the shade of one of the little +summer-houses, and the rest of the party was already assembled about it +when Denis and Priscilla made their appearance. Henry Wimbush had begun +to pour out the tea. He was one of those ageless, unchanging men on the +farther side of fifty, who might be thirty, who might be anything. Denis +had known him almost as long as he could remember. In all those years +his pale, rather handsome face had never grown any older; it was +like the pale grey bowler hat which he always wore, winter and +summer--unageing, calm, serenely without expression. + +Next him, but separated from him and from the rest of the world by the +almost impenetrable barriers of her deafness, sat Jenny Mullion. She was +perhaps thirty, had a tilted nose and a pink-and-white complexion, and +wore her brown hair plaited and coiled in two lateral buns over her +ears. In the secret tower of her deafness she sat apart, looking down at +the world through sharply piercing eyes. What did she think of men and +women and things? That was something that Denis had never been able to +discover. In her enigmatic remoteness Jenny was a little disquieting. +Even now some interior joke seemed to be amusing her, for she was +smiling to herself, and her brown eyes were like very bright round +marbles. + +On his other side the serious, moonlike innocence of Mary Bracegirdle's +face shone pink and childish. She was nearly twenty-three, but one +wouldn't have guessed it. Her short hair, clipped like a page's, hung in +a bell of elastic gold about her cheeks. She had large blue china eyes, +whose expression was one of ingenuous and often puzzled earnestness. + +Next to Mary a small gaunt man was sitting, rigid and erect in +his chair. In appearance Mr. Scogan was like one of those extinct +bird-lizards of the Tertiary. His nose was beaked, his dark eye had the +shining quickness of a robin's. But there was nothing soft or gracious +or feathery about him. The skin of his wrinkled brown face had a dry and +scaly look; his hands were the hands of a crocodile. His movements +were marked by the lizard's disconcertingly abrupt clockwork speed; his +speech was thin, fluty, and dry. Henry Wimbush's school-fellow and exact +contemporary, Mr. Scogan looked far older and, at the same time, far +more youthfully alive than did that gentle aristocrat with the face like +a grey bowler. + +Mr. Scogan might look like an extinct saurian, but Gombauld was +altogether and essentially human. In the old-fashioned natural histories +of the 'thirties he might have figured in a steel engraving as a type of +Homo Sapiens--an honour which at that time commonly fell to Lord +Byron. Indeed, with more hair and less collar, Gombauld would have +been completely Byronic--more than Byronic, even, for Gombauld was of +Provencal descent, a black-haired young corsair of thirty, with flashing +teeth and luminous large dark eyes. Denis looked at him enviously. He +was jealous of his talent: if only he wrote verse as well as Gombauld +painted pictures! Still more, at the moment, he envied Gombauld his +looks, his vitality, his easy confidence of manner. Was it surprising +that Anne should like him? Like him?--it might even be something worse, +Denis reflected bitterly, as he walked at Priscilla's side down the long +grass terrace. + +Between Gombauld and Mr. Scogan a very much lowered deck-chair presented +its back to the new arrivals as they advanced towards the tea-table. +Gombauld was leaning over it; his face moved vivaciously; he smiled, he +laughed, he made quick gestures with his hands. From the depths of the +chair came up a sound of soft, lazy laughter. Denis started as he heard +it. That laughter--how well he knew it! What emotions it evoked in him! +He quickened his pace. + +In her low deck-chair Anne was nearer to lying than to sitting. Her +long, slender body reposed in an attitude of listless and indolent +grace. Within its setting of light brown hair her face had a pretty +regularity that was almost doll-like. And indeed there were moments +when she seemed nothing more than a doll; when the oval face, with its +long-lashed, pale blue eyes, expressed nothing; when it was no more than +a lazy mask of wax. She was Henry Wimbush's own niece; that bowler-like +countenance was one of the Wimbush heirlooms; it ran in the family, +appearing in its female members as a blank doll-face. But across this +dollish mask, like a gay melody dancing over an unchanging fundamental +bass, passed Anne's other inheritance--quick laughter, light ironic +amusement, and the changing expressions of many moods. She was smiling +now as Denis looked down at her: her cat's smile, he called it, for no +very good reason. The mouth was compressed, and on either side of it +two tiny wrinkles had formed themselves in her cheeks. An infinity +of slightly malicious amusement lurked in those little folds, in the +puckers about the half-closed eyes, in the eyes themselves, bright and +laughing between the narrowed lids. + +The preliminary greetings spoken, Denis found an empty chair between +Gombauld and Jenny and sat down. + +"How are you, Jenny?" he shouted to her. + +Jenny nodded and smiled in mysterious silence, as though the subject of +her health were a secret that could not be publicly divulged. + +"How's London been since I went away?" Anne inquired from the depth of +her chair. + +The moment had come; the tremendously amusing narrative was waiting for +utterance. "Well," said Denis, smiling happily, "to begin with..." + +"Has Priscilla told you of our great antiquarian find?" Henry Wimbush +leaned forward; the most promising of buds was nipped. + +"To begin with," said Denis desperately, "there was the Ballet..." + +"Last week," Mr. Wimbush went on softly and implacably, "we dug up fifty +yards of oaken drain-pipes; just tree trunks with a hole bored through +the middle. Very interesting indeed. Whether they were laid down by the +monks in the fifteenth century, or whether..." + +Denis listened gloomily. "Extraordinary!" he said, when Mr. Wimbush had +finished; "quite extraordinary!" He helped himself to another slice +of cake. He didn't even want to tell his tale about London now; he was +damped. + +For some time past Mary's grave blue eyes had been fixed upon him. "What +have you been writing lately?" she asked. It would be nice to have a +little literary conversation. + +"Oh, verse and prose," said Denis--"just verse and prose." + +"Prose?" Mr. Scogan pounced alarmingly on the word. "You've been writing +prose?" + +"Yes." + +"Not a novel?" + +"Yes." + +"My poor Denis!" exclaimed Mr. Scogan. "What about?" + +Denis felt rather uncomfortable. "Oh, about the usual things, you know." + +"Of course," Mr. Scogan groaned. "I'll describe the plot for you. Little +Percy, the hero, was never good at games, but he was always clever. +He passes through the usual public school and the usual university and +comes to London, where he lives among the artists. He is bowed down with +melancholy thought; he carries the whole weight of the universe upon +his shoulders. He writes a novel of dazzling brilliance; he dabbles +delicately in Amour and disappears, at the end of the book, into the +luminous Future." + +Denis blushed scarlet. Mr. Scogan had described the plan of his novel +with an accuracy that was appalling. He made an effort to laugh. "You're +entirely wrong," he said. "My novel is not in the least like that." It +was a heroic lie. Luckily, he reflected, only two chapters were written. +He would tear them up that very evening when he unpacked. + +Mr. Scogan paid no attention to his denial, but went on: "Why will +you young men continue to write about things that are so entirely +uninteresting as the mentality of adolescents and artists? Professional +anthropologists might find it interesting to turn sometimes from the +beliefs of the Blackfellow to the philosophical preoccupations of the +undergraduate. But you can't expect an ordinary adult man, like myself, +to be much moved by the story of his spiritual troubles. And after all, +even in England, even in Germany and Russia, there are more adults than +adolescents. As for the artist, he is preoccupied with problems that +are so utterly unlike those of the ordinary adult man--problems of pure +aesthetics which don't so much as present themselves to people like +myself--that a description of his mental processes is as boring to the +ordinary reader as a piece of pure mathematics. A serious book about +artists regarded as artists is unreadable; and a book about artists +regarded as lovers, husbands, dipsomaniacs, heroes, and the like is +really not worth writing again. Jean-Christophe is the stock artist of +literature, just as Professor Radium of 'Comic Cuts' is its stock man of +science." + +"I'm sorry to hear I'm as uninteresting as all that," said Gombauld. + +"Not at all, my dear Gombauld," Mr. Scogan hastened to explain. "As a +lover or a dipsomaniac, I've no doubt of your being a most fascinating +specimen. But as a combiner of forms, you must honestly admit it, you're +a bore." + +"I entirely disagree with you," exclaimed Mary. She was somehow always +out of breath when she talked. And her speech was punctuated by little +gasps. "I've known a great many artists, and I've always found their +mentality very interesting. Especially in Paris. Tschuplitski, for +example--I saw a great deal of Tschuplitski in Paris this spring..." + +"Ah, but then you're an exception, Mary, you're an exception," said Mr. +Scogan. "You are a femme superieure." + +A flush of pleasure turned Mary's face into a harvest moon. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +Denis woke up next morning to find the sun shining, the sky serene. He +decided to wear white flannel trousers--white flannel trousers and a +black jacket, with a silk shirt and his new peach-coloured tie. And +what shoes? White was the obvious choice, but there was something rather +pleasing about the notion of black patent leather. He lay in bed for +several minutes considering the problem. + +Before he went down--patent leather was his final choice--he looked at +himself critically in the glass. His hair might have been more golden, +he reflected. As it was, its yellowness had the hint of a greenish tinge +in it. But his forehead was good. His forehead made up in height what +his chin lacked in prominence. His nose might have been longer, but it +would pass. His eyes might have been blue and not green. But his coat +was very well cut and, discreetly padded, made him seem robuster than +he actually was. His legs, in their white casing, were long and elegant. +Satisfied, he descended the stairs. Most of the party had already +finished their breakfast. He found himself alone with Jenny. + +"I hope you slept well," he said. + +"Yes, isn't it lovely?" Jenny replied, giving two rapid little nods. +"But we had such awful thunderstorms last week." + +Parallel straight lines, Denis reflected, meet only at infinity. He +might talk for ever of care-charmer sleep and she of meteorology till +the end of time. Did one ever establish contact with anyone? We are +all parallel straight lines. Jenny was only a little more parallel than +most. + +"They are very alarming, these thunderstorms," he said, helping himself +to porridge. "Don't you think so? Or are you above being frightened?" + +"No. I always go to bed in a storm. One is so much safer lying down." + +"Why?" + +"Because," said Jenny, making a descriptive gesture, "because lightning +goes downwards and not flat ways. When you're lying down you're out of +the current." + +"That's very ingenious." + +"It's true." + +There was a silence. Denis finished his porridge and helped himself +to bacon. For lack of anything better to say, and because Mr. Scogan's +absurd phrase was for some reason running in his head, he turned to +Jenny and asked: + +"Do you consider yourself a femme superieure?" He had to repeat the +question several times before Jenny got the hang of it. + +"No," she said, rather indignantly, when at last she heard what Denis +was saying. "Certainly not. Has anyone been suggesting that I am?" + +"No," said Denis. "Mr. Scogan told Mary she was one." + +"Did he?" Jenny lowered her voice. "Shall I tell you what I think of +that man? I think he's slightly sinister." + +Having made this pronouncement, she entered the ivory tower of her +deafness and closed the door. Denis could not induce her to say anything +more, could not induce her even to listen. She just smiled at him, +smiled and occasionally nodded. + +Denis went out on to the terrace to smoke his after-breakfast pipe and +to read his morning paper. An hour later, when Anne came down, she found +him still reading. By this time he had got to the Court Circular and +the Forthcoming Weddings. He got up to meet her as she approached, a +Hamadryad in white muslin, across the grass. + +"Why, Denis," she exclaimed, "you look perfectly sweet in your white +trousers." + +Denis was dreadfully taken aback. There was no possible retort. "You +speak as though I were a child in a new frock," he said, with a show of +irritation. + +"But that's how I feel about you, Denis dear." + +"Then you oughtn't to." + +"But I can't help it. I'm so much older than you." + +"I like that," he said. "Four years older." + +"And if you do look perfectly sweet in your white trousers, why +shouldn't I say so? And why did you put them on, if you didn't think you +were going to look sweet in them?" + +"Let's go into the garden," said Denis. He was put out; the conversation +had taken such a preposterous and unexpected turn. He had planned a very +different opening, in which he was to lead off with, "You look adorable +this morning," or something of the kind, and she was to answer, "Do +I?" and then there was to be a pregnant silence. And now she had got in +first with the trousers. It was provoking; his pride was hurt. + +That part of the garden that sloped down from the foot of the terrace +to the pool had a beauty which did not depend on colour so much as on +forms. It was as beautiful by moonlight as in the sun. The silver of +water, the dark shapes of yew and ilex trees remained, at all hours and +seasons, the dominant features of the scene. It was a landscape in black +and white. For colour there was the flower-garden; it lay to one side +of the pool, separated from it by a huge Babylonian wall of yews. You +passed through a tunnel in the hedge, you opened a wicket in a wall, and +you found yourself, startlingly and suddenly, in the world of colour. +The July borders blazed and flared under the sun. Within its high brick +walls the garden was like a great tank of warmth and perfume and colour. + +Denis held open the little iron gate for his companion. "It's like +passing from a cloister into an Oriental palace," he said, and took a +deep breath of the warm, flower-scented air. "'In fragrant volleys they +let fly...' How does it go?"= + + +```"'Well shot, ye firemen! Oh how sweet + +```And round your equal fires do meet; + +```Whose shrill report no ear can tell, + +```But echoes to the eye and smell...'"= + +"You have a bad habit of quoting," said Anne. "As I never know the +context or author, I find it humiliating." + +Denis apologized. "It's the fault of one's education. Things somehow +seem more real and vivid when one can apply somebody else's ready-made +phrase about them. And then there are lots of lovely names and +words--Monophysite, Iamblichus, Pomponazzi; you bring them out +triumphantly, and feel you've clinched the argument with the mere +magical sound of them. That's what comes of the higher education." + +"You may regret your education," said Anne; "I'm ashamed of my lack of +it. Look at those sunflowers! Aren't they magnificent?" + +"Dark faces and golden crowns--they're kings of Ethiopia. And I like +the way the tits cling to the flowers and pick out the seeds, while the +other loutish birds, grubbing dirtily for their food, look up in envy +from the ground. Do they look up in envy? That's the literary touch, I'm +afraid. Education again. It always comes back to that." He was silent. + +Anne had sat down on a bench that stood in the shade of an old apple +tree. "I'm listening," she said. + +He did not sit down, but walked backwards and forwards in front of the +bench, gesticulating a little as he talked. "Books," he said--"books. +One reads so many, and one sees so few people and so little of the +world. Great thick books about the universe and the mind and ethics. +You've no idea how many there are. I must have read twenty or thirty +tons of them in the last five years. Twenty tons of ratiocination. +Weighted with that, one's pushed out into the world." + +He went on walking up and down. His voice rose, fell, was silent a +moment, and then talked on. He moved his hands, sometimes he waved his +arms. Anne looked and listened quietly, as though she were at a lecture. +He was a nice boy, and to-day he looked charming--charming! + +One entered the world, Denis pursued, having ready-made ideas about +everything. One had a philosophy and tried to make life fit into it. +One should have lived first and then made one's philosophy to fit +life...Life, facts, things were horribly complicated; ideas, even +the most difficult of them, deceptively simple. In the world of ideas +everything was clear; in life all was obscure, embroiled. Was it +surprising that one was miserable, horribly unhappy? Denis came to +a halt in front of the bench, and as he asked this last question he +stretched out his arms and stood for an instant in an attitude of +crucifixion, then let them fall again to his sides. + +"My poor Denis!" Anne was touched. He was really too pathetic as he +stood there in front of her in his white flannel trousers. "But does one +suffer about these things? It seems very extraordinary." + +"You're like Scogan," cried Denis bitterly. "You regard me as a specimen +for an anthropologist. Well, I suppose I am." + +"No, no," she protested, and drew in her skirt with a gesture that +indicated that he was to sit down beside her. He sat down. "Why can't +you just take things for granted and as they come?" she asked. "It's so +much simpler." + +"Of course it is," said Denis. "But it's a lesson to be learnt +gradually. There are the twenty tons of ratiocination to be got rid of +first." + +"I've always taken things as they come," said Anne. "It seems so +obvious. One enjoys the pleasant things, avoids the nasty ones. There's +nothing more to be said." + +"Nothing--for you. But, then, you were born a pagan; I am trying +laboriously to make myself one. I can take nothing for granted, I can +enjoy nothing as it comes along. Beauty, pleasure, art, women--I have +to invent an excuse, a justification for everything that's delightful. +Otherwise I can't enjoy it with an easy conscience. I make up a little +story about beauty and pretend that it has something to do with truth +and goodness. I have to say that art is the process by which one +reconstructs the divine reality out of chaos. Pleasure is one of the +mystical roads to union with the infinite--the ecstasies of drinking, +dancing, love-making. As for women, I am perpetually assuring myself +that they're the broad highway to divinity. And to think that I'm only +just beginning to see through the silliness of the whole thing! It's +incredible to me that anyone should have escaped these horrors." + +"It's still more incredible to me," said Anne, "that anyone should have +been a victim to them. I should like to see myself believing that men +are the highway to divinity." The amused malice of her smile planted two +little folds on either side of her mouth, and through their half-closed +lids her eyes shone with laughter. "What you need, Denis, is a nice +plump young wife, a fixed income, and a little congenial but regular +work." + +"What I need is you." That was what he ought to have retorted, that +was what he wanted passionately to say. He could not say it. His desire +fought against his shyness. "What I need is you." Mentally he shouted +the words, but not a sound issued from his lips. He looked at her +despairingly. Couldn't she see what was going on inside him? Couldn't +she understand? "What I need is you." He would say it, he would--he +would. + +"I think I shall go and bathe," said Anne. "It's so hot." The +opportunity had passed. + + + +CHAPTER V. + +Mr. Wimbush had taken them to see the sights of the Home Farm, and now +they were standing, all six of them--Henry Wimbush, Mr. Scogan, Denis, +Gombauld, Anne, and Mary--by the low wall of the piggery, looking into +one of the styes. + +"This is a good sow," said Henry Wimbush. "She had a litter of fourteen. + +"Fourteen?" Mary echoed incredulously. She turned astonished blue eyes +towards Mr. Wimbush, then let them fall onto the seething mass of elan +vital that fermented in the sty. + +An immense sow reposed on her side in the middle of the pen. Her round, +black belly, fringed with a double line of dugs, presented itself to the +assault of an army of small, brownish-black swine. With a frantic greed +they tugged at their mother's flank. The old sow stirred sometimes +uneasily or uttered a little grunt of pain. One small pig, the runt, +the weakling of the litter, had been unable to secure a place at the +banquet. Squealing shrilly, he ran backwards and forwards, trying to +push in among his stronger brothers or even to climb over their tight +little black backs towards the maternal reservoir. + +"There ARE fourteen," said Mary. "You're quite right. I counted. It's +extraordinary." + +"The sow next door," Mr. Wimbush went on, "has done very badly. She only +had five in her litter. I shall give her another chance. If she does no +better next time, I shall fat her up and kill her. There's the boar," +he pointed towards a farther sty. "Fine old beast, isn't he? But he's +getting past his prime. He'll have to go too." + +"How cruel!" Anne exclaimed. + +"But how practical, how eminently realistic!" said Mr. Scogan. "In this +farm we have a model of sound paternal government. Make them breed, +make them work, and when they're past working or breeding or begetting, +slaughter them." + +"Farming seems to be mostly indecency and cruelty," said Anne. + +With the ferrule of his walking-stick Denis began to scratch the boar's +long bristly back. The animal moved a little so as to bring himself +within easier range of the instrument that evoked in him such delicious +sensations; then he stood stock still, softly grunting his contentment. +The mud of years flaked off his sides in a grey powdery scurf. + +"What a pleasure it is," said Denis, "to do somebody a kindness. I +believe I enjoy scratching this pig quite as much as he enjoys being +scratched. If only one could always be kind with so little expense or +trouble..." + +A gate slammed; there was a sound of heavy footsteps. + +"Morning, Rowley!" said Henry Wimbush. + +"Morning, sir," old Rowley answered. He was the most venerable of +the labourers on the farm--a tall, solid man, still unbent, with grey +side-whiskers and a steep, dignified profile. Grave, weighty in his +manner, splendidly respectable, Rowley had the air of a great English +statesman of the mid-nineteenth century. He halted on the outskirts of +the group, and for a moment they all looked at the pigs in a silence +that was only broken by the sound of grunting or the squelch of a sharp +hoof in the mire. Rowley turned at last, slowly and ponderously and +nobly, as he did everything, and addressed himself to Henry Wimbush. + +"Look at them, sir," he said, with a motion of his hand towards the +wallowing swine. "Rightly is they called pigs." + +"Rightly indeed," Mr. Wimbush agreed. + +"I am abashed by that man," said Mr. Scogan, as old Rowley plodded off +slowly and with dignity. "What wisdom, what judgment, what a sense of +values! 'Rightly are they called swine.' Yes. And I wish I could, with +as much justice, say, 'Rightly are we called men.'" + +They walked on towards the cowsheds and the stables of the cart-horses. +Five white geese, taking the air this fine morning, even as they were +doing, met them in the way. They hesitated, cackled; then, converting +their lifted necks into rigid, horizontal snakes, they rushed off in +disorder, hissing horribly as they went. Red calves paddled in the dung +and mud of a spacious yard. In another enclosure stood the bull, +massive as a locomotive. He was a very calm bull, and his face wore an +expression of melancholy stupidity. He gazed with reddish-brown eyes at +his visitors, chewed thoughtfully at the tangible memories of an earlier +meal, swallowed and regurgitated, chewed again. His tail lashed savagely +from side to side; it seemed to have nothing to do with his impassive +bulk. Between his short horns was a triangle of red curls, short and +dense. + +"Splendid animal," said Henry Wimbush. "Pedigree stock. But he's getting +a little old, like the boar." + +"Fat him up and slaughter him," Mr. Scogan pronounced, with a delicate +old-maidish precision of utterance. + +"Couldn't you give the animals a little holiday from producing +children?" asked Anne. "I'm so sorry for the poor things." + +Mr. Wimbush shook his head. "Personally," he said, "I rather like seeing +fourteen pigs grow where only one grew before. The spectacle of so much +crude life is refreshing." + +"I'm glad to hear you say so," Gombauld broke in warmly. "Lots of life: +that's what we want. I like pullulation; everything ought to increase +and multiply as hard as it can." + +Gombauld grew lyrical. Everybody ought to have children--Anne ought to +have them, Mary ought to have them--dozens and dozens. He emphasised his +point by thumping with his walking-stick on the bull's leather flanks. +Mr. Scogan ought to pass on his intelligence to little Scogans, and +Denis to little Denises. The bull turned his head to see what was +happening, regarded the drumming stick for several seconds, then turned +back again satisfied, it seemed, that nothing was happening. Sterility +was odious, unnatural, a sin against life. Life, life, and still more +life. The ribs of the placid bull resounded. + +Standing with his back against the farmyard pump, a little apart, Denis +examined the group. Gombauld, passionate and vivacious, was its centre. +The others stood round, listening--Henry Wimbush, calm and polite +beneath his grey bowler; Mary, with parted lips and eyes that shone with +the indignation of a convinced birth-controller. Anne looked on through +half-shut eyes, smiling; and beside her stood Mr. Scogan, bolt upright +in an attitude of metallic rigidity that contrasted strangely with that +fluid grace of hers which even in stillness suggested a soft movement. + +Gombauld ceased talking, and Mary, flushed and outraged, opened her +mouth to refute him. But she was too slow. Before she could utter a +word Mr. Scogan's fluty voice had pronounced the opening phrases of a +discourse. There was no hope of getting so much as a word in edgeways; +Mary had perforce to resign herself. + +"Even your eloquence, my dear Gombauld," he was saying--"even your +eloquence must prove inadequate to reconvert the world to a belief in +the delights of mere multiplication. With the gramophone, the cinema, +and the automatic pistol, the goddess of Applied Science has presented +the world with another gift, more precious even than these--the means of +dissociating love from propagation. Eros, for those who wish it, is now +an entirely free god; his deplorable associations with Lucina may be +broken at will. In the course of the next few centuries, who knows? +the world may see a more complete severance. I look forward to it +optimistically. Where the great Erasmus Darwin and Miss Anna Seward, +Swan of Lichfield, experimented--and, for all their scientific ardour, +failed--our descendants will experiment and succeed. An impersonal +generation will take the place of Nature's hideous system. In vast state +incubators, rows upon rows of gravid bottles will supply the world with +the population it requires. The family system will disappear; society, +sapped at its very base, will have to find new foundations; and Eros, +beautifully and irresponsibly free, will flit like a gay butterfly from +flower to flower through a sunlit world." + +"It sounds lovely," said Anne. + +"The distant future always does." + +Mary's china blue eyes, more serious and more astonished than ever, +were fixed on Mr. Scogan. "Bottles?" she said. "Do you really think so? +Bottles..." + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +Mr. Barbecue-Smith arrived in time for tea on Saturday afternoon. He was +a short and corpulent man, with a very large head and no neck. In his +earlier middle age he had been distressed by this absence of neck, +but was comforted by reading in Balzac's "Louis Lambert" that all the +world's great men have been marked by the same peculiarity, and for a +simple and obvious reason: Greatness is nothing more nor less than +the harmonious functioning of the faculties of the head and heart; +the shorter the neck, the more closely these two organs approach one +another; argal...It was convincing. + +Mr. Barbecue-Smith belonged to the old school of journalists. He sported +a leonine head with a greyish-black mane of oddly unappetising hair +brushed back from a broad but low forehead. And somehow he always seemed +slightly, ever so slightly, soiled. In younger days he had gaily called +himself a Bohemian. He did so no longer. He was a teacher now, a kind +of prophet. Some of his books of comfort and spiritual teaching were in +their hundred and twentieth thousand. + +Priscilla received him with every mark of esteem. He had never been to +Crome before; she showed him round the house. Mr. Barbecue-Smith was +full of admiration. + +"So quaint, so old-world," he kept repeating. He had a rich, rather +unctuous voice. + +Priscilla praised his latest book. "Splendid, I thought it was," she +said in her large, jolly way. + +"I'm happy to think you found it a comfort," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. + +"Oh, tremendously! And the bit about the Lotus Pool--I thought that so +beautiful." + +"I knew you would like that. It came to me, you know, from without." He +waved his hand to indicate the astral world. + +They went out into the garden for tea. Mr. Barbecue-Smith was duly +introduced. + +"Mr. Stone is a writer too," said Priscilla, as she introduced Denis. + +"Indeed!" Mr. Barbecue-Smith smiled benignly, and, looking up at Denis +with an expression of Olympian condescension, "And what sort of things +do you write?" + +Denis was furious, and, to make matters worse, he felt himself blushing +hotly. Had Priscilla no sense of proportion? She was putting them in the +same category--Barbecue-Smith and himself. They were both writers, they +both used pen and ink. To Mr. Barbecue-Smith's question he answered, +"Oh, nothing much, nothing," and looked away. + +"Mr. Stone is one of our younger poets." It was Anne's voice. He scowled +at her, and she smiled back exasperatingly. + +"Excellent, excellent," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith, and he squeezed Denis's +arm encouragingly. "The Bard's is a noble calling." + +As soon as tea was over Mr. Barbecue-Smith excused himself; he had to +do some writing before dinner. Priscilla quite understood. The prophet +retired to his chamber. + +Mr. Barbecue-Smith came down to the drawing-room at ten to eight. He was +in a good humour, and, as he descended the stairs, he smiled to himself +and rubbed his large white hands together. In the drawing-room someone +was playing softly and ramblingly on the piano. He wondered who it could +be. One of the young ladies, perhaps. But no, it was only Denis, who got +up hurriedly and with some embarrassment as he came into the room. + +"Do go on, do go on," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. "I am very fond of +music." + +"Then I couldn't possibly go on," Denis replied. "I only make noises." + +There was a silence. Mr. Barbecue-Smith stood with his back to the +hearth, warming himself at the memory of last winter's fires. He could +not control his interior satisfaction, but still went on smiling to +himself. At last he turned to Denis. + +"You write," he asked, "don't you?" + +"Well, yes--a little, you know." + +"How many words do you find you can write in an hour?" + +"I don't think I've ever counted." + +"Oh, you ought to, you ought to. It's most important." + +Denis exercised his memory. "When I'm in good form," he said, "I fancy +I do a twelve-hundred-word review in about four hours. But sometimes it +takes me much longer." + +Mr. Barbecue-Smith nodded. "Yes, three hundred words an hour at your +best." He walked out into the middle of the room, turned round on his +heels, and confronted Denis again. "Guess how many words I wrote this +evening between five and half-past seven." + +"I can't imagine." + +"No, but you must guess. Between five and half-past seven--that's two +and a half hours." + +"Twelve hundred words," Denis hazarded. + +"No, no, no." Mr. Barbecue-Smith's expanded face shone with gaiety. "Try +again." + +"Fifteen hundred." + +"No." + +"I give it up," said Denis. He found he couldn't summon up much interest +in Mr. Barbecue-Smith's writing. + +"Well, I'll tell you. Three thousand eight hundred." + +Denis opened his eyes. "You must get a lot done in a day," he said. + +Mr. Barbecue-Smith suddenly became extremely confidential. He pulled up +a stool to the side of Denis's arm-chair, sat down in it, and began to +talk softly and rapidly. + +"Listen to me," he said, laying his hand on Denis's sleeve. "You want to +make your living by writing; you're young, you're inexperienced. Let me +give you a little sound advice." + +What was the fellow going to do? Denis wondered: give him an +introduction to the editor of "John o' London's Weekly", or tell him +where he could sell a light middle for seven guineas? Mr. Barbecue-Smith +patted his arm several times and went on. + +"The secret of writing," he said, breathing it into the young man's +ear--"the secret of writing is Inspiration." + +Denis looked at him in astonishment. + +"Inspiration..." Mr. Barbecue-Smith repeated. + +"You mean the native wood-note business?" + +Mr. Barbecue-Smith nodded. + +"Oh, then I entirely agree with you," said Denis. "But what if one +hasn't got Inspiration?" + +"That was precisely the question I was waiting for," said Mr. +Barbecue-Smith. "You ask me what one should do if one hasn't got +Inspiration. I answer: you have Inspiration; everyone has Inspiration. +It's simply a question of getting it to function." + +The clock struck eight. There was no sign of any of the other guests; +everybody was always late at Crome. Mr. Barbecue-Smith went on. + +"That's my secret," he said. "I give it you freely." (Denis made a +suitably grateful murmur and grimace.) "I'll help you to find your +Inspiration, because I don't like to see a nice, steady young man like +you exhausting his vitality and wasting the best years of his life in +a grinding intellectual labour that could be completely obviated by +Inspiration. I did it myself, so I know what it's like. Up till the +time I was thirty-eight I was a writer like you--a writer without +Inspiration. All I wrote I squeezed out of myself by sheer hard work. +Why, in those days I was never able to do more than six-fifty words an +hour, and what's more, I often didn't sell what I wrote." He sighed. +"We artists," he said parenthetically, "we intellectuals aren't much +appreciated here in England." Denis wondered if there was any method, +consistent, of course, with politeness, by which he could dissociate +himself from Mr. Barbecue-Smith's "we." There was none; and besides, +it was too late now, for Mr. Barbecue-Smith was once more pursuing the +tenor of his discourse. + +"At thirty-eight I was a poor, struggling, tired, overworked, unknown +journalist. Now, at fifty..." He paused modestly and made a little +gesture, moving his fat hands outwards, away from one another, and +expanding his fingers as though in demonstration. He was exhibiting +himself. Denis thought of that advertisement of Nestle's milk--the two +cats on the wall, under the moon, one black and thin, the other white, +sleek, and fat. Before Inspiration and after. + +"Inspiration has made the difference," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith solemnly. +"It came quite suddenly--like a gentle dew from heaven." He lifted his +hand and let it fall back on to his knee to indicate the descent of the +dew. "It was one evening. I was writing my first little book about the +Conduct of Life--'Humble Heroisms'. You may have read it; it has been +a comfort--at least I hope and think so--a comfort to many thousands. +I was in the middle of the second chapter, and I was stuck. Fatigue, +overwork--I had only written a hundred words in the last hour, and I +could get no further. I sat biting the end of my pen and looking at the +electric light, which hung above my table, a little above and in front +of me." He indicated the position of the lamp with elaborate care. "Have +you ever looked at a bright light intently for a long time?" he asked, +turning to Denis. Denis didn't think he had. "You can hypnotise yourself +that way," Mr. Barbecue-Smith went on. + +The gong sounded in a terrific crescendo from the hall. Still no sign of +the others. Denis was horribly hungry. + +"That's what happened to me," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. "I was +hypnotised. I lost consciousness like that." He snapped his fingers. +"When I came to, I found that it was past midnight, and I had written +four thousand words. Four thousand," he repeated, opening his mouth very +wide on the "ou" of thousand. "Inspiration had come to me." + +"What a very extraordinary thing," said Denis. + +"I was afraid of it at first. It didn't seem to me natural. I didn't +feel, somehow, that it was quite right, quite fair, I might almost say, +to produce a literary composition unconsciously. Besides, I was afraid I +might have written nonsense." + +"And had you written nonsense?" Denis asked. + +"Certainly not," Mr. Barbecue-Smith replied, with a trace of annoyance. +"Certainly not. It was admirable. Just a few spelling mistakes and +slips, such as there generally are in automatic writing. But the style, +the thought--all the essentials were admirable. After that, Inspiration +came to me regularly. I wrote the whole of 'Humble Heroisms' like that. +It was a great success, and so has everything been that I have written +since." He leaned forward and jabbed at Denis with his finger. "That's +my secret," he said, "and that's how you could write too, if you +tried--without effort, fluently, well." + +"But how?" asked Denis, trying not to show how deeply he had been +insulted by that final "well." + +"By cultivating your Inspiration, by getting into touch with your +Subconscious. Have you ever read my little book, 'Pipe-Lines to the +Infinite'?" + +Denis had to confess that that was, precisely, one of the few, perhaps +the only one, of Mr. Barbecue-Smith's works he had not read. + +"Never mind, never mind," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. "It's just a little +book about the connection of the Subconscious with the Infinite. Get +into touch with the Subconscious and you are in touch with the Universe. +Inspiration, in fact. You follow me?" + +"Perfectly, perfectly," said Denis. "But don't you find that the +Universe sometimes sends you very irrelevant messages?" + +"I don't allow it to," Mr. Barbecue-Smith replied. "I canalise it. I +bring it down through pipes to work the turbines of my conscious mind." + +"Like Niagara," Denis suggested. Some of Mr. Barbecue-Smith's remarks +sounded strangely like quotations--quotations from his own works, no +doubt. + +"Precisely. Like Niagara. And this is how I do it." He leaned forward, +and with a raised forefinger marked his points as he made them, beating +time, as it were, to his discourse. "Before I go off into my trance, I +concentrate on the subject I wish to be inspired about. Let us say I am +writing about the humble heroisms; for ten minutes before I go into the +trance I think of nothing but orphans supporting their little brothers +and sisters, of dull work well and patiently done, and I focus my mind +on such great philosophical truths as the purification and uplifting of +the soul by suffering, and the alchemical transformation of leaden evil +into golden good." (Denis again hung up his little festoon of quotation +marks.) "Then I pop off. Two or three hours later I wake up again, and +find that inspiration has done its work. Thousands of words, comforting, +uplifting words, lie before me. I type them out neatly on my machine and +they are ready for the printer." + +"It all sounds wonderfully simple," said Denis. + +"It is. All the great and splendid and divine things of life are +wonderfully simple." (Quotation marks again.) "When I have to do my +aphorisms," Mr. Barbecue-Smith continued, "I prelude my trance by +turning over the pages of any Dictionary of Quotations or Shakespeare +Calendar that comes to hand. That sets the key, so to speak; that +ensures that the Universe shall come flowing in, not in a continuous +rush, but in aphorismic drops. You see the idea?" + +Denis nodded. Mr. Barbecue-Smith put his hand in his pocket and pulled +out a notebook. "I did a few in the train to-day," he said, turning over +the pages. "Just dropped off into a trance in the corner of my carriage. +I find the train very conducive to good work. Here they are." He cleared +his throat and read: + +"The Mountain Road may be steep, but the air is pure up there, and it is +from the Summit that one gets the view." + +"The Things that Really Matter happen in the Heart." + +It was curious, Denis reflected, the way the Infinite sometimes repeated +itself. + +"Seeing is Believing. Yes, but Believing is also Seeing. If I believe in +God, I see God, even in the things that seem to be evil." + +Mr. Barbecue-Smith looked up from his notebook. "That last one," he +said, "is particularly subtle and beautiful, don't you think? Without +Inspiration I could never have hit on that." He re-read the apophthegm +with a slower and more solemn utterance. "Straight from the Infinite," +he commented reflectively, then addressed himself to the next aphorism. + +"The flame of a candle gives Light, but it also Burns." + +Puzzled wrinkles appeared on Mr. Barbecue-Smith's forehead. "I don't +exactly know what that means," he said. "It's very gnomic. One could +apply it, of course to the Higher Education--illuminating, but provoking +the Lower Classes to discontent and revolution. Yes, I suppose +that's what it is. But it's gnomic, it's gnomic." He rubbed his +chin thoughtfully. The gong sounded again, clamorously, it seemed +imploringly: dinner was growing cold. It roused Mr. Barbecue-Smith from +meditation. He turned to Denis. + +"You understand me now when I advise you to cultivate your Inspiration. +Let your Subconscious work for you; turn on the Niagara of the +Infinite." + +There was the sound of feet on the stairs. Mr. Barbecue-Smith got up, +laid his hand for an instant on Denis's shoulder, and said: + +"No more now. Another time. And remember, I rely absolutely on your +discretion in this matter. There are intimate, sacred things that one +doesn't wish to be generally known." + +"Of course," said Denis. "I quite understand." + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +At Crome all the beds were ancient hereditary pieces of furniture. Huge +beds, like four-masted ships, with furled sails of shining coloured +stuff. Beds carved and inlaid, beds painted and gilded. Beds of walnut +and oak, of rare exotic woods. Beds of every date and fashion from the +time of Sir Ferdinando, who built the house, to the time of his namesake +in the late eighteenth century, the last of the family, but all of them +grandiose, magnificent. + +The finest of all was now Anne's bed. Sir Julius, son to Sir Ferdinando, +had had it made in Venice against his wife's first lying-in. Early +seicento Venice had expended all its extravagant art in the making of +it. The body of the bed was like a great square sarcophagus. Clustering +roses were carved in high relief on its wooden panels, and luscious +putti wallowed among the roses. On the black ground-work of the panels +the carved reliefs were gilded and burnished. The golden roses twined in +spirals up the four pillar-like posts, and cherubs, seated at the top +of each column, supported a wooden canopy fretted with the same carved +flowers. + +Anne was reading in bed. Two candles stood on the little table beside +her, in their rich light her face, her bare arm and shoulder took on +warm hues and a sort of peach-like quality of surface. Here and there in +the canopy above her carved golden petals shone brightly among profound +shadows, and the soft light, falling on the sculptured panel of the bed, +broke restlessly among the intricate roses, lingered in a broad caress +on the blown cheeks, the dimpled bellies, the tight, absurd little +posteriors of the sprawling putti. + +There was a discreet tap at the door. She looked up. "Come in, come in." +A face, round and childish, within its sleek bell of golden hair, peered +round the opening door. More childish-looking still, a suit of mauve +pyjamas made its entrance. + +It was Mary. "I thought I'd just look in for a moment to say +good-night," she said, and sat down on the edge of the bed. + +Anne closed her book. "That was very sweet of you." + +"What are you reading?" She looked at the book. "Rather second-rate, +isn't it?" The tone in which Mary pronounced the word "second-rate" +implied an almost infinite denigration. She was accustomed in London to +associate only with first-rate people who liked first-rate things, and +she knew that there were very, very few first-rate things in the world, +and that those were mostly French. + +"Well, I'm afraid I like it," said Anne. There was nothing more to be +said. The silence that followed was a rather uncomfortable one. Mary +fiddled uneasily with the bottom button of her pyjama jacket. Leaning +back on her mound of heaped-up pillows, Anne waited and wondered what +was coming. + +"I'm so awfully afraid of repressions," said Mary at last, bursting +suddenly and surprisingly into speech. She pronounced the words on +the tail-end of an expiring breath, and had to gasp for new air almost +before the phrase was finished. + +"What's there to be depressed about?" + +"I said repressions, not depressions." + +"Oh, repressions; I see," said Anne. "But repressions of what?" + +Mary had to explain. "The natural instincts of sex..." she began +didactically. But Anne cut her short. + +"Yes, yes. Perfectly. I understand. Repressions! old maids and all the +rest. But what about them?" + +"That's just it," said Mary. "I'm afraid of them. It's always dangerous +to repress one's instincts. I'm beginning to detect in myself symptoms +like the ones you read of in the books. I constantly dream that I'm +falling down wells; and sometimes I even dream that I'm climbing up +ladders. It's most disquieting. The symptoms are only too clear." + +"Are they?" + +"One may become a nymphomaniac if one's not careful. You've no idea how +serious these repressions are if you don't get rid of them in time." + +"It sounds too awful," said Anne. "But I don't see that I can do +anything to help you." + +"I thought I'd just like to talk it over with you." + +"Why, of course; I'm only too happy, Mary darling." + +Mary coughed and drew a deep breath. "I presume," she began +sententiously, "I presume we may take for granted that an intelligent +young woman of twenty-three who has lived in civilised society in the +twentieth century has no prejudices." + +"Well, I confess I still have a few." + +"But not about repressions." + +"No, not many about repressions; that's true." + +"Or, rather, about getting rid of repressions." + +"Exactly." + +"So much for our fundamental postulate," said Mary. Solemnity was +expressed in every feature of her round young face, radiated from +her large blue eyes. "We come next to the desirability of possessing +experience. I hope we are agreed that knowledge is desirable and that +ignorance is undesirable." + +Obedient as one of those complaisant disciples from whom Socrates could +get whatever answer he chose, Anne gave her assent to this proposition. + +"And we are equally agreed, I hope, that marriage is what it is." + +"It is." + +"Good!" said Mary. "And repressions being what they are..." + +"Exactly." + +"There would therefore seem to be only one conclusion." + +"But I knew that," Anne exclaimed, "before you began." + +"Yes, but now it's been proved," said Mary. "One must do things +logically. The question is now..." + +"But where does the question come in? You've reached your only possible +conclusion--logically, which is more than I could have done. All that +remains is to impart the information to someone you like--someone you +like really rather a lot, someone you're in love with, if I may express +myself so baldly." + +"But that's just where the question comes in," Mary exclaimed. "I'm not +in love with anybody." + +"Then, if I were you, I should wait till you are." + +"But I can't go on dreaming night after night that I'm falling down a +well. It's too dangerous." + +"Well, if it really is TOO dangerous, then of course you must do +something about it; you must find somebody else." + +"But who?" A thoughtful frown puckered Mary's brow. "It must be somebody +intelligent, somebody with intellectual interests that I can share. +And it must be somebody with a proper respect for women, somebody who's +prepared to talk seriously about his work and his ideas and about my +work and my ideas. It isn't, as you see, at all easy to find the right +person." + +"Well" said Anne, "there are three unattached and intelligent men in +the house at the present time. There's Mr. Scogan, to begin with; +but perhaps he's rather too much of a genuine antique. And there are +Gombauld and Denis. Shall we say that the choice is limited to the last +two?" + +Mary nodded. "I think we had better," she said, and then hesitated, with +a certain air of embarrassment. + +"What is it?" + +"I was wondering," said Mary, with a gasp, "whether they really were +unattached. I thought that perhaps you might...you might..." + +"It was very nice of you to think of me, Mary darling," said Anne, +smiling the tight cat's smile. "But as far as I'm concerned, they are +both entirely unattached." + +"I'm very glad of that," said Mary, looking relieved. "We are now +confronted with the question: Which of the two?" + +"I can give no advice. It's a matter for your taste." + +"It's not a matter of my taste," Mary pronounced, "but of their merits. +We must weigh them and consider them carefully and dispassionately." + +"You must do the weighing yourself," said Anne; there was still the +trace of a smile at the corners of her mouth and round the half-closed +eyes. "I won't run the risk of advising you wrongly." + +"Gombauld has more talent," Mary began, "but he is less civilised than +Denis." Mary's pronunciation of "civilised" gave the word a special and +additional significance. She uttered it meticulously, in the very front +of her mouth, hissing delicately on the opening sibilant. So few people +were civilised, and they, like the first-rate works of art, were mostly +French. "Civilisation is most important, don't you think?" + +Anne held up her hand. "I won't advise," she said. "You must make the +decision." + +"Gombauld's family," Mary went on reflectively, "comes from Marseilles. +Rather a dangerous heredity, when one thinks of the Latin attitude +towards women. But then, I sometimes wonder whether Denis is altogether +serious-minded, whether he isn't rather a dilettante. It's very +difficult. What do you think?" + +"I'm not listening," said Anne. "I refuse to take any responsibility." + +Mary sighed. "Well," she said, "I think I had better go to bed and think +about it." + +"Carefully and dispassionately," said Anne. + +At the door Mary turned round. "Good-night," she said, and wondered +as she said the words why Anne was smiling in that curious way. It +was probably nothing, she reflected. Anne often smiled for no apparent +reason; it was probably just a habit. "I hope I shan't dream of falling +down wells again to-night," she added. + +"Ladders are worse," said Anne. + +Mary nodded. "Yes, ladders are much graver." + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +Breakfast on Sunday morning was an hour later than on week-days, and +Priscilla, who usually made no public appearance before luncheon, +honoured it by her presence. Dressed in black silk, with a ruby cross as +well as her customary string of pearls round her neck, she presided. +An enormous Sunday paper concealed all but the extreme pinnacle of her +coiffure from the outer world. + +"I see Surrey has won," she said, with her mouth full, "by four wickets. +The sun is in Leo: that would account for it!" + +"Splendid game, cricket," remarked Mr. Barbecue-Smith heartily to no one +in particular; "so thoroughly English." + +Jenny, who was sitting next to him, woke up suddenly with a start. +"What?" she said. "What?" + +"So English," repeated Mr. Barbecue-Smith. + +Jenny looked at him, surprised. "English? Of course I am." + +He was beginning to explain, when Mrs. Wimbush vailed her Sunday paper, +and appeared, a square, mauve-powdered face in the midst of orange +splendours. "I see there's a new series of articles on the next world +just beginning," she said to Mr. Barbecue-Smith. "This one's called +'Summer Land and Gehenna.'" + +"Summer Land," echoed Mr. Barbecue-Smith, closing his eyes. "Summer +Land. A beautiful name. Beautiful--beautiful." + +Mary had taken the seat next to Denis's. After a night of careful +consideration she had decided on Denis. He might have less talent than +Gombauld, he might be a little lacking in seriousness, but somehow he +was safer. + +"Are you writing much poetry here in the country?" she asked, with a +bright gravity. + +"None," said Denis curtly. "I haven't brought my typewriter." + +"But do you mean to say you can't write without a typewriter?" + +Denis shook his head. He hated talking at breakfast, and, besides, he +wanted to hear what Mr. Scogan was saying at the other end of the table. + +"...My scheme for dealing with the Church," Mr. Scogan was saying, "is +beautifully simple. At the present time the Anglican clergy wear their +collars the wrong way round. I would compel them to wear, not only their +collars, but all their clothes, turned back to frantic--coat, waistcoat, +trousers, boots--so that every clergyman should present to the world +a smooth facade, unbroken by stud, button, or lace. The enforcement of +such a livery would act as a wholesome deterrent to those intending to +enter the Church. At the same time it would enormously enhance, what +Archbishop Laud so rightly insisted on, the 'beauty of holiness' in the +few incorrigibles who could not be deterred." + +"In hell, it seems," said Priscilla, reading in her Sunday paper, "the +children amuse themselves by flaying lambs alive." + +"Ah, but, dear lady, that's only a symbol," exclaimed Mr. +Barbecue-Smith, "a material symbol of a h-piritual truth. Lambs +signify..." + +"Then there are military uniforms," Mr. Scogan went on. "When scarlet +and pipe-clay were abandoned for khaki, there were some who trembled for +the future of war. But then, finding how elegant the new tunic was, how +closely it clipped the waist, how voluptuously, with the lateral +bustles of the pockets, it exaggerated the hips; when they realized the +brilliant potentialities of breeches and top-boots, they were reassured. +Abolish these military elegances, standardise a uniform of sack-cloth +and mackintosh, you will very soon find that..." + +"Is anyone coming to church with me this morning?" asked Henry Wimbush. +No one responded. He baited his bare invitation. "I read the lessons, +you know. And there's Mr. Bodiham. His sermons are sometimes worth +hearing." + +"Thank you, thank you," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. "I for one prefer to +worship in the infinite church of Nature. How does our Shakespeare put +it? 'Sermons in books, stones in the running brooks.'" He waved his arm +in a fine gesture towards the window, and even as he did so he became +vaguely, but none the less insistently, none the less uncomfortably +aware that something had gone wrong with the quotation. Something--what +could it be? Sermons? Stones? Books? + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +Mr. Bodiham was sitting in his study at the Rectory. The +nineteenth-century Gothic windows, narrow and pointed, admitted the +light grudgingly; in spite of the brilliant July weather, the room was +sombre. Brown varnished bookshelves lined the walls, filled with row +upon row of those thick, heavy theological works which the second-hand +booksellers generally sell by weight. The mantelpiece, the over-mantel, +a towering structure of spindly pillars and little shelves, were brown +and varnished. The writing-desk was brown and varnished. So were the +chairs, so was the door. A dark red-brown carpet with patterns covered +the floor. Everything was brown in the room, and there was a curious +brownish smell. + +In the midst of this brown gloom Mr. Bodiham sat at his desk. He was the +man in the Iron Mask. A grey metallic face with iron cheek-bones and a +narrow iron brow; iron folds, hard and unchanging, ran perpendicularly +down his cheeks; his nose was the iron beak of some thin, delicate bird +of rapine. He had brown eyes, set in sockets rimmed with iron; round +them the skin was dark, as though it had been charred. Dense wiry hair +covered his skull; it had been black, it was turning grey. His ears +were very small and fine. His jaws, his chin, his upper lip were dark, +iron-dark, where he had shaved. His voice, when he spoke and especially +when he raised it in preaching, was harsh, like the grating of iron +hinges when a seldom-used door is opened. + +It was nearly half-past twelve. He had just come back from church, +hoarse and weary with preaching. He preached with fury, with passion, +an iron man beating with a flail upon the souls of his congregation. +But the souls of the faithful at Crome were made of india-rubber, solid +rubber; the flail rebounded. They were used to Mr. Bodiham at Crome. The +flail thumped on india-rubber, and as often as not the rubber slept. + +That morning he had preached, as he had often preached before, on the +nature of God. He had tried to make them understand about God, what +a fearful thing it was to fall into His hands. God--they thought of +something soft and merciful. They blinded themselves to facts; still +more, they blinded themselves to the Bible. The passengers on the +"Titanic" sang "Nearer my God to Thee" as the ship was going down. Did +they realise what they were asking to be brought nearer to? A white fire +of righteousness, an angry fire... + +When Savonarola preached, men sobbed and groaned aloud. Nothing broke +the polite silence with which Crome listened to Mr. Bodiham--only an +occasional cough and sometimes the sound of heavy breathing. In the +front pew sat Henry Wimbush, calm, well-bred, beautifully dressed. There +were times when Mr. Bodiham wanted to jump down from the pulpit and +shake him into life,--times when he would have liked to beat and kill +his whole congregation. + +He sat at his desk dejectedly. Outside the Gothic windows the earth was +warm and marvellously calm. Everything was as it had always been. And +yet, and yet...It was nearly four years now since he had preached that +sermon on Matthew xxiv. 7: "For nation shall rise up against nation, and +kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, +and earthquakes, in divers places." It was nearly four years. He had had +the sermon printed; it was so terribly, so vitally important that all +the world should know what he had to say. A copy of the little pamphlet +lay on his desk--eight small grey pages, printed by a fount of type that +had grown blunt, like an old dog's teeth, by the endless champing and +champing of the press. He opened it and began to read it yet once again. + +"'For nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: +and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers +places.' + +"Nineteen centuries have elapsed since Our Lord gave utterance to those +words, and not a single one of them has been without wars, plagues, +famines, and earthquakes. Mighty empires have crashed in ruin to the +ground, diseases have unpeopled half the globe, there have been vast +natural cataclysms in which thousands have been overwhelmed by flood +and fire and whirlwind. Time and again, in the course of these nineteen +centuries, such things have happened, but they have not brought Christ +back to earth. They were 'signs of the times' inasmuch as they were +signs of God's wrath against the chronic wickedness of mankind, but they +were not signs of the times in connection with the Second Coming. + +"If earnest Christians have regarded the present war as a true sign of +the Lord's approaching return, it is not merely because it happens to +be a great war involving the lives of millions of people, not merely +because famine is tightening its grip on every country in Europe, not +merely because disease of every kind, from syphilis to spotted fever, is +rife among the warring nations; no, it is not for these reasons that we +regard this war as a true Sign of the Times, but because in its origin +and its progress it is marked by certain characteristics which seem +to connect it almost beyond a doubt with the predictions in Christian +Prophecy relating to the Second Coming of the Lord. + +"Let me enumerate the features of the present war which most clearly +suggest that it is a Sign foretelling the near approach of the Second +Advent. Our Lord said that 'this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached +in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end +come.' Although it would be presumptuous for us to say what degree of +evangelisation will be regarded by God as sufficient, we may at least +confidently hope that a century of unflagging missionary work has +brought the fulfilment of this condition at any rate near. True, the +larger number of the world's inhabitants have remained deaf to the +preaching of the true religion; but that does not vitiate the fact that +the Gospel HAS been preached 'for a witness' to all unbelievers from the +Papist to the Zulu. The responsibility for the continued prevalence of +unbelief lies, not with the preachers, but with those preached to. + +"Again, it has been generally recognised that 'the drying up of the +waters of the great river Euphrates,' mentioned in the sixteenth chapter +of Revelation, refers to the decay and extinction of Turkish power, and +is a sign of the near approaching end of the world as we know it. The +capture of Jerusalem and the successes in Mesopotamia are great strides +forward in the destruction of the Ottoman Empire; though it must be +admitted that the Gallipoli episode proved that the Turk still possesses +a 'notable horn' of strength. Historically speaking, this drying up of +Ottoman power has been going on for the past century; the last two years +have witnessed a great acceleration of the process, and there can be no +doubt that complete desiccation is within sight. + +"Closely following on the words concerning the drying up of Euphrates +comes the prophecy of Armageddon, that world war with which the Second +Coming is to be so closely associated. Once begun, the world war can +end only with the return of Christ, and His coming will be sudden and +unexpected, like that of a thief in the night. + +"Let us examine the facts. In history, exactly as in St. John's Gospel, +the world war is immediately preceded by the drying up of Euphrates, or +the decay of Turkish power. This fact alone would be enough to connect +the present conflict with the Armageddon of Revelation and therefore to +point to the near approach of the Second Advent. But further evidence of +an even more solid and convincing nature can be adduced. + +"Armageddon is brought about by the activities of three unclean spirits, +as it were toads, which come out of the mouths of the Dragon, the Beast, +and the False Prophet. If we can identify these three powers of evil +much light will clearly be thrown on the whole question. + +"The Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet can all be identified in +history. Satan, who can only work through human agency, has used these +three powers in the long war against Christ which has filled the last +nineteen centuries with religious strife. The Dragon, it has been +sufficiently established, is pagan Rome, and the spirit issuing from its +mouth is the spirit of Infidelity. The Beast, alternatively symbolised +as a Woman, is undoubtedly the Papal power, and Popery is the spirit +which it spews forth. There is only one power which answers to the +description of the False Prophet, the wolf in sheep's clothing, the +agent of the devil working in the guise of the Lamb, and that power is +the so-called 'Society of Jesus.' The spirit that issues from the mouth +of the False Prophet is the spirit of False Morality. + +"We may assume, then, that the three evil spirits are Infidelity, +Popery, and False Morality. Have these three influences been the real +cause of the present conflict? The answer is clear. + +"The spirit of Infidelity is the very spirit of German criticism. The +Higher Criticism, as it is mockingly called, denies the possibility of +miracles, prediction, and real inspiration, and attempts to account for +the Bible as a natural development. Slowly but surely, during the last +eighty years, the spirit of Infidelity has been robbing the Germans +of their Bible and their faith, so that Germany is to-day a nation of +unbelievers. Higher Criticism has thus made the war possible; for it +would be absolutely impossible for any Christian nation to wage war as +Germany is waging it. + +"We come next to the spirit of Popery, whose influence in causing the +war was quite as great as that of Infidelity, though not, perhaps, so +immediately obvious. Since the Franco-Prussian War the Papal power has +steadily declined in France, while in Germany it has steadily increased. +To-day France is an anti-papal state, while Germany possesses a powerful +Roman Catholic minority. Two papally controlled states, Germany and +Austria, are at war with six anti-papal states--England, France, Italy, +Russia, Serbia, and Portugal. Belgium is, of course, a thoroughly papal +state, and there can be little doubt that the presence on the Allies' +side of an element so essentially hostile has done much to hamper the +righteous cause and is responsible for our comparative ill-success. That +the spirit of Popery is behind the war is thus seen clearly enough in +the grouping of the opposed powers, while the rebellion in the Roman +Catholic parts of Ireland has merely confirmed a conclusion already +obvious to any unbiased mind. + +"The spirit of False Morality has played as great a part in this war as +the two other evil spirits. The Scrap of Paper incident is the nearest +and most obvious example of Germany's adherence to this essentially +unchristian or Jesuitical morality. The end is German world-power, and +in the attainment of this end, any means are justifiable. It is the true +principle of Jesuitry applied to international politics. + +"The identification is now complete. As was predicted in Revelation, +the three evil spirits have gone forth just as the decay of the Ottoman +power was nearing completion, and have joined together to make the world +war. The warning, 'Behold, I come as a thief,' is therefore meant for +the present period--for you and me and all the world. This war will lead +on inevitably to the war of Armageddon, and will only be brought to an +end by the Lord's personal return. + +"And when He returns, what will happen? Those who are in Christ, St. +John tells us, will be called to the Supper of the Lamb. Those who are +found fighting against Him will be called to the Supper of the Great +God--that grim banquet where they shall not feast, but be feasted on. +'For,' as St. John says, 'I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he +cried in a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of +heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the Great +God; that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and +the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit +on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and +great.' All the enemies of Christ will be slain with the sword of him +that sits upon the horse, 'and all the fowls will be filled with their +flesh.' That is the Supper of the Great God. + +"It may be soon or it may, as men reckon time, be long; but sooner or +later, inevitably, the Lord will come and deliver the world from its +present troubles. And woe unto them who are called, not to the Supper +of the Lamb, but to the Supper of the Great God. They will realise +then, but too late, that God is a God of Wrath as well as a God of +Forgiveness. The God who sent bears to devour the mockers of Elisha, +the God who smote the Egyptians for their stubborn wickedness, will +assuredly smite them too, unless they make haste to repent. But perhaps +it is already too late. Who knows but that to-morrow, in a moment even, +Christ may be upon us unawares, like a thief? In a little while, who +knows? The angel standing in the sun may be summoning the ravens and +vultures from their crannies in the rocks to feed upon the putrefying +flesh of the millions of unrighteous whom God's wrath has destroyed. Be +ready, then; the coming of the Lord is at hand. May it be for all of +you an object of hope, not a moment to look forward to with terror and +trembling." + +Mr. Bodiham closed the little pamphlet and leaned back in his chair. The +argument was sound, absolutely compelling; and yet--it was four years +since he had preached that sermon; four years, and England was at peace, +the sun shone, the people of Crome were as wicked and indifferent +as ever--more so, indeed, if that were possible. If only he could +understand, if the heavens would but make a sign! But his questionings +remained unanswered. Seated there in his brown varnished chair under the +Ruskinian window, he could have screamed aloud. He gripped the arms of +his chair--gripping, gripping for control. The knuckles of his hands +whitened; he bit his lip. In a few seconds he was able to relax the +tension; he began to rebuke himself for his rebellious impatience. + +Four years, he reflected; what were four years, after all? It must +inevitably take a long time for Armageddon to ripen to yeast itself up. +The episode of 1914 had been a preliminary skirmish. And as for the war +having come to an end--why, that, of course, was illusory. It was still +going on, smouldering away in Silesia, in Ireland, in Anatolia; the +discontent in Egypt and India was preparing the way, perhaps, for a +great extension of the slaughter among the heathen peoples. The Chinese +boycott of Japan, and the rivalries of that country and America in the +Pacific, might be breeding a great new war in the East. The prospect, +Mr. Bodiham tried to assure himself, was hopeful; the real, the genuine +Armageddon might soon begin, and then, like a thief in the night...But, +in spite of all his comfortable reasoning, he remained unhappy, +dissatisfied. Four years ago he had been so confident; God's intention +seemed then so plain. And now? Now, he did well to be angry. And now he +suffered too. + +Sudden and silent as a phantom Mrs. Bodiham appeared, gliding +noiselessly across the room. Above her black dress her face was pale +with an opaque whiteness, her eyes were pale as water in a glass, and +her strawy hair was almost colourless. She held a large envelope in her +hand. + +"This came for you by the post," she said softly. + +The envelope was unsealed. Mechanically Mr. Bodiham tore it open. +It contained a pamphlet, larger than his own and more elegant in +appearance. "The House of Sheeny, Clerical Outfitters, Birmingham." He +turned over the pages. The catalogue was tastefully and ecclesiastically +printed in antique characters with illuminated Gothic initials. Red +marginal lines, crossed at the corners after the manner of an Oxford +picture frame, enclosed each page of type, little red crosses took the +place of full stops. Mr. Bodiham turned the pages. + +"Soutane in best black merino. Ready to wear; in all sizes. Clerical +frock coats. From nine guineas. A dressy garment, tailored by our own +experienced ecclesiastical cutters." + +Half-tone illustrations represented young curates, some dapper, some +Rugbeian and muscular, some with ascetic faces and large ecstatic eyes, +dressed in jackets, in frock-coats, in surplices, in clerical evening +dress, in black Norfolk suitings. + +"A large assortment of chasubles. + +"Rope girdles. + +"Sheeny's Special Skirt Cassocks. Tied by a string about the waist...When +worn under a surplice presents an appearance indistinguishable from that +of a complete cassock...Recommended for summer wear and hot climates." + +With a gesture of horror and disgust Mr. Bodiham threw the catalogue +into the waste-paper basket. Mrs. Bodiham looked at him; her pale, +glaucous eyes reflected his action without comment. + +"The village," she said in her quiet voice, "the village grows worse and +worse every day." + +"What has happened now?" asked Mr. Bodiham, feeling suddenly very weary. + +"I'll tell you." She pulled up a brown varnished chair and sat down. In +the village of Crome, it seemed, Sodom and Gomorrah had come to a second +birth. + + + +CHAPTER X. + +Denis did not dance, but when ragtime came squirting out of the pianola +in gushes of treacle and hot perfume, in jets of Bengal light, then +things began to dance inside him. Little black nigger corpuscles jigged +and drummed in his arteries. He became a cage of movement, a walking +palais de danse. It was very uncomfortable, like the preliminary +symptoms of a disease. He sat in one of the window-seats, glumly +pretending to read. + +At the pianola, Henry Wimbush, smoking a long cigar through a tunnelled +pillar of amber, trod out the shattering dance music with serene +patience. Locked together, Gombauld and Anne moved with a harmoniousness +that made them seem a single creature, two-headed and four-legged. Mr. +Scogan, solemnly buffoonish, shuffled round the room with Mary. Jenny +sat in the shadow behind the piano, scribbling, so it seemed, in a +big red notebook. In arm-chairs by the fireplace, Priscilla and Mr. +Barbecue-Smith discussed higher things, without, apparently, being +disturbed by the noise on the Lower Plane. + +"Optimism," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith with a tone of finality, speaking +through strains of the "Wild, Wild Women"--"optimism is the opening out +of the soul towards the light; it is an expansion towards and into God, +it is a h-piritual self-unification with the Infinite." + +"How true!" sighed Priscilla, nodding the baleful splendours of her +coiffure. + +"Pessimism, on the other hand, is the contraction of the soul towards +darkness; it is a focusing of the self upon a point in the Lower Plane; +it is a h-piritual slavery to mere facts; to gross physical phenomena." + +"They're making a wild man of me." The refrain sang itself over in +Denis's mind. Yes, they were; damn them! A wild man, but not wild +enough; that was the trouble. Wild inside; raging, writhing--yes, +"writhing" was the word, writhing with desire. But outwardly he was +hopelessly tame; outwardly--baa, baa, baa. + +There they were, Anne and Gombauld, moving together as though they were +a single supple creature. The beast with two backs. And he sat in +a corner, pretending to read, pretending he didn't want to dance, +pretending he rather despised dancing. Why? It was the baa-baa business +again. + +Why was he born with a different face? Why WAS he? Gombauld had a face +of brass--one of those old, brazen rams that thumped against the walls +of cities till they fell. He was born with a different face--a woolly +face. + +The music stopped. The single harmonious creature broke in two. Flushed, +a little breathless, Anne swayed across the room to the pianola, laid +her hand on Mr. Wimbush's shoulder. + +"A waltz this time, please, Uncle Henry," she said. + +"A waltz," he repeated, and turned to the cabinet where the rolls were +kept. He trod off the old roll and trod on the new, a slave at the +mill, uncomplaining and beautifully well bred.= + + +```"Rum; Tum; Rum-ti-ti; Tum-ti-ti..."= + +The melody wallowed oozily along, like a ship moving forward over a +sleek and oily swell. The four-legged creature, more graceful, more +harmonious in its movements than ever, slid across the floor. Oh, why +was he born with a different face? + +"What are you reading?" + +He looked up, startled. It was Mary. She had broken from the +uncomfortable embrace of Mr. Scogan, who had now seized on Jenny for his +victim. + +"What are you reading?" + +"I don't know," said Denis truthfully. He looked at the title page; the +book was called "The Stock Breeder's Vade Mecum." + +"I think you are so sensible to sit and read quietly," said Mary, fixing +him with her china eyes. "I don't know why one dances. It's so boring." + +Denis made no reply; she exacerbated him. From the arm-chair by the +fireplace he heard Priscilla's deep voice. + +"Tell me, Mr Barbecue-Smith--you know all about science, I know--" A +deprecating noise came from Mr. Barbecue-Smith's chair. "This Einstein +theory. It seems to upset the whole starry universe. It makes me so +worried about my horoscopes. You see..." + +Mary renewed her attack. "Which of the contemporary poets do you like +best?" she asked. Denis was filled with fury. Why couldn't this pest of +a girl leave him alone? He wanted to listen to the horrible music, to +watch them dancing--oh, with what grace, as though they had been made +for one another!--to savour his misery in peace. And she came and put +him through this absurd catechism! She was like "Mangold's Questions": +"What are the three diseases of wheat?"--"Which of the contemporary +poets do you like best?" + +"Blight, Mildew, and Smut," he replied, with the laconism of one who is +absolutely certain of his own mind. + +It was several hours before Denis managed to go to sleep that night. +Vague but agonising miseries possessed his mind. It was not only Anne +who made him miserable; he was wretched about himself, the future, life +in general, the universe. "This adolescence business," he repeated to +himself every now and then, "is horribly boring." But the fact that he +knew his disease did not help him to cure it. + +After kicking all the clothes off the bed, he got up and sought relief +in composition. He wanted to imprison his nameless misery in words. At +the end of an hour, nine more or less complete lines emerged from among +the blots and scratchings.= + + +```"I do not know what I desire + +```When summer nights are dark and still, + +```When the wind's many-voiced quire + +```Sleeps among the muffled branches. + +```I long and know not what I will: + +```And not a sound of life or laughter stanches + +```Time's black and silent flow. + +```I do not know what I desire, + +```I do not know."= + +He read it through aloud; then threw the scribbled sheet into the +waste-paper basket and got into bed again. In a very few minutes he was +asleep. + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +Mr. Barbecue-Smith was gone. The motor had whirled him away to the +station; a faint smell of burning oil commemorated his recent departure. +A considerable detachment had come into the courtyard to speed him on +his way; and now they were walking back, round the side of the house, +towards the terrace and the garden. They walked in silence; nobody had +yet ventured to comment on the departed guest. + +"Well?" said Anne at last, turning with raised inquiring eyebrows to +Denis. + +"Well?" It was time for someone to begin. + +Denis declined the invitation; he passed it on to Mr Scogan. "Well?" he +said. + +Mr. Scogan did not respond; he only repeated the question, "Well?" + +It was left for Henry Wimbush to make a pronouncement. "A very agreeable +adjunct to the week-end," he said. His tone was obituary. + +They had descended, without paying much attention where they were going, +the steep yew-walk that went down, under the flank of the terrace, to +the pool. The house towered above them, immensely tall, with the whole +height of the built-up terrace added to its own seventy feet of +brick faade. The perpendicular lines of the three towers soared up, +uninterrupted, enhancing the impression of height until it became +overwhelming. They paused at the edge of the pool to look back. + +"The man who built this house knew his business," said Denis. "He was an +architect." + +"Was he?" said Henry Wimbush reflectively. "I doubt it. The builder of +this house was Sir Ferdinando Lapith, who flourished during the reign of +Elizabeth. He inherited the estate from his father, to whom it had been +granted at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries; for Crome was +originally a cloister of monks and this swimming-pool their fish-pond. +Sir Ferdinando was not content merely to adapt the old monastic +buildings to his own purposes; but using them as a stone quarry for his +barns and byres and outhouses, he built for himself a grand new house of +brick--the house you see now." + +He waved his hand in the direction of the house and was silent, severe, +imposing, almost menacing, Crome loomed down on them. + +"The great thing about Crome," said Mr. Scogan, seizing the opportunity +to speak, "is the fact that it's so unmistakably and aggressively a work +of art. It makes no compromise with nature, but affronts it and +rebels against it. It has no likeness to Shelley's tower, in the +'Epipsychidion,' which, if I remember rightly--"= + + +```"'Seems not now a work of human art, + +```But as it were titanic, in the heart + +```Of earth having assumed its form and grown + +```Out of the mountain, from the living stone, + +```Lifting itself in caverns light and high.'= + +"No, no, there isn't any nonsense of that sort about Crome. That the +hovels of the peasantry should look as though they had grown out of +the earth, to which their inmates are attached, is right, no doubt, and +suitable. But the house of an intelligent, civilised, and sophisticated +man should never seem to have sprouted from the clods. It should rather +be an expression of his grand unnatural remoteness from the cloddish +life. Since the days of William Morris that's a fact which we in England +have been unable to comprehend. Civilised and sophisticated men have +solemnly played at being peasants. Hence quaintness, arts and crafts, +cottage architecture, and all the rest of it. In the suburbs of our +cities you may see, reduplicated in endless rows, studiedly quaint +imitations and adaptations of the village hovel. Poverty, ignorance, +and a limited range of materials produced the hovel, which possesses +undoubtedly, in suitable surroundings, its own 'as it were titanic' +charm. We now employ our wealth, our technical knowledge, our rich +variety of materials for the purpose of building millions of imitation +hovels in totally unsuitable surroundings. Could imbecility go further?" + +Henry Wimbush took up the thread of his interrupted discourse. "All that +you say, my dear Scogan," he began, "is certainly very just, very true. +But whether Sir Ferdinando shared your views about architecture or if, +indeed, he had any views about architecture at all, I very much doubt. +In building this house, Sir Ferdinando was, as a matter of fact, +preoccupied by only one thought--the proper placing of his privies. +Sanitation was the one great interest of his life. In 1573 he even +published, on this subject, a little book--now extremely scarce--called, +'Certaine Priuy Counsels' by 'One of Her Maiestie's Most Honourable +Priuy Counsels, F.L. Knight', in which the whole matter is treated with +great learning and elegance. His guiding principle in arranging the +sanitation of a house was to secure that the greatest possible distance +should separate the privy from the sewage arrangements. Hence it +followed inevitably that the privies were to be placed at the top of the +house, being connected by vertical shafts with pits or channels in the +ground. It must not be thought that Sir Ferdinando was moved only by +material and merely sanitary considerations; for the placing of his +privies in an exalted position he had also certain excellent spiritual +reasons. For, he argues in the third chapter of his 'Priuy Counsels', +the necessities of nature are so base and brutish that in obeying them +we are apt to forget that we are the noblest creatures of the universe. +To counteract these degrading effects he advised that the privy should +be in every house the room nearest to heaven, that it should be well +provided with windows commanding an extensive and noble prospect, +and that the walls of the chamber should be lined with bookshelves +containing all the ripest products of human wisdom, such as the Proverbs +of Solomon, Boethius's 'Consolations of Philosophy', the apophthegms +of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, the 'Enchiridion' of Erasmus, and all +other works, ancient or modern, which testify to the nobility of the +human soul. In Crome he was able to put his theories into practice. At +the top of each of the three projecting towers he placed a privy. From +these a shaft went down the whole height of the house, that is to +say, more than seventy feet, through the cellars, and into a series of +conduits provided with flowing water tunnelled in the ground on a level +with the base of the raised terrace. These conduits emptied themselves +into the stream several hundred yards below the fish-pond. The total +depth of the shafts from the top of the towers to their subterranean +conduits was a hundred and two feet. The eighteenth century, with +its passion for modernisation, swept away these monuments of sanitary +ingenuity. Were it not for tradition and the explicit account of them +left by Sir Ferdinando, we should be unaware that these noble privies +had ever existed. We should even suppose that Sir Ferdinando built +his house after this strange and splendid model for merely aesthetic +reasons." + +The contemplation of the glories of the past always evoked in Henry +Wimbush a certain enthusiasm. Under the grey bowler his face worked +and glowed as he spoke. The thought of these vanished privies moved +him profoundly. He ceased to speak; the light gradually died out of his +face, and it became once more the replica of the grave, polite hat which +shaded it. There was a long silence; the same gently melancholy thoughts +seemed to possess the mind of each of them. Permanence, transience--Sir +Ferdinando and his privies were gone, Crome still stood. How brightly +the sun shone and how inevitable was death! The ways of God were +strange; the ways of man were stranger still... + +"It does one's heart good," exclaimed Mr. Scogan at last, "to hear of +these fantastic English aristocrats. To have a theory about privies +and to build an immense and splendid house in order to put it into +practise--it's magnificent, beautiful! I like to think of them all: the +eccentric milords rolling across Europe in ponderous carriages, bound +on extraordinary errands. One is going to Venice to buy La Bianchi's +larynx; he won't get it till she's dead, of course, but no matter; he's +prepared to wait; he has a collection, pickled in glass bottles, of +the throats of famous opera singers. And the instruments of renowned +virtuosi--he goes in for them too; he will try to bribe Paganini to part +with his little Guarnerio, but he has small hope of success. Paganini +won't sell his fiddle; but perhaps he might sacrifice one of his +guitars. Others are bound on crusades--one to die miserably among the +savage Greeks, another, in his white top hat, to lead Italians against +their oppressors. Others have no business at all; they are just giving +their oddity a continental airing. At home they cultivate themselves at +leisure and with greater elaboration. Beckford builds towers, Portland +digs holes in the ground, Cavendish, the millionaire, lives in a stable, +eats nothing but mutton, and amuses himself--oh, solely for his private +delectation--by anticipating the electrical discoveries of half a +century. Glorious eccentrics! Every age is enlivened by their presence. +Some day, my dear Denis," said Mr Scogan, turning a beady bright regard +in his direction--"some day you must become their biographer--'The Lives +of Queer Men.' What a subject! I should like to undertake it myself." + +Mr. Scogan paused, looked up once more at the towering house, then +murmured the word "Eccentricity," two or three times. + +"Eccentricity...It's the justification of all aristocracies. It +justifies leisured classes and inherited wealth and privilege and +endowments and all the other injustices of that sort. If you're to do +anything reasonable in this world, you must have a class of people who +are secure, safe from public opinion, safe from poverty, leisured, not +compelled to waste their time in the imbecile routines that go by the +name of Honest Work. You must have a class of which the members can +think and, within the obvious limits, do what they please. You must have +a class in which people who have eccentricities can indulge them and in +which eccentricity in general will be tolerated and understood. That's +the important thing about an aristocracy. Not only is it eccentric +itself--often grandiosely so; it also tolerates and even encourages +eccentricity in others. The eccentricities of the artist and the +new-fangled thinker don't inspire it with that fear, loathing, and +disgust which the burgesses instinctively feel towards them. It is a +sort of Red Indian Reservation planted in the midst of a vast horde of +Poor Whites--colonials at that. Within its boundaries wild men disport +themselves--often, it must be admitted, a little grossly, a little too +flamboyantly; and when kindred spirits are born outside the pale it +offers them some sort of refuge from the hatred which the Poor Whites, +en bons bourgeois, lavish on anything that is wild or out of the +ordinary. After the social revolution there will be no Reservations; +the Redskins will be drowned in the great sea of Poor Whites. What then? +Will they suffer you to go on writing villanelles, my good Denis? Will +you, unhappy Henry, be allowed to live in this house of the splendid +privies, to continue your quiet delving in the mines of futile +knowledge? Will Anne..." + +"And you," said Anne, interrupting him, "will you be allowed to go on +talking?" + +"You may rest assured," Mr. Scogan replied, "that I shall not. I shall +have some Honest Work to do." + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +Blight, Mildew, and Smut..." Mary was puzzled and distressed. Perhaps +her ears had played her false. Perhaps what he had really said was, +"Squire, Binyon, and Shanks," or "Childe, Blunden, and Earp," or even +"Abercrombie, Drinkwater, and Rabindranath Tagore." Perhaps. But then +her ears never did play her false. "Blight, Mildew, and Smut." The +impression was distinct and ineffaceable. "Blight, Mildew..." she was +forced to the conclusion, reluctantly, that Denis had indeed pronounced +those improbable words. He had deliberately repelled her attempts to +open a serious discussion. That was horrible. A man who would not talk +seriously to a woman just because she was a woman--oh, impossible! +Egeria or nothing. Perhaps Gombauld would be more satisfactory. True, +his meridional heredity was a little disquieting; but at least he was +a serious worker, and it was with his work that she would associate +herself. And Denis? After all, what WAS Denis? A dilettante, an +amateur... + +Gombauld had annexed for his painting-room a little disused granary that +stood by itself in a green close beyond the farm-yard. It was a square +brick building with a peaked roof and little windows set high up in each +of its walls. A ladder of four rungs led up to the door; for the granary +was perched above the ground, and out of reach of the rats, on four +massive toadstools of grey stone. Within, there lingered a faint smell +of dust and cobwebs; and the narrow shaft of sunlight that came slanting +in at every hour of the day through one of the little windows was +always alive with silvery motes. Here Gombauld worked, with a kind of +concentrated ferocity, during six or seven hours of each day. He was +pursuing something new, something terrific, if only he could catch it. + +During the last eight years, nearly half of which had been spent in the +process of winning the war, he had worked his way industriously through +cubism. Now he had come out on the other side. He had begun by painting +a formalised nature; then, little by little, he had risen from nature +into the world of pure form, till in the end he was painting nothing but +his own thoughts, externalised in the abstract geometrical forms of +the mind's devising. He found the process arduous and exhilarating. And +then, quite suddenly, he grew dissatisfied; he felt himself cramped and +confined within intolerably narrow limitations. He was humiliated to +find how few and crude and uninteresting were the forms he could invent; +the inventions of nature were without number, inconceivably subtle and +elaborate. He had done with cubism. He was out on the other side. But +the cubist discipline preserved him from falling into excesses of nature +worship. He took from nature its rich, subtle, elaborate forms, but his +aim was always to work them into a whole that should have the thrilling +simplicity and formality of an idea; to combine prodigious realism +with prodigious simplification. Memories of Caravaggio's portentous +achievements haunted him. Forms of a breathing, living reality emerged +from darkness, built themselves up into compositions as luminously +simple and single as a mathematical idea. He thought of the "Call of +Matthew," of "Peter Crucified," of the "Lute players," of "Magdalen." +He had the secret, that astonishing ruffian, he had the secret! And +now Gombauld was after it, in hot pursuit. Yes, it would be something +terrific, if only he could catch it. + +For a long time an idea had been stirring and spreading, yeastily, +in his mind. He had made a portfolio full of studies, he had drawn a +cartoon; and now the idea was taking shape on canvas. A man fallen from +a horse. The huge animal, a gaunt white cart-horse, filled the upper +half of the picture with its great body. Its head, lowered towards the +ground, was in shadow; the immense bony body was what arrested the eye, +the body and the legs, which came down on either side of the picture +like the pillars of an arch. On the ground, between the legs of the +towering beast, lay the foreshortened figure of a man, the head in the +extreme foreground, the arms flung wide to right and left. A white, +relentless light poured down from a point in the right foreground. The +beast, the fallen man, were sharply illuminated; round them, beyond and +behind them, was the night. They were alone in the darkness, a universe +in themselves. The horse's body filled the upper part of the picture; +the legs, the great hoofs, frozen to stillness in the midst of their +trampling, limited it on either side. And beneath lay the man, +his foreshortened face at the focal point in the centre, his arms +outstretched towards the sides of the picture. Under the arch of the +horse's belly, between his legs, the eye looked through into an intense +darkness; below, the space was closed in by the figure of the prostrate +man. A central gulf of darkness surrounded by luminous forms... + +The picture was more than half finished. Gombauld had been at work all +the morning on the figure of the man, and now he was taking a rest--the +time to smoke a cigarette. Tilting back his chair till it touched the +wall, he looked thoughtfully at his canvas. He was pleased, and at the +same time he was desolated. In itself, the thing was good; he knew +it. But that something he was after, that something that would be so +terrific if only he could catch it--had he caught it? Would he ever +catch it? + +Three little taps--rat, tat, tat! Surprised, Gombauld turned his eyes +towards the door. Nobody ever disturbed him while he was at work; it +was one of the unwritten laws. "Come in!" he called. The door, which was +ajar, swung open, revealing, from the waist upwards, the form of Mary. +She had only dared to mount half-way up the ladder. If he didn't want +her, retreat would be easier and more dignified than if she climbed to +the top. + +"May I come in?" she asked. + +"Certainly." + +She skipped up the remaining two rungs and was over the threshold in +an instant. "A letter came for you by the second post," she said. "I +thought it might be important, so I brought it out to you." Her eyes, +her childish face were luminously candid as she handed him the letter. +There had never been a flimsier pretext. + +Gombauld looked at the envelope and put it in his pocket unopened. +"Luckily," he said, "it isn't at all important. Thanks very much all the +same." + +There was a silence; Mary felt a little uncomfortable. "May I have a +look at what you've been painting?" she had the courage to say at last. + +Gombauld had only half smoked his cigarette; in any case he wouldn't +begin work again till he had finished. He would give her the five +minutes that separated him from the bitter end. "This is the best place +to see it from," he said. + +Mary looked at the picture for some time without saying anything. +Indeed, she didn't know what to say; she was taken aback, she was at a +loss. She had expected a cubist masterpiece, and here was a picture of a +man and a horse, not only recognisable as such, but even aggressively +in drawing. Trompe-l'oeil--there was no other word to describe the +delineation of that foreshortened figure under the trampling feet of the +horse. What was she to think, what was she to say? Her orientations +were gone. One could admire representationalism in the Old Masters. +Obviously. But in a modern...? At eighteen she might have done so. +But now, after five years of schooling among the best judges, her +instinctive reaction to a contemporary piece of representation was +contempt--an outburst of laughing disparagement. What could Gombauld be +up to? She had felt so safe in admiring his work before. But now--she +didn't know what to think. It was very difficult, very difficult. + +"There's rather a lot of chiaroscuro, isn't there?" she ventured at +last, and inwardly congratulated herself on having found a critical +formula so gentle and at the same time so penetrating. + +"There is," Gombauld agreed. + +Mary was pleased; he accepted her criticism; it was a serious +discussion. She put her head on one side and screwed up her eyes. +"I think it's awfully fine," she said. "But of course it's a little +too...too...trompe-l'oeil for my taste." She looked at Gombauld, who +made no response, but continued to smoke, gazing meditatively all the +time at his picture. Mary went on gaspingly. "When I was in Paris this +spring I saw a lot of Tschuplitski. I admire his work so tremendously. +Of course, it's frightfully abstract now--frightfully abstract and +frightfully intellectual. He just throws a few oblongs on to his +canvas--quite flat, you know, and painted in pure primary colours. But +his design is wonderful. He's getting more and more abstract every day. +He'd given up the third dimension when I was there and was just thinking +of giving up the second. Soon, he says, there'll be just the blank +canvas. That's the logical conclusion. Complete abstraction. Painting's +finished; he's finishing it. When he's reached pure abstraction he's +going to take up architecture. He says it's more intellectual than +painting. Do you agree?" she asked, with a final gasp. + +Gombauld dropped his cigarette end and trod on it. "Tschuplitski's +finished painting," he said. "I've finished my cigarette. But I'm going +on painting." And, advancing towards her, he put his arm round her +shoulders and turned her round, away from the picture. + +Mary looked up at him; her hair swung back, a soundless bell of gold. +Her eyes were serene; she smiled. So the moment had come. His arm was +round her. He moved slowly, almost imperceptibly, and she moved with +him. It was a peripatetic embracement. "Do you agree with him?" she +repeated. The moment might have come, but she would not cease to be +intellectual, serious. + +"I don't know. I shall have to think about it." Gombauld loosened his +embrace, his hand dropped from her shoulder. "Be careful going down the +ladder," he added solicitously. + +Mary looked round, startled. They were in front of the open door. She +remained standing there for a moment in bewilderment. The hand that +had rested on her shoulder made itself felt lower down her back; it +administered three or four kindly little smacks. Replying automatically +to its stimulus, she moved forward. + +"Be careful going down the ladder," said Gombauld once more. + +She was careful. The door closed behind her and she was alone in the +little green close. She walked slowly back through the farmyard; she was +pensive. + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +Henry Wimbush brought down with him to dinner a budget of printed sheets +loosely bound together in a cardboard portfolio. + +"To-day," he said, exhibiting it with a certain solemnity, "to-day I +have finished the printing of my 'History of Crome'. I helped to set up +the type of the last page this evening." + +"The famous History?" cried Anne. The writing and the printing of this +Magnum Opus had been going on as long as she could remember. All her +childhood long Uncle Henry's History had been a vague and fabulous +thing, often heard of and never seen. + +"It has taken me nearly thirty years," said Mr. Wimbush. "Twenty-five +years of writing and nearly four of printing. And now it's finished--the +whole chronicle, from Sir Ferdinando Lapith's birth to the death of my +father William Wimbush--more than three centuries and a half: a history +of Crome, written at Crome, and printed at Crome by my own press." + +"Shall we be allowed to read it now it's finished?" asked Denis. + +Mr. Wimbush nodded. "Certainly," he said. "And I hope you will not find +it uninteresting," he added modestly. "Our muniment room is particularly +rich in ancient records, and I have some genuinely new light to throw on +the introduction of the three-pronged fork." + +"And the people?" asked Gombauld. "Sir Ferdinando and the rest of +them--were they amusing? Were there any crimes or tragedies in the +family?" + +"Let me see," Henry Wimbush rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I can only +think of two suicides, one violent death, four or perhaps five broken +hearts, and half a dozen little blots on the scutcheon in the way of +misalliances, seductions, natural children, and the like. No, on the +whole, it's a placid and uneventful record." + +"The Wimbushes and the Lapiths were always an unadventurous, respectable +crew," said Priscilla, with a note of scorn in her voice. "If I were to +write my family history now! Why, it would be one long continuous blot +from beginning to end." She laughed jovially, and helped herself to +another glass of wine. + +"If I were to write mine," Mr. Scogan remarked, "it wouldn't exist. +After the second generation we Scogans are lost in the mists of +antiquity." + +"After dinner," said Henry Wimbush, a little piqued by his wife's +disparaging comment on the masters of Crome, "I'll read you an episode +from my History that will make you admit that even the Lapiths, in their +own respectable way, had their tragedies and strange adventures." + +"I'm glad to hear it," said Priscilla. + +"Glad to hear what?" asked Jenny, emerging suddenly from her private +interior world like a cuckoo from a clock. She received an explanation, +smiled, nodded, cuckooed at last "I see," and popped back, clapping shut +the door behind her. + +Dinner was eaten; the party had adjourned to the drawing-room. + +"Now," said Henry Wimbush, pulling up a chair to the lamp. He put on +his round pince-nez, rimmed with tortoise-shell, and began cautiously +to turn over the pages of his loose and still fragmentary book. He found +his place at last. "Shall I begin?" he asked, looking up. + +"Do," said Priscilla, yawning. + +In the midst of an attentive silence Mr. Wimbush gave a little +preliminary cough and started to read. + +"The infant who was destined to become the fourth baronet of the name of +Lapith was born in the year 1740. He was a very small baby, weighing not +more than three pounds at birth, but from the first he was sturdy and +healthy. In honour of his maternal grandfather, Sir Hercules Occam of +Bishop's Occam, he was christened Hercules. His mother, like many other +mothers, kept a notebook, in which his progress from month to month was +recorded. He walked at ten months, and before his second year was out +he had learnt to speak a number of words. At three years he weighed but +twenty-four pounds, and at six, though he could read and write perfectly +and showed a remarkable aptitude for music, he was no larger and heavier +than a well-grown child of two. Meanwhile, his mother had borne two +other children, a boy and a girl, one of whom died of croup during +infancy, while the other was carried off by smallpox before it reached +the age of five. Hercules remained the only surviving child. + +"On his twelfth birthday Hercules was still only three feet and two +inches in height. His head, which was very handsome and nobly shaped, +was too big for his body, but otherwise he was exquisitely proportioned, +and, for his size, of great strength and agility. His parents, in the +hope of making him grow, consulted all the most eminent physicians of +the time. Their various prescriptions were followed to the letter, but +in vain. One ordered a very plentiful meat diet; another exercise; a +third constructed a little rack, modelled on those employed by the Holy +Inquisition, on which young Hercules was stretched, with excruciating +torments, for half an hour every morning and evening. In the course of +the next three years Hercules gained perhaps two inches. After that his +growth stopped completely, and he remained for the rest of his life a +pigmy of three feet and four inches. His father, who had built the most +extravagant hopes upon his son, planning for him in his imagination +a military career equal to that of Marlborough, found himself a +disappointed man. 'I have brought an abortion into the world,' he would +say, and he took so violent a dislike to his son that the boy dared +scarcely come into his presence. His temper, which had been serene, +was turned by disappointment to moroseness and savagery. He avoided all +company (being, as he said, ashamed to show himself, the father of a +lusus naturae, among normal, healthy human beings), and took to solitary +drinking, which carried him very rapidly to his grave; for the year +before Hercules came of age his father was taken off by an apoplexy. His +mother, whose love for him had increased with the growth of his father's +unkindness, did not long survive, but little more than a year after +her husband's death succumbed, after eating two dozen of oysters, to an +attack of typhoid fever. + +"Hercules thus found himself at the age of twenty-one alone in the +world, and master of a considerable fortune, including the estate and +mansion of Crome. The beauty and intelligence of his childhood had +survived into his manly age, and, but for his dwarfish stature, he would +have taken his place among the handsomest and most accomplished young +men of his time. He was well read in the Greek and Latin authors, as +well as in all the moderns of any merit who had written in English, +French, or Italian. He had a good ear for music, and was no indifferent +performer on the violin, which he used to play like a bass viol, seated +on a chair with the instrument between his legs. To the music of the +harpsichord and clavichord he was extremely partial, but the smallness +of his hands made it impossible for him ever to perform upon these +instruments. He had a small ivory flute made for him, on which, +whenever he was melancholy, he used to play a simple country air or jig, +affirming that this rustic music had more power to clear and raise the +spirits than the most artificial productions of the masters. From an +early age he practised the composition of poetry, but, though conscious +of his great powers in this art, he would never publish any specimen of +his writing. 'My stature,' he would say, 'is reflected in my verses; if +the public were to read them it would not be because I am a poet, +but because I am a dwarf.' Several MS. books of Sir Hercules's poems +survive. A single specimen will suffice to illustrate his qualities as a +poet."= + + +```"'In ancient days, while yet the world was young, + +```Ere Abram fed his flocks or Homer sung; + +```When blacksmith Tubal tamed creative fire, + +```And Jabal dwelt in tents and Jubal struck the lyre; + +```Flesh grown corrupt brought forth a monstrous birth + +```And obscene giants trod the shrinking earth, + +```Till God, impatient of their sinful brood, + +```Gave rein to wrath and drown'd them in the Flood. + +```Teeming again, repeopled Tellus bore + +```The lubber Hero and the Man of War; + +```Huge towers of Brawn, topp'd with an empty Skull, + +```Witlessly bold, heroically dull. + +```Long ages pass'd and Man grown more refin'd, + +```Slighter in muscle but of vaster Mind, + +```Smiled at his grandsire's broadsword, bow and bill, + +```And learn'd to wield the Pencil and the Quill. + +```The glowing canvas and the written page + +```Immortaliz'd his name from age to age, + +```His name emblazon'd on Fame's temple wall; + +```For Art grew great as Humankind grew small. + +```Thus man's long progress step by step we trace; + +```The Giant dies, the hero takes his place; + +```The Giant vile, the dull heroic Block: + +```At one we shudder and at one we mock. + +```Man last appears. In him the Soul's pure flame + +```Burns brightlier in a not inord'nate frame. + +```Of old when Heroes fought and Giants swarmed, + +```Men were huge mounds of matter scarce inform'd; + +```Wearied by leavening so vast a mass, + +```The spirit slept and all the mind was crass. + +```The smaller carcase of these later days + +```Is soon inform'd; the Soul unwearied plays + +```And like a Pharos darts abroad her mental rays. + +```But can we think that Providence will stay + +```Man's footsteps here upon the upward way? + +```Mankind in understanding and in grace + +```Advanc'd so far beyond the Giants' race? + +```Hence impious thought! Still led by GOD'S own Hand, + +```Mankind proceeds towards the Promised Land. + +```A time will come (prophetic, I descry + +```Remoter dawns along the gloomy sky), + +```When happy mortals of a Golden Age + +```Will backward turn the dark historic page, + +```And in our vaunted race of Men behold + +```A form as gross, a Mind as dead and cold, + +```As we in Giants see, in warriors of old. + +```A time will come, wherein the soul shall be + +```From all superfluous matter wholly free; + +```When the light body, agile as a fawn's, + +```Shall sport with grace along the velvet lawns. + +```Nature's most delicate and final birth, + +```Mankind perfected shall possess the earth. + +```But ah, not yet! For still the Giants' race, + +```Huge, though diminish'd, tramps the Earth's fair face; + +```Gross and repulsive, yet perversely proud, + +```Men of their imperfections boast aloud. + +```Vain of their bulk, of all they still retain + +```Of giant ugliness absurdly vain; + +```At all that's small they point their stupid scorn + +```And, monsters, think themselves divinely born. + +```Sad is the Fate of those, ah, sad indeed, + +```The rare precursors of the nobler breed! + +```Who come man's golden glory to foretell, + +```But pointing Heav'nwards live themselves in Hell.'= + +"As soon as he came into the estate, Sir Hercules set about remodelling +his household. For though by no means ashamed of his deformity--indeed, +if we may judge from the poem quoted above, he regarded himself as being +in many ways superior to the ordinary race of man--he found the presence +of full-grown men and women embarrassing. Realising, too, that he +must abandon all ambitions in the great world, he determined to retire +absolutely from it and to create, as it were, at Crome a private +world of his own, in which all should be proportionable to himself. +Accordingly, he discharged all the old servants of the house and +replaced them gradually, as he was able to find suitable successors, +by others of dwarfish stature. In the course of a few years he had +assembled about himself a numerous household, no member of which was +above four feet high and the smallest among them scarcely two feet and +six inches. His father's dogs, such as setters, mastiffs, greyhounds, +and a pack of beagles, he sold or gave away as too large and too +boisterous for his house, replacing them by pugs and King Charles +spaniels and whatever other breeds of dog were the smallest. His +father's stable was also sold. For his own use, whether riding or +driving, he had six black Shetland ponies, with four very choice piebald +animals of New Forest breed. + +"Having thus settled his household entirely to his own satisfaction, it +only remained for him to find some suitable companion with whom to share +his paradise. Sir Hercules had a susceptible heart, and had more than +once, between the ages of sixteen and twenty, felt what it was to love. +But here his deformity had been a source of the most bitter humiliation, +for, having once dared to declare himself to a young lady of his choice, +he had been received with laughter. On his persisting, she had picked +him up and shaken him like an importunate child, telling him to run away +and plague her no more. The story soon got about--indeed, the young lady +herself used to tell it as a particularly pleasant anecdote--and +the taunts and mockery it occasioned were a source of the most acute +distress to Hercules. From the poems written at this period we gather +that he meditated taking his own life. In course of time, however, he +lived down this humiliation; but never again, though he often fell in +love, and that very passionately, did he dare to make any advances to +those in whom he was interested. After coming to the estate and finding +that he was in a position to create his own world as he desired it, he +saw that, if he was to have a wife--which he very much desired, being +of an affectionate and, indeed, amorous temper--he must choose her as +he had chosen his servants--from among the race of dwarfs. But to find +a suitable wife was, he found, a matter of some difficulty; for he would +marry none who was not distinguished by beauty and gentle birth. The +dwarfish daughter of Lord Bemboro he refused on the ground that besides +being a pigmy she was hunchbacked; while another young lady, an orphan +belonging to a very good family in Hampshire, was rejected by him +because her face, like that of so many dwarfs, was wizened and +repulsive. Finally, when he was almost despairing of success, he +heard from a reliable source that Count Titimalo, a Venetian nobleman, +possessed a daughter of exquisite beauty and great accomplishments, who +was by three feet in height. Setting out at once for Venice, he went +immediately on his arrival to pay his respects to the count, whom he +found living with his wife and five children in a very mean apartment +in one of the poorer quarters of the town. Indeed, the count was so far +reduced in his circumstances that he was even then negotiating (so it +was rumoured) with a travelling company of clowns and acrobats, who had +had the misfortune to lose their performing dwarf, for the sale of his +diminutive daughter Filomena. Sir Hercules arrived in time to save her +from this untoward fate, for he was so much charmed by Filomena's grace +and beauty, that at the end of three days' courtship he made her a +formal offer of marriage, which was accepted by her no less joyfully +than by her father, who perceived in an English son-in-law a rich and +unfailing source of revenue. After an unostentatious marriage, at which +the English ambassador acted as one of the witnesses, Sir Hercules and +his bride returned by sea to England, where they settled down, as it +proved, to a life of uneventful happiness. + +"Crome and its household of dwarfs delighted Filomena, who felt herself +now for the first time to be a free woman living among her equals in +a friendly world. She had many tastes in common with her husband, +especially that of music. She had a beautiful voice, of a power +surprising in one so small, and could touch A in alt without effort. +Accompanied by her husband on his fine Cremona fiddle, which he played, +as we have noted before, as one plays a bass viol, she would sing all +the liveliest and tenderest airs from the operas and cantatas of her +native country. Seated together at the harpsichord, they found that they +could with their four hands play all the music written for two hands +of ordinary size, a circumstance which gave Sir Hercules unfailing +pleasure. + +"When they were not making music or reading together, which they often +did, both in English and Italian, they spent their time in healthful +outdoor exercises, sometimes rowing in a little boat on the lake, but +more often riding or driving, occupations in which, because they were +entirely new to her, Filomena especially delighted. When she had become +a perfectly proficient rider, Filomena and her husband used often to go +hunting in the park, at that time very much more extensive than it is +now. They hunted not foxes nor hares, but rabbits, using a pack of +about thirty black and fawn-coloured pugs, a kind of dog which, when not +overfed, can course a rabbit as well as any of the smaller breeds. Four +dwarf grooms, dressed in scarlet liveries and mounted on white Exmoor +ponies, hunted the pack, while their master and mistress, in green +habits, followed either on the black Shetlands or on the piebald New +Forest ponies. A picture of the whole hunt--dogs, horses, grooms, and +masters--was painted by William Stubbs, whose work Sir Hercules admired +so much that he invited him, though a man of ordinary stature, to come +and stay at the mansion for the purpose of executing this picture. +Stubbs likewise painted a portrait of Sir Hercules and his lady driving +in their green enamelled calash drawn by four black Shetlands. Sir +Hercules wears a plum-coloured velvet coat and white breeches; Filomena +is dressed in flowered muslin and a very large hat with pink feathers. +The two figures in their gay carriage stand out sharply against a dark +background of trees; but to the left of the picture the trees fall away +and disappear, so that the four black ponies are seen against a pale and +strangely lurid sky that has the golden-brown colour of thunder-clouds +lighted up by the sun. + +"In this way four years passed happily by. At the end of that time +Filomena found herself great with child. Sir Hercules was overjoyed. +'If God is good,' he wrote in his day-book, 'the name of Lapith will be +preserved and our rarer and more delicate race transmitted through the +generations until in the fullness of time the world shall recognise the +superiority of those beings whom now it uses to make mock of.' On his +wife's being brought to bed of a son he wrote a poem to the same effect. +The child was christened Ferdinando in memory of the builder of the +house. + +"With the passage of the months a certain sense of disquiet began to +invade the minds of Sir Hercules and his lady. For the child was growing +with an extraordinary rapidity. At a year he weighed as much as Hercules +had weighed when he was three. 'Ferdinando goes crescendo,' wrote +Filomena in her diary. 'It seems not natural.' At eighteen months the +baby was almost as tall as their smallest jockey, who was a man of +thirty-six. Could it be that Ferdinando was destined to become a man of +the normal, gigantic dimensions? It was a thought to which neither of +his parents dared yet give open utterance, but in the secrecy of their +respective diaries they brooded over it in terror and dismay. + +"On his third birthday Ferdinando was taller than his mother and not +more than a couple of inches short of his father's height. 'To-day for +the first time' wrote Sir Hercules, 'we discussed the situation. The +hideous truth can be concealed no longer: Ferdinando is not one of us. +On this, his third birthday, a day when we should have been rejoicing at +the health, the strength, and beauty of our child, we wept together over +the ruin of our happiness. God give us strength to bear this cross.' + +"At the age of eight Ferdinando was so large and so exuberantly healthy +that his parents decided, though reluctantly, to send him to school. +He was packed off to Eton at the beginning of the next half. A profound +peace settled upon the house. Ferdinando returned for the summer +holidays larger and stronger than ever. One day he knocked down the +butler and broke his arm. 'He is rough, inconsiderate, unamenable to +persuasion,' wrote his father. 'The only thing that will teach him +manners is corporal chastisement.' Ferdinando, who at this age was +already seventeen inches taller than his father, received no corporal +chastisement. + +"One summer holidays about three years later Ferdinando returned to +Crome accompanied by a very large mastiff dog. He had bought it from an +old man at Windsor who had found the beast too expensive to feed. It +was a savage, unreliable animal; hardly had it entered the house when it +attacked one of Sir Hercules's favourite pugs, seizing the creature in +its jaws and shaking it till it was nearly dead. Extremely put out by +this occurrence, Sir Hercules ordered that the beast should be chained +up in the stable-yard. Ferdinando sullenly answered that the dog was +his, and he would keep it where he pleased. His father, growing angry, +bade him take the animal out of the house at once, on pain of his utmost +displeasure. Ferdinando refused to move. His mother at this moment +coming into the room, the dog flew at her, knocked her down, and in +a twinkling had very severely mauled her arm and shoulder; in another +instant it must infallibly have had her by the throat, had not Sir +Hercules drawn his sword and stabbed the animal to the heart. Turning on +his son, he ordered him to leave the room immediately, as being unfit to +remain in the same place with the mother whom he had nearly murdered. So +awe-inspiring was the spectacle of Sir Hercules standing with one foot +on the carcase of the gigantic dog, his sword drawn and still bloody, so +commanding were his voice, his gestures, and the expression of his face +that Ferdinando slunk out of the room in terror and behaved himself +for all the rest of the vacation in an entirely exemplary fashion. His +mother soon recovered from the bites of the mastiff, but the effect on +her mind of this adventure was ineradicable; from that time forth she +lived always among imaginary terrors. + +"The two years which Ferdinando spent on the Continent, making the Grand +Tour, were a period of happy repose for his parents. But even now +the thought of the future haunted them; nor were they able to solace +themselves with all the diversions of their younger days. The Lady +Filomena had lost her voice and Sir Hercules was grown too rheumatical +to play the violin. He, it is true, still rode after his pugs, but his +wife felt herself too old and, since the episode of the mastiff, too +nervous for such sports. At most, to please her husband, she would +follow the hunt at a distance in a little gig drawn by the safest and +oldest of the Shetlands. + +"The day fixed for Ferdinando's return came round. Filomena, sick with +vague dreads and presentiments, retired to her chamber and her bed. +Sir Hercules received his son alone. A giant in a brown travelling-suit +entered the room. 'Welcome home, my son,' said Sir Hercules in a voice +that trembled a little. + +"'I hope I see you well, sir.' Ferdinando bent down to shake hands, then +straightened himself up again. The top of his father's head reached to +the level of his hip. + +"Ferdinando had not come alone. Two friends of his own age accompanied +him, and each of the young men had brought a servant. Not for thirty +years had Crome been desecrated by the presence of so many members of +the common race of men. Sir Hercules was appalled and indignant, but the +laws of hospitality had to be obeyed. He received the young gentlemen +with grave politeness and sent the servants to the kitchen, with orders +that they should be well cared for. + +"The old family dining-table was dragged out into the light and dusted +(Sir Hercules and his lady were accustomed to dine at a small table +twenty inches high). Simon, the aged butler, who could only just look +over the edge of the big table, was helped at supper by the three +servants brought by Ferdinando and his guests. + +"Sir Hercules presided, and with his usual grace supported a +conversation on the pleasures of foreign travel, the beauties of art and +nature to be met with abroad, the opera at Venice, the singing of the +orphans in the churches of the same city, and on other topics of a +similar nature. The young men were not particularly attentive to his +discourses; they were occupied in watching the efforts of the butler to +change the plates and replenish the glasses. They covered their laughter +by violent and repeated fits of coughing or choking. Sir Hercules +affected not to notice, but changed the subject of the conversation to +sport. Upon this one of the young men asked whether it was true, as he +had heard, that he used to hunt the rabbit with a pack of pug dogs. Sir +Hercules replied that it was, and proceeded to describe the chase in +some detail. The young men roared with laughter. + +"When supper was over, Sir Hercules climbed down from his chair and, +giving as his excuse that he must see how his lady did, bade them +good-night. The sound of laughter followed him up the stairs. Filomena +was not asleep; she had been lying on her bed listening to the sound of +enormous laughter and the tread of strangely heavy feet on the stairs +and along the corridors. Sir Hercules drew a chair to her bedside +and sat there for a long time in silence, holding his wife's hand and +sometimes gently squeezing it. At about ten o'clock they were startled +by a violent noise. There was a breaking of glass, a stamping of feet, +with an outburst of shouts and laughter. The uproar continuing for +several minutes, Sir Hercules rose to his feet and, in spite of his +wife's entreaties, prepared to go and see what was happening. There +was no light on the staircase, and Sir Hercules groped his way down +cautiously, lowering himself from stair to stair and standing for a +moment on each tread before adventuring on a new step. The noise was +louder here; the shouting articulated itself into recognisable words +and phrases. A line of light was visible under the dining-room door. Sir +Hercules tiptoed across the hall towards it. Just as he approached the +door there was another terrific crash of breaking glass and jangled +metal. What could they be doing? Standing on tiptoe he managed to look +through the keyhole. In the middle of the ravaged table old Simon, the +butler, so primed with drink that he could scarcely keep his balance, +was dancing a jig. His feet crunched and tinkled among the broken glass, +and his shoes were wet with spilt wine. The three young men sat round, +thumping the table with their hands or with the empty wine bottles, +shouting and laughing encouragement. The three servants leaning against +the wall laughed too. Ferdinando suddenly threw a handful of walnuts at +the dancer's head, which so dazed and surprised the little man that he +staggered and fell down on his back, upsetting a decanter and several +glasses. They raised him up, gave him some brandy to drink, thumped +him on the back. The old man smiled and hiccoughed. 'To-morrow,' said +Ferdinando, 'we'll have a concerted ballet of the whole household.' +'With father Hercules wearing his club and lion-skin,' added one of his +companions, and all three roared with laughter. + +"Sir Hercules would look and listen no further. He crossed the hall once +more and began to climb the stairs, lifting his knees painfully high +at each degree. This was the end; there was no place for him now in the +world, no place for him and Ferdinando together. + +"His wife was still awake; to her questioning glance he answered, 'They +are making mock of old Simon. To-morrow it will be our turn.' They were +silent for a time. + +"At last Filomena said, 'I do not want to see to-morrow.' + +"'It is better not,' said Sir Hercules. Going into his closet he wrote +in his day-book a full and particular account of all the events of the +evening. While he was still engaged in this task he rang for a servant +and ordered hot water and a bath to be made ready for him at eleven +o'clock. When he had finished writing he went into his wife's room, and +preparing a dose of opium twenty times as strong as that which she +was accustomed to take when she could not sleep, he brought it to her, +saying, 'Here is your sleeping-draught.' + +"Filomena took the glass and lay for a little time, but did not drink +immediately. The tears came into her eyes. 'Do you remember the songs we +used to sing, sitting out there sulla terrazza in the summer-time?' She +began singing softly in her ghost of a cracked voice a few bars from +Stradella's 'Amor amor, non dormir piu.' 'And you playing on the violin, +it seems such a short time ago, and yet so long, long, long. Addio, +amore, a rivederti.' She drank off the draught and, lying back on the +pillow, closed her eyes. Sir Hercules kissed her hand and tiptoed away, +as though he were afraid of waking her. He returned to his closet, and +having recorded his wife's last words to him, he poured into his bath +the water that had been brought up in accordance with his orders. The +water being too hot for him to get into the bath at once, he took down +from the shelf his copy of Suetonius. He wished to read how Seneca had +died. He opened the book at random. 'But dwarfs,' he read, 'he held in +abhorrence as being lusus naturae and of evil omen.' He winced as though +he had been struck. This same Augustus, he remembered, had exhibited in +the amphitheatre a young man called Lucius, of good family, who was +not quite two feet in height and weighed seventeen pounds, but had +a stentorian voice. He turned over the pages. Tiberius, Caligula, +Claudius, Nero: it was a tale of growing horror. 'Seneca his preceptor, +he forced to kill himself.' And there was Petronius, who had called +his friends about him at the last, bidding them talk to him, not of the +consolations of philosophy, but of love and gallantry, while the life +was ebbing away through his opened veins. Dipping his pen once more in +the ink he wrote on the last page of his diary: 'He died a Roman death.' +Then, putting the toes of one foot into the water and finding that it +was not too hot, he threw off his dressing-gown and, taking a razor in +his hand, sat down in the bath. With one deep cut he severed the artery +in his left wrist, then lay back and composed his mind to meditation. +The blood oozed out, floating through the water in dissolving wreaths +and spirals. In a little while the whole bath was tinged with pink. The +colour deepened; Sir Hercules felt himself mastered by an invincible +drowsiness; he was sinking from vague dream to dream. Soon he was sound +asleep. There was not much blood in his small body." + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +For their after-luncheon coffee the party generally adjourned to the +library. Its windows looked east, and at this hour of the day it was the +coolest place in the whole house. It was a large room, fitted, during +the eighteenth century, with white painted shelves of an elegant design. +In the middle of one wall a door, ingeniously upholstered with rows +of dummy books, gave access to a deep cupboard, where, among a pile of +letter-files and old newspapers, the mummy-case of an Egyptian lady, +brought back by the second Sir Ferdinando on his return from the Grand +Tour, mouldered in the darkness. From ten yards away and at a first +glance, one might almost have mistaken this secret door for a section of +shelving filled with genuine books. Coffee-cup in hand, Mr. Scogan +was standing in front of the dummy book-shelf. Between the sips he +discoursed. + +"The bottom shelf," he was saying, "is taken up by an Encyclopaedia in +fourteen volumes. Useful, but a little dull, as is also Caprimulge's +'Dictionary of the Finnish Language'. The 'Biographical Dictionary' +looks more promising. 'Biography of Men who were Born Great', 'Biography +of Men who Achieved Greatness', 'Biography of Men who had Greatness +Thrust upon Them', and 'Biography of Men who were Never Great at All'. +Then there are ten volumes of 'Thom's Works and Wanderings', while the +'Wild Goose Chase, a Novel', by an anonymous author, fills no less +than six. But what's this, what's this?" Mr. Scogan stood on tiptoe and +peered up. "Seven volumes of the 'Tales of Knockespotch'. The 'Tales +of Knockespotch'," he repeated. "Ah, my dear Henry," he said, turning +round, "these are your best books. I would willingly give all the rest +of your library for them." + +The happy possessor of a multitude of first editions, Mr. Wimbush could +afford to smile indulgently. + +"Is it possible," Mr. Scogan went on, "that they possess nothing more +than a back and a title?" He opened the cupboard door and peeped inside, +as though he hoped to find the rest of the books behind it. "Phooh!" +he said, and shut the door again. "It smells of dust and mildew. How +symbolical! One comes to the great masterpieces of the past, expecting +some miraculous illumination, and one finds, on opening them, only +darkness and dust and a faint smell of decay. After all, what is +reading but a vice, like drink or venery or any other form of excessive +self-indulgence? One reads to tickle and amuse one's mind; one +reads, above all, to prevent oneself thinking. Still--the 'Tales of +Knockespotch'..." + +He paused, and thoughtfully drummed with his fingers on the backs of the +non-existent, unattainable books. + +"But I disagree with you about reading," said Mary. "About serious +reading, I mean." + +"Quite right, Mary, quite right," Mr. Scogan answered. "I had forgotten +there were any serious people in the room." + +"I like the idea of the Biographies," said Denis. "There's room for us +all within the scheme; it's comprehensive." + +"Yes, the Biographies are good, the Biographies are excellent," Mr +Scogan agreed. "I imagine them written in a very elegant Regency +style--Brighton Pavilion in words--perhaps by the great Dr. Lempriere +himself. You know his classical dictionary? Ah!" Mr. Scogan raised his +hand and let it limply fall again in a gesture which implied that words +failed him. "Read his biography of Helen; read how Jupiter, disguised +as a swan, was 'enabled to avail himself of his situation' vis-a-vis to +Leda. And to think that he may have, must have written these biographies +of the Great! What a work, Henry! And, owing to the idiotic arrangement +of your library, it can't be read." + +"I prefer the 'Wild Goose Chase'," said Anne. "A novel in six +volumes--it must be restful." + +"Restful," Mr. Scogan repeated. "You've hit on the right word. A 'Wild +Goose Chase' is sound, but a bit old-fashioned--pictures of clerical +life in the fifties, you know; specimens of the landed gentry; peasants +for pathos and comedy; and in the background, always the picturesque +beauties of nature soberly described. All very good and solid, but, like +certain puddings, just a little dull. Personally, I like much better +the notion of 'Thom's Works and Wanderings'. The eccentric Mr. Thom of +Thom's Hill. Old Tom Thom, as his intimates used to call him. He spent +ten years in Thibet organising the clarified butter industry on modern +European lines, and was able to retire at thirty-six with a handsome +fortune. The rest of his life he devoted to travel and ratiocination; +here is the result." Mr. Scogan tapped the dummy books. "And now we come +to the 'Tales of Knockespotch'. What a masterpiece and what a great man! +Knockespotch knew how to write fiction. Ah, Denis, if you could only +read Knockespotch you wouldn't be writing a novel about the wearisome +development of a young man's character, you wouldn't be describing in +endless, fastidious detail, cultured life in Chelsea and Bloomsbury and +Hampstead. You would be trying to write a readable book. But then, alas! +owing to the peculiar arrangement of our host's library, you never will +read Knockespotch." + +"Nobody could regret the fact more than I do," said Denis. + +"It was Knockespotch," Mr. Scogan continued, "the great Knockespotch, +who delivered us from the dreary tyranny of the realistic novel. My +life, Knockespotch said, is not so long that I can afford to spend +precious hours writing or reading descriptions of middle-class +interiors. He said again, 'I am tired of seeing the human mind bogged in +a social plenum; I prefer to paint it in a vacuum, freely and sportively +bombinating.'" + +"I say," said Gombauld, "Knockespotch was a little obscure sometimes, +wasn't he?" + +"He was," Mr. Scogan replied, "and with intention. It made him seem even +profounder than he actually was. But it was only in his aphorisms that +he was so dark and oracular. In his Tales he was always luminous. Oh, +those Tales--those Tales! How shall I describe them? Fabulous characters +shoot across his pages like gaily dressed performers on the trapeze. +There are extraordinary adventures and still more extraordinary +speculations. Intelligences and emotions, relieved of all the imbecile +preoccupations of civilised life, move in intricate and subtle dances, +crossing and recrossing, advancing, retreating, impinging. An immense +erudition and an immense fancy go hand in hand. All the ideas of the +present and of the past, on every possible subject, bob up among +the Tales, smile gravely or grimace a caricature of themselves, then +disappear to make place for something new. The verbal surface of his +writing is rich and fantastically diversified. The wit is incessant. +The..." + +"But couldn't you give us a specimen," Denis broke in--"a concrete +example?" + +"Alas!" Mr. Scogan replied, "Knockespotch's great book is like the sword +Excalibur. It remains struck fast in this door, awaiting the coming of a +writer with genius enough to draw it forth. I am not even a writer, I +am not so much as qualified to attempt the task. The extraction of +Knockespotch from his wooden prison I leave, my dear Denis, to you." + +"Thank you," said Denis. + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +In the time of the amiable Brantome," Mr. Scogan was saying, "every +debutante at the French Court was invited to dine at the King's table, +where she was served with wine in a handsome silver cup of Italian +workmanship. It was no ordinary cup, this goblet of the debutantes; +for, inside, it had been most curiously and ingeniously engraved with a +series of very lively amorous scenes. With each draught that the young +lady swallowed these engravings became increasingly visible, and the +Court looked on with interest, every time she put her nose in the cup, +to see whether she blushed at what the ebbing wine revealed. If the +debutante blushed, they laughed at her for her innocence; if she did +not, she was laughed at for being too knowing." + +"Do you propose," asked Anne, "that the custom should be revived at +Buckingham Palace?" + +"I do not," said Mr. Scogan. "I merely quoted the anecdote as an +illustration of the customs, so genially frank, of the sixteenth +century. I might have quoted other anecdotes to show that the customs +of the seventeenth and eighteenth, of the fifteenth and fourteenth +centuries, and indeed of every other century, from the time of Hammurabi +onward, were equally genial and equally frank. The only century in which +customs were not characterised by the same cheerful openness was the +nineteenth, of blessed memory. It was the astonishing exception. And +yet, with what one must suppose was a deliberate disregard of history, +it looked upon its horribly pregnant silences as normal and natural and +right; the frankness of the previous fifteen or twenty thousand years +was considered abnormal and perverse. It was a curious phenomenon." + +"I entirely agree." Mary panted with excitement in her effort to bring +out what she had to say. "Havelock Ellis says..." + +Mr. Scogan, like a policeman arresting the flow of traffic, held up his +hand. "He does; I know. And that brings me to my next point: the nature +of the reaction." + +"Havelock Ellis..." + +"The reaction, when it came--and we may say roughly that it set in +a little before the beginning of this century--the reaction was to +openness, but not to the same openness as had reigned in the earlier +ages. It was to a scientific openness, not to the jovial frankness +of the past, that we returned. The whole question of Amour became a +terribly serious one. Earnest young men wrote in the public prints that +from this time forth it would be impossible ever again to make a joke +of any sexual matter. Professors wrote thick books in which sex was +sterilised and dissected. It has become customary for serious young +women, like Mary, to discuss, with philosophic calm, matters of which +the merest hint would have sufficed to throw the youth of the sixties +into a delirium of amorous excitement. It is all very estimable, no +doubt. But still"--Mr. Scogan sighed.--"I for one should like to see, +mingled with this scientific ardour, a little more of the jovial spirit +of Rabelais and Chaucer." + +"I entirely disagree with you," said Mary. "Sex isn't a laughing matter; +it's serious." + +"Perhaps," answered Mr. Scogan, "perhaps I'm an obscene old man. For I +must confess that I cannot always regard it as wholly serious." + +"But I tell you..." began Mary furiously. Her face had flushed with +excitement. Her cheeks were the cheeks of a great ripe peach. + +"Indeed," Mr. Scogan continued, "it seems to me one of few permanently +and everlastingly amusing subjects that exist. Amour is the one human +activity of any importance in which laughter and pleasure preponderate, +if ever so slightly, over misery and pain." + +"I entirely disagree," said Mary. There was a silence. + +Anne looked at her watch. "Nearly a quarter to eight," she said. "I +wonder when Ivor will turn up." She got up from her deck-chair and, +leaning her elbows on the balustrade of the terrace, looked out over the +valley and towards the farther hills. Under the level evening light the +architecture of the land revealed itself. The deep shadows, the bright +contrasting lights gave the hills a new solidity. Irregularities of the +surface, unsuspected before, were picked out with light and shade. +The grass, the corn, the foliage of trees were stippled with intricate +shadows. The surface of things had taken on a marvellous enrichment. + +"Look!" said Anne suddenly, and pointed. On the opposite side of the +valley, at the crest of the ridge, a cloud of dust flushed by the +sunlight to rosy gold was moving rapidly along the sky-line. "It's Ivor. +One can tell by the speed." + +The dust cloud descended into the valley and was lost. A horn with the +voice of a sea-lion made itself heard, approaching. A minute later Ivor +came leaping round the corner of the house. His hair waved in the wind +of his own speed; he laughed as he saw them. + +"Anne, darling," he cried, and embraced her, embraced Mary, very nearly +embraced Mr. Scogan. "Well, here I am. I've come with incredulous +speed." Ivor's vocabulary was rich, but a little erratic. "I'm not late +for dinner, am I?" He hoisted himself up on to the balustrade, and +sat there, kicking his heels. With one arm he embraced a large stone +flower-pot, leaning his head sideways against its hard and lichenous +flanks in an attitude of trustful affection. He had brown, wavy hair, +and his eyes were of a very brilliant, pale, improbable blue. His head +was narrow, his face thin and rather long, his nose aquiline. In old +age--though it was difficult to imagine Ivor old--he might grow to have +an Iron Ducal grimness. But now, at twenty-six, it was not the structure +of his face that impressed one; it was its expression. That was charming +and vivacious, and his smile was an irradiation. He was forever moving, +restlessly and rapidly, but with an engaging gracefulness. His frail and +slender body seemed to be fed by a spring of inexhaustible energy. + +"No, you're not late." + +"You're in time to answer a question," said Mr. Scogan. "We were arguing +whether Amour were a serious matter or no. What do you think? Is it +serious?" + +"Serious?" echoed Ivor. "Most certainly." + +"I told you so," cried Mary triumphantly. + +"But in what sense serious?" Mr. Scogan asked. + +"I mean as an occupation. One can go on with it without ever getting +bored." + +"I see," said Mr. Scogan. "Perfectly." + +"One can occupy oneself with it," Ivor continued, "always and +everywhere. Women are always wonderfully the same. Shapes vary a little, +that's all. In Spain"--with his free hand he described a series of ample +curves--"one can't pass them on the stairs. In England"--he put the tip +of his forefinger against the tip of his thumb and, lowering his hand, +drew out this circle into an imaginary cylinder--"In England they're +tubular. But their sentiments are always the same. At least, I've always +found it so." + +"I'm delighted to hear it," said Mr. Scogan. + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +The ladies had left the room and the port was circulating. Mr. Scogan +filled his glass, passed on the decanter, and, leaning back in his +chair, looked about him for a moment in silence. The conversation +rippled idly round him, but he disregarded it; he was smiling at some +private joke. Gombauld noticed his smile. + +"What's amusing you?" he asked. + +"I was just looking at you all, sitting round this table," said Mr. +Scogan. + +"Are we as comic as all that?" + +"Not at all," Mr. Scogan answered politely. "I was merely amused by my +own speculations." + +"And what were they?" + +"The idlest, the most academic of speculations. I was looking at you one +by one and trying to imagine which of the first six Caesars you would +each resemble, if you were given the opportunity of behaving like a +Caesar. The Caesars are one of my touchstones," Mr. Scogan explained. +"They are characters functioning, so to speak, in the void. They +are human beings developed to their logical conclusions. Hence their +unequalled value as a touchstone, a standard. When I meet someone +for the first time, I ask myself this question: Given the Caesarean +environment, which of the Caesars would this person resemble--Julius, +Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero? I take each trait of +character, each mental and emotional bias, each little oddity, and +magnify them a thousand times. The resulting image gives me his +Caesarean formula." + +"And which of the Caesars do you resemble?" asked Gombauld. + +"I am potentially all of them," Mr. Scogan replied, "all--with the +possible exception of Claudius, who was much too stupid to be a +development of anything in my character. The seeds of Julius's courage +and compelling energy, of Augustus's prudence, of the libidinousness and +cruelty of Tiberius, of Caligula's folly, of Nero's artistic genius and +enormous vanity, are all within me. Given the opportunities, I might +have been something fabulous. But circumstances were against me. I was +born and brought up in a country rectory; I passed my youth doing a +great deal of utterly senseless hard work for a very little money. The +result is that now, in middle age, I am the poor thing that I am. But +perhaps it is as well. Perhaps, too, it's as well that Denis hasn't +been permitted to flower into a little Nero, and that Ivor remains only +potentially a Caligula. Yes, it's better so, no doubt. But it would +have been more amusing, as a spectacle, if they had had the chance to +develop, untrammelled, the full horror of their potentialities. It would +have been pleasant and interesting to watch their tics and foibles and +little vices swelling and burgeoning and blossoming into enormous and +fantastic flowers of cruelty and pride and lewdness and avarice. The +Caesarean environment makes the Caesar, as the special food and the +queenly cell make the queen bee. We differ from the bees in so far that, +given the proper food, they can be sure of making a queen every time. +With us there is no such certainty; out of every ten men placed in the +Caesarean environment one will be temperamentally good, or intelligent, +or great. The rest will blossom into Caesars; he will not. Seventy and +eighty years ago simple-minded people, reading of the exploits of the +Bourbons in South Italy, cried out in amazement: To think that such +things should be happening in the nineteenth century! And a few years +since we too were astonished to find that in our still more astonishing +twentieth century, unhappy blackamoors on the Congo and the Amazon were +being treated as English serfs were treated in the time of Stephen. +To-day we are no longer surprised at these things. The Black and Tans +harry Ireland, the Poles maltreat the Silesians, the bold Fascisti +slaughter their poorer countrymen: we take it all for granted. Since the +war we wonder at nothing. We have created a Caesarean environment and a +host of little Caesars has sprung up. What could be more natural?" + +Mr. Scogan drank off what was left of his port and refilled the glass. + +"At this very moment," he went on, "the most frightful horrors are taking +place in every corner of the world. People are being crushed, slashed, +disembowelled, mangled; their dead bodies rot and their eyes decay with +the rest. Screams of pain and fear go pulsing through the air at the +rate of eleven hundred feet per second. After travelling for three +seconds they are perfectly inaudible. These are distressing facts; but +do we enjoy life any the less because of them? Most certainly we do not. +We feel sympathy, no doubt; we represent to ourselves imaginatively the +sufferings of nations and individuals and we deplore them. But, after +all, what are sympathy and imagination? Precious little, unless the +person for whom we feel sympathy happens to be closely involved in our +affections; and even then they don't go very far. And a good thing too; +for if one had an imagination vivid enough and a sympathy sufficiently +sensitive really to comprehend and to feel the sufferings of other +people, one would never have a moment's peace of mind. A really +sympathetic race would not so much as know the meaning of happiness. +But luckily, as I've already said, we aren't a sympathetic race. At +the beginning of the war I used to think I really suffered, through +imagination and sympathy, with those who physically suffered. But after +a month or two I had to admit that, honestly, I didn't. And yet I +think I have a more vivid imagination than most. One is always alone in +suffering; the fact is depressing when one happens to be the sufferer, +but it makes pleasure possible for the rest of the world." + +There was a pause. Henry Wimbush pushed back his chair. + +"I think perhaps we ought to go and join the ladies," he said. + +"So do I," said Ivor, jumping up with alacrity. He turned to Mr. Scogan. +"Fortunately," he said, "we can share our pleasures. We are not always +condemned to be happy alone." + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +Ivor brought his hands down with a bang on to the final chord of his +rhapsody. There was just a hint in that triumphant harmony that the +seventh had been struck along with the octave by the thumb of the left +hand; but the general effect of splendid noise emerged clearly enough. +Small details matter little so long as the general effect is good. And, +besides, that hint of the seventh was decidedly modern. He turned round +in his seat and tossed the hair back out of his eyes. + +"There," he said. "That's the best I can do for you, I'm afraid." + +Murmurs of applause and gratitude were heard, and Mary, her large china +eyes fixed on the performer, cried out aloud, "Wonderful!" and gasped +for new breath as though she were suffocating. + +Nature and fortune had vied with one another in heaping on Ivor +Lombard all their choicest gifts. He had wealth and he was perfectly +independent. He was good looking, possessed an irresistible charm of +manner, and was the hero of more amorous successes than he could well +remember. His accomplishments were extraordinary for their number and +variety. He had a beautiful untrained tenor voice; he could improvise, +with a startling brilliance, rapidly and loudly, on the piano. He was a +good amateur medium and telepathist, and had a considerable first-hand +knowledge of the next world. He could write rhymed verses with an +extraordinary rapidity. For painting symbolical pictures he had a +dashing style, and if the drawing was sometimes a little weak, the +colour was always pyrotechnical. He excelled in amateur theatricals +and, when occasion offered, he could cook with genius. He resembled +Shakespeare in knowing little Latin and less Greek. For a mind like his, +education seemed supererogatory. Training would only have destroyed his +natural aptitudes. + +"Let's go out into the garden," Ivor suggested. "It's a wonderful +night." + +"Thank you," said Mr. Scogan, "but I for one prefer these still more +wonderful arm-chairs." His pipe had begun to bubble oozily every time he +pulled at it. He was perfectly happy. + +Henry Wimbush was also happy. He looked for a moment over his pince-nez +in Ivor's direction and then, without saying anything, returned to +the grimy little sixteenth-century account books which were now his +favourite reading. He knew more about Sir Ferdinando's household +expenses than about his own. + +The outdoor party, enrolled under Ivor's banner, consisted of Anne, +Mary, Denis, and, rather unexpectedly, Jenny. Outside it was warm and +dark; there was no moon. They walked up and down the terrace, and Ivor +sang a Neapolitan song: "Stretti, stretti"--close, close--with something +about the little Spanish girl to follow. The atmosphere began to +palpitate. Ivor put his arm round Anne's waist, dropped his head +sideways onto her shoulder, and in that position walked on, singing as +he walked. It seemed the easiest, the most natural, thing in the world. +Denis wondered why he had never done it. He hated Ivor. + +"Let's go down to the pool," said Ivor. He disengaged his embrace and +turned round to shepherd his little flock. They made their way along the +side of the house to the entrance of the yew-tree walk that led down to +the lower garden. Between the blank precipitous wall of the house and +the tall yew trees the path was a chasm of impenetrable gloom. Somewhere +there were steps down to the right, a gap in the yew hedge. Denis, who +headed the party, groped his way cautiously; in this darkness, one +had an irrational fear of yawning precipices, of horrible spiked +obstructions. Suddenly from behind him he heard a shrill, startled, +"Oh!" and then a sharp, dry concussion that might have been the sound +of a slap. After that, Jenny's voice was heard pronouncing, "I am going +back to the house." Her tone was decided, and even as she pronounced the +words she was melting away into the darkness. The incident, whatever it +had been, was closed. Denis resumed his forward groping. From somewhere +behind Ivor began to sing again, softly:= + + +```"Phillis plus avare que tendre + +```Ne gagnant rien refuser, + +```Un jour exigea Silvandre + +```Trente moutons pour un baiser."= + +The melody drooped and climbed again with a kind of easy languor; the +warm darkness seemed to pulse like blood about them.= + + +```"Le lendemain, nouvelle affaire: + +```Pour le berger le troc fut bon..."= + +"Here are the steps," cried Denis. He guided his companions over the +danger, and in a moment they had the turf of the yew-tree walk under +their feet. It was lighter here, or at least it was just perceptibly +less dark; for the yew walk was wider than the path that had led them +under the lea of the house. Looking up, they could see between the high +black hedges a strip of sky and a few stars.= + + +```"Car il obtint de la bergere..."= + +Went on Ivor, and then interrupted himself to shout, "I'm going to run +down," and he was off, full speed, down the invisible slope, singing +unevenly as he went:= + + +```"Trente baisers pour un mouton."= + +The others followed. Denis shambled in the rear, vainly exhorting +everyone to caution: the slope was steep, one might break one's neck. +What was wrong with these people, he wondered? They had become like +young kittens after a dose of cat-nip. He himself felt a certain +kittenishness sporting within him; but it was, like all his emotions, +rather a theoretical feeling; it did not overmasteringly seek to express +itself in a practical demonstration of kittenishness. + +"Be careful," he shouted once more, and hardly were the words out of his +mouth when, thump! there was the sound of a heavy fall in front of +him, followed by the long "F-f-f-f-f" of a breath indrawn with pain and +afterwards by a very sincere, "Oo-ooh!" Denis was almost pleased; he had +told them so, the idiots, and they wouldn't listen. He trotted down the +slope towards the unseen sufferer. + +Mary came down the hill like a runaway steam-engine. It was tremendously +exciting, this blind rush through the dark; she felt she would never +stop. But the ground grew level beneath her feet, her speed insensibly +slackened, and suddenly she was caught by an extended arm and brought to +an abrupt halt. + +"Well," said Ivor as he tightened his embrace, "you're caught now, +Anne." + +She made an effort to release herself. "It's not Anne. It's Mary." + +Ivor burst into a peal of amused laughter. "So it is!" he exclaimed. "I +seem to be making nothing but floaters this evening. I've already made +one with Jenny." He laughed again, and there was something so jolly +about his laughter that Mary could not help laughing too. He did not +remove his encircling arm, and somehow it was all so amusing and natural +that Mary made no further attempt to escape from it. They walked along +by the side of the pool, interlaced. Mary was too short for him to be +able, with any comfort, to lay his head on her shoulder. He rubbed his +cheek, caressed and caressing, against the thick, sleek mass of her +hair. In a little while he began to sing again; the night trembled +amorously to the sound of his voice. When he had finished he kissed her. +Anne or Mary: Mary or Anne. It didn't seem to make much difference which +it was. There were differences in detail, of course; but the general +effect was the same; and, after all, the general effect was the +important thing. + +Denis made his way down the hill. + +"Any damage done?" he called out. + +"Is that you, Denis? I've hurt my ankle so--and my knee, and my hand. +I'm all in pieces." + +"My poor Anne," he said. "But then," he couldn't help adding, "it was +silly to start running downhill in the dark." + +"Ass!" she retorted in a tone of tearful irritation; "of course it was." + +He sat down beside her on the grass, and found himself breathing the faint, +delicious atmosphere of perfume that she carried always with her. + +"Light a match," she commanded. "I want to look at my wounds." + +He felt in his pockets for the match-box. The light spurted and then +grew steady. Magically, a little universe had been created, a world of +colours and forms--Anne's face, the shimmering orange of her dress, her +white, bare arms, a patch of green turf--and round about a darkness that +had become solid and utterly blind. Anne held out her hands; both were +green and earthy with her fall, and the left exhibited two or three red +abrasions. + +"Not so bad," she said. But Denis was terribly distressed, and his +emotion was intensified when, looking up at her face, he saw that the +trace of tears, involuntary tears of pain, lingered on her eyelashes. +He pulled out his handkerchief and began to wipe away the dirt from +the wounded hand. The match went out; it was not worth while to light +another. Anne allowed herself to be attended to, meekly and gratefully. +"Thank you," she said, when he had finished cleaning and bandaging her +hand; and there was something in her tone that made him feel that she +had lost her superiority over him, that she was younger than he, +had become, suddenly, almost a child. He felt tremendously large and +protective. The feeling was so strong that instinctively he put his +arm about her. She drew closer, leaned against him, and so they sat in +silence. Then, from below, soft but wonderfully clear through the still +darkness, they heard the sound of Ivor's singing. He was going on with +his half-finished song:= + + +```"Le lendemain Phillis plus tendre, + +```Ne voulant deplaire au berger, + +```Fut trop heureuse de lui rendre + +```Trente moutons pour un baiser." + +There was a rather prolonged pause. It was as though time were being +allowed for the giving and receiving of a few of those thirty kisses. +Then the voice sang on:= + + +```"Le lendemain Phillis peu sage + +```Aurait donne moutons et chien + +```Pour un baiser que le volage + +``` Lisette donnait pour rien."= + +The last note died away into an uninterrupted silence. + +"Are you better?" Denis whispered. "Are you comfortable like this?" + +She nodded a Yes to both questions. + +"Trente moutons pour un baiser." The sheep, the woolly mutton--baa, +baa, baa...? Or the shepherd? Yes, decidedly, he felt himself to be +the shepherd now. He was the master, the protector. A wave of courage +swelled through him, warm as wine. He turned his head, and began to kiss +her face, at first rather randomly, then, with more precision, on the +mouth. + +Anne averted her head; he kissed the ear, the smooth nape that this +movement presented him. "No," she protested; "no, Denis." + +"Why not?" + +"It spoils our friendship, and that was so jolly." + +"Bosh!" said Denis. + +She tried to explain. "Can't you see," she said, "it isn't...it isn't +our stunt at all." It was true. Somehow she had never thought of Denis +in the light of a man who might make love; she had never so much as +conceived the possibilities of an amorous relationship with him. He was +so absurdly young, so...so...she couldn't find the adjective, but she +knew what she meant. + +"Why isn't it our stunt?" asked Denis. "And, by the way, that's a +horrible and inappropriate expression." + +"Because it isn't." + +"But if I say it is?" + +"It makes no difference. I say it isn't." + +"I shall make you say it is." + +"All right, Denis. But you must do it another time. I must go in and get +my ankle into hot water. It's beginning to swell." + +Reasons of health could not be gainsaid. Denis got up reluctantly, and +helped his companion to her feet. She took a cautious step. "Ooh!" She +halted and leaned heavily on his arm. + +"I'll carry you," Denis offered. He had never tried to carry a woman, +but on the cinema it always looked an easy piece of heroism. + +"You couldn't," said Anne. + +"Of course I can." He felt larger and more protective than ever. "Put +your arms round my neck," he ordered. She did so and, stooping, he +picked her up under the knees and lifted her from the ground. Good +heavens, what a weight! He took five staggering steps up the slope, then +almost lost his equilibrium, and had to deposit his burden suddenly, +with something of a bump. + +Anne was shaking with laughter. "I said you couldn't, my poor Denis." + +"I can," said Denis, without conviction. "I'll try again." + +"It's perfectly sweet of you to offer, but I'd rather walk, thanks." She +laid her hand on his shoulder and, thus supported, began to limp slowly +up the hill. + +"My poor Denis!" she repeated, and laughed again. Humiliated, he was +silent. It seemed incredible that, only two minutes ago, he should +have been holding her in his embrace, kissing her. Incredible. She was +helpless then, a child. Now she had regained all her superiority; she +was once more the far-off being, desired and unassailable. Why had he +been such a fool as to suggest that carrying stunt? He reached the house +in a state of the profoundest depression. + +He helped Anne upstairs, left her in the hands of a maid, and came down +again to the drawing-room. He was surprised to find them all sitting +just where he had left them. He had expected that, somehow, everything +would be quite different--it seemed such a prodigious time since he went +away. All silent and all damned, he reflected, as he looked at them. Mr. +Scogan's pipe still wheezed; that was the only sound. Henry Wimbush was +still deep in his account books; he had just made the discovery that Sir +Ferdinando was in the habit of eating oysters the whole summer through, +regardless of the absence of the justifying R. Gombauld, in horn-rimmed +spectacles, was reading. Jenny was mysteriously scribbling in her red +notebook. And, seated in her favourite arm-chair at the corner of the +hearth, Priscilla was looking through a pile of drawings. One by one she +held them out at arm's length and, throwing back her mountainous orange +head, looked long and attentively through half-closed eyelids. She wore +a pale sea-green dress; on the slope of her mauve-powdered decolletage +diamonds twinkled. An immensely long cigarette-holder projected at an +angle from her face. Diamonds were embedded in her high-piled +coiffure; they glittered every time she moved. It was a batch of Ivor's +drawings--sketches of Spirit Life, made in the course of tranced tours +through the other world. On the back of each sheet descriptive titles +were written: "Portrait of an Angel, 15th March '20;" "Astral Beings +at Play, 3rd December '19;" "A Party of Souls on their Way to a Higher +Sphere, 21st May '21." Before examining the drawing on the obverse of +each sheet, she turned it over to read the title. Try as she could--and +she tried hard--Priscilla had never seen a vision or succeeded in +establishing any communication with the Spirit World. She had to be +content with the reported experiences of others. + +"What have you done with the rest of your party?" she asked, looking up +as Denis entered the room. + +He explained. Anne had gone to bed, Ivor and Mary were still in the +garden. He selected a book and a comfortable chair, and tried, as far as +the disturbed state of his mind would permit him, to compose himself +for an evening's reading. The lamplight was utterly serene; there was no +movement save the stir of Priscilla among her papers. All silent and all +damned, Denis repeated to himself, all silent and all damned... + +It was nearly an hour later when Ivor and Mary made their appearance. + +"We waited to see the moon rise," said Ivor. + +"It was gibbous, you know," Mary explained, very technical and +scientific. + +"It was so beautiful down in the garden! The trees, the scent of the +flowers, the stars..." Ivor waved his arms. "And when the moon came up, +it was really too much. It made me burst into tears." He sat down at the +piano and opened the lid. + +"There were a great many meteorites," said Mary to anyone who would +listen. "The earth must just be coming into the summer shower of them. +In July and August..." + +But Ivor had already begun to strike the keys. He played the garden, +the stars, the scent of flowers, the rising moon. He even put in a +nightingale that was not there. Mary looked on and listened with parted +lips. The others pursued their occupations, without appearing to be +seriously disturbed. On this very July day, exactly three hundred and +fifty years ago, Sir Ferdinando had eaten seven dozen oysters. The +discovery of this fact gave Henry Wimbush a peculiar pleasure. He had +a natural piety which made him delight in the celebration of memorial +feasts. The three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the seven dozen +oysters...He wished he had known before dinner; he would have ordered +champagne. + +On her way to bed Mary paid a call. The light was out in Anne's room, +but she was not yet asleep. + +"Why didn't you come down to the garden with us?" Mary asked. + +"I fell down and twisted my ankle. Denis helped me home." + +Mary was full of sympathy. Inwardly, too, she was relieved to find +Anne's non-appearance so simply accounted for. She had been vaguely +suspicious, down there in the garden--suspicious of what, she hardly +knew; but there had seemed to be something a little louche in the way +she had suddenly found herself alone with Ivor. Not that she minded, of +course; far from it. But she didn't like the idea that perhaps she was +the victim of a put-up job. + +"I do hope you'll be better to-morrow," she said, and she commiserated +with Anne on all she had missed--the garden, the stars, the scent of +flowers, the meteorites through whose summer shower the earth was now +passing, the rising moon and its gibbosity. And then they had had such +interesting conversation. What about? About almost everything. Nature, +art, science, poetry, the stars, spiritualism, the relations of the +sexes, music, religion. Ivor, she thought, had an interesting mind. + +The two young ladies parted affectionately. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +The nearest Roman Catholic church was upwards of twenty miles away. +Ivor, who was punctilious in his devotions, came down early to breakfast +and had his car at the door, ready to start, by a quarter to ten. It was +a smart, expensive-looking machine, enamelled a pure lemon yellow and +upholstered in emerald green leather. There were two seats--three if you +squeezed tightly enough--and their occupants were protected from +wind, dust, and weather by a glazed sedan that rose, an elegant +eighteenth-century hump, from the midst of the body of the car. + +Mary had never been to a Roman Catholic service, thought it would be an +interesting experience, and, when the car moved off through the great +gates of the courtyard, she was occupying the spare seat in the sedan. +The sea-lion horn roared, faintlier, faintlier, and they were gone. + +In the parish church of Crome Mr. Bodiham preached on 1 Kings vi. 18: +"And the cedar of the house within was carved with knops"--a sermon of +immediately local interest. For the past two years the problem of the +War Memorial had exercised the minds of all those in Crome who had +enough leisure, or mental energy, or party spirit to think of such +things. Henry Wimbush was all for a library--a library of local +literature, stocked with county histories, old maps of the district, +monographs on the local antiquities, dialect dictionaries, handbooks +of the local geology and natural history. He liked to think of the +villagers, inspired by such reading, making up parties of a Sunday +afternoon to look for fossils and flint arrow-heads. The villagers +themselves favoured the idea of a memorial reservoir and water supply. +But the busiest and most articulate party followed Mr. Bodiham in +demanding something religious in character--a second lich-gate, for +example, a stained-glass window, a monument of marble, or, if possible, +all three. So far, however, nothing had been done, partly because the +memorial committee had never been able to agree, partly for the more +cogent reason that too little money had been subscribed to carry out any +of the proposed schemes. Every three or four months Mr. Bodiham preached +a sermon on the subject. His last had been delivered in March; it was +high time that his congregation had a fresh reminder. + +"And the cedar of the house within was carved with knops." + +Mr. Bodiham touched lightly on Solomon's temple. From thence he passed +to temples and churches in general. What were the characteristics of +these buildings dedicated to God? Obviously, the fact of their, from +a human point of view, complete uselessness. They were unpractical +buildings "carved with knops." Solomon might have built a +library--indeed, what could be more to the taste of the world's wisest +man? He might have dug a reservoir--what more useful in a parched city +like Jerusalem? He did neither; he built a house all carved with knops, +useless and unpractical. Why? Because he was dedicating the work to God. +There had been much talk in Crome about the proposed War Memorial. A +War Memorial was, in its very nature, a work dedicated to God. It was a +token of thankfulness that the first stage in the culminating world-war +had been crowned by the triumph of righteousness; it was at the same +time a visibly embodied supplication that God might not long delay the +Advent which alone could bring the final peace. A library, a reservoir? +Mr. Bodiham scornfully and indignantly condemned the idea. These were +works dedicated to man, not to God. As a War Memorial they were totally +unsuitable. A lich-gate had been suggested. This was an object which +answered perfectly to the definition of a War Memorial: a useless work +dedicated to God and carved with knops. One lich-gate, it was true, +already existed. But nothing would be easier than to make a second +entrance into the churchyard; and a second entrance would need a second +gate. Other suggestions had been made. Stained-glass windows, a monument +of marble. Both these were admirable, especially the latter. It was high +time that the War Memorial was erected. It might soon be too late. +At any moment, like a thief in the night, God might come. Meanwhile a +difficulty stood in the way. Funds were inadequate. All should subscribe +according to their means. Those who had lost relations in the war might +reasonably be expected to subscribe a sum equal to that which they would +have had to pay in funeral expenses if the relative had died while at +home. Further delay was disastrous. The War Memorial must be built at +once. He appealed to the patriotism and the Christian sentiments of all +his hearers. + +Henry Wimbush walked home thinking of the books he would present to the +War Memorial Library, if ever it came into existence. He took the path +through the fields; it was pleasanter than the road. At the first +stile a group of village boys, loutish young fellows all dressed in the +hideous ill-fitting black which makes a funeral of every English Sunday +and holiday, were assembled, drearily guffawing as they smoked their +cigarettes. They made way for Henry Wimbush, touching their caps as he +passed. He returned their salute; his bowler and face were one in their +unruffled gravity. + +In Sir Ferdinando's time, he reflected, in the time of his son, Sir +Julius, these young men would have had their Sunday diversions even at +Crome, remote and rustic Crome. There would have been archery, skittles, +dancing--social amusements in which they would have partaken as members +of a conscious community. Now they had nothing, nothing except Mr. +Bodiham's forbidding Boys' Club and the rare dances and concerts +organised by himself. Boredom or the urban pleasures of the county +metropolis were the alternatives that presented themselves to these poor +youths. Country pleasures were no more; they had been stamped out by the +Puritans. + +In Manningham's Diary for 1600 there was a queer passage, he remembered, +a very queer passage. Certain magistrates in Berkshire, Puritan +magistrates, had had wind of a scandal. One moonlit summer night they +had ridden out with their posse and there, among the hills, they had +come upon a company of men and women, dancing, stark naked, among the +sheepcotes. The magistrates and their men had ridden their horses into +the crowd. How self-conscious the poor people must suddenly have felt, +how helpless without their clothes against armed and booted horsemen! +The dancers were arrested, whipped, gaoled, set in the stocks; the +moonlight dance is never danced again. What old, earthy, Panic rite came +to extinction here? he wondered. Who knows?--perhaps their ancestors had +danced like this in the moonlight ages before Adam and Eve were so much +as thought of. He liked to think so. And now it was no more. These weary +young men, if they wanted to dance, would have to bicycle six miles to +the town. The country was desolate, without life of its own, without +indigenous pleasures. The pious magistrates had snuffed out for ever a +little happy flame that had burned from the beginning of time.= + + +```"And as on Tullia's tomb one lamp burned clear, + +```Unchanged for fifteen hundred year..."= + +He repeated the lines to himself, and was desolated to think of all the +murdered past. + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +Henry Wimbush's long cigar burned aromatically. The "History of Crome" +lay on his knee; slowly he turned over the pages. + +"I can't decide what episode to read you to-night," he said +thoughtfully. "Sir Ferdinando's voyages are not without interest. Then, +of course, there's his son, Sir Julius. It was he who suffered from the +delusion that his perspiration engendered flies; it drove him finally to +suicide. Or there's Sir Cyprian." He turned the pages more rapidly. "Or +Sir Henry. Or Sir George...No, I'm inclined to think I won't read about +any of these." + +"But you must read something," insisted Mr. Scogan, taking his pipe out +of his mouth. + +"I think I shall read about my grandfather," said Henry Wimbush, "and +the events that led up to his marriage with the eldest daughter of the +last Sir Ferdinando." + +"Good," said Mr. Scogan. "We are listening." + +"Before I begin reading," said Henry Wimbush, looking up from the +book and taking off the pince-nez which he had just fitted to his +nose--"before I begin, I must say a few preliminary words about Sir +Ferdinando, the last of the Lapiths. At the death of the virtuous and +unfortunate Sir Hercules, Ferdinando found himself in possession of the +family fortune, not a little increased by his father's temperance and +thrift; he applied himself forthwith to the task of spending it, which +he did in an ample and jovial fashion. By the time he was forty he had +eaten and, above all, drunk and loved away about half his capital, and +would infallibly have soon got rid of the rest in the same manner, if +he had not had the good fortune to become so madly enamoured of the +Rector's daughter as to make a proposal of marriage. The young lady +accepted him, and in less than a year had become the absolute mistress +of Crome and her husband. An extraordinary reformation made itself +apparent in Sir Ferdinando's character. He grew regular and economical +in his habits; he even became temperate, rarely drinking more than +a bottle and a half of port at a sitting. The waning fortune of the +Lapiths began once more to wax, and that in despite of the hard times +(for Sir Ferdinando married in 1809 in the height of the Napoleonic +Wars). A prosperous and dignified old age, cheered by the spectacle of +his children's growth and happiness--for Lady Lapith had already borne +him three daughters, and there seemed no good reason why she should not +bear many more of them, and sons as well--a patriarchal decline into the +family vault, seemed now to be Sir Ferdinando's enviable destiny. But +Providence willed otherwise. To Napoleon, cause already of such infinite +mischief, was due, though perhaps indirectly, the untimely and violent +death which put a period to this reformed existence. + +"Sir Ferdinando, who was above all things a patriot, had adopted, from +the earliest days of the conflict with the French, his own peculiar +method of celebrating our victories. When the happy news reached London, +it was his custom to purchase immediately a large store of liquor and, +taking a place on whichever of the outgoing coaches he happened to light +on first, to drive through the country proclaiming the good news to all +he met on the road and dispensing it, along with the liquor, at every +stopping-place to all who cared to listen or drink. Thus, after the +Nile, he had driven as far as Edinburgh; and later, when the coaches, +wreathed with laurel for triumph, with cypress for mourning, were +setting out with the news of Nelson's victory and death, he sat through +all a chilly October night on the box of the Norwich 'Meteor' with a +nautical keg of rum on his knees and two cases of old brandy under the +seat. This genial custom was one of the many habits which he abandoned +on his marriage. The victories in the Peninsula, the retreat from +Moscow, Leipzig, and the abdication of the tyrant all went uncelebrated. +It so happened, however, that in the summer of 1815 Sir Ferdinando was +staying for a few weeks in the capital. There had been a succession of +anxious, doubtful days; then came the glorious news of Waterloo. It was +too much for Sir Ferdinando; his joyous youth awoke again within him. He +hurried to his wine merchant and bought a dozen bottles of 1760 brandy. +The Bath coach was on the point of starting; he bribed his way on to +the box and, seated in glory beside the driver, proclaimed aloud the +downfall of the Corsican bandit and passed about the warm liquid joy. +They clattered through Uxbridge, Slough, Maidenhead. Sleeping Reading +was awakened by the great news. At Didcot one of the ostlers was so +much overcome by patriotic emotions and the 1760 brandy that he found it +impossible to do up the buckles of the harness. The night began to grow +chilly, and Sir Ferdinando found that it was not enough to take a nip +at every stage: to keep up his vital warmth he was compelled to drink +between the stages as well. They were approaching Swindon. The coach +was travelling at a dizzy speed--six miles in the last half-hour--when, +without having manifested the slightest premonitory symptom of +unsteadiness, Sir Ferdinando suddenly toppled sideways off his seat +and fell, head foremost, into the road. An unpleasant jolt awakened the +slumbering passengers. The coach was brought to a standstill; the +guard ran back with a light. He found Sir Ferdinando still alive, but +unconscious; blood was oozing from his mouth. The back wheels of the +coach had passed over his body, breaking most of his ribs and both arms. +His skull was fractured in two places. They picked him up, but he was +dead before they reached the next stage. So perished Sir Ferdinando, +a victim to his own patriotism. Lady Lapith did not marry again, but +determined to devote the rest of her life to the well-being of her three +children--Georgiana, now five years old, and Emmeline and Caroline, +twins of two." + +Henry Wimbush paused, and once more put on his pince-nez. "So much +by way of introduction," he said. "Now I can begin to read about my +grandfather." + +"One moment," said Mr. Scogan, "till I've refilled my pipe." + +Mr. Wimbush waited. Seated apart in a corner of the room, Ivor was +showing Mary his sketches of Spirit Life. They spoke together in +whispers. + +Mr. Scogan had lighted his pipe again. "Fire away," he said. + +Henry Wimbush fired away. + +"It was in the spring of 1833 that my grandfather, George Wimbush, first +made the acquaintance of the 'three lovely Lapiths,' as they were always +called. He was then a young man of twenty-two, with curly yellow hair +and a smooth pink face that was the mirror of his youthful and ingenuous +mind. He had been educated at Harrow and Christ Church, he enjoyed +hunting and all other field sports, and, though his circumstances were +comfortable to the verge of affluence, his pleasures were temperate and +innocent. His father, an East Indian merchant, had destined him for a +political career, and had gone to considerable expense in acquiring a +pleasant little Cornish borough as a twenty-first birthday gift for his +son. He was justly indignant when, on the very eve of George's majority, +the Reform Bill of 1832 swept the borough out of existence. The +inauguration of George's political career had to be postponed. At the +time he got to know the lovely Lapiths he was waiting; he was not at all +impatient. + +"The lovely Lapiths did not fail to impress him. Georgiana, the eldest, +with her black ringlets, her flashing eyes, her noble aquiline profile, +her swan-like neck, and sloping shoulders, was orientally dazzling; and +the twins, with their delicately turned-up noses, their blue eyes, and +chestnut hair, were an identical pair of ravishingly English charmers. + +"Their conversation at this first meeting proved, however, to be so +forbidding that, but for the invincible attraction exercised by their +beauty, George would never have had the courage to follow up the +acquaintance. The twins, looking up their noses at him with an air of +languid superiority, asked him what he thought of the latest French +poetry and whether he liked the 'Indiana' of George Sand. But what +was almost worse was the question with which Georgiana opened her +conversation with him. 'In music,' she asked, leaning forward and +fixing him with her large dark eyes, 'are you a classicist or a +transcendentalist?' George did not lose his presence of mind. He had +enough appreciation of music to know that he hated anything classical, +and so, with a promptitude which did him credit, he replied, 'I am a +transcendentalist.' Georgiana smiled bewitchingly. 'I am glad,' she +said; 'so am I. You went to hear Paganini last week, of course. "The +prayer of Moses"--ah!' She closed her eyes. 'Do you know anything more +transcendental than that?' 'No,' said George, 'I don't.' He hesitated, +was about to go on speaking, and then decided that after all it would be +wiser not to say--what was in fact true--that he had enjoyed above all +Paganini's Farmyard Imitations. The man had made his fiddle bray like +an ass, cluck like a hen, grunt, squeal, bark, neigh, quack, bellow, and +growl; that last item, in George's estimation, had almost compensated +for the tediousness of the rest of the concert. He smiled with pleasure +at the thought of it. Yes, decidedly, he was no classicist in music; he +was a thoroughgoing transcendentalist. + +"George followed up this first introduction by paying a call on the +young ladies and their mother, who occupied, during the season, a small +but elegant house in the neighbourhood of Berkeley Square. Lady Lapith +made a few discreet inquiries, and having found that George's financial +position, character, and family were all passably good, she asked him to +dine. She hoped and expected that her daughters would all marry into +the peerage; but, being a prudent woman, she knew it was advisable to +prepare for all contingencies. George Wimbush, she thought, would make +an excellent second string for one of the twins. + +"At this first dinner, George's partner was Emmeline. They talked of +Nature. Emmeline protested that to her high mountains were a feeling and +the hum of human cities torture. George agreed that the country was very +agreeable, but held that London during the season also had its charms. +He noticed with surprise and a certain solicitous distress that Miss +Emmeline's appetite was poor, that it didn't, in fact, exist. Two +spoonfuls of soup, a morsel of fish, no bird, no meat, and three +grapes--that was her whole dinner. He looked from time to time at her +two sisters; Georgiana and Caroline seemed to be quite as abstemious. +They waved away whatever was offered them with an expression of delicate +disgust, shutting their eyes and averting their faces from the proffered +dish, as though the lemon sole, the duck, the loin of veal, the trifle, +were objects revolting to the sight and smell. George, who thought the +dinner capital, ventured to comment on the sisters' lack of appetite. + +"'Pray, don't talk to me of eating,' said Emmeline, drooping like a +sensitive plant. 'We find it so coarse, so unspiritual, my sisters and +I. One can't think of one's soul while one is eating.' + +"George agreed; one couldn't. 'But one must live,' he said. + +"'Alas!' Emmeline sighed. 'One must. Death is very beautiful, don't you +think?' She broke a corner off a piece of toast and began to nibble +at it languidly. 'But since, as you say, one must live...' She made a +little gesture of resignation. 'Luckily a very little suffices to keep +one alive.' She put down her corner of toast half eaten. + +"George regarded her with some surprise. She was pale, but she looked +extraordinarily healthy, he thought; so did her sisters. Perhaps if +you were really spiritual you needed less food. He, clearly, was not +spiritual. + +"After this he saw them frequently. They all liked him, from Lady Lapith +downwards. True, he was not very romantic or poetical; but he was such a +pleasant, unpretentious, kind-hearted young man, that one couldn't +help liking him. For his part, he thought them wonderful, wonderful, +especially Georgiana. He enveloped them all in a warm, protective +affection. For they needed protection; they were altogether too frail, +too spiritual for this world. They never ate, they were always pale, +they often complained of fever, they talked much and lovingly of death, +they frequently swooned. Georgiana was the most ethereal of all; of the +three she ate least, swooned most often, talked most of death, and was +the palest--with a pallor that was so startling as to appear positively +artificial. At any moment, it seemed, she might loose her precarious +hold on this material world and become all spirit. To George the thought +was a continual agony. If she were to die... + +"She contrived, however, to live through the season, and that in spite +of the numerous balls, routs, and other parties of pleasure which, in +company with the rest of the lovely trio, she never failed to attend. In +the middle of July the whole household moved down to the country. George +was invited to spend the month of August at Crome. + +"The house-party was distinguished; in the list of visitors figured +the names of two marriageable young men of title. George had hoped that +country air, repose, and natural surroundings might have restored to +the three sisters their appetites and the roses of their cheeks. He was +mistaken. For dinner, the first evening, Georgiana ate only an olive, +two or three salted almonds, and half a peach. She was as pale as ever. +During the meal she spoke of love. + +"'True love,' she said, 'being infinite and eternal, can only be +consummated in eternity. Indiana and Sir Rodolphe celebrated the mystic +wedding of their souls by jumping into Niagara. Love is incompatible +with life. The wish of two people who truly love one another is not to +live together but to die together.' + +"'Come, come, my dear,' said Lady Lapith, stout and practical. 'What +would become of the next generation, pray, if all the world acted on +your principles?' + +"'Mamma!...' Georgiana protested, and dropped her eyes. + +"'In my young days,' Lady Lapith went on, 'I should have been laughed +out of countenance if I'd said a thing like that. But then in my young +days souls weren't as fashionable as they are now and we didn't think +death was at all poetical. It was just unpleasant.' + +"'Mamma!...' Emmeline and Caroline implored in unison. + +"'In my young days--' Lady Lapith was launched into her subject; +nothing, it seemed, could stop her now. 'In my young days, if you didn't +eat, people told you you needed a dose of rhubarb. Nowadays...' + +"There was a cry; Georgiana had swooned sideways on to Lord Timpany's +shoulder. It was a desperate expedient; but it was successful. Lady +Lapith was stopped. + +"The days passed in an uneventful round of pleasures. Of all the gay +party George alone was unhappy. Lord Timpany was paying his court to +Georgiana, and it was clear that he was not unfavourably received. +George looked on, and his soul was a hell of jealousy and despair. The +boisterous company of the young men became intolerable to him; he shrank +from them, seeking gloom and solitude. One morning, having broken away +from them on some vague pretext, he returned to the house alone. The +young men were bathing in the pool below; their cries and laughter +floated up to him, making the quiet house seem lonelier and more silent. +The lovely sisters and their mamma still kept their chambers; they did +not customarily make their appearance till luncheon, so that the male +guests had the morning to themselves. George sat down in the hall and +abandoned himself to thought. + +"At any moment she might die; at any moment she might become Lady +Timpany. It was terrible, terrible. If she died, then he would die +too; he would go to seek her beyond the grave. If she became Lady +Timpany...ah, then! The solution of the problem would not be so simple. +If she became Lady Timpany: it was a horrible thought. But then suppose +she were in love with Timpany--though it seemed incredible that anyone +could be in love with Timpany--suppose her life depended on Timpany, +suppose she couldn't live without him? He was fumbling his way along +this clueless labyrinth of suppositions when the clock struck twelve. On +the last stroke, like an automaton released by the turning clockwork, a +little maid, holding a large covered tray, popped out of the door that +led from the kitchen regions into the hall. From his deep arm-chair +George watched her (himself, it was evident, unobserved) with an idle +curiosity. She pattered across the room and came to a halt in front of +what seemed a blank expense of panelling. She reached out her hand and, +to George's extreme astonishment, a little door swung open, revealing +the foot of a winding staircase. Turning sideways in order to get her +tray through the narrow opening, the little maid darted in with a rapid +crab-like motion. The door closed behind her with a click. A minute +later it opened again and the maid, without her tray, hurried back +across the hall and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. George +tried to recompose his thoughts, but an invincible curiosity drew his +mind towards the hidden door, the staircase, the little maid. It was in +vain he told himself that the matter was none of his business, that to +explore the secrets of that surprising door, that mysterious staircase +within, would be a piece of unforgivable rudeness and indiscretion. +It was in vain; for five minutes he struggled heroically with his +curiosity, but at the end of that time he found himself standing in +front of the innocent sheet of panelling through which the little maid +had disappeared. A glance sufficed to show him the position of the +secret door--secret, he perceived, only to those who looked with +a careless eye. It was just an ordinary door let in flush with the +panelling. No latch nor handle betrayed its position, but an unobtrusive +catch sunk in the wood invited the thumb. George was astonished that he +had not noticed it before; now he had seen it, it was so obvious, +almost as obvious as the cupboard door in the library with its lines +of imitation shelves and its dummy books. He pulled back the catch and +peeped inside. The staircase, of which the degrees were made not +of stone but of blocks of ancient oak, wound up and out of sight. +A slit-like window admitted the daylight; he was at the foot of the +central tower, and the little window looked out over the terrace; they +were still shouting and splashing in the pool below. + +"George closed the door and went back to his seat. But his curiosity +was not satisfied. Indeed, this partial satisfaction had but whetted +its appetite. Where did the staircase lead? What was the errand of the +little maid? It was no business of his, he kept repeating--no business +of his. He tried to read, but his attention wandered. A quarter-past +twelve sounded on the harmonious clock. Suddenly determined, George +rose, crossed the room, opened the hidden door, and began to ascend +the stairs. He passed the first window, corkscrewed round, and came +to another. He paused for a moment to look out; his heart beat +uncomfortably, as though he were affronting some unknown danger. What +he was doing, he told himself, was extremely ungentlemanly, horribly +underbred. He tiptoed onward and upward. One turn more, then half a +turn, and a door confronted him. He halted before it, listened; he could +hear no sound. Putting his eye to the keyhole, he saw nothing but a +stretch of white sunlit wall. Emboldened, he turned the handle and +stepped across the threshold. There he halted, petrified by what he saw, +mutely gaping. + +"In the middle of a pleasantly sunny little room--'it is now Priscilla's +boudoir,' Mr. Wimbush remarked parenthetically--stood a small circular +table of mahogany. Crystal, porcelain, and silver,--all the shining +apparatus of an elegant meal--were mirrored in its polished depths. The +carcase of a cold chicken, a bowl of fruit, a great ham, deeply gashed +to its heart of tenderest white and pink, the brown cannon ball of +a cold plum-pudding, a slender Hock bottle, and a decanter of claret +jostled one another for a place on this festive board. And round the +table sat the three sisters, the three lovely Lapiths--eating! + +"At George's sudden entrance they had all looked towards the door, and +now they sat, petrified by the same astonishment which kept George fixed +and staring. Georgiana, who sat immediately facing the door, gazed at +him with dark, enormous eyes. Between the thumb and forefinger of her +right hand she was holding a drumstick of the dismembered chicken; her +little finger, elegantly crooked, stood apart from the rest of her hand. +Her mouth was open, but the drumstick had never reached its destination; +it remained, suspended, frozen, in mid-air. The other two sisters had +turned round to look at the intruder. Caroline still grasped her knife +and fork; Emmeline's fingers were round the stem of her claret glass. +For what seemed a very long time, George and the three sisters stared +at one another in silence. They were a group of statues. Then suddenly +there was movement. Georgiana dropped her chicken bone, Caroline's knife +and fork clattered on her plate. The movement propagated itself, grew +more decisive; Emmeline sprang to her feet, uttering a cry. The wave of +panic reached George; he turned and, mumbling something unintelligible +as he went, rushed out of the room and down the winding stairs. He came +to a standstill in the hall, and there, all by himself in the quiet +house, he began to laugh. + +"At luncheon it was noticed that the sisters ate a little more than +usual. Georgiana toyed with some French beans and a spoonful of +calves'-foot jelly. 'I feel a little stronger to-day,' she said to Lord +Timpany, when he congratulated her on this increase of appetite; 'a +little more material,' she added, with a nervous laugh. Looking up, she +caught George's eye; a blush suffused her cheeks and she looked hastily +away. + +"In the garden that afternoon they found themselves for a moment alone. + +"You won't tell anyone, George? Promise you won't tell anyone,' she +implored. 'It would make us look so ridiculous. And besides, eating IS +unspiritual, isn't it? Say you won't tell anyone.' + +"'I will,' said George brutally. 'I'll tell everyone, unless...' + +"'It's blackmail.' + +"'I don't care, said George. 'I'll give you twenty-four hours to +decide.' + +"Lady Lapith was disappointed, of course; she had hoped for better +things--for Timpany and a coronet. But George, after all, wasn't so bad. +They were married at the New Year. + +"My poor grandfather!" Mr. Wimbush added, as he closed his book and +put away his pince-nez. "Whenever I read in the papers about oppressed +nationalities, I think of him." He relighted his cigar. "It was +a maternal government, highly centralised, and there were no +representative institutions." + +Henry Wimbush ceased speaking. In the silence that ensued Ivor's +whispered commentary on the spirit sketches once more became audible. +Priscilla, who had been dozing, suddenly woke up. + +"What?" she said in the startled tones of one newly returned to +consciousness; "what?" + +Jenny caught the words. She looked up, smiled, nodded reassuringly. +"It's about a ham," she said. + +"What's about a ham?" + +"What Henry has been reading." She closed the red notebook lying on +her knees and slipped a rubber band round it. "I'm going to bed," she +announced, and got up. + +"So am I," said Anne, yawning. But she lacked the energy to rise from +her arm-chair. + +The night was hot and oppressive. Round the open windows the curtains +hung unmoving. Ivor, fanning himself with the portrait of an Astral +Being, looked out into the darkness and drew a breath. + +"The air's like wool," he declared. + +"It will get cooler after midnight," said Henry Wimbush, and cautiously +added, "perhaps." + +"I shan't sleep, I know." + +Priscilla turned her head in his direction; the monumental coiffure +nodded exorbitantly at her slightest movement. "You must make an +effort," she said. "When I can't sleep, I concentrate my will: I say, +'I will sleep, I am asleep!' And pop! off I go. That's the power of +thought." + +"But does it work on stuffy nights?" Ivor inquired. "I simply cannot +sleep on a stuffy night." + +"Nor can I," said Mary, "except out of doors." + +"Out of doors! What a wonderful idea!" In the end they decided to sleep +on the towers--Mary on the western tower, Ivor on the eastern. There +was a flat expanse of leads on each of the towers, and you could get a +mattress through the trap doors that opened on to them. Under the stars, +under the gibbous moon, assuredly they would sleep. The mattresses were +hauled up, sheets and blankets were spread, and an hour later the two +insomniasts, each on his separate tower, were crying their good-nights +across the dividing gulf. + +On Mary the sleep-compelling charm of the open air did not work with its +expected magic. Even through the mattress one could not fail to be aware +that the leads were extremely hard. Then there were noises: the owls +screeched tirelessly, and once, roused by some unknown terror, all the +geese of the farmyard burst into a sudden frenzy of cackling. The stars +and the gibbous moon demanded to be looked at, and when one meteorite +had streaked across the sky, you could not help waiting, open-eyed and +alert, for the next. Time passed; the moon climbed higher and higher in +the sky. Mary felt less sleepy than she had when she first came out. +She sat up and looked over the parapet. Had Ivor been able to sleep? she +wondered. And as though in answer to her mental question, from +behind the chimney-stack at the farther end of the roof a white form +noiselessly emerged--a form that, in the moonlight, was recognisably +Ivor's. Spreading his arms to right and left, like a tight-rope dancer, +he began to walk forward along the roof-tree of the house. He swayed +terrifyingly as he advanced. Mary looked on speechlessly; perhaps he was +walking in his sleep! Suppose he were to wake up suddenly, now! If she +spoke or moved it might mean his death. She dared look no more, but sank +back on her pillows. She listened intently. For what seemed an immensely +long time there was no sound. Then there was a patter of feet on the +tiles, followed by a scrabbling noise and a whispered "Damn!" And +suddenly Ivor's head and shoulders appeared above the parapet. One leg +followed, then the other. He was on the leads. Mary pretended to wake up +with a start. + +"Oh!" she said. "What are you doing here?" + +"I couldn't sleep," he explained, "so I came along to see if you +couldn't. One gets bored by oneself on a tower. Don't you find it so?" + +It was light before five. Long, narrow clouds barred the east, their +edges bright with orange fire. The sky was pale and watery. With the +mournful scream of a soul in pain, a monstrous peacock, flying heavily +up from below, alighted on the parapet of the tower. Ivor and Mary +started broad awake. + +"Catch him!" cried Ivor, jumping up. "We'll have a feather." The +frightened peacock ran up and down the parapet in an absurd distress, +curtseying and bobbing and clucking; his long tail swung ponderously +back and forth as he turned and turned again. Then with a flap and swish +he launched himself upon the air and sailed magnificently earthward, +with a recovered dignity. But he had left a trophy. Ivor had his +feather, a long-lashed eye of purple and green, of blue and gold. He +handed it to his companion. + +"An angel's feather," he said. + +Mary looked at it for a moment, gravely and intently. Her purple pyjamas +clothed her with an ampleness that hid the lines of her body; she looked +like some large, comfortable, unjointed toy, a sort of Teddy-bear--but +a Teddy bear with an angel's head, pink cheeks, and hair like a bell +of gold. An angel's face, the feather of an angel's wing...Somehow the +whole atmosphere of this sunrise was rather angelic. + +"It's extraordinary to think of sexual selection," she said at last, +looking up from her contemplation of the miraculous feather. + +"Extraordinary!" Ivor echoed. "I select you, you select me. What luck!" + +He put his arm round her shoulders and they stood looking eastward. The +first sunlight had begun to warm and colour the pale light of the dawn. +Mauve pyjamas and white pyjamas; they were a young and charming couple. +The rising sun touched their faces. It was all extremely symbolic; +but then, if you choose to think so, nothing in this world is not +symbolical. Profound and beautiful truth! + +"I must be getting back to my tower," said Ivor at last. + +"Already?" + +"I'm afraid so. The varletry will soon be up and about." + +"Ivor..." There was a prolonged and silent farewell. + +"And now," said Ivor, "I repeat my tight-rope stunt." + +Mary threw her arms round his neck. "You mustn't, Ivor. It's dangerous. +Please." + +He had to yield at last to her entreaties. "All right," he said, "I'll +go down through the house and up at the other end." + +He vanished through the trap door into the darkness that still lurked +within the shuttered house. A minute later he had reappeared on the +farther tower; he waved his hand, and then sank down, out of sight, +behind the parapet. From below, in the house, came the thin wasp-like +buzzing of an alarum-clock. He had gone back just in time. + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +Ivor was gone. Lounging behind the wind-screen in his yellow sedan he +was whirling across rural England. Social and amorous engagements of the +most urgent character called him from hall to baronial hall, from castle +to castle, from Elizabethan manor-house to Georgian mansion, over +the whole expanse of the kingdom. To-day in Somerset, to-morrow in +Warwickshire, on Saturday in the West riding, by Tuesday morning in +Argyll--Ivor never rested. The whole summer through, from the +beginning of July till the end of September, he devoted himself to his +engagements; he was a martyr to them. In the autumn he went back to +London for a holiday. Crome had been a little incident, an evanescent +bubble on the stream of his life; it belonged already to the past. By +tea-time he would be at Gobley, and there would be Zenobia's welcoming +smile. And on Thursday morning--but that was a long, long way ahead. He +would think of Thursday morning when Thursday morning arrived. Meanwhile +there was Gobley, meanwhile Zenobia. + +In the visitor's book at Crome Ivor had left, according to his +invariable custom in these cases, a poem. He had improvised it +magisterially in the ten minutes preceding his departure. Denis and Mr. +Scogan strolled back together from the gates of the courtyard, whence +they had bidden their last farewells; on the writing-table in the hall +they found the visitor's book, open, and Ivor's composition scarcely +dry. Mr. Scogan read it aloud:= + + +```"The magic of those immemorial kings, + +```Who webbed enchantment on the bowls of night. + +```Sleeps in the soul of all created things; + +```In the blue sea, th' Acroceraunian height, + +```In the eyed butterfly's auricular wings + +```And orgied visions of the anchorite; + +```In all that singing flies and flying sings, + +```In rain, in pain, in delicate delight. + +```But much more magic, much more cogent spells + +```Weave here their wizardries about my soul. + +```Crome calls me like the voice of vesperal bells, + +```Haunts like a ghostly-peopled necropole. + +````Fate tears me hence. Hard fate! since far from Crome + +````My soul must weep, remembering its Home."= + +"Very nice and tasteful and tactful," said Mr. Scogan, when he had +finished. "I am only troubled by the butterfly's auricular wings. You +have a first-hand knowledge of the workings of a poet's mind, Denis; +perhaps you can explain." + +"What could be simpler," said Denis. "It's a beautiful word, and Ivor +wanted to say that the wings were golden." + +"You make it luminously clear." + +"One suffers so much," Denis went on, "from the fact that beautiful +words don't always mean what they ought to mean. Recently, for example, +I had a whole poem ruined, just because the word 'carminative' didn't +mean what it ought to have meant. Carminative--it's admirable, isn't +it?" + +"Admirable," Mr. Scogan agreed. "And what does it mean?" + +"It's a word I've treasured from my earliest infancy," said Denis, +"treasured and loved. They used to give me cinnamon when I had a +cold--quite useless, but not disagreeable. One poured it drop by drop +out of narrow bottles, a golden liquor, fierce and fiery. On the label +was a list of its virtues, and among other things it was described as +being in the highest degree carminative. I adored the word. 'Isn't it +carminative?' I used to say to myself when I'd taken my dose. It seemed +so wonderfully to describe that sensation of internal warmth, that glow, +that--what shall I call it?--physical self-satisfaction which +followed the drinking of cinnamon. Later, when I discovered alcohol, +'carminative' described for me that similar, but nobler, more spiritual +glow which wine evokes not only in the body but in the soul as well. +The carminative virtues of burgundy, of rum, of old brandy, of Lacryma +Christi, of Marsala, of Aleatico, of stout, of gin, of champagne, of +claret, of the raw new wine of this year's Tuscan vintage--I compared +them, I classified them. Marsala is rosily, downily carminative; gin +pricks and refreshes while it warms. I had a whole table of carmination +values. And now"--Denis spread out his hands, palms upwards, +despairingly--"now I know what carminative really means." + +"Well, what DOES it mean?" asked Mr. Scogan, a little impatiently. + +"Carminative," said Denis, lingering lovingly over the syllables, +"carminative. I imagined vaguely that it had something to do with +carmen-carminis, still more vaguely with caro-carnis, and its +derivations, like carnival and carnation. Carminative--there was the +idea of singing and the idea of flesh, rose-coloured and warm, with +a suggestion of the jollities of mi-Careme and the masked holidays of +Venice. Carminative--the warmth, the glow, the interior ripeness were +all in the word. Instead of which..." + +"Do come to the point, my dear Denis," protested Mr. Scogan. "Do come to +the point." + +"Well, I wrote a poem the other day," said Denis; "I wrote a poem about +the effects of love." + +"Others have done the same before you," said Mr. Scogan. "There is no +need to be ashamed." + +"I was putting forward the notion," Denis went on, "that the effects +of love were often similar to the effects of wine, that Eros could +intoxicate as well as Bacchus. Love, for example, is essentially +carminative. It gives one the sense of warmth, the glow.= + + ````'_And passion carminative as wine_...'= + +was what I wrote. Not only was the line elegantly sonorous; it was also, +I flattered myself, very aptly compendiously expressive. Everything +was in the word carminative--a detailed, exact foreground, an immense, +indefinite hinterland of suggestion.= + + ````'_And passion carminative as wine_...'= + +I was not ill-pleased. And then suddenly it occurred to me that I had +never actually looked up the word in a dictionary. Carminative had grown +up with me from the days of the cinnamon bottle. It had always been +taken for granted. Carminative: for me the word was as rich in content +as some tremendous, elaborate work of art; it was a complete landscape +with figures.= + + ````'_And passion carminative as wine_...'= + +It was the first time I had ever committed the word to writing, and all +at once I felt I would like lexicographical authority for it. A small +English-German dictionary was all I had at hand. I turned up C, ca, +car, carm. There it was: 'Carminative: windtreibend.' Windtreibend!" he +repeated. Mr. Scogan laughed. Denis shook his head. "Ah," he said, "for +me it was no laughing matter. For me it marked the end of a chapter, the +death of something young and precious. There were the years--years +of childhood and innocence--when I had believed that carminative +meant--well, carminative. And now, before me lies the rest of my +life--a day, perhaps, ten years, half a century, when I shall know that +carminative means windtreibend.= + + +````'Plus ne suis ce que j'ai ete + +````Et ne le saurai jamais etre.'= + +It is a realisation that makes one rather melancholy." + +"Carminative," said Mr. Scogan thoughtfully. + +"Carminative," Denis repeated, and they were silent for a time. "Words," +said Denis at last, "words--I wonder if you can realise how much I love +them. You are too much preoccupied with mere things and ideas and people +to understand the full beauty of words. Your mind is not a literary +mind. The spectacle of Mr. Gladstone finding thirty-four rhymes to +the name 'Margot' seems to you rather pathetic than anything else. +Mallarm's envelopes with their versified addresses leave you cold, +unless they leave you pitiful; you can't see that= + + +````'Apte ne point te cabrer, hue! + +````Poste et j'ajouterai, dia! + +````Si tu ne fuis onze-bis Rue + +````Balzac, chez cet Hrdia,'= + +is a little miracle." + +"You're right," said Mr. Scogan. "I can't." + +"You don't feel it to be magical?" + +"No." + +"That's the test for the literary mind," said Denis; "the feeling of +magic, the sense that words have power. The technical, verbal part of +literature is simply a development of magic. Words are man's first and +most grandiose invention. With language he created a whole new universe; +what wonder if he loved words and attributed power to them! With fitted, +harmonious words the magicians summoned rabbits out of empty hats and +spirits from the elements. Their descendants, the literary men, still +go on with the process, morticing their verbal formulas together, and, +before the power of the finished spell, trembling with delight and awe. +Rabbits out of empty hats? No, their spells are more subtly powerful, +for they evoke emotions out of empty minds. Formulated by their art the +most insipid statements become enormously significant. For example, I +proffer the constatation, 'Black ladders lack bladders.' A self-evident +truth, one on which it would not have been worth while to insist, had +I chosen to formulate it in such words as 'Black fire-escapes have no +bladders,' or, 'Les echelles noires manquent de vessie.' But since I +put it as I do, 'Black ladders lack bladders,' it becomes, for all +its self-evidence, significant, unforgettable, moving. The creation by +word-power of something out of nothing--what is that but magic? And, I +may add, what is that but literature? Half the world's greatest poetry +is simply 'Les echelles noires manquent de vessie,' translated into +magic significance as, 'Black ladders lack bladders.' And you can't +appreciate words. I'm sorry for you." + +"A mental carminative," said Mr. Scogan reflectively. "That's what you +need." + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +Perched on its four stone mushrooms, the little granary stood two or +three feet above the grass of the green close. Beneath it there was a +perpetual shade and a damp growth of long, luxuriant grasses. Here, in +the shadow, in the green dampness, a family of white ducks had sought +shelter from the afternoon sun. Some stood, preening themselves, some +reposed with their long bellies pressed to the ground, as though the +cool grass were water. Little social noises burst fitfully forth, and +from time to time some pointed tail would execute a brilliant Lisztian +tremolo. Suddenly their jovial repose was shattered. A prodigious thump +shook the wooden flooring above their heads; the whole granary trembled, +little fragments of dirt and crumbled wood rained down among them. +With a loud, continuous quacking the ducks rushed out from beneath this +nameless menace, and did not stay their flight till they were safely in +the farmyard. + +"Don't lose your temper," Anne was saying. "Listen! You've frightened +the ducks. Poor dears! no wonder." She was sitting sideways in a low, +wooden chair. Her right elbow rested on the back of the chair and she +supported her cheek on her hand. Her long, slender body drooped into +curves of a lazy grace. She was smiling, and she looked at Gombauld +through half-closed eyes. + +"Damn you!" Gombauld repeated, and stamped his foot again. He glared at +her round the half-finished portrait on the easel. + +"Poor ducks!" Anne repeated. The sound of their quacking was faint in +the distance; it was inaudible. + +"Can't you see you make me lose my time?" he asked. "I can't work with +you dangling about distractingly like this." + +"You'd lose less time if you stopped talking and stamping your feet and +did a little painting for a change. After all, what am I dangling about +for, except to be painted?" + +Gombauld made a noise like a growl. "You're awful," he said, with +conviction. "Why do you ask me to come and stay here? Why do you tell me +you'd like me to paint your portrait?" + +"For the simple reasons that I like you--at least, when you're in a good +temper--and that I think you're a good painter." + +"For the simple reason"--Gombauld mimicked her voice--"that you want +me to make love to you and, when I do, to have the amusement of running +away." + +Anne threw back her head and laughed. "So you think it amuses me to have +to evade your advances! So like a man! If you only knew how gross and +awful and boring men are when they try to make love and you don't want +them to make love! If you could only see yourselves through our eyes!" + +Gombauld picked up his palette and brushes and attacked his canvas with +the ardour of irritation. "I suppose you'll be saying next that you +didn't start the game, that it was I who made the first advances, and +that you were the innocent victim who sat still and never did anything +that could invite or allure me on." + +"So like a man again!" said Anne. "It's always the same old story about +the woman tempting the man. The woman lures, fascinates, invites; and +man--noble man, innocent man--falls a victim. My poor Gombauld! Surely +you're not going to sing that old song again. It's so unintelligent, and +I always thought you were a man of sense." + +"Thanks," said Gombauld. + +"Be a little objective," Anne went on. "Can't you see that you're simply +externalising your own emotions? That's what you men are always doing; +it's so barbarously naive. You feel one of your loose desires for some +woman, and because you desire her strongly you immediately accuse her +of luring you on, of deliberately provoking and inviting the desire. You +have the mentality of savages. You might just as well say that a plate +of strawberries and cream deliberately lures you on to feel greedy. In +ninety-nine cases out of a hundred women are as passive and innocent as +the strawberries and cream." + +"Well, all I can say is that this must be the hundredth case," said +Gombauld, without looking up. + +Anne shrugged her shoulders and gave vent to a sigh. "I'm at a loss to +know whether you're more silly or more rude." + +After painting for a little time in silence Gombauld began to speak +again. "And then there's Denis," he said, renewing the conversation as +though it had only just been broken off. "You're playing the same game +with him. Why can't you leave that wretched young man in peace?" + +Anne flushed with a sudden and uncontrollable anger. "It's perfectly +untrue about Denis," she said indignantly. "I never dreamt of playing +what you beautifully call the same game with him." Recovering her calm, +she added in her ordinary cooing voice and with her exacerbating smile, +"You've become very protective towards poor Denis all of a sudden." + +"I have," Gombauld replied, with a gravity that was somehow a little too +solemn. "I don't like to see a young man..." + +"...being whirled along the road to ruin," said Anne, continuing his +sentence for him. "I admire your sentiments and, believe me, I share +them." + +She was curiously irritated at what Gombauld had said about Denis. It +happened to be so completely untrue. Gombauld might have some slight +ground for his reproaches. But Denis--no, she had never flirted with +Denis. Poor boy! He was very sweet. She became somewhat pensive. + +Gombauld painted on with fury. The restlessness of an unsatisfied +desire, which, before, had distracted his mind, making work impossible, +seemed now to have converted itself into a kind of feverish energy. When +it was finished, he told himself, the portrait would be diabolic. He was +painting her in the pose she had naturally adopted at the first sitting. +Seated sideways, her elbow on the back of the chair, her head and +shoulders turned at an angle from the rest of her body, towards the +front, she had fallen into an attitude of indolent abandonment. He had +emphasised the lazy curves of her body; the lines sagged as they crossed +the canvas, the grace of the painted figure seemed to be melting into +a kind of soft decay. The hand that lay along the knee was as limp as +a glove. He was at work on the face now; it had begun to emerge on the +canvas, doll-like in its regularity and listlessness. It was Anne's +face--but her face as it would be, utterly unillumined by the inward +lights of thought and emotion. It was the lazy, expressionless mask +which was sometimes her face. The portrait was terribly like; and at the +same time it was the most malicious of lies. Yes, it would be diabolic +when it was finished, Gombauld decided; he wondered what she would think +of it. + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +For the sake of peace and quiet Denis had retired earlier on this same +afternoon to his bedroom. He wanted to work, but the hour was a drowsy +one, and lunch, so recently eaten, weighed heavily on body and mind. The +meridian demon was upon him; he was possessed by that bored and hopeless +post-prandial melancholy which the coenobites of old knew and feared +under the name of "accidie." He felt, like Ernest Dowson, "a little +weary." He was in the mood to write something rather exquisite and +gentle and quietist in tone; something a little droopy and at the same +time--how should he put it?--a little infinite. He thought of Anne, of +love hopeless and unattainable. Perhaps that was the ideal kind of love, +the hopeless kind--the quiet, theoretical kind of love. In this sad mood +of repletion he could well believe it. He began to write. One elegant +quatrain had flowed from beneath his pen:= + + +```"A brooding love which is at most + +````The stealth of moonbeams when they slide, + +```Evoking colour's bloodless ghost, + +````O'er some scarce-breathing breast or side..."= + +when his attention was attracted by a sound from outside. He looked down +from his window; there they were, Anne and Gombauld, talking, laughing +together. They crossed the courtyard in front, and passed out of sight +through the gate in the right-hand wall. That was the way to the +green close and the granary; she was going to sit for him again. His +pleasantly depressing melancholy was dissipated by a puff of violent +emotion; angrily he threw his quatrain into the waste-paper basket and +ran downstairs. "The stealth of moonbeams," indeed! + +In the hall he saw Mr. Scogan; the man seemed to be lying in wait. Denis +tried to escape, but in vain. Mr. Scogan's eye glittered like the eye of +the Ancient Mariner. + +"Not so fast," he said, stretching out a small saurian hand with pointed +nails--"not so fast. I was just going down to the flower garden to take +the sun. We'll go together." + +Denis abandoned himself; Mr. Scogan put on his hat and they went out arm +in arm. On the shaven turf of the terrace Henry Wimbush and Mary were +playing a solemn game of bowls. They descended by the yew-tree walk. +It was here, thought Denis, here that Anne had fallen, here that he +had kissed her, here--and he blushed with retrospective shame at the +memory--here that he had tried to carry her and failed. Life was awful! + +"Sanity!" said Mr. Scogan, suddenly breaking a long silence. +"Sanity--that's what's wrong with me and that's what will be wrong with +you, my dear Denis, when you're old enough to be sane or insane. In +a sane world I should be a great man; as things are, in this curious +establishment, I am nothing at all; to all intents and purposes I don't +exist. I am just Vox et praeterea nihil." + +Denis made no response; he was thinking of other things. "After all," +he said to himself--"after all, Gombauld is better looking than I, more +entertaining, more confident; and, besides, he's already somebody and +I'm still only potential..." + +"Everything that ever gets done in this world is done by madmen," Mr. +Scogan went on. Denis tried not to listen, but the tireless insistence +of Mr. Scogan's discourse gradually compelled his attention. "Men such +as I am, such as you may possibly become, have never achieved anything. +We're too sane; we're merely reasonable. We lack the human touch, the +compelling enthusiastic mania. People are quite ready to listen to the +philosophers for a little amusement, just as they would listen to a +fiddler or a mountebank. But as to acting on the advice of the men of +reason--never. Wherever the choice has had to be made between the man of +reason and the madman, the world has unhesitatingly followed the madman. +For the madman appeals to what is fundamental, to passion and +the instincts; the philosophers to what is superficial and +supererogatory--reason." + +They entered the garden; at the head of one of the alleys stood a green +wooden bench, embayed in the midst of a fragrant continent of lavender +bushes. It was here, though the place was shadeless and one breathed +hot, dry perfume instead of air--it was here that Mr. Scogan elected to +sit. He thrived on untempered sunlight. + +"Consider, for example, the case of Luther and Erasmus." He took out +his pipe and began to fill it as he talked. "There was Erasmus, a man +of reason if ever there was one. People listened to him at first--a +new virtuoso performing on that elegant and resourceful instrument, the +intellect; they even admired and venerated him. But did he move them to +behave as he wanted them to behave--reasonably, decently, or at least a +little less porkishly than usual? He did not. And then Luther appears, +violent, passionate, a madman insanely convinced about matters in which +there can be no conviction. He shouted, and men rushed to follow +him. Erasmus was no longer listened to; he was reviled for his +reasonableness. Luther was serious, Luther was reality--like the Great +War. Erasmus was only reason and decency; he lacked the power, being a +sage, to move men to action. Europe followed Luther and embarked on +a century and a half of war and bloody persecution. It's a melancholy +story." Mr. Scogan lighted a match. In the intense light the flame was +all but invisible. The smell of burning tobacco began to mingle with the +sweetly acrid smell of the lavender. + +"If you want to get men to act reasonably, you must set about persuading +them in a maniacal manner. The very sane precepts of the founders of +religions are only made infectious by means of enthusiasms which to a +sane man must appear deplorable. It is humiliating to find how impotent +unadulterated sanity is. Sanity, for example, informs us that the only +way in which we can preserve civilisation is by behaving decently and +intelligently. Sanity appeals and argues; our rulers persevere in their +customary porkishness, while we acquiesce and obey. The only hope is a +maniacal crusade; I am ready, when it comes, to beat a tambourine with +the loudest, but at the same time I shall feel a little ashamed of +myself. However"--Mr. Scogan shrugged his shoulders and, pipe in hand, +made a gesture of resignation--"It's futile to complain that things are +as they are. The fact remains that sanity unassisted is useless. What +we want, then, is a sane and reasonable exploitation of the forces of +insanity. We sane men will have the power yet." Mr. Scogan's eyes shone +with a more than ordinary brightness, and, taking his pipe out of his +mouth, he gave vent to his loud, dry, and somehow rather fiendish laugh. + +"But I don't want power," said Denis. He was sitting in limp discomfort +at one end of the bench, shading his eyes from the intolerable light. +Mr. Scogan, bolt upright at the other end, laughed again. + +"Everybody wants power," he said. "Power in some form or other. The sort +of power you hanker for is literary power. Some people want power +to persecute other human beings; you expend your lust for power in +persecuting words, twisting them, moulding them, torturing them to obey +you. But I divagate." + +"Do you?" asked Denis faintly. + +"Yes," Mr. Scogan continued, unheeding, "the time will come. We men +of intelligence will learn to harness the insanities to the service of +reason. We can't leave the world any longer to the direction of chance. +We can't allow dangerous maniacs like Luther, mad about dogma, like +Napoleon, mad about himself, to go on casually appearing and turning +everything upside down. In the past it didn't so much matter; but our +modern machine is too delicate. A few more knocks like the Great War, +another Luther or two, and the whole concern will go to pieces. In +future, the men of reason must see that the madness of the world's +maniacs is canalised into proper channels, is made to do useful work, +like a mountain torrent driving a dynamo..." + +"Making electricity to light a Swiss hotel," said Denis. "You ought to +complete the simile." + +Mr. Scogan waved away the interruption. "There's only one thing to be +done," he said. "The men of intelligence must combine, must conspire, +and seize power from the imbeciles and maniacs who now direct us. They +must found the Rational State." + +The heat that was slowly paralysing all Denis's mental and bodily +faculties, seemed to bring to Mr. Scogan additional vitality. He talked +with an ever-increasing energy, his hands moved in sharp, quick, precise +gestures, his eyes shone. Hard, dry, and continuous, his voice went +on sounding and sounding in Denis's ears with the insistence of a +mechanical noise. + +"In the Rational State," he heard Mr. Scogan saying, "human beings will +be separated out into distinct species, not according to the colour of +their eyes or the shape of their skulls, but according to the qualities +of their mind and temperament. Examining psychologists, trained to what +would now seem an almost superhuman clairvoyance, will test each child +that is born and assign it to its proper species. Duly labelled and +docketed, the child will be given the education suitable to members of +its species, and will be set, in adult life, to perform those functions +which human beings of his variety are capable of performing." + +"How many species will there be?" asked Denis. + +"A great many, no doubt," Mr. Scogan answered; "the classification will +be subtle and elaborate. But it is not in the power of a prophet to go +into details, nor is it his business. I will do more than indicate the +three main species into which the subjects of the Rational State will be +divided." + +He paused, cleared his throat, and coughed once or twice, evoking in +Denis's mind the vision of a table with a glass and water-bottle, and, +lying across one corner, a long white pointer for the lantern pictures. + +"The three main species," Mr. Scogan went on, "will be these: the +Directing Intelligences, the Men of Faith, and the Herd. Among the +Intelligences will be found all those capable of thought, those who know +how to attain a certain degree of freedom--and, alas, how limited, even +among the most intelligent, that freedom is!--from the mental bondage of +their time. A select body of Intelligences, drawn from among those who +have turned their attention to the problems of practical life, will +be the governors of the Rational State. They will employ as their +instruments of power the second great species of humanity--the men of +Faith, the Madmen, as I have been calling them, who believe in things +unreasonably, with passion, and are ready to die for their beliefs and +their desires. These wild men, with their fearful potentialities for +good or for mischief, will no longer be allowed to react casually to +a casual environment. There will be no more Caesar Borgias, no more +Luthers and Mohammeds, no more Joanna Southcotts, no more Comstocks. The +old-fashioned Man of Faith and Desire, that haphazard creature of brute +circumstance, who might drive men to tears and repentance, or who might +equally well set them on to cutting one another's throats, will be +replaced by a new sort of madman, still externally the same, still +bubbling with a seemingly spontaneous enthusiasm, but, ah, how very +different from the madman of the past! For the new Man of Faith will be +expending his passion, his desire, and his enthusiasm in the propagation +of some reasonable idea. He will be, all unawares, the tool of some +superior intelligence." + +Mr. Scogan chuckled maliciously; it was as though he were taking a +revenge, in the name of reason, on enthusiasts. "From their earliest +years, as soon, that is, as the examining psychologists have assigned +them their place in the classified scheme, the Men of Faith will have +had their special education under the eye of the Intelligences. Moulded +by a long process of suggestion, they will go out into the world, +preaching and practising with a generous mania the coldly reasonable +projects of the Directors from above. When these projects are +accomplished, or when the ideas that were useful a decade ago have +ceased to be useful, the Intelligences will inspire a new generation of +madmen with a new eternal truth. The principal function of the Men of +Faith will be to move and direct the Multitude, that third great species +consisting of those countless millions who lack intelligence and are +without valuable enthusiasm. When any particular effort is required of +the Herd, when it is thought necessary, for the sake of solidarity, that +humanity shall be kindled and united by some single enthusiastic desire +or idea, the Men of Faith, primed with some simple and satisfying creed, +will be sent out on a mission of evangelisation. At ordinary times, when +the high spiritual temperature of a Crusade would be unhealthy, the +Men of Faith will be quietly and earnestly busy with the great work of +education. In the upbringing of the Herd, humanity's almost boundless +suggestibility will be scientifically exploited. Systematically, from +earliest infancy, its members will be assured that there is no happiness +to be found except in work and obedience; they will be made to believe +that they are happy, that they are tremendously important beings, and +that everything they do is noble and significant. For the lower species +the earth will be restored to the centre of the universe and man to +pre-eminence on the earth. Oh, I envy the lot of the commonality in the +Rational State! Working their eight hours a day, obeying their betters, +convinced of their own grandeur and significance and immortality, they +will be marvellously happy, happier than any race of men has ever been. +They will go through life in a rosy state of intoxication, from which +they will never awake. The Men of Faith will play the cup-bearers at +this lifelong bacchanal, filling and ever filling again with the warm +liquor that the Intelligences, in sad and sober privacy behind the +scenes, will brew for the intoxication of their subjects." + +"And what will be my place in the Rational State?" Denis drowsily +inquired from under his shading hand. + +Mr. Scogan looked at him for a moment in silence. "It's difficult to see +where you would fit in," he said at last. "You couldn't do manual work; +you're too independent and unsuggestible to belong to the larger Herd; +you have none of the characteristics required in a Man of Faith. As for +the Directing Intelligences, they will have to be marvellously clear and +merciless and penetrating." He paused and shook his head. "No, I can see +no place for you; only the lethal chamber." + +Deeply hurt, Denis emitted the imitation of a loud Homeric laugh. "I'm +getting sunstroke here," he said, and got up. + +Mr. Scogan followed his example, and they walked slowly away down the +narrow path, brushing the blue lavender flowers in their passage. Denis +pulled a sprig of lavender and sniffed at it; then some dark leaves of +rosemary that smelt like incense in a cavernous church. They passed a +bed of opium poppies, dispetaled now; the round, ripe seedheads were +brown and dry--like Polynesian trophies, Denis thought; severed heads +stuck on poles. He liked the fancy enough to impart it to Mr. Scogan. + +"Like Polynesian trophies..." Uttered aloud, the fancy seemed less +charming and significant than it did when it first occurred to him. + +There was a silence, and in a growing wave of sound the whir of the +reaping machines swelled up from the fields beyond the garden and then +receded into a remoter hum. + +"It is satisfactory to think," said Mr. Scogan, as they strolled slowly +onward, "that a multitude of people are toiling in the harvest fields in +order that we may talk of Polynesia. Like every other good thing in this +world, leisure and culture have to be paid for. Fortunately, however, +it is not the leisured and the cultured who have to pay. Let us be +duly thankful for that, my dear Denis--duly thankful," he repeated, and +knocked the ashes out of his pipe. + +Denis was not listening. He had suddenly remembered Anne. She was with +Gombauld--alone with him in his studio. It was an intolerable thought. + +"Shall we go and pay a call on Gombauld?" he suggested carelessly. "It +would be amusing to see what he's doing now." + +He laughed inwardly to think how furious Gombauld would be when he saw +them arriving. + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +Gombauld was by no means so furious at their apparition as Denis had +hoped and expected he would be. Indeed, he was rather pleased than +annoyed when the two faces, one brown and pointed, the other round and +pale, appeared in the frame of the open door. The energy born of his +restless irritation was dying within him, returning to its emotional +elements. A moment more and he would have been losing his temper +again--and Anne would be keeping hers, infuriatingly. Yes, he was +positively glad to see them. + +"Come in, come in," he called out hospitably. + +Followed by Mr. Scogan, Denis climbed the little ladder and stepped over +the threshold. He looked suspiciously from Gombauld to his sitter, and +could learn nothing from the expression of their faces except that they +both seemed pleased to see the visitors. Were they really glad, or were +they cunningly simulating gladness? He wondered. + +Mr. Scogan, meanwhile, was looking at the portrait. + +"Excellent," he said approvingly, "excellent. Almost too true to +character, if that is possible; yes, positively too true. But I'm +surprised to find you putting in all this psychology business." He +pointed to the face, and with his extended finger followed the slack +curves of the painted figure. "I thought you were one of the fellows who +went in exclusively for balanced masses and impinging planes." + +Gombauld laughed. "This is a little infidelity," he said. + +"I'm sorry," said Mr. Scogan. "I for one, without ever having had +the slightest appreciation of painting, have always taken particular +pleasure in Cubismus. I like to see pictures from which nature has been +completely banished, pictures which are exclusively the product of the +human mind. They give me the same pleasure as I derive from a good piece +of reasoning or a mathematical problem or an achievement of engineering. +Nature, or anything that reminds me of nature, disturbs me; it is +too large, too complicated, above all too utterly pointless and +incomprehensible. I am at home with the works of man; if I choose to +set my mind to it, I can understand anything that any man has made or +thought. That is why I always travel by Tube, never by bus if I can +possibly help it. For, travelling by bus, one can't avoid seeing, even +in London, a few stray works of God--the sky, for example, an occasional +tree, the flowers in the window-boxes. But travel by Tube and you see +nothing but the works of man--iron riveted into geometrical forms, +straight lines of concrete, patterned expanses of tiles. All is human +and the product of friendly and comprehensible minds. All philosophies +and all religions--what are they but spiritual Tubes bored through the +universe! Through these narrow tunnels, where all is recognisably human, +one travels comfortable and secure, contriving to forget that all round +and below and above them stretches the blind mass of earth, endless +and unexplored. Yes, give me the Tube and Cubismus every time; give me +ideas, so snug and neat and simple and well made. And preserve me from +nature, preserve me from all that's inhumanly large and complicated and +obscure. I haven't the courage, and, above all, I haven't the time to +start wandering in that labyrinth." + +While Mr. Scogan was discoursing, Denis had crossed over to the farther +side of the little square chamber, where Anne was sitting, still in her +graceful, lazy pose, on the low chair. + +"Well?" he demanded, looking at her almost fiercely. What was he asking +of her? He hardly knew himself. + +Anne looked up at him, and for answer echoed his "Well?" in another, a +laughing key. + +Denis had nothing more, at the moment, to say. Two or three canvases +stood in the corner behind Anne's chair, their faces turned to the wall. +He pulled them out and began to look at the paintings. + +"May I see too?" Anne requested. + +He stood them in a row against the wall. Anne had to turn round in her +chair to look at them. There was the big canvas of the man fallen from +the horse, there was a painting of flowers, there was a small landscape. +His hands on the back of the chair, Denis leaned over her. From behind +the easel at the other side of the room Mr. Scogan was talking away. +For a long time they looked at the pictures, saying nothing; or, rather, +Anne looked at the pictures, while Denis, for the most part, looked at +Anne. + +"I like the man and the horse; don't you?" she said at last, looking up +with an inquiring smile. + +Denis nodded, and then in a queer, strangled voice, as though it had +cost him a great effort to utter the words, he said, "I love you." + +It was a remark which Anne had heard a good many times before and mostly +heard with equanimity. But on this occasion--perhaps because they had +come so unexpectedly, perhaps for some other reason--the words provoked +in her a certain surprised commotion. + +"My poor Denis," she managed to say, with a laugh; but she was blushing +as she spoke. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +It was noon. Denis, descending from his chamber, where he had been +making an unsuccessful effort to write something about nothing in +particular, found the drawing-room deserted. He was about to go out into +the garden when his eye fell on a familiar but mysterious object--the +large red notebook in which he had so often seen Jenny quietly and +busily scribbling. She had left it lying on the window-seat. The +temptation was great. He picked up the book and slipped off the elastic +band that kept it discreetly closed. + +"Private. Not to be opened," was written in capital letters on the +cover. He raised his eyebrows. It was the sort of thing one wrote in +one's Latin Grammar while one was still at one's preparatory school.= + + +```"Black is the raven, black is the rook, + +```But blacker the thief who steals this book!"= + +It was curiously childish, he thought, and he smiled to himself. He +opened the book. What he saw made him wince as though he had been +struck. + +Denis was his own severest critic; so, at least, he had always believed. +He liked to think of himself as a merciless vivisector probing into the +palpitating entrails of his own soul; he was Brown Dog to himself. +His weaknesses, his absurdities--no one knew them better than he did. +Indeed, in a vague way he imagined that nobody beside himself was aware +of them at all. It seemed, somehow, inconceivable that he should appear +to other people as they appeared to him; inconceivable that they ever +spoke of him among themselves in that same freely critical and, to be +quite honest, mildly malicious tone in which he was accustomed to talk +of them. In his own eyes he had defects, but to see them was a privilege +reserved to him alone. For the rest of the world he was surely an image +of flawless crystal. It was almost axiomatic. + +On opening the red notebook that crystal image of himself crashed to +the ground, and was irreparably shattered. He was not his own severest +critic after all. The discovery was a painful one. + +The fruit of Jenny's unobtrusive scribbling lay before him. A caricature +of himself, reading (the book was upside-down). In the background a +dancing couple, recognisable as Gombauld and Anne. Beneath, the legend: +"Fable of the Wallflower and the Sour Grapes." Fascinated and horrified, +Denis pored over the drawing. It was masterful. A mute, inglorious +Rouveyre appeared in every one of those cruelly clear lines. The +expression of the face, an assumed aloofness and superiority tempered +by a feeble envy; the attitude of the body and limbs, an attitude of +studious and scholarly dignity, given away by the fidgety pose of the +turned-in feet--these things were terrible. And, more terrible still, +was the likeness, was the magisterial certainty with which his physical +peculiarities were all recorded and subtly exaggerated. + +Denis looked deeper into the book. There were caricatures of other +people: of Priscilla and Mr. Barbecue-Smith; of Henry Wimbush, of Anne +and Gombauld; of Mr. Scogan, whom Jenny had represented in a light that +was more than slightly sinister, that was, indeed, diabolic; of Mary and +Ivor. He scarcely glanced at them. A fearful desire to know the worst +about himself possessed him. He turned over the leaves, lingering at +nothing that was not his own image. Seven full pages were devoted to +him. + +"Private. Not to be opened." He had disobeyed the injunction; he had +only got what he deserved. Thoughtfully he closed the book, and slid the +rubber band once more into its place. Sadder and wiser, he went out on +to the terrace. And so this, he reflected, this was how Jenny employed +the leisure hours in her ivory tower apart. And he had thought her a +simple-minded, uncritical creature! It was he, it seemed, who was the +fool. He felt no resentment towards Jenny. No, the distressing thing +wasn't Jenny herself; it was what she and the phenomenon of her red +book represented, what they stood for and concretely symbolised. They +represented all the vast conscious world of men outside himself; they +symbolised something that in his studious solitariness he was apt not to +believe in. He could stand at Piccadilly Circus, could watch the +crowds shuffle past, and still imagine himself the one fully conscious, +intelligent, individual being among all those thousands. It seemed, +somehow, impossible that other people should be in their way as +elaborate and complete as he in his. Impossible; and yet, periodically +he would make some painful discovery about the external world and the +horrible reality of its consciousness and its intelligence. The red +notebook was one of these discoveries, a footprint in the sand. It put +beyond a doubt the fact that the outer world really existed. + +Sitting on the balustrade of the terrace, he ruminated this unpleasant +truth for some time. Still chewing on it, he strolled pensively down +towards the swimming-pool. A peacock and his hen trailed their shabby +finery across the turf of the lower lawn. Odious birds! Their necks, +thick and greedily fleshy at the roots, tapered up to the cruel inanity +of their brainless heads, their flat eyes and piercing beaks. The +fabulists were right, he reflected, when they took beasts to illustrate +their tractates of human morality. Animals resemble men with all the +truthfulness of a caricature. (Oh, the red notebook!) He threw a piece +of stick at the slowly pacing birds. They rushed towards it, thinking it +was something to eat. + +He walked on. The profound shade of a giant ilex tree engulfed him. Like +a great wooden octopus, it spread its long arms abroad.= + + +```"Under the spreading ilex tree..."= + +He tried to remember who the poem was by, but couldn't.= + + +```"The smith, a brawny man is he, + +```With arms like rubber bands."= + +Just like his; he would have to try and do his Muller exercises more +regularly. + +He emerged once more into the sunshine. The pool lay before him, +reflecting in its bronze mirror the blue and various green of the +summer day. Looking at it, he thought of Anne's bare arms and seal-sleek +bathing-dress, her moving knees and feet.= + + +```"And little Luce with the white legs, + +```And bouncing Barbary..."= + +Oh, these rags and tags of other people's making! Would he ever be able +to call his brain his own? Was there, indeed, anything in it that was +truly his own, or was it simply an education? + +He walked slowly round the water's edge. In an embayed recess among +the surrounding yew trees, leaning her back against the pedestal of a +pleasantly comic version of the Medici Venus, executed by some nameless +mason of the seicento, he saw Mary pensively sitting. + +"Hullo!" he said, for he was passing so close to her that he had to say +something. + +Mary looked up. "Hullo!" she answered in a melancholy, uninterested +tone. + +In this alcove hewed out of the dark trees, the atmosphere seemed to +Denis agreeably elegiac. He sat down beside her under the shadow of the +pudic goddess. There was a prolonged silence. + +At breakfast that morning Mary had found on her plate a picture postcard +of Gobley Great Park. A stately Georgian pile, with a facade sixteen +windows wide; parterres in the foreground; huge, smooth lawns receding +out of the picture to right and left. Ten years more of the hard times +and Gobley, with all its peers, will be deserted and decaying. Fifty +years, and the countryside will know the old landmarks no more. They +will have vanished as the monasteries vanished before them. At the +moment, however, Mary's mind was not moved by these considerations. + +On the back of the postcard, next to the address, was written, in Ivor's +bold, large hand, a single quatrain. + + +``"Hail, maid of moonlight! Bride of the sun, farewell! + +```Like bright plumes moulted in an angel's flight, + +``There sleep within my heart's most mystic cell + +```Memories of morning, memories of the night." + +There followed a postscript of three lines: "Would you mind asking one +of the housemaids to forward the packet of safety-razor blades I left in +the drawer of my washstand. Thanks.--Ivor." + +Seated under the Venus's immemorial gesture, Mary considered life +and love. The abolition of her repressions, so far from bringing the +expected peace of mind, had brought nothing but disquiet, a new and +hitherto unexperienced misery. Ivor, Ivor...She couldn't do without him +now. It was evident, on the other hand, from the poem on the back of the +picture postcard, that Ivor could very well do without her. He was at +Gobley now, so was Zenobia. Mary knew Zenobia. She thought of the last +verse of the song he had sung that night in the garden.= + + +```"Le lendemain, Phillis peu sage + +```Aurait donne moutons et chien + +```Pour un baiser que le volage + +```A Lisette donnait pour rien."= + +Mary shed tears at the memory; she had never been so unhappy in all her +life before. + +It was Denis who first broke the silence. "The individual," he began in +a soft and sadly philosophical tone, "is not a self-supporting universe. +There are times when he comes into contact with other individuals, when +he is forced to take cognisance of the existence of other universes +besides himself." + +He had contrived this highly abstract generalisation as a preliminary +to a personal confidence. It was the first gambit in a conversation that +was to lead up to Jenny's caricatures. + +"True," said Mary; and, generalising for herself, she added, "When one +individual comes into intimate contact with another, she--or he, of +course, as the case may be--must almost inevitably receive or inflict +suffering." + +"One is apt," Denis went on, "to be so spellbound by the spectacle of +one's own personality that one forgets that the spectacle presents +itself to other people as well as to oneself." + +Mary was not listening. "The difficulty," she said, "makes itself +acutely felt in matters of sex. If one individual seeks intimate contact +with another individual in the natural way, she is certain to receive or +inflict suffering. If on the other hand, she avoids contacts, she risks +the equally grave sufferings that follow on unnatural repressions. As +you see, it's a dilemma." + +"When I think of my own case," said Denis, making a more decided move in +the desired direction, "I am amazed how ignorant I am of other people's +mentality in general, and above all and in particular, of their opinions +about myself. Our minds are sealed books only occasionally opened to +the outside world." He made a gesture that was faintly suggestive of the +drawing off of a rubber band. + +"It's an awful problem," said Mary thoughtfully. "One has to have had +personal experience to realise quite how awful it is." + +"Exactly." Denis nodded. "One has to have had first-hand experience." He +leaned towards her and slightly lowered his voice. "This very morning, +for example..." he began, but his confidences were cut short. The deep +voice of the gong, tempered by distance to a pleasant booming, floated +down from the house. It was lunch-time. Mechanically Mary rose to her +feet, and Denis, a little hurt that she should exhibit such a desperate +anxiety for her food and so slight an interest in his spiritual +experiences, followed her. They made their way up to the house without +speaking. + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +I hope you all realise," said Henry Wimbush during dinner, "that next +Monday is Bank Holiday, and that you will all be expected to help in the +Fair." + +"Heavens!" cried Anne. "The Fair--I had forgotten all about it. What a +nightmare! Couldn't you put a stop to it, Uncle Henry?" + +Mr. Wimbush sighed and shook his head. "Alas," he said, "I fear I +cannot. I should have liked to put an end to it years ago; but the +claims of Charity are strong." + +"It's not charity we want," Anne murmured rebelliously; "it's justice." + +"Besides," Mr. Wimbush went on, "the Fair has become an institution. Let +me see, it must be twenty-two years since we started it. It was a modest +affair then. Now..." he made a sweeping movement with his hand and was +silent. + +It spoke highly for Mr. Wimbush's public spirit that he still continued +to tolerate the Fair. Beginning as a sort of glorified church +bazaar, Crome's yearly Charity Fair had grown into a noisy thing of +merry-go-rounds, cocoanut shies, and miscellaneous side shows--a real +genuine fair on the grand scale. It was the local St. Bartholomew, and +the people of all the neighbouring villages, with even a contingent from +the county town, flocked into the park for their Bank Holiday amusement. +The local hospital profited handsomely, and it was this fact alone which +prevented Mr. Wimbush, to whom the Fair was a cause of recurrent and +never-diminishing agony, from putting a stop to the nuisance which +yearly desecrated his park and garden. + +"I've made all the arrangements already," Henry Wimbush went on. "Some +of the larger marquees will be put up to-morrow. The swings and the +merry-go-round arrive on Sunday." + +"So there's no escape," said Anne, turning to the rest of the party. +"You'll all have to do something. As a special favour you're allowed +to choose your slavery. My job is the tea tent, as usual, Aunt +Priscilla..." + +"My dear," said Mrs. Wimbush, interrupting her, "I have more important +things to think about than the Fair. But you need have no doubt that I +shall do my best when Monday comes to encourage the villagers." + +"That's splendid," said Anne. "Aunt Priscilla will encourage the +villagers. What will you do, Mary?" + +"I won't do anything where I have to stand by and watch other people +eat." + +"Then you'll look after the children's sports." + +"All right," Mary agreed. "I'll look after the children's sports." + +"And Mr. Scogan?" + +Mr. Scogan reflected. "May I be allowed to tell fortunes?" he asked at +last. "I think I should be good at telling fortunes." + +"But you can't tell fortunes in that costume!" + +"Can't I?" Mr. Scogan surveyed himself. + +"You'll have to be dressed up. Do you still persist?" + +"I'm ready to suffer all indignities." + +"Good!" said Anne; and turning to Gombauld, "You must be our lightning +artist," she said. "'Your portrait for a shilling in five minutes.'" + +"It's a pity I'm not Ivor," said Gombauld, with a laugh. "I could throw +in a picture of their Auras for an extra sixpence." + +Mary flushed. "Nothing is to be gained," she said severely, "by speaking +with levity of serious subjects. And, after all, whatever your personal +views may be, psychical research is a perfectly serious subject." + +"And what about Denis?" + +Denis made a deprecating gesture. "I have no accomplishments," he said, +"I'll just be one of those men who wear a thing in their buttonholes and +go about telling people which is the way to tea and not to walk on the +grass." + +"No, no," said Anne. "That won't do. You must do something more than +that." + +"But what? All the good jobs are taken, and I can do nothing but lisp in +numbers." + +"Well, then, you must lisp," concluded Anne. "You must write a poem for +the occasion--an 'Ode on Bank Holiday.' We'll print it on Uncle Henry's +press and sell it at twopence a copy." + +"Sixpence," Denis protested. "It'll be worth sixpence." + +Anne shook her head. "Twopence," she repeated firmly. "Nobody will pay +more than twopence." + +"And now there's Jenny," said Mr Wimbush. "Jenny," he said, raising his +voice, "what will you do?" + +Denis thought of suggesting that she might draw caricatures at sixpence +an execution, but decided it would be wiser to go on feigning ignorance +of her talent. His mind reverted to the red notebook. Could it really be +true that he looked like that? + +"What will I do," Jenny echoed, "what will I do?" She frowned +thoughtfully for a moment; then her face brightened and she smiled. +"When I was young," she said, "I learnt to play the drums." + +"The drums?" + +Jenny nodded, and, in proof of her assertion, agitated her knife +and fork, like a pair of drumsticks, over her plate. "If there's any +opportunity of playing the drums..." she began. + +"But of course," said Anne, "there's any amount of opportunity. We'll +put you down definitely for the drums. That's the lot," she added. + +"And a very good lot too," said Gombauld. "I look forward to my Bank +Holiday. It ought to be gay." + +"It ought indeed," Mr Scogan assented. "But you may rest assured that it +won't be. No holiday is ever anything but a disappointment." + +"Come, come," protested Gombauld. "My holiday at Crome isn't being a +disappointment." + +"Isn't it?" Anne turned an ingenuous mask towards him. + +"No, it isn't," he answered. + +"I'm delighted to hear it." + +"It's in the very nature of things," Mr. Scogan went on; "our holidays +can't help being disappointments. Reflect for a moment. What is a +holiday? The ideal, the Platonic Holiday of Holidays is surely a +complete and absolute change. You agree with me in my definition?" Mr. +Scogan glanced from face to face round the table; his sharp nose moved +in a series of rapid jerks through all the points of the compass. There +was no sign of dissent; he continued: "A complete and absolute change; +very well. But isn't a complete and absolute change precisely the thing +we can never have--never, in the very nature of things?" Mr. Scogan +once more looked rapidly about him. "Of course it is. As ourselves, as +specimens of Homo Sapiens, as members of a society, how can we hope to +have anything like an absolute change? We are tied down by the frightful +limitation of our human faculties, by the notions which society imposes +on us through our fatal suggestibility, by our own personalities. For +us, a complete holiday is out of the question. Some of us struggle +manfully to take one, but we never succeed, if I may be allowed to +express myself metaphorically, we never succeed in getting farther than +Southend." + +"You're depressing," said Anne. + +"I mean to be," Mr. Scogan replied, and, expanding the fingers of his +right hand, he went on: "Look at me, for example. What sort of a holiday +can I take? In endowing me with passions and faculties Nature has been +horribly niggardly. The full range of human potentialities is in +any case distressingly limited; my range is a limitation within a +limitation. Out of the ten octaves that make up the human instrument, +I can compass perhaps two. Thus, while I may have a certain amount +of intelligence, I have no aesthetic sense; while I possess the +mathematical faculty, I am wholly without the religious emotions; while +I am naturally addicted to venery, I have little ambition and am not +at all avaricious. Education has further limited my scope. Having been +brought up in society, I am impregnated with its laws; not only should +I be afraid of taking a holiday from them, I should also feel it painful +to try to do so. In a word, I have a conscience as well as a fear of +gaol. Yes, I know it by experience. How often have I tried to take +holidays, to get away from myself, my own boring nature, my insufferable +mental surroundings!" Mr. Scogan sighed. "But always without +success," he added, "always without success. In my youth I was always +striving--how hard!--to feel religiously and aesthetically. Here, said +I to myself, are two tremendously important and exciting emotions. Life +would be richer, warmer, brighter, altogether more amusing, if I could +feel them. I try to feel them. I read the works of the mystics. They +seemed to me nothing but the most deplorable claptrap--as indeed they +always must to anyone who does not feel the same emotion as the authors +felt when they were writing. For it is the emotion that matters. The +written work is simply an attempt to express emotion, which is in itself +inexpressible, in terms of intellect and logic. The mystic objectifies +a rich feeling in the pit of the stomach into a cosmology. For other +mystics that cosmology is a symbol of the rich feeling. For the +unreligious it is a symbol of nothing, and so appears merely grotesque. +A melancholy fact! But I divagate." Mr. Scogan checked himself. "So much +for the religious emotion. As for the aesthetic--I was at even greater +pains to cultivate that. I have looked at all the right works of art +in every part of Europe. There was a time when, I venture to believe, +I knew more about Taddeo da Poggibonsi, more about the cryptic Amico +di Taddeo, even than Henry does. To-day, I am happy to say, I have +forgotten most of the knowledge I then so laboriously acquired; but +without vanity I can assert that it was prodigious. I don't pretend, of +course, to know anything about nigger sculpture or the later seventeenth +century in Italy; but about all the periods that were fashionable before +1900 I am, or was, omniscient. Yes, I repeat it, omniscient. But did +that fact make me any more appreciative of art in general? It did not. +Confronted by a picture, of which I could tell you all the known and +presumed history--the date when it was painted, the character of the +painter, the influences that had gone to make it what it was--I felt +none of that strange excitement and exaltation which is, as I am +informed by those who do feel it, the true aesthetic emotion. I felt +nothing but a certain interest in the subject of the picture; or more +often, when the subject was hackneyed and religious, I felt nothing but +a great weariness of spirit. Nevertheless, I must have gone on looking +at pictures for ten years before I would honestly admit to myself that +they merely bored me. Since then I have given up all attempts to take +a holiday. I go on cultivating my old stale daily self in the resigned +spirit with which a bank clerk performs from ten till six his daily +task. A holiday, indeed! I'm sorry for you, Gombauld, if you still look +forward to having a holiday." + +Gombauld shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps," he said, "my standards +aren't as elevated as yours. But personally I found the war quite as +thorough a holiday from all the ordinary decencies and sanities, all the +common emotions and preoccupations, as I ever want to have." + +"Yes," Mr. Scogan thoughtfully agreed. "Yes, the war was certainly +something of a holiday. It was a step beyond Southend; it was +Weston-super-Mare; it was almost Ilfracombe." + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +A little canvas village of tents and booths had sprung up, just beyond +the boundaries of the garden, in the green expanse of the park. A crowd +thronged its streets, the men dressed mostly in black--holiday best, +funeral best--the women in pale muslins. Here and there tricolour +bunting hung inert. In the midst of the canvas town, scarlet and gold +and crystal, the merry-go-round glittered in the sun. The balloon-man +walked among the crowd, and above his head, like a huge, inverted +bunch of many-coloured grapes, the balloons strained upwards. With a +scythe-like motion the boat-swings reaped the air, and from the funnel +of the engine which worked the roundabout rose a thin, scarcely wavering +column of black smoke. + +Denis had climbed to the top of one of Sir Ferdinando's towers, and +there, standing on the sun-baked leads, his elbows resting on the +parapet, he surveyed the scene. The steam-organ sent up prodigious +music. The clashing of automatic cymbals beat out with inexorable +precision the rhythm of piercingly sounded melodies. The harmonies were +like a musical shattering of glass and brass. Far down in the bass +the Last Trump was hugely blowing, and with such persistence, such +resonance, that its alternate tonic and dominant detached themselves +from the rest of the music and made a tune of their own, a loud, +monotonous see-saw. + +Denis leaned over the gulf of swirling noise. If he threw himself over +the parapet, the noise would surely buoy him up, keep him suspended, +bobbing, as a fountain balances a ball on its breaking crest. Another +fancy came to him, this time in metrical form.= + + +```"My soul is a thin white sheet of parchment stretched + +```Over a bubbling cauldron."= + +Bad, bad. But he liked the idea of something thin and distended being +blown up from underneath.= + + +```"My soul is a thin tent of gut..."= + +or better--= + + +```"My soul is a pale, tenuous membrane..."= + +That was pleasing: a thin, tenuous membrane. It had the right anatomical +quality. Tight blown, quivering in the blast of noisy life. It was time +for him to descend from the serene empyrean of words into the actual +vortex. He went down slowly. "My soul is a thin, tenuous membrane..." + +On the terrace stood a knot of distinguished visitors. There was old +Lord Moleyn, like a caricature of an English milord in a French comic +paper: a long man, with a long nose and long, drooping moustaches and +long teeth of old ivory, and lower down, absurdly, a short covert coat, +and below that long, long legs cased in pearl-grey trousers--legs that +bent unsteadily at the knee and gave a kind of sideways wobble as +he walked. Beside him, short and thick-set, stood Mr. Callamay, the +venerable conservative statesman, with a face like a Roman bust, and +short white hair. Young girls didn't much like going for motor drives +alone with Mr. Callamay; and of old Lord Moleyn one wondered why he +wasn't living in gilded exile on the island of Capri among the other +distinguished persons who, for one reason or another, find it impossible +to live in England. They were talking to Anne, laughing, the one +profoundly, the other hootingly. + +A black silk balloon towing a black-and-white striped parachute proved +to be old Mrs. Budge from the big house on the other side of the valley. +She stood low on the ground, and the spikes of her black-and-white +sunshade menaced the eyes of Priscilla Wimbush, who towered over her--a +massive figure dressed in purple and topped with a queenly toque on +which the nodding black plumes recalled the splendours of a first-class +Parisian funeral. + +Denis peeped at them discreetly from the window of the morning-room. +His eyes were suddenly become innocent, childlike, unprejudiced. They +seemed, these people, inconceivably fantastic. And yet they really +existed, they functioned by themselves, they were conscious, they +had minds. Moreover, he was like them. Could one believe it? But the +evidence of the red notebook was conclusive. + +It would have been polite to go and say, "How d'you do?" But at the +moment Denis did not want to talk, could not have talked. His soul was a +tenuous, tremulous, pale membrane. He would keep its sensibility intact +and virgin as long as he could. Cautiously he crept out by a side +door and made his way down towards the park. His soul fluttered as he +approached the noise and movement of the fair. He paused for a moment on +the brink, then stepped in and was engulfed. + +Hundreds of people, each with his own private face and all of them real, +separate, alive: the thought was disquieting. He paid twopence and saw +the Tatooed Woman; twopence more, the Largest Rat in the World. From the +home of the Rat he emerged just in time to see a hydrogen-filled balloon +break loose for home. A child howled up after it; but calmly, a perfect +sphere of flushed opal, it mounted, mounted. Denis followed it with his +eyes until it became lost in the blinding sunlight. If he could but send +his soul to follow it!... + +He sighed, stuck his steward's rosette in his buttonhole, and started to +push his way, aimlessly but officially, through the crowd. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +Mr. Scogan had been accommodated in a little canvas hut. Dressed in a +black skirt and a red bodice, with a yellow-and-red bandana handkerchief +tied round his black wig, he looked--sharp-nosed, brown, and +wrinkled--like the Bohemian Hag of Frith's Derby Day. A placard pinned +to the curtain of the doorway announced the presence within the tent of +"Sesostris, the Sorceress of Ecbatana." Seated at a table, Mr. Scogan +received his clients in mysterious silence, indicating with a movement +of the finger that they were to sit down opposite him and to extend +their hands for his inspection. He then examined the palm that was +presented him, using a magnifying glass and a pair of horn spectacles. +He had a terrifying way of shaking his head, frowning and clicking with +his tongue as he looked at the lines. Sometimes he would whisper, as +though to himself, "Terrible, terrible!" or "God preserve us!" sketching +out the sign of the cross as he uttered the words. The clients who came +in laughing grew suddenly grave; they began to take the witch seriously. +She was a formidable-looking woman; could it be, was it possible, that +there was something in this sort of thing after all? After all, they +thought, as the hag shook her head over their hands, after all...And +they waited, with an uncomfortably beating heart, for the oracle to +speak. After a long and silent inspection, Mr. Scogan would suddenly +look up and ask, in a hoarse whisper, some horrifying question, such as, +"Have you ever been hit on the head with a hammer by a young man with +red hair?" When the answer was in the negative, which it could hardly +fail to be, Mr. Scogan would nod several times, saying, "I was afraid +so. Everything is still to come, still to come, though it can't be +very far off now." Sometimes, after a long examination, he would just +whisper, "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," and refuse +to divulge any details of a future too appalling to be envisaged without +despair. Sesostris had a success of horror. People stood in a queue +outside the witch's booth waiting for the privilege of hearing sentence +pronounced upon them. + +Denis, in the course of his round, looked with curiosity at this crowd +of suppliants before the shrine of the oracle. He had a great desire +to see how Mr. Scogan played his part. The canvas booth was a rickety, +ill-made structure. Between its walls and its sagging roof were long +gaping chinks and crannies. Denis went to the tea-tent and borrowed a +wooden bench and a small Union Jack. With these he hurried back to the +booth of Sesostris. Setting down the bench at the back of the booth, +he climbed up, and with a great air of busy efficiency began to tie the +Union Jack to the top of one of the tent-poles. Through the crannies in +the canvas he could see almost the whole of the interior of the tent. +Mr. Scogan's bandana-covered head was just below him; his terrifying +whispers came clearly up. Denis looked and listened while the witch +prophesied financial losses, death by apoplexy, destruction by air-raids +in the next war. + +"Is there going to be another war?" asked the old lady to whom he had +predicted this end. + +"Very soon," said Mr. Scogan, with an air of quiet confidence. + +The old lady was succeeded by a girl dressed in white muslin, garnished +with pink ribbons. She was wearing a broad hat, so that Denis could not +see her face; but from her figure and the roundness of her bare arms +he judged her young and pleasing. Mr. Scogan looked at her hand, then +whispered, "You are still virtuous." + +The young lady giggled and exclaimed, "Oh, lor'!" + +"But you will not remain so for long," added Mr. Scogan sepulchrally. +The young lady giggled again. "Destiny, which interests itself in small +things no less than in great, has announced the fact upon your hand." +Mr. Scogan took up the magnifying-glass and began once more to examine +the white palm. "Very interesting," he said, as though to himself--"very +interesting. It's as clear as day." He was silent. + +"What's clear?" asked the girl. + +"I don't think I ought to tell you." Mr. Scogan shook his head; the +pendulous brass ear-rings which he had screwed on to his ears tinkled. + +"Please, please!" she implored. + +The witch seemed to ignore her remark. "Afterwards, it's not at all +clear. The fates don't say whether you will settle down to married life +and have four children or whether you will try to go on the cinema +and have none. They are only specific about this one rather crucial +incident." + +"What is it? What is it? Oh, do tell me!" + +The white muslin figure leant eagerly forward. + +Mr. Scogan sighed. "Very well," he said, "if you must know, you +must know. But if anything untoward happens you must blame your +own curiosity. Listen. Listen." He lifted up a sharp, claw-nailed +forefinger. "This is what the fates have written. Next Sunday afternoon +at six o'clock you will be sitting on the second stile on the footpath +that leads from the church to the lower road. At that moment a man will +appear walking along the footpath." Mr. Scogan looked at her hand again +as though to refresh his memory of the details of the scene. "A man," he +repeated--"a small man with a sharp nose, not exactly good looking nor +precisely young, but fascinating." He lingered hissingly over the word. +"He will ask you, 'Can you tell me the way to Paradise?' and you will +answer, 'Yes, I'll show you,' and walk with him down towards the little +hazel copse. I cannot read what will happen after that." There was a +silence. + +"Is it really true?" asked white muslin. + +The witch gave a shrug of the shoulders. "I merely tell you what I read +in your hand. Good afternoon. That will be sixpence. Yes, I have change. +Thank you. Good afternoon." + +Denis stepped down from the bench; tied insecurely and crookedly to the +tentpole, the Union Jack hung limp on the windless air. "If only I could +do things like that!" he thought, as he carried the bench back to the +tea-tent. + +Anne was sitting behind a long table filling thick white cups from an +urn. A neat pile of printed sheets lay before her on the table. Denis +took one of them and looked at it affectionately. It was his poem. They +had printed five hundred copies, and very nice the quarto broadsheets +looked. + +"Have you sold many?" he asked in a casual tone. + +Anne put her head on one side deprecatingly. "Only three so far, I'm +afraid. But I'm giving a free copy to everyone who spends more than a +shilling on his tea. So in any case it's having a circulation." + +Denis made no reply, but walked slowly away. He looked at the broadsheet +in his hand and read the lines to himself relishingly as he walked +along:= + + +```"This day of roundabouts and swings, + +```Struck weights, shied cocoa-nuts, tossed rings, + +```Switchbacks, Aunt Sallies, and all such small + +```High jinks--you call it ferial? + +```A holiday? But paper noses + +```Sniffed the artificial roses + +```Of round Venetian cheeks through half + +```Each carnival year, and masks might laugh + +```At things the naked face for shame + +```Would blush at--laugh and think no blame. + +```A holiday? But Galba showed + +```Elephants on an airy road; + +```Jumbo trod the tightrope then, + +```And in the circus armed men + +```Stabbed home for sport and died to break + +```Those dull imperatives that make + +```A prison of every working day, + +```Where all must drudge and all obey. + +```Sing Holiday! You do not know + +```How to be free. The Russian snow + +```Flowered with bright blood whose roses spread + +```Petals of fading, fading red + +```That died into the snow again, + +```Into the virgin snow; and men + +```From all ancient bonds were freed. + +```Old law, old custom, and old creed, + +```Old right and wrong there bled to death; + +```The frozen air received their breath, + +```A little smoke that died away; + +```And round about them where they lay + +```The snow bloomed roses. Blood was there + +```A red gay flower and only fair. + +```Sing Holiday! Beneath the Tree + +```Of Innocence and Liberty, + +```Paper Nose and Red Cockade + +```Dance within the magic shade + +```That makes them drunken, merry, and strong + +```To laugh and sing their ferial song: + +```'Free, free...!'= + + +````But Echo answers + +```Faintly to the laughing dancers, + +```'Free'--and faintly laughs, and still, + +```Within the hollows of the hill, + +```Faintlier laughs and whispers, 'Free,' + +```Fadingly, diminishingly: + +```'Free,' and laughter faints away... + +```Sing Holiday! Sing Holiday!"= + +He folded the sheet carefully and put it in his pocket. The thing had +its merits. Oh, decidedly, decidedly! But how unpleasant the crowd +smelt! He lit a cigarette. The smell of cows was preferable. He passed +through the gate in the park wall into the garden. The swimming-pool was +a centre of noise and activity. + +"Second Heat in the Young Ladies' Championship." It was the polite +voice of Henry Wimbush. A crowd of sleek, seal-like figures in black +bathing-dresses surrounded him. His grey bowler hat, smooth, round, and +motionless in the midst of a moving sea, was an island of aristocratic +calm. + +Holding his tortoise-shell-rimmed pince-nez an inch or two in front of +his eyes, he read out names from a list. + +"Miss Dolly Miles, Miss Rebecca Balister, Miss Doris Gabell..." + +Five young persons ranged themselves on the brink. From their seats of +honour at the other end of the pool, old Lord Moleyn and Mr. Callamay +looked on with eager interest. + +Henry Wimbush raised his hand. There was an expectant silence. "When I +say 'Go,' go. Go!" he said. There was an almost simultaneous splash. + +Denis pushed his way through the spectators. Somebody plucked him by the +sleeve; he looked down. It was old Mrs. Budge. + +"Delighted to see you again, Mr. Stone," she said in her rich, husky +voice. She panted a little as she spoke, like a short-winded lap-dog. +It was Mrs. Budge who, having read in the "Daily Mirror" that the +Government needed peach stones--what they needed them for she never +knew--had made the collection of peach stones her peculiar "bit" of war +work. She had thirty-six peach trees in her walled garden, as well as +four hot-houses in which trees could be forced, so that she was able +to eat peaches practically the whole year round. In 1916 she ate 4200 +peaches, and sent the stones to the Government. In 1917 the military +authorities called up three of her gardeners, and what with this and the +fact that it was a bad year for wall fruit, she only managed to eat 2900 +peaches during that crucial period of the national destinies. In 1918 +she did rather better, for between January 1st and the date of the +Armistice she ate 3300 peaches. Since the Armistice she had relaxed her +efforts; now she did not eat more than two or three peaches a day. Her +constitution, she complained, had suffered; but it had suffered for a +good cause. + +Denis answered her greeting by a vague and polite noise. + +"So nice to see the young people enjoying themselves," Mrs. Budge went +on. "And the old people too, for that matter. Look at old Lord Moleyn +and dear Mr. Callamay. Isn't it delightful to see the way they enjoy +themselves?" + +Denis looked. He wasn't sure whether it was so very delightful after +all. Why didn't they go and watch the sack races? The two old gentlemen +were engaged at the moment in congratulating the winner of the race; it +seemed an act of supererogatory graciousness; for, after all, she had +only won a heat. + +"Pretty little thing, isn't she?" said Mrs. Budge huskily, and panted +two or three times. + +"Yes," Denis nodded agreement. Sixteen, slender, but nubile, he said to +himself, and laid up the phrase in his memory as a happy one. Old Mr. +Callamay had put on his spectacles to congratulate the victor, and Lord +Moleyn, leaning forward over his walking-stick, showed his long ivory +teeth, hungrily smiling. + +"Capital performance, capital," Mr. Callamay was saying in his deep +voice. + +The victor wriggled with embarrassment. She stood with her hands behind +her back, rubbing one foot nervously on the other. Her wet bathing-dress +shone, a torso of black polished marble. + +"Very good indeed," said Lord Moleyn. His voice seemed to come from just +behind his teeth, a toothy voice. It was as though a dog should suddenly +begin to speak. He smiled again, Mr. Callamay readjusted his spectacles. + +"When I say 'Go,' go. Go!" + +Splash! The third heat had started. + +"Do you know, I never could learn to swim," said Mrs. Budge. + +"Really?" + +"But I used to be able to float." + +Denis imagined her floating--up and down, up and down on a great green +swell. A blown black bladder; no, that wasn't good, that wasn't good at +all. A new winner was being congratulated. She was atrociously stubby +and fat. The last one, long and harmoniously, continuously curved from +knee to breast, had been an Eve by Cranach; but this, this one was a bad +Rubens. + +"...go--go--go!" Henry Wimbush's polite level voice once more pronounced +the formula. Another batch of young ladies dived in. + +Grown a little weary of sustaining a conversation with Mrs. Budge, +Denis conveniently remembered that his duties as a steward called him +elsewhere. He pushed out through the lines of spectators and made his +way along the path left clear behind them. He was thinking again that +his soul was a pale, tenuous membrane, when he was startled by hearing +a thin, sibilant voice, speaking apparently from just above his head, +pronounce the single word "Disgusting!" + +He looked up sharply. The path along which he was walking passed under +the lee of a wall of clipped yew. Behind the hedge the ground sloped +steeply up towards the foot of the terrace and the house; for one +standing on the higher ground it was easy to look over the dark barrier. +Looking up, Denis saw two heads overtopping the hedge immediately above +him. He recognised the iron mask of Mr. Bodiham and the pale, colourless +face of his wife. They were looking over his head, over the heads of the +spectators, at the swimmers in the pond. + +"Disgusting!" Mrs. Bodiham repeated, hissing softly. + +The rector turned up his iron mask towards the solid cobalt of the sky. +"How long?" he said, as though to himself; "how long?" He lowered his +eyes again, and they fell on Denis's upturned curious face. There was an +abrupt movement, and Mr. and Mrs. Bodiham popped out of sight behind the +hedge. + +Denis continued his promenade. He wandered past the merry-go-round, +through the thronged streets of the canvas village; the membrane of +his soul flapped tumultuously in the noise and laughter. In a roped-off +space beyond, Mary was directing the children's sports. Little creatures +seethed round about her, making a shrill, tinny clamour; others +clustered about the skirts and trousers of their parents. Mary's face +was shining in the heat; with an immense output of energy she started a +three-legged race. Denis looked on in admiration. + +"You're wonderful," he said, coming up behind her and touching her on +the arm. "I've never seen such energy." + +She turned towards him a face, round, red, and honest as the setting +sun; the golden bell of her hair swung silently as she moved her head +and quivered to rest. + +"Do you know, Denis," she said, in a low, serious voice, gasping a +little as she spoke--"do you know that there's a woman here who has had +three children in thirty-one months?" + +"Really," said Denis, making rapid mental calculations. + +"It's appalling. I've been telling her about the Malthusian League. One +really ought..." + +But a sudden violent renewal of the metallic yelling announced the fact +that somebody had won the race. Mary became once more the centre of a +dangerous vortex. It was time, Denis thought, to move on; he might be +asked to do something if he stayed too long. + +He turned back towards the canvas village. The thought of tea was +making itself insistent in his mind. Tea, tea, tea. But the tea-tent was +horribly thronged. Anne, with an unusual expression of grimness on her +flushed face, was furiously working the handle of the urn; the brown +liquid spurted incessantly into the proffered cups. Portentous, in +the farther corner of the tent, Priscilla, in her royal toque, was +encouraging the villagers. In a momentary lull Denis could hear her +deep, jovial laughter and her manly voice. Clearly, he told himself, +this was no place for one who wanted tea. He stood irresolute at the +entrance to the tent. A beautiful thought suddenly came to him; if he +went back to the house, went unobtrusively, without being observed, if +he tiptoed into the dining-room and noiselessly opened the little doors +of the sideboard--ah, then! In the cool recess within he would find +bottles and a siphon; a bottle of crystal gin and a quart of soda water, +and then for the cups that inebriate as well as cheer... + +A minute later he was walking briskly up the shady yew-tree walk. Within +the house it was deliciously quiet and cool. Carrying his well-filled +tumbler with care, he went into the library. There, the glass on the +corner of the table beside him, he settled into a chair with a volume of +Sainte-Beuve. There was nothing, he found, like a Causerie du Lundi for +settling and soothing the troubled spirits. That tenuous membrane of his +had been too rudely buffeted by the afternoon's emotions; it required a +rest. + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +Towards sunset the fair itself became quiescent. It was the hour for the +dancing to begin. At one side of the village of tents a space had been +roped off. Acetylene lamps, hung round it on posts, cast a piercing +white light. In one corner sat the band, and, obedient to its scraping +and blowing, two or three hundred dancers trampled across the dry +ground, wearing away the grass with their booted feet. Round this patch +of all but daylight, alive with motion and noise, the night seemed +preternaturally dark. Bars of light reached out into it, and every now +and then a lonely figure or a couple of lovers, interlaced, would cross +the bright shaft, flashing for a moment into visible existence, to +disappear again as quickly and surprisingly as they had come. + +Denis stood by the entrance of the enclosure, watching the swaying, +shuffling crowd. The slow vortex brought the couples round and round +again before him, as though he were passing them in review. There +was Priscilla, still wearing her queenly toque, still encouraging the +villagers--this time by dancing with one of the tenant farmers. There +was Lord Moleyn, who had stayed on to the disorganised, passoverish +meal that took the place of dinner on this festal day; he one-stepped +shamblingly, his bent knees more precariously wobbly than ever, with a +terrified village beauty. Mr. Scogan trotted round with another. Mary +was in the embrace of a young farmer of heroic proportions; she was +looking up at him, talking, as Denis could see, very seriously. What +about? he wondered. The Malthusian League, perhaps. Seated in the corner +among the band, Jenny was performing wonders of virtuosity upon the +drums. Her eyes shone, she smiled to herself. A whole subterranean life +seemed to be expressing itself in those loud rat-tats, those long rolls +and flourishes of drumming. Looking at her, Denis ruefully remembered +the red notebook; he wondered what sort of a figure he was cutting now. +But the sight of Anne and Gombauld swimming past--Anne with her eyes +almost shut and sleeping, as it were, on the sustaining wings of +movement and music--dissipated these preoccupations. Male and female +created He them...There they were, Anne and Gombauld, and a hundred +couples more--all stepping harmoniously together to the old tune of Male +and Female created He them. But Denis sat apart; he alone lacked his +complementary opposite. They were all coupled but he; all but he... + +Somebody touched him on the shoulder and he looked up. It was Henry +Wimbush. + +"I never showed you our oaken drainpipes," he said. "Some of the ones +we dug up are lying quite close to here. Would you like to come and see +them?" + +Denis got up, and they walked off together into the darkness. The music +grew fainter behind them. Some of the higher notes faded out altogether. +Jenny's drumming and the steady sawing of the bass throbbed on, tuneless +and meaningless in their ears. Henry Wimbush halted. + +"Here we are," he said, and, taking an electric torch out of his pocket, +he cast a dim beam over two or three blackened sections of tree trunk, +scooped out into the semblance of pipes, which were lying forlornly in a +little depression in the ground. + +"Very interesting," said Denis, with a rather tepid enthusiasm. + +They sat down on the grass. A faint white glare, rising from behind a +belt of trees, indicated the position of the dancing-floor. The music +was nothing but a muffled rhythmic pulse. + +"I shall be glad," said Henry Wimbush, "when this function comes at last +to an end." + +"I can believe it." + +"I do not know how it is," Mr. Wimbush continued, "but the spectacle +of numbers of my fellow-creatures in a state of agitation moves in me +a certain weariness, rather than any gaiety or excitement. The fact is, +they don't very much interest me. They're aren't in my line. You follow +me? I could never take much interest, for example, in a collection of +postage stamps. Primitives or seventeenth-century books--yes. They are +my line. But stamps, no. I don't know anything about them; they're not +my line. They don't interest me, they give me no emotion. It's rather +the same with people, I'm afraid. I'm more at home with these pipes." +He jerked his head sideways towards the hollowed logs. "The trouble with +the people and events of the present is that you never know anything +about them. What do I know of contemporary politics? Nothing. What do I +know of the people I see round about me? Nothing. What they think of +me or of anything else in the world, what they will do in five minutes' +time, are things I can't guess at. For all I know, you may suddenly jump +up and try to murder me in a moment's time." + +"Come, come," said Denis. + +"True," Mr. Wimbush continued, "the little I know about your past is +certainly reassuring. But I know nothing of your present, and neither +you nor I know anything of your future. It's appalling; in living +people, one is dealing with unknown and unknowable quantities. One can +only hope to find out anything about them by a long series of the most +disagreeable and boring human contacts, involving a terrible expense +of time. It's the same with current events; how can I find out anything +about them except by devoting years to the most exhausting first-hand +study, involving once more an endless number of the most unpleasant +contacts? No, give me the past. It doesn't change; it's all there +in black and white, and you can get to know about it comfortably and +decorously and, above all, privately--by reading. By reading I know a +great deal of Caesar Borgia, of St. Francis, of Dr. Johnson; a few weeks +have made me thoroughly acquainted with these interesting characters, +and I have been spared the tedious and revolting process of getting to +know them by personal contact, which I should have to do if they were +living now. How gay and delightful life would be if one could get rid +of all the human contacts! Perhaps, in the future, when machines have +attained to a state of perfection--for I confess that I am, like +Godwin and Shelley, a believer in perfectibility, the perfectibility +of machinery--then, perhaps, it will be possible for those who, like +myself, desire it, to live in a dignified seclusion, surrounded by the +delicate attentions of silent and graceful machines, and entirely secure +from any human intrusion. It is a beautiful thought." + +"Beautiful," Denis agreed. "But what about the desirable human contacts, +like love and friendship?" + +The black silhouette against the darkness shook its head. "The pleasures +even of these contacts are much exaggerated," said the polite level +voice. "It seems to me doubtful whether they are equal to the pleasures +of private reading and contemplation. Human contacts have been so highly +valued in the past only because reading was not a common accomplishment +and because books were scarce and difficult to reproduce. The world, you +must remember, is only just becoming literate. As reading becomes more +and more habitual and widespread, an ever-increasing number of people +will discover that books will give them all the pleasures of social +life and none of its intolerable tedium. At present people in search +of pleasure naturally tend to congregate in large herds and to make a +noise; in future their natural tendency will be to seek solitude and +quiet. The proper study of mankind is books." + +"I sometimes think that it may be," said Denis; he was wondering if Anne +and Gombauld were still dancing together. + +"Instead of which," said Mr. Wimbush, with a sigh, "I must go and see if +all is well on the dancing-floor." They got up and began to walk slowly +towards the white glare. "If all these people were dead," Henry Wimbush +went on, "this festivity would be extremely agreeable. Nothing would be +pleasanter than to read in a well-written book of an open-air ball that +took place a century ago. How charming! one would say; how pretty +and how amusing! But when the ball takes place to-day, when one finds +oneself involved in it, then one sees the thing in its true light. It +turns out to be merely this." He waved his hand in the direction of +the acetylene flares. "In my youth," he went on after a pause, "I +found myself, quite fortuitously, involved in a series of the most +phantasmagorical amorous intrigues. A novelist could have made his +fortune out of them, and even if I were to tell you, in my bald style, +the details of these adventures, you would be amazed at the romantic +tale. But I assure you, while they were happening--these romantic +adventures--they seemed to me no more and no less exciting than any +other incident of actual life. To climb by night up a rope-ladder to a +second-floor window in an old house in Toledo seemed to me, while I was +actually performing this rather dangerous feat, an action as obvious, as +much to be taken for granted, as--how shall I put it?--as quotidian as +catching the 8.52 from Surbiton to go to business on a Monday morning. +Adventures and romance only take on their adventurous and romantic +qualities at second-hand. Live them, and they are just a slice of life +like the rest. In literature they become as charming as this dismal ball +would be if we were celebrating its tercentenary." They had come to +the entrance of the enclosure and stood there, blinking in the dazzling +light. "Ah, if only we were!" Henry Wimbush added. + +Anne and Gombauld were still dancing together. + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +It was after ten o'clock. The dancers had already dispersed and the +last lights were being put out. To-morrow the tents would be struck, the +dismantled merry-go-round would be packed into waggons and carted away. +An expanse of worn grass, a shabby brown patch in the wide green of the +park, would be all that remained. Crome Fair was over. + +By the edge of the pool two figures lingered. + +"No, no, no," Anne was saying in a breathless whisper, leaning +backwards, turning her head from side to side in an effort to escape +Gombauld's kisses. "No, please. No." Her raised voice had become +imperative. + +Gombauld relaxed his embrace a little. "Why not?" he said. "I will." + +With a sudden effort Anne freed herself. "You won't," she retorted. +"You've tried to take the most unfair advantage of me." + +"Unfair advantage?" echoed Gombauld in genuine surprise. + +"Yes, unfair advantage. You attack me after I've been dancing for two +hours, while I'm still reeling drunk with the movement, when I've lost +my head, when I've got no mind left but only a rhythmical body! It's as +bad as making love to someone you've drugged or intoxicated." + +Gombauld laughed angrily. "Call me a White Slaver and have done with +it." + +"Luckily," said Anne, "I am now completely sobered, and if you try and +kiss me again I shall box your ears. Shall we take a few turns round the +pool?" she added. "The night is delicious." + +For answer Gombauld made an irritated noise. They paced off slowly, side +by side. + +"What I like about the painting of Degas..." Anne began in her most +detached and conversational tone. + +"Oh, damn Degas!" Gombauld was almost shouting. + +From where he stood, leaning in an attitude of despair against the +parapet of the terrace, Denis had seen them, the two pale figures in +a patch of moonlight, far down by the pool's edge. He had seen the +beginning of what promised to be an endless passionate embracement, +and at the sight he had fled. It was too much; he couldn't stand it. In +another moment, he felt, he would have burst into irrepressible tears. + +Dashing blindly into the house, he almost ran into Mr. Scogan, who was +walking up and down the hall smoking a final pipe. + +"Hullo!" said Mr. Scogan, catching him by the arm; dazed and hardly +conscious of what he was doing or where he was, Denis stood there for +a moment like a somnambulist. "What's the matter?" Mr. Scogan went on. +"you look disturbed, distressed, depressed." + +Denis shook his head without replying. + +"Worried about the cosmos, eh?" Mr. Scogan patted him on the arm. "I +know the feeling," he said. "It's a most distressing symptom. 'What's +the point of it all? All is vanity. What's the good of continuing to +function if one's doomed to be snuffed out at last along with everything +else?' Yes, yes. I know exactly how you feel. It's most distressing if +one allows oneself to be distressed. But then why allow oneself to be +distressed? After all, we all know that there's no ultimate point. But +what difference does that make?" + +At this point the somnambulist suddenly woke up. "What?" he said, +blinking and frowning at his interlocutor. "What?" Then breaking away he +dashed up the stairs, two steps at a time. + +Mr. Scogan ran to the foot of the stairs and called up after him. "It +makes no difference, none whatever. Life is gay all the same, always, +under whatever circumstances--under whatever circumstances," he added, +raising his voice to a shout. But Denis was already far out of hearing, +and even if he had not been, his mind to-night was proof against all +the consolations of philosophy. Mr. Scogan replaced his pipe between his +teeth and resumed his meditative pacing. "Under any circumstances," he +repeated to himself. It was ungrammatical to begin with; was it true? +And is life really its own reward? He wondered. When his pipe had burned +itself to its stinking conclusion he took a drink of gin and went to +bed. In ten minutes he was deeply, innocently asleep. + +Denis had mechanically undressed and, clad in those flowered silk +pyjamas of which he was so justly proud, was lying face downwards on +his bed. Time passed. When at last he looked up, the candle which he +had left alight at his bedside had burned down almost to the socket. He +looked at his watch; it was nearly half-past one. His head ached, his +dry, sleepless eyes felt as though they had been bruised from behind, +and the blood was beating within his ears a loud arterial drum. He got +up, opened the door, tiptoed noiselessly along the passage, and began +to mount the stairs towards the higher floors. Arrived at the servants' +quarters under the roof, he hesitated, then turning to the right he +opened a little door at the end of the corridor. Within was a pitch-dark +cupboard-like boxroom, hot, stuffy, and smelling of dust and old +leather. He advanced cautiously into the blackness, groping with his +hands. It was from this den that the ladder went up to the leads of +the western tower. He found the ladder, and set his feet on the rungs; +noiselessly, he lifted the trap-door above his head; the moonlit sky was +over him, he breathed the fresh, cool air of the night. In a moment +he was standing on the leads, gazing out over the dim, colourless +landscape, looking perpendicularly down at the terrace seventy feet +below. + +Why had he climbed up to this high, desolate place? Was it to look at +the moon? Was it to commit suicide? As yet he hardly knew. Death--the +tears came into his eyes when he thought of it. His misery assumed +a certain solemnity; he was lifted up on the wings of a kind of +exaltation. It was a mood in which he might have done almost anything, +however foolish. He advanced towards the farther parapet; the drop was +sheer there and uninterrupted. A good leap, and perhaps one might clear +the narrow terrace and so crash down yet another thirty feet to the +sun-baked ground below. He paused at the corner of the tower, looking +now down into the shadowy gulf below, now up towards the rare stars and +the waning moon. He made a gesture with his hand, muttered something, +he could not afterwards remember what; but the fact that he had said +it aloud gave the utterance a peculiarly terrible significance. Then he +looked down once more into the depths. + +"What ARE you doing, Denis?" questioned a voice from somewhere very +close behind him. + +Denis uttered a cry of frightened surprise, and very nearly went over +the parapet in good earnest. His heart was beating terribly, and he was +pale when, recovering himself, he turned round in the direction from +which the voice had come. + +"Are you ill?" + +In the profound shadow that slept under the eastern parapet of the +tower, he saw something he had not previously noticed--an oblong +shape. It was a mattress, and someone was lying on it. Since that first +memorable night on the tower, Mary had slept out every evening; it was a +sort of manifestation of fidelity. + +"It gave me a fright," she went on, "to wake up and see you waving your +arms and gibbering there. What on earth were you doing?" + +Denis laughed melodramatically. "What, indeed!" he said. If she hadn't +woken up as she did, he would be lying in pieces at the bottom of the +tower; he was certain of that, now. + +"You hadn't got designs on me, I hope?" Mary inquired, jumping too +rapidly to conclusions. + +"I didn't know you were here," said Denis, laughing more bitterly and +artificially than before. + +"What IS the matter, Denis?" + +He sat down on the edge of the mattress, and for all reply went on +laughing in the same frightful and improbable tone. + +An hour later he was reposing with his head on Mary's knees, and she, +with an affectionate solicitude that was wholly maternal, was running +her fingers through his tangled hair. He had told her everything, +everything: his hopeless love, his jealousy, his despair, his +suicide--as it were providentially averted by her interposition. He had +solemnly promised never to think of self-destruction again. And now his +soul was floating in a sad serenity. It was embalmed in the sympathy +that Mary so generously poured. And it was not only in receiving +sympathy that Denis found serenity and even a kind of happiness; it +was also in giving it. For if he had told Mary everything about his +miseries, Mary, reacting to these confidences, had told him in return +everything, or very nearly everything, about her own. + +"Poor Mary!" He was very sorry for her. Still, she might have guessed +that Ivor wasn't precisely a monument of constancy. + +"Well," she concluded, "one must put a good face on it." She wanted to +cry, but she wouldn't allow herself to be weak. There was a silence. + +"Do you think," asked Denis hesitatingly--"do you really think that +she...that Gombauld..." + +"I'm sure of it," Mary answered decisively. There was another long +pause. + +"I don't know what to do about it," he said at last, utterly dejected. + +"You'd better go away," advised Mary. "It's the safest thing, and the +most sensible." + +"But I've arranged to stay here three weeks more." + +"You must concoct an excuse." + +"I suppose you're right." + +"I know I am," said Mary, who was recovering all her firm +self-possession. "You can't go on like this, can you?" + +"No, I can't go on like this," he echoed. + +Immensely practical, Mary invented a plan of action. Startlingly, in the +darkness, the church clock struck three. + +"You must go to bed at once," she said. "I'd no idea it was so late." + +Denis clambered down the ladder, cautiously descended the creaking +stairs. His room was dark; the candle had long ago guttered to +extinction. He got into bed and fell asleep almost at once. + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +Denis had been called, but in spite of the parted curtains he had +dropped off again into that drowsy, dozy state when sleep becomes a +sensual pleasure almost consciously savoured. In this condition he might +have remained for another hour if he had not been disturbed by a violent +rapping at the door. + +"Come in," he mumbled, without opening his eyes. The latch clicked, a +hand seized him by the shoulder and he was rudely shaken. + +"Get up, get up!" + +His eyelids blinked painfully apart, and he saw Mary standing over him, +bright-faced and earnest. + +"Get up!" she repeated. "You must go and send the telegram. Don't you +remember?" + +"O Lord!" He threw off the bed-clothes; his tormentor retired. + +Denis dressed as quickly as he could and ran up the road to the village +post office. Satisfaction glowed within him as he returned. He had sent +a long telegram, which would in a few hours evoke an answer ordering +him back to town at once--on urgent business. It was an act performed, +a decisive step taken--and he so rarely took decisive steps; he felt +pleased with himself. It was with a whetted appetite that he came in to +breakfast. + +"Good-morning," said Mr. Scogan. "I hope you're better." + +"Better?" + +"You were rather worried about the cosmos last night." + +Denis tried to laugh away the impeachment. "Was I?" he lightly asked. + +"I wish," said Mr. Scogan, "that I had nothing worse to prey on my mind. +I should be a happy man." + +"One is only happy in action," Denis enunciated, thinking of the +telegram. + +He looked out of the window. Great florid baroque clouds floated high +in the blue heaven. A wind stirred among the trees, and their shaken +foliage twinkled and glittered like metal in the sun. Everything seemed +marvellously beautiful. At the thought that he would soon be leaving +all this beauty he felt a momentary pang; but he comforted himself by +recollecting how decisively he was acting. + +"Action," he repeated aloud, and going over to the sideboard he helped +himself to an agreeable mixture of bacon and fish. + +Breakfast over, Denis repaired to the terrace, and, sitting there, +raised the enormous bulwark of the "Times" against the possible assaults +of Mr. Scogan, who showed an unappeased desire to go on talking about +the Universe. Secure behind the crackling pages, he meditated. In +the light of this brilliant morning the emotions of last night seemed +somehow rather remote. And what if he had seen them embracing in the +moonlight? Perhaps it didn't mean much after all. And even if it did, +why shouldn't he stay? He felt strong enough to stay, strong enough to +be aloof, disinterested, a mere friendly acquaintance. And even if he +weren't strong enough... + +"What time do you think the telegram will arrive?" asked Mary suddenly, +thrusting in upon him over the top of the paper. + +Denis started guiltily. "I don't know at all," he said. + +"I was only wondering," said Mary, "because there's a very good train at +3.27, and it would be nice if you could catch it, wouldn't it?" + +"Awfully nice," he agreed weakly. He felt as though he were making +arrangements for his own funeral. Train leaves Waterloo 3.27. No +flowers...Mary was gone. No, he was blowed if he'd let himself be +hurried down to the Necropolis like this. He was blowed. The sight of +Mr. Scogan looking out, with a hungry expression, from the drawing-room +window made him precipitately hoist the "Times" once more. For a long +while he kept it hoisted. Lowering it at last to take another cautious +peep at his surroundings, he found himself, with what astonishment! +confronted by Anne's faint, amused, malicious smile. She was standing +before him,--the woman who was a tree,--the swaying grace of her +movement arrested in a pose that seemed itself a movement. + +"How long have you been standing there?" he asked, when he had done +gaping at her. + +"Oh, about half an hour, I suppose," she said airily. "You were so very +deep in your paper--head over ears--I didn't like to disturb you." + +"You look lovely this morning," Denis exclaimed. It was the first time +he had ever had the courage to utter a personal remark of the kind. + +Anne held up her hand as though to ward off a blow. "Don't bludgeon me, +please." She sat down on the bench beside him. He was a nice boy, she +thought, quite charming; and Gombauld's violent insistences were really +becoming rather tiresome. "Why don't you wear white trousers?" she +asked. "I like you so much in white trousers." + +"They're at the wash," Denis replied rather curtly. This white-trouser +business was all in the wrong spirit. He was just preparing a scheme +to manoeuvre the conversation back to the proper path, when Mr. Scogan +suddenly darted out of the house, crossed the terrace with clockwork +rapidity, and came to a halt in front of the bench on which they were +seated. + +"To go on with our interesting conversation about the cosmos," he began, +"I become more and more convinced that the various parts of the concern +are fundamentally discrete...But would you mind, Denis, moving a shade +to your right?" He wedged himself between them on the bench. "And if +you would shift a few inches to the left, my dear Anne...Thank you. +Discrete, I think, was what I was saying." + +"You were," said Anne. Denis was speechless. + +They were taking their after luncheon coffee in the library when the +telegram arrived. Denis blushed guiltily as he took the orange envelope +from the salver and tore it open. "Return at once. Urgent family +business." It was too ridiculous. As if he had any family business! +Wouldn't it be best just to crumple the thing up and put it in his +pocket without saying anything about it? He looked up; Mary's large blue +china eyes were fixed upon him, seriously, penetratingly. He blushed +more deeply than ever, hesitated in a horrible uncertainty. + +"What's your telegram about?" Mary asked significantly. + +He lost his head, "I'm afraid," he mumbled, "I'm afraid this means +I shall have to go back to town at once." He frowned at the telegram +ferociously. + +"But that's absurd, impossible," cried Anne. She had been standing by +the window talking to Gombauld; but at Denis's words she came swaying +across the room towards him. + +"It's urgent," he repeated desperately. + +"But you've only been here such a short time," Anne protested. + +"I know," he said, utterly miserable. Oh, if only she could understand! +Women were supposed to have intuition. + +"If he must go, he must," put in Mary firmly. + +"Yes, I must." He looked at the telegram again for inspiration. "You +see, it's urgent family business," he explained. + +Priscilla got up from her chair in some excitement. "I had a distinct +presentiment of this last night," she said. "A distinct presentiment." + +"A mere coincidence, no doubt," said Mary, brushing Mrs. Wimbush out of +the conversation. "There's a very good train at 3.27." She looked at the +clock on the mantelpiece. "You'll have nice time to pack." + +"I'll order the motor at once." Henry Wimbush rang the bell. The funeral +was well under way. It was awful, awful. + +"I am wretched you should be going," said Anne. + +Denis turned towards her; she really did look wretched. He abandoned +himself hopelessly, fatalistically to his destiny. This was what came of +action, of doing something decisive. If only he'd just let things drift! +If only... + +"I shall miss your conversation," said Mr. Scogan. + +Mary looked at the clock again. "I think perhaps you ought to go and +pack," she said. + +Obediently Denis left the room. Never again, he said to himself, never +again would he do anything decisive. Camlet, West Bowlby, Knipswich for +Timpany, Spavin Delawarr; and then all the other stations; and then, +finally, London. The thought of the journey appalled him. And what on +earth was he going to do in London when he got there? He climbed wearily +up the stairs. It was time for him to lay himself in his coffin. + +The car was at the door--the hearse. The whole party had assembled to +see him go. Good-bye, good-bye. Mechanically he tapped the barometer +that hung in the porch; the needle stirred perceptibly to the left. A +sudden smile lighted up his lugubrious face. + +"'It sinks and I am ready to depart,'" he said, quoting Landor with an +exquisite aptness. He looked quickly round from face to face. Nobody had +noticed. He climbed into the hearse. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Crome Yellow, by Aldous Huxley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CROME YELLOW *** + +***** This file should be named 1999.txt or 1999.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/9/1999/ + +Produced by Sue Asscher + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Crome Yellow + +Author: Aldous Huxley + +Release Date: September 26, 2008 [EBook #1999] +Last Updated: November 8, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CROME YELLOW *** + + + + +Produced by Sue Asscher, and David Widger + + +</pre> + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + CROME YELLOW + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Aldous Huxley + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX. </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER I. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>long this + particular stretch of line no express had ever passed. All the trains—the + few that there were—stopped at all the stations. Denis knew the + names of those stations by heart. Bole, Tritton, Spavin Delawarr, + Knipswich for Timpany, West Bowlby, and, finally, Camlet-on-the-Water. + Camlet was where he always got out, leaving the train to creep indolently + onward, goodness only knew whither, into the green heart of England. + </p> + <p> + They were snorting out of West Bowlby now. It was the next station, thank + Heaven. Denis took his chattels off the rack and piled them neatly in the + corner opposite his own. A futile proceeding. But one must have something + to do. When he had finished, he sank back into his seat and closed his + eyes. It was extremely hot. + </p> + <p> + Oh, this journey! It was two hours cut clean out of his life; two hours in + which he might have done so much, so much—written the perfect poem, + for example, or read the one illuminating book. Instead of which—his + gorge rose at the smell of the dusty cushions against which he was + leaning. + </p> + <p> + Two hours. One hundred and twenty minutes. Anything might be done in that + time. Anything. Nothing. Oh, he had had hundreds of hours, and what had he + done with them? Wasted them, spilt the precious minutes as though his + reservoir were inexhaustible. Denis groaned in the spirit, condemned + himself utterly with all his works. What right had he to sit in the + sunshine, to occupy corner seats in third-class carriages, to be alive? + None, none, none. + </p> + <p> + Misery and a nameless nostalgic distress possessed him. He was + twenty-three, and oh! so agonizingly conscious of the fact. + </p> + <p> + The train came bumpingly to a halt. Here was Camlet at last. Denis jumped + up, crammed his hat over his eyes, deranged his pile of baggage, leaned + out of the window and shouted for a porter, seized a bag in either hand, + and had to put them down again in order to open the door. When at last he + had safely bundled himself and his baggage on to the platform, he ran up + the train towards the van. + </p> + <p> + “A bicycle, a bicycle!” he said breathlessly to the guard. He felt himself + a man of action. The guard paid no attention, but continued methodically + to hand out, one by one, the packages labelled to Camlet. “A bicycle!” + Denis repeated. “A green machine, cross-framed, name of Stone. S-T-O-N-E.” + </p> + <p> + “All in good time, sir,” said the guard soothingly. He was a large, + stately man with a naval beard. One pictured him at home, drinking tea, + surrounded by a numerous family. It was in that tone that he must have + spoken to his children when they were tiresome. “All in good time, sir.” + Denis’s man of action collapsed, punctured. + </p> + <p> + He left his luggage to be called for later, and pushed off on his bicycle. + He always took his bicycle when he went into the country. It was part of + the theory of exercise. One day one would get up at six o’clock and pedal + away to Kenilworth, or Stratford-on-Avon—anywhere. And within a + radius of twenty miles there were always Norman churches and Tudor + mansions to be seen in the course of an afternoon’s excursion. Somehow + they never did get seen, but all the same it was nice to feel that the + bicycle was there, and that one fine morning one really might get up at + six. + </p> + <p> + Once at the top of the long hill which led up from Camlet station, he felt + his spirits mounting. The world, he found, was good. The far-away blue + hills, the harvests whitening on the slopes of the ridge along which his + road led him, the treeless sky-lines that changed as he moved—yes, + they were all good. He was overcome by the beauty of those deeply embayed + combes, scooped in the flanks of the ridge beneath him. Curves, curves: he + repeated the word slowly, trying as he did so to find some term in which + to give expression to his appreciation. Curves—no, that was + inadequate. He made a gesture with his hand, as though to scoop the + achieved expression out of the air, and almost fell off his bicycle. What + was the word to describe the curves of those little valleys? They were as + fine as the lines of a human body, they were informed with the subtlety of + art... + </p> + <p> + Galbe. That was a good word; but it was French. Le galbe evase de ses + hanches: had one ever read a French novel in which that phrase didn’t + occur? Some day he would compile a dictionary for the use of novelists. + Galbe, gonfle, goulu: parfum, peau, pervers, potele, pudeur: vertu, + volupte. + </p> + <p> + But he really must find that word. Curves curves...Those little valleys + had the lines of a cup moulded round a woman’s breast; they seemed the + dinted imprints of some huge divine body that had rested on these hills. + Cumbrous locutions, these; but through them he seemed to be getting nearer + to what he wanted. Dinted, dimpled, wimpled—his mind wandered down + echoing corridors of assonance and alliteration ever further and further + from the point. He was enamoured with the beauty of words. + </p> + <p> + Becoming once more aware of the outer world, he found himself on the crest + of a descent. The road plunged down, steep and straight, into a + considerable valley. There, on the opposite slope, a little higher up the + valley, stood Crome, his destination. He put on his brakes; this view of + Crome was pleasant to linger over. The facade with its three projecting + towers rose precipitously from among the dark trees of the garden. The + house basked in full sunlight; the old brick rosily glowed. How ripe and + rich it was, how superbly mellow! And at the same time, how austere! The + hill was becoming steeper and steeper; he was gaining speed in spite of + his brakes. He loosed his grip of the levers, and in a moment was rushing + headlong down. Five minutes later he was passing through the gate of the + great courtyard. The front door stood hospitably open. He left his bicycle + leaning against the wall and walked in. He would take them by surprise. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>e took nobody by + surprise; there was nobody to take. All was quiet; Denis wandered from + room to empty room, looking with pleasure at the familiar pictures and + furniture, at all the little untidy signs of life that lay scattered here + and there. He was rather glad that they were all out; it was amusing to + wander through the house as though one were exploring a dead, deserted + Pompeii. What sort of life would the excavator reconstruct from these + remains; how would he people these empty chambers? There was the long + gallery, with its rows of respectable and (though, of course, one couldn’t + publicly admit it) rather boring Italian primitives, its Chinese + sculptures, its unobtrusive, dateless furniture. There was the panelled + drawing-room, where the huge chintz-covered arm-chairs stood, oases of + comfort among the austere flesh-mortifying antiques. There was the + morning-room, with its pale lemon walls, its painted Venetian chairs and + rococo tables, its mirrors, its modern pictures. There was the library, + cool, spacious, and dark, book-lined from floor to ceiling, rich in + portentous folios. There was the dining-room, solidly, portwinily English, + with its great mahogany table, its eighteenth-century chairs and + sideboard, its eighteenth-century pictures—family portraits, + meticulous animal paintings. What could one reconstruct from such data? + There was much of Henry Wimbush in the long gallery and the library, + something of Anne, perhaps, in the morning-room. That was all. Among the + accumulations of ten generations the living had left but few traces. + </p> + <p> + Lying on the table in the morning-room he saw his own book of poems. What + tact! He picked it up and opened it. It was what the reviewers call “a + slim volume.” He read at hazard: + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “...But silence and the topless dark + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Vault in the lights of Luna Park; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And Blackpool from the nightly gloom + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Hollows a bright tumultuous tomb.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + He put it down again, shook his head, and sighed. “What genius I had + then!” he reflected, echoing the aged Swift. It was nearly six months + since the book had been published; he was glad to think he would never + write anything of the same sort again. Who could have been reading it, he + wondered? Anne, perhaps; he liked to think so. Perhaps, too, she had at + last recognised herself in the Hamadryad of the poplar sapling; the slim + Hamadryad whose movements were like the swaying of a young tree in the + wind. “The Woman who was a Tree” was what he had called the poem. He had + given her the book when it came out, hoping that the poem would tell her + what he hadn’t dared to say. She had never referred to it. + </p> + <p> + He shut his eyes and saw a vision of her in a red velvet cloak, swaying + into the little restaurant where they sometimes dined together in London—three + quarters of an hour late, and he at his table, haggard with anxiety, + irritation, hunger. Oh, she was damnable! + </p> + <p> + It occurred to him that perhaps his hostess might be in her boudoir. It + was a possibility; he would go and see. Mrs. Wimbush’s boudoir was in the + central tower on the garden front. A little staircase cork-screwed up to + it from the hall. Denis mounted, tapped at the door. “Come in.” Ah, she + was there; he had rather hoped she wouldn’t be. He opened the door. + </p> + <p> + Priscilla Wimbush was lying on the sofa. A blotting-pad rested on her + knees and she was thoughtfully sucking the end of a silver pencil. + </p> + <p> + “Hullo,” she said, looking up. “I’d forgotten you were coming.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, here I am, I’m afraid,” said Denis deprecatingly. “I’m awfully + sorry.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Wimbush laughed. Her voice, her laughter, were deep and masculine. + Everything about her was manly. She had a large, square, middle-aged face, + with a massive projecting nose and little greenish eyes, the whole + surmounted by a lofty and elaborate coiffure of a curiously improbable + shade of orange. Looking at her, Denis always thought of Wilkie Bard as + the cantatrice. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “That’s why I’m going to + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Sing in op’ra, sing in op’ra, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Sing in op-pop-pop-pop-pop-popera.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + Today she was wearing a purple silk dress with a high collar and a row of + pearls. The costume, so richly dowagerish, so suggestive of the Royal + Family, made her look more than ever like something on the Halls. + </p> + <p> + “What have you been doing all this time?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Denis, and he hesitated, almost voluptuously. He had a + tremendously amusing account of London and its doings all ripe and ready + in his mind. It would be a pleasure to give it utterance. “To begin with,” + he said... + </p> + <p> + But he was too late. Mrs. Wimbush’s question had been what the grammarians + call rhetorical; it asked for no answer. It was a little conversational + flourish, a gambit in the polite game. + </p> + <p> + “You find me busy at my horoscopes,” she said, without even being aware + that she had interrupted him. + </p> + <p> + A little pained, Denis decided to reserve his story for more receptive + ears. He contented himself, by way of revenge, with saying “Oh?” rather + icily. + </p> + <p> + “Did I tell you how I won four hundred on the Grand National this year?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he replied, still frigid and mono-syllabic. She must have told him + at least six times. + </p> + <p> + “Wonderful, isn’t it? Everything is in the Stars. In the Old Days, before + I had the Stars to help me, I used to lose thousands. Now”—she + paused an instant—“well, look at that four hundred on the Grand + National. That’s the Stars.” + </p> + <p> + Denis would have liked to hear more about the Old Days. But he was too + discreet and, still more, too shy to ask. There had been something of a + bust up; that was all he knew. Old Priscilla—not so old then, of + course, and sprightlier—had lost a great deal of money, dropped it + in handfuls and hatfuls on every race-course in the country. She had + gambled too. The number of thousands varied in the different legends, but + all put it high. Henry Wimbush was forced to sell some of his Primitives—a + Taddeo da Poggibonsi, an Amico di Taddeo, and four or five nameless + Sienese—to the Americans. There was a crisis. For the first time in + his life Henry asserted himself, and with good effect, it seemed. + </p> + <p> + Priscilla’s gay and gadding existence had come to an abrupt end. Nowadays + she spent almost all her time at Crome, cultivating a rather ill-defined + malady. For consolation she dallied with New Thought and the Occult. Her + passion for racing still possessed her, and Henry, who was a kind-hearted + fellow at bottom, allowed her forty pounds a month betting money. Most of + Priscilla’s days were spent in casting the horoscopes of horses, and she + invested her money scientifically, as the stars dictated. She betted on + football too, and had a large notebook in which she registered the + horoscopes of all the players in all the teams of the League. The process + of balancing the horoscopes of two elevens one against the other was a + very delicate and difficult one. A match between the Spurs and the Villa + entailed a conflict in the heavens so vast and so complicated that it was + not to be wondered at if she sometimes made a mistake about the outcome. + </p> + <p> + “Such a pity you don’t believe in these things, Denis, such a pity,” said + Mrs. Wimbush in her deep, distinct voice. + </p> + <p> + “I can’t say I feel it so.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, that’s because you don’t know what it’s like to have faith. You’ve no + idea how amusing and exciting life becomes when you do believe. All that + happens means something; nothing you do is ever insignificant. It makes + life so jolly, you know. Here am I at Crome. Dull as ditchwater, you’d + think; but no, I don’t find it so. I don’t regret the Old Days a bit. I + have the Stars...” She picked up the sheet of paper that was lying on the + blotting-pad. “Inman’s horoscope,” she explained. “(I thought I’d like to + have a little fling on the billiards championship this autumn.) I have the + Infinite to keep in tune with,” she waved her hand. “And then there’s the + next world and all the spirits, and one’s Aura, and Mrs. Eddy and saying + you’re not ill, and the Christian Mysteries and Mrs. Besant. It’s all + splendid. One’s never dull for a moment. I can’t think how I used to get + on before—in the Old Days. Pleasure—running about, that’s all + it was; just running about. Lunch, tea, dinner, theatre, supper every day. + It was fun, of course, while it lasted. But there wasn’t much left of it + afterwards. There’s rather a good thing about that in Barbecue-Smith’s new + book. Where is it?” + </p> + <p> + She sat up and reached for a book that was lying on the little table by + the head of the sofa. + </p> + <p> + “Do you know him, by the way?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Who?” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Barbecue-Smith.” + </p> + <p> + Denis knew of him vaguely. Barbecue-Smith was a name in the Sunday papers. + He wrote about the Conduct of Life. He might even be the author of “What a + Young Girl Ought to Know”. + </p> + <p> + “No, not personally,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve invited him for next week-end.” She turned over the pages of the + book. “Here’s the passage I was thinking of. I marked it. I always mark + the things I like.” + </p> + <p> + Holding the book almost at arm’s length, for she was somewhat + long-sighted, and making suitable gestures with her free hand, she began + to read, slowly, dramatically. + </p> + <p> + “‘What are thousand pound fur coats, what are quarter million incomes?’” + She looked up from the page with a histrionic movement of the head; her + orange coiffure nodded portentously. Denis looked at it, fascinated. Was + it the Real Thing and henna, he wondered, or was it one of those Complete + Transformations one sees in the advertisements? + </p> + <p> + “‘What are Thrones and Sceptres?’” + </p> + <p> + The orange Transformation—yes, it must be a Transformation—bobbed + up again. + </p> + <p> + “‘What are the gaieties of the Rich, the splendours of the Powerful, what + is the pride of the Great, what are the gaudy pleasures of High Society?’” + </p> + <p> + The voice, which had risen in tone, questioningly, from sentence to + sentence, dropped suddenly and boomed reply. + </p> + <p> + “‘They are nothing. Vanity, fluff, dandelion seed in the wind, thin + vapours of fever. The things that matter happen in the heart. Seen things + are sweet, but those unseen are a thousand times more significant. It is + the unseen that counts in Life.’” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Wimbush lowered the book. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” she said. + </p> + <p> + Denis preferred not to hazard an opinion, but uttered a non-committal + “H’m.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, it’s a fine book this, a beautiful book,” said Priscilla, as she let + the pages flick back, one by one, from under her thumb. “And here’s the + passage about the Lotus Pool. He compares the Soul to a Lotus Pool, you + know.” She held up the book again and read. “‘A Friend of mine has a Lotus + Pool in his garden. It lies in a little dell embowered with wild roses and + eglantine, among which the nightingale pours forth its amorous descant all + the summer long. Within the pool the Lotuses blossom, and the birds of the + air come to drink and bathe themselves in its crystal waters...’ Ah, and + that reminds me,” Priscilla exclaimed, shutting the book with a clap and + uttering her big profound laugh—“that reminds me of the things that + have been going on in our bathing-pool since you were here last. We gave + the village people leave to come and bathe here in the evenings. You’ve no + idea of the things that happened.” + </p> + <p> + She leaned forward, speaking in a confidential whisper; every now and then + she uttered a deep gurgle of laughter. “...mixed bathing...saw them out of + my window...sent for a pair of field-glasses to make sure...no doubt of + it...” The laughter broke out again. Denis laughed too. Barbecue-Smith was + tossed on the floor. + </p> + <p> + “It’s time we went to see if tea’s ready,” said Priscilla. She hoisted + herself up from the sofa and went swishing off across the room, striding + beneath the trailing silk. Denis followed her, faintly humming to himself: + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “That’s why I’m going to + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Sing in op’ra, sing in op’ra, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Sing in op-pop-pop-pop-pop-popera.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + And then the little twiddly bit of accompaniment at the end: “ra-ra.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he terrace in + front of the house was a long narrow strip of turf, bounded along its + outer edge by a graceful stone balustrade. Two little summer-houses of + brick stood at either end. Below the house the ground sloped very steeply + away, and the terrace was a remarkably high one; from the balusters to the + sloping lawn beneath was a drop of thirty feet. Seen from below, the high + unbroken terrace wall, built like the house itself of brick, had the + almost menacing aspect of a fortification—a castle bastion, from + whose parapet one looked out across airy depths to distances level with + the eye. Below, in the foreground, hedged in by solid masses of sculptured + yew trees, lay the stone-brimmed swimming-pool. Beyond it stretched the + park, with its massive elms, its green expanses of grass, and, at the + bottom of the valley, the gleam of the narrow river. On the farther side + of the stream the land rose again in a long slope, chequered with + cultivation. Looking up the valley, to the right, one saw a line of blue, + far-off hills. + </p> + <p> + The tea-table had been planted in the shade of one of the little + summer-houses, and the rest of the party was already assembled about it + when Denis and Priscilla made their appearance. Henry Wimbush had begun to + pour out the tea. He was one of those ageless, unchanging men on the + farther side of fifty, who might be thirty, who might be anything. Denis + had known him almost as long as he could remember. In all those years his + pale, rather handsome face had never grown any older; it was like the pale + grey bowler hat which he always wore, winter and summer—unageing, + calm, serenely without expression. + </p> + <p> + Next him, but separated from him and from the rest of the world by the + almost impenetrable barriers of her deafness, sat Jenny Mullion. She was + perhaps thirty, had a tilted nose and a pink-and-white complexion, and + wore her brown hair plaited and coiled in two lateral buns over her ears. + In the secret tower of her deafness she sat apart, looking down at the + world through sharply piercing eyes. What did she think of men and women + and things? That was something that Denis had never been able to discover. + In her enigmatic remoteness Jenny was a little disquieting. Even now some + interior joke seemed to be amusing her, for she was smiling to herself, + and her brown eyes were like very bright round marbles. + </p> + <p> + On his other side the serious, moonlike innocence of Mary Bracegirdle’s + face shone pink and childish. She was nearly twenty-three, but one + wouldn’t have guessed it. Her short hair, clipped like a page’s, hung in a + bell of elastic gold about her cheeks. She had large blue china eyes, + whose expression was one of ingenuous and often puzzled earnestness. + </p> + <p> + Next to Mary a small gaunt man was sitting, rigid and erect in his chair. + In appearance Mr. Scogan was like one of those extinct bird-lizards of the + Tertiary. His nose was beaked, his dark eye had the shining quickness of a + robin’s. But there was nothing soft or gracious or feathery about him. The + skin of his wrinkled brown face had a dry and scaly look; his hands were + the hands of a crocodile. His movements were marked by the lizard’s + disconcertingly abrupt clockwork speed; his speech was thin, fluty, and + dry. Henry Wimbush’s school-fellow and exact contemporary, Mr. Scogan + looked far older and, at the same time, far more youthfully alive than did + that gentle aristocrat with the face like a grey bowler. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan might look like an extinct saurian, but Gombauld was altogether + and essentially human. In the old-fashioned natural histories of the + ‘thirties he might have figured in a steel engraving as a type of Homo + Sapiens—an honour which at that time commonly fell to Lord Byron. + Indeed, with more hair and less collar, Gombauld would have been + completely Byronic—more than Byronic, even, for Gombauld was of + Provencal descent, a black-haired young corsair of thirty, with flashing + teeth and luminous large dark eyes. Denis looked at him enviously. He was + jealous of his talent: if only he wrote verse as well as Gombauld painted + pictures! Still more, at the moment, he envied Gombauld his looks, his + vitality, his easy confidence of manner. Was it surprising that Anne + should like him? Like him?—it might even be something worse, Denis + reflected bitterly, as he walked at Priscilla’s side down the long grass + terrace. + </p> + <p> + Between Gombauld and Mr. Scogan a very much lowered deck-chair presented + its back to the new arrivals as they advanced towards the tea-table. + Gombauld was leaning over it; his face moved vivaciously; he smiled, he + laughed, he made quick gestures with his hands. From the depths of the + chair came up a sound of soft, lazy laughter. Denis started as he heard + it. That laughter—how well he knew it! What emotions it evoked in + him! He quickened his pace. + </p> + <p> + In her low deck-chair Anne was nearer to lying than to sitting. Her long, + slender body reposed in an attitude of listless and indolent grace. Within + its setting of light brown hair her face had a pretty regularity that was + almost doll-like. And indeed there were moments when she seemed nothing + more than a doll; when the oval face, with its long-lashed, pale blue + eyes, expressed nothing; when it was no more than a lazy mask of wax. She + was Henry Wimbush’s own niece; that bowler-like countenance was one of the + Wimbush heirlooms; it ran in the family, appearing in its female members + as a blank doll-face. But across this dollish mask, like a gay melody + dancing over an unchanging fundamental bass, passed Anne’s other + inheritance—quick laughter, light ironic amusement, and the changing + expressions of many moods. She was smiling now as Denis looked down at + her: her cat’s smile, he called it, for no very good reason. The mouth was + compressed, and on either side of it two tiny wrinkles had formed + themselves in her cheeks. An infinity of slightly malicious amusement + lurked in those little folds, in the puckers about the half-closed eyes, + in the eyes themselves, bright and laughing between the narrowed lids. + </p> + <p> + The preliminary greetings spoken, Denis found an empty chair between + Gombauld and Jenny and sat down. + </p> + <p> + “How are you, Jenny?” he shouted to her. + </p> + <p> + Jenny nodded and smiled in mysterious silence, as though the subject of + her health were a secret that could not be publicly divulged. + </p> + <p> + “How’s London been since I went away?” Anne inquired from the depth of her + chair. + </p> + <p> + The moment had come; the tremendously amusing narrative was waiting for + utterance. “Well,” said Denis, smiling happily, “to begin with...” + </p> + <p> + “Has Priscilla told you of our great antiquarian find?” Henry Wimbush + leaned forward; the most promising of buds was nipped. + </p> + <p> + “To begin with,” said Denis desperately, “there was the Ballet...” + </p> + <p> + “Last week,” Mr. Wimbush went on softly and implacably, “we dug up fifty + yards of oaken drain-pipes; just tree trunks with a hole bored through the + middle. Very interesting indeed. Whether they were laid down by the monks + in the fifteenth century, or whether...” + </p> + <p> + Denis listened gloomily. “Extraordinary!” he said, when Mr. Wimbush had + finished; “quite extraordinary!” He helped himself to another slice of + cake. He didn’t even want to tell his tale about London now; he was + damped. + </p> + <p> + For some time past Mary’s grave blue eyes had been fixed upon him. “What + have you been writing lately?” she asked. It would be nice to have a + little literary conversation. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, verse and prose,” said Denis—“just verse and prose.” + </p> + <p> + “Prose?” Mr. Scogan pounced alarmingly on the word. “You’ve been writing + prose?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Not a novel?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “My poor Denis!” exclaimed Mr. Scogan. “What about?” + </p> + <p> + Denis felt rather uncomfortable. “Oh, about the usual things, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” Mr. Scogan groaned. “I’ll describe the plot for you. Little + Percy, the hero, was never good at games, but he was always clever. He + passes through the usual public school and the usual university and comes + to London, where he lives among the artists. He is bowed down with + melancholy thought; he carries the whole weight of the universe upon his + shoulders. He writes a novel of dazzling brilliance; he dabbles delicately + in Amour and disappears, at the end of the book, into the luminous + Future.” + </p> + <p> + Denis blushed scarlet. Mr. Scogan had described the plan of his novel with + an accuracy that was appalling. He made an effort to laugh. “You’re + entirely wrong,” he said. “My novel is not in the least like that.” It was + a heroic lie. Luckily, he reflected, only two chapters were written. He + would tear them up that very evening when he unpacked. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan paid no attention to his denial, but went on: “Why will you + young men continue to write about things that are so entirely + uninteresting as the mentality of adolescents and artists? Professional + anthropologists might find it interesting to turn sometimes from the + beliefs of the Blackfellow to the philosophical preoccupations of the + undergraduate. But you can’t expect an ordinary adult man, like myself, to + be much moved by the story of his spiritual troubles. And after all, even + in England, even in Germany and Russia, there are more adults than + adolescents. As for the artist, he is preoccupied with problems that are + so utterly unlike those of the ordinary adult man—problems of pure + aesthetics which don’t so much as present themselves to people like myself—that + a description of his mental processes is as boring to the ordinary reader + as a piece of pure mathematics. A serious book about artists regarded as + artists is unreadable; and a book about artists regarded as lovers, + husbands, dipsomaniacs, heroes, and the like is really not worth writing + again. Jean-Christophe is the stock artist of literature, just as + Professor Radium of ‘Comic Cuts’ is its stock man of science.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m sorry to hear I’m as uninteresting as all that,” said Gombauld. + </p> + <p> + “Not at all, my dear Gombauld,” Mr. Scogan hastened to explain. “As a + lover or a dipsomaniac, I’ve no doubt of your being a most fascinating + specimen. But as a combiner of forms, you must honestly admit it, you’re a + bore.” + </p> + <p> + “I entirely disagree with you,” exclaimed Mary. She was somehow always out + of breath when she talked. And her speech was punctuated by little gasps. + “I’ve known a great many artists, and I’ve always found their mentality + very interesting. Especially in Paris. Tschuplitski, for example—I + saw a great deal of Tschuplitski in Paris this spring...” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, but then you’re an exception, Mary, you’re an exception,” said Mr. + Scogan. “You are a femme superieure.” + </p> + <p> + A flush of pleasure turned Mary’s face into a harvest moon. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">D</span>enis woke up next + morning to find the sun shining, the sky serene. He decided to wear white + flannel trousers—white flannel trousers and a black jacket, with a + silk shirt and his new peach-coloured tie. And what shoes? White was the + obvious choice, but there was something rather pleasing about the notion + of black patent leather. He lay in bed for several minutes considering the + problem. + </p> + <p> + Before he went down—patent leather was his final choice—he + looked at himself critically in the glass. His hair might have been more + golden, he reflected. As it was, its yellowness had the hint of a greenish + tinge in it. But his forehead was good. His forehead made up in height + what his chin lacked in prominence. His nose might have been longer, but + it would pass. His eyes might have been blue and not green. But his coat + was very well cut and, discreetly padded, made him seem robuster than he + actually was. His legs, in their white casing, were long and elegant. + Satisfied, he descended the stairs. Most of the party had already finished + their breakfast. He found himself alone with Jenny. + </p> + <p> + “I hope you slept well,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, isn’t it lovely?” Jenny replied, giving two rapid little nods. “But + we had such awful thunderstorms last week.” + </p> + <p> + Parallel straight lines, Denis reflected, meet only at infinity. He might + talk for ever of care-charmer sleep and she of meteorology till the end of + time. Did one ever establish contact with anyone? We are all parallel + straight lines. Jenny was only a little more parallel than most. + </p> + <p> + “They are very alarming, these thunderstorms,” he said, helping himself to + porridge. “Don’t you think so? Or are you above being frightened?” + </p> + <p> + “No. I always go to bed in a storm. One is so much safer lying down.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” + </p> + <p> + “Because,” said Jenny, making a descriptive gesture, “because lightning + goes downwards and not flat ways. When you’re lying down you’re out of the + current.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s very ingenious.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s true.” + </p> + <p> + There was a silence. Denis finished his porridge and helped himself to + bacon. For lack of anything better to say, and because Mr. Scogan’s absurd + phrase was for some reason running in his head, he turned to Jenny and + asked: + </p> + <p> + “Do you consider yourself a femme superieure?” He had to repeat the + question several times before Jenny got the hang of it. + </p> + <p> + “No,” she said, rather indignantly, when at last she heard what Denis was + saying. “Certainly not. Has anyone been suggesting that I am?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Denis. “Mr. Scogan told Mary she was one.” + </p> + <p> + “Did he?” Jenny lowered her voice. “Shall I tell you what I think of that + man? I think he’s slightly sinister.” + </p> + <p> + Having made this pronouncement, she entered the ivory tower of her + deafness and closed the door. Denis could not induce her to say anything + more, could not induce her even to listen. She just smiled at him, smiled + and occasionally nodded. + </p> + <p> + Denis went out on to the terrace to smoke his after-breakfast pipe and to + read his morning paper. An hour later, when Anne came down, she found him + still reading. By this time he had got to the Court Circular and the + Forthcoming Weddings. He got up to meet her as she approached, a Hamadryad + in white muslin, across the grass. + </p> + <p> + “Why, Denis,” she exclaimed, “you look perfectly sweet in your white + trousers.” + </p> + <p> + Denis was dreadfully taken aback. There was no possible retort. “You speak + as though I were a child in a new frock,” he said, with a show of + irritation. + </p> + <p> + “But that’s how I feel about you, Denis dear.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you oughtn’t to.” + </p> + <p> + “But I can’t help it. I’m so much older than you.” + </p> + <p> + “I like that,” he said. “Four years older.” + </p> + <p> + “And if you do look perfectly sweet in your white trousers, why shouldn’t + I say so? And why did you put them on, if you didn’t think you were going + to look sweet in them?” + </p> + <p> + “Let’s go into the garden,” said Denis. He was put out; the conversation + had taken such a preposterous and unexpected turn. He had planned a very + different opening, in which he was to lead off with, “You look adorable + this morning,” or something of the kind, and she was to answer, “Do I?” + and then there was to be a pregnant silence. And now she had got in first + with the trousers. It was provoking; his pride was hurt. + </p> + <p> + That part of the garden that sloped down from the foot of the terrace to + the pool had a beauty which did not depend on colour so much as on forms. + It was as beautiful by moonlight as in the sun. The silver of water, the + dark shapes of yew and ilex trees remained, at all hours and seasons, the + dominant features of the scene. It was a landscape in black and white. For + colour there was the flower-garden; it lay to one side of the pool, + separated from it by a huge Babylonian wall of yews. You passed through a + tunnel in the hedge, you opened a wicket in a wall, and you found + yourself, startlingly and suddenly, in the world of colour. The July + borders blazed and flared under the sun. Within its high brick walls the + garden was like a great tank of warmth and perfume and colour. + </p> + <p> + Denis held open the little iron gate for his companion. “It’s like passing + from a cloister into an Oriental palace,” he said, and took a deep breath + of the warm, flower-scented air. “‘In fragrant volleys they let fly...’ + How does it go?” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “‘Well shot, ye firemen! Oh how sweet + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And round your equal fires do meet; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Whose shrill report no ear can tell, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + But echoes to the eye and smell...’” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + “You have a bad habit of quoting,” said Anne. “As I never know the context + or author, I find it humiliating.” + </p> + <p> + Denis apologized. “It’s the fault of one’s education. Things somehow seem + more real and vivid when one can apply somebody else’s ready-made phrase + about them. And then there are lots of lovely names and words—Monophysite, + Iamblichus, Pomponazzi; you bring them out triumphantly, and feel you’ve + clinched the argument with the mere magical sound of them. That’s what + comes of the higher education.” + </p> + <p> + “You may regret your education,” said Anne; “I’m ashamed of my lack of it. + Look at those sunflowers! Aren’t they magnificent?” + </p> + <p> + “Dark faces and golden crowns—they’re kings of Ethiopia. And I like + the way the tits cling to the flowers and pick out the seeds, while the + other loutish birds, grubbing dirtily for their food, look up in envy from + the ground. Do they look up in envy? That’s the literary touch, I’m + afraid. Education again. It always comes back to that.” He was silent. + </p> + <p> + Anne had sat down on a bench that stood in the shade of an old apple tree. + “I’m listening,” she said. + </p> + <p> + He did not sit down, but walked backwards and forwards in front of the + bench, gesticulating a little as he talked. “Books,” he said—“books. + One reads so many, and one sees so few people and so little of the world. + Great thick books about the universe and the mind and ethics. You’ve no + idea how many there are. I must have read twenty or thirty tons of them in + the last five years. Twenty tons of ratiocination. Weighted with that, + one’s pushed out into the world.” + </p> + <p> + He went on walking up and down. His voice rose, fell, was silent a moment, + and then talked on. He moved his hands, sometimes he waved his arms. Anne + looked and listened quietly, as though she were at a lecture. He was a + nice boy, and to-day he looked charming—charming! + </p> + <p> + One entered the world, Denis pursued, having ready-made ideas about + everything. One had a philosophy and tried to make life fit into it. One + should have lived first and then made one’s philosophy to fit life...Life, + facts, things were horribly complicated; ideas, even the most difficult of + them, deceptively simple. In the world of ideas everything was clear; in + life all was obscure, embroiled. Was it surprising that one was miserable, + horribly unhappy? Denis came to a halt in front of the bench, and as he + asked this last question he stretched out his arms and stood for an + instant in an attitude of crucifixion, then let them fall again to his + sides. + </p> + <p> + “My poor Denis!” Anne was touched. He was really too pathetic as he stood + there in front of her in his white flannel trousers. “But does one suffer + about these things? It seems very extraordinary.” + </p> + <p> + “You’re like Scogan,” cried Denis bitterly. “You regard me as a specimen + for an anthropologist. Well, I suppose I am.” + </p> + <p> + “No, no,” she protested, and drew in her skirt with a gesture that + indicated that he was to sit down beside her. He sat down. “Why can’t you + just take things for granted and as they come?” she asked. “It’s so much + simpler.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course it is,” said Denis. “But it’s a lesson to be learnt gradually. + There are the twenty tons of ratiocination to be got rid of first.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve always taken things as they come,” said Anne. “It seems so obvious. + One enjoys the pleasant things, avoids the nasty ones. There’s nothing + more to be said.” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing—for you. But, then, you were born a pagan; I am trying + laboriously to make myself one. I can take nothing for granted, I can + enjoy nothing as it comes along. Beauty, pleasure, art, women—I have + to invent an excuse, a justification for everything that’s delightful. + Otherwise I can’t enjoy it with an easy conscience. I make up a little + story about beauty and pretend that it has something to do with truth and + goodness. I have to say that art is the process by which one reconstructs + the divine reality out of chaos. Pleasure is one of the mystical roads to + union with the infinite—the ecstasies of drinking, dancing, + love-making. As for women, I am perpetually assuring myself that they’re + the broad highway to divinity. And to think that I’m only just beginning + to see through the silliness of the whole thing! It’s incredible to me + that anyone should have escaped these horrors.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s still more incredible to me,” said Anne, “that anyone should have + been a victim to them. I should like to see myself believing that men are + the highway to divinity.” The amused malice of her smile planted two + little folds on either side of her mouth, and through their half-closed + lids her eyes shone with laughter. “What you need, Denis, is a nice plump + young wife, a fixed income, and a little congenial but regular work.” + </p> + <p> + “What I need is you.” That was what he ought to have retorted, that was + what he wanted passionately to say. He could not say it. His desire fought + against his shyness. “What I need is you.” Mentally he shouted the words, + but not a sound issued from his lips. He looked at her despairingly. + Couldn’t she see what was going on inside him? Couldn’t she understand? + “What I need is you.” He would say it, he would—he would. + </p> + <p> + “I think I shall go and bathe,” said Anne. “It’s so hot.” The opportunity + had passed. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>r. Wimbush had + taken them to see the sights of the Home Farm, and now they were standing, + all six of them—Henry Wimbush, Mr. Scogan, Denis, Gombauld, Anne, + and Mary—by the low wall of the piggery, looking into one of the + styes. + </p> + <p> + “This is a good sow,” said Henry Wimbush. “She had a litter of fourteen. + </p> + <p> + “Fourteen?” Mary echoed incredulously. She turned astonished blue eyes + towards Mr. Wimbush, then let them fall onto the seething mass of elan + vital that fermented in the sty. + </p> + <p> + An immense sow reposed on her side in the middle of the pen. Her round, + black belly, fringed with a double line of dugs, presented itself to the + assault of an army of small, brownish-black swine. With a frantic greed + they tugged at their mother’s flank. The old sow stirred sometimes + uneasily or uttered a little grunt of pain. One small pig, the runt, the + weakling of the litter, had been unable to secure a place at the banquet. + Squealing shrilly, he ran backwards and forwards, trying to push in among + his stronger brothers or even to climb over their tight little black backs + towards the maternal reservoir. + </p> + <p> + “There ARE fourteen,” said Mary. “You’re quite right. I counted. It’s + extraordinary.” + </p> + <p> + “The sow next door,” Mr. Wimbush went on, “has done very badly. She only + had five in her litter. I shall give her another chance. If she does no + better next time, I shall fat her up and kill her. There’s the boar,” he + pointed towards a farther sty. “Fine old beast, isn’t he? But he’s getting + past his prime. He’ll have to go too.” + </p> + <p> + “How cruel!” Anne exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + “But how practical, how eminently realistic!” said Mr. Scogan. “In this + farm we have a model of sound paternal government. Make them breed, make + them work, and when they’re past working or breeding or begetting, + slaughter them.” + </p> + <p> + “Farming seems to be mostly indecency and cruelty,” said Anne. + </p> + <p> + With the ferrule of his walking-stick Denis began to scratch the boar’s + long bristly back. The animal moved a little so as to bring himself within + easier range of the instrument that evoked in him such delicious + sensations; then he stood stock still, softly grunting his contentment. + The mud of years flaked off his sides in a grey powdery scurf. + </p> + <p> + “What a pleasure it is,” said Denis, “to do somebody a kindness. I believe + I enjoy scratching this pig quite as much as he enjoys being scratched. If + only one could always be kind with so little expense or trouble...” + </p> + <p> + A gate slammed; there was a sound of heavy footsteps. + </p> + <p> + “Morning, Rowley!” said Henry Wimbush. + </p> + <p> + “Morning, sir,” old Rowley answered. He was the most venerable of the + labourers on the farm—a tall, solid man, still unbent, with grey + side-whiskers and a steep, dignified profile. Grave, weighty in his + manner, splendidly respectable, Rowley had the air of a great English + statesman of the mid-nineteenth century. He halted on the outskirts of the + group, and for a moment they all looked at the pigs in a silence that was + only broken by the sound of grunting or the squelch of a sharp hoof in the + mire. Rowley turned at last, slowly and ponderously and nobly, as he did + everything, and addressed himself to Henry Wimbush. + </p> + <p> + “Look at them, sir,” he said, with a motion of his hand towards the + wallowing swine. “Rightly is they called pigs.” + </p> + <p> + “Rightly indeed,” Mr. Wimbush agreed. + </p> + <p> + “I am abashed by that man,” said Mr. Scogan, as old Rowley plodded off + slowly and with dignity. “What wisdom, what judgment, what a sense of + values! ‘Rightly are they called swine.’ Yes. And I wish I could, with as + much justice, say, ‘Rightly are we called men.’” + </p> + <p> + They walked on towards the cowsheds and the stables of the cart-horses. + Five white geese, taking the air this fine morning, even as they were + doing, met them in the way. They hesitated, cackled; then, converting + their lifted necks into rigid, horizontal snakes, they rushed off in + disorder, hissing horribly as they went. Red calves paddled in the dung + and mud of a spacious yard. In another enclosure stood the bull, massive + as a locomotive. He was a very calm bull, and his face wore an expression + of melancholy stupidity. He gazed with reddish-brown eyes at his visitors, + chewed thoughtfully at the tangible memories of an earlier meal, swallowed + and regurgitated, chewed again. His tail lashed savagely from side to + side; it seemed to have nothing to do with his impassive bulk. Between his + short horns was a triangle of red curls, short and dense. + </p> + <p> + “Splendid animal,” said Henry Wimbush. “Pedigree stock. But he’s getting a + little old, like the boar.” + </p> + <p> + “Fat him up and slaughter him,” Mr. Scogan pronounced, with a delicate + old-maidish precision of utterance. + </p> + <p> + “Couldn’t you give the animals a little holiday from producing children?” + asked Anne. “I’m so sorry for the poor things.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Wimbush shook his head. “Personally,” he said, “I rather like seeing + fourteen pigs grow where only one grew before. The spectacle of so much + crude life is refreshing.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m glad to hear you say so,” Gombauld broke in warmly. “Lots of life: + that’s what we want. I like pullulation; everything ought to increase and + multiply as hard as it can.” + </p> + <p> + Gombauld grew lyrical. Everybody ought to have children—Anne ought + to have them, Mary ought to have them—dozens and dozens. He + emphasised his point by thumping with his walking-stick on the bull’s + leather flanks. Mr. Scogan ought to pass on his intelligence to little + Scogans, and Denis to little Denises. The bull turned his head to see what + was happening, regarded the drumming stick for several seconds, then + turned back again satisfied, it seemed, that nothing was happening. + Sterility was odious, unnatural, a sin against life. Life, life, and still + more life. The ribs of the placid bull resounded. + </p> + <p> + Standing with his back against the farmyard pump, a little apart, Denis + examined the group. Gombauld, passionate and vivacious, was its centre. + The others stood round, listening—Henry Wimbush, calm and polite + beneath his grey bowler; Mary, with parted lips and eyes that shone with + the indignation of a convinced birth-controller. Anne looked on through + half-shut eyes, smiling; and beside her stood Mr. Scogan, bolt upright in + an attitude of metallic rigidity that contrasted strangely with that fluid + grace of hers which even in stillness suggested a soft movement. + </p> + <p> + Gombauld ceased talking, and Mary, flushed and outraged, opened her mouth + to refute him. But she was too slow. Before she could utter a word Mr. + Scogan’s fluty voice had pronounced the opening phrases of a discourse. + There was no hope of getting so much as a word in edgeways; Mary had + perforce to resign herself. + </p> + <p> + “Even your eloquence, my dear Gombauld,” he was saying—“even your + eloquence must prove inadequate to reconvert the world to a belief in the + delights of mere multiplication. With the gramophone, the cinema, and the + automatic pistol, the goddess of Applied Science has presented the world + with another gift, more precious even than these—the means of + dissociating love from propagation. Eros, for those who wish it, is now an + entirely free god; his deplorable associations with Lucina may be broken + at will. In the course of the next few centuries, who knows? the world may + see a more complete severance. I look forward to it optimistically. Where + the great Erasmus Darwin and Miss Anna Seward, Swan of Lichfield, + experimented—and, for all their scientific ardour, failed—our + descendants will experiment and succeed. An impersonal generation will + take the place of Nature’s hideous system. In vast state incubators, rows + upon rows of gravid bottles will supply the world with the population it + requires. The family system will disappear; society, sapped at its very + base, will have to find new foundations; and Eros, beautifully and + irresponsibly free, will flit like a gay butterfly from flower to flower + through a sunlit world.” + </p> + <p> + “It sounds lovely,” said Anne. + </p> + <p> + “The distant future always does.” + </p> + <p> + Mary’s china blue eyes, more serious and more astonished than ever, were + fixed on Mr. Scogan. “Bottles?” she said. “Do you really think so? + Bottles...” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VI. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>r. Barbecue-Smith + arrived in time for tea on Saturday afternoon. He was a short and + corpulent man, with a very large head and no neck. In his earlier middle + age he had been distressed by this absence of neck, but was comforted by + reading in Balzac’s “Louis Lambert” that all the world’s great men have + been marked by the same peculiarity, and for a simple and obvious reason: + Greatness is nothing more nor less than the harmonious functioning of the + faculties of the head and heart; the shorter the neck, the more closely + these two organs approach one another; argal...It was convincing. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Barbecue-Smith belonged to the old school of journalists. He sported a + leonine head with a greyish-black mane of oddly unappetising hair brushed + back from a broad but low forehead. And somehow he always seemed slightly, + ever so slightly, soiled. In younger days he had gaily called himself a + Bohemian. He did so no longer. He was a teacher now, a kind of prophet. + Some of his books of comfort and spiritual teaching were in their hundred + and twentieth thousand. + </p> + <p> + Priscilla received him with every mark of esteem. He had never been to + Crome before; she showed him round the house. Mr. Barbecue-Smith was full + of admiration. + </p> + <p> + “So quaint, so old-world,” he kept repeating. He had a rich, rather + unctuous voice. + </p> + <p> + Priscilla praised his latest book. “Splendid, I thought it was,” she said + in her large, jolly way. + </p> + <p> + “I’m happy to think you found it a comfort,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, tremendously! And the bit about the Lotus Pool—I thought that + so beautiful.” + </p> + <p> + “I knew you would like that. It came to me, you know, from without.” He + waved his hand to indicate the astral world. + </p> + <p> + They went out into the garden for tea. Mr. Barbecue-Smith was duly + introduced. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Stone is a writer too,” said Priscilla, as she introduced Denis. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed!” Mr. Barbecue-Smith smiled benignly, and, looking up at Denis + with an expression of Olympian condescension, “And what sort of things do + you write?” + </p> + <p> + Denis was furious, and, to make matters worse, he felt himself blushing + hotly. Had Priscilla no sense of proportion? She was putting them in the + same category—Barbecue-Smith and himself. They were both writers, + they both used pen and ink. To Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s question he answered, + “Oh, nothing much, nothing,” and looked away. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Stone is one of our younger poets.” It was Anne’s voice. He scowled + at her, and she smiled back exasperatingly. + </p> + <p> + “Excellent, excellent,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith, and he squeezed Denis’s + arm encouragingly. “The Bard’s is a noble calling.” + </p> + <p> + As soon as tea was over Mr. Barbecue-Smith excused himself; he had to do + some writing before dinner. Priscilla quite understood. The prophet + retired to his chamber. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Barbecue-Smith came down to the drawing-room at ten to eight. He was + in a good humour, and, as he descended the stairs, he smiled to himself + and rubbed his large white hands together. In the drawing-room someone was + playing softly and ramblingly on the piano. He wondered who it could be. + One of the young ladies, perhaps. But no, it was only Denis, who got up + hurriedly and with some embarrassment as he came into the room. + </p> + <p> + “Do go on, do go on,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. “I am very fond of music.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I couldn’t possibly go on,” Denis replied. “I only make noises.” + </p> + <p> + There was a silence. Mr. Barbecue-Smith stood with his back to the hearth, + warming himself at the memory of last winter’s fires. He could not control + his interior satisfaction, but still went on smiling to himself. At last + he turned to Denis. + </p> + <p> + “You write,” he asked, “don’t you?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, yes—a little, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “How many words do you find you can write in an hour?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think I’ve ever counted.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, you ought to, you ought to. It’s most important.” + </p> + <p> + Denis exercised his memory. “When I’m in good form,” he said, “I fancy I + do a twelve-hundred-word review in about four hours. But sometimes it + takes me much longer.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Barbecue-Smith nodded. “Yes, three hundred words an hour at your + best.” He walked out into the middle of the room, turned round on his + heels, and confronted Denis again. “Guess how many words I wrote this + evening between five and half-past seven.” + </p> + <p> + “I can’t imagine.” + </p> + <p> + “No, but you must guess. Between five and half-past seven—that’s two + and a half hours.” + </p> + <p> + “Twelve hundred words,” Denis hazarded. + </p> + <p> + “No, no, no.” Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s expanded face shone with gaiety. “Try + again.” + </p> + <p> + “Fifteen hundred.” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “I give it up,” said Denis. He found he couldn’t summon up much interest + in Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s writing. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I’ll tell you. Three thousand eight hundred.” + </p> + <p> + Denis opened his eyes. “You must get a lot done in a day,” he said. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Barbecue-Smith suddenly became extremely confidential. He pulled up a + stool to the side of Denis’s arm-chair, sat down in it, and began to talk + softly and rapidly. + </p> + <p> + “Listen to me,” he said, laying his hand on Denis’s sleeve. “You want to + make your living by writing; you’re young, you’re inexperienced. Let me + give you a little sound advice.” + </p> + <p> + What was the fellow going to do? Denis wondered: give him an introduction + to the editor of “John o’ London’s Weekly”, or tell him where he could + sell a light middle for seven guineas? Mr. Barbecue-Smith patted his arm + several times and went on. + </p> + <p> + “The secret of writing,” he said, breathing it into the young man’s ear—“the + secret of writing is Inspiration.” + </p> + <p> + Denis looked at him in astonishment. + </p> + <p> + “Inspiration...” Mr. Barbecue-Smith repeated. + </p> + <p> + “You mean the native wood-note business?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Barbecue-Smith nodded. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, then I entirely agree with you,” said Denis. “But what if one hasn’t + got Inspiration?” + </p> + <p> + “That was precisely the question I was waiting for,” said Mr. + Barbecue-Smith. “You ask me what one should do if one hasn’t got + Inspiration. I answer: you have Inspiration; everyone has Inspiration. + It’s simply a question of getting it to function.” + </p> + <p> + The clock struck eight. There was no sign of any of the other guests; + everybody was always late at Crome. Mr. Barbecue-Smith went on. + </p> + <p> + “That’s my secret,” he said. “I give it you freely.” (Denis made a + suitably grateful murmur and grimace.) “I’ll help you to find your + Inspiration, because I don’t like to see a nice, steady young man like you + exhausting his vitality and wasting the best years of his life in a + grinding intellectual labour that could be completely obviated by + Inspiration. I did it myself, so I know what it’s like. Up till the time I + was thirty-eight I was a writer like you—a writer without + Inspiration. All I wrote I squeezed out of myself by sheer hard work. Why, + in those days I was never able to do more than six-fifty words an hour, + and what’s more, I often didn’t sell what I wrote.” He sighed. “We + artists,” he said parenthetically, “we intellectuals aren’t much + appreciated here in England.” Denis wondered if there was any method, + consistent, of course, with politeness, by which he could dissociate + himself from Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s “we.” There was none; and besides, it + was too late now, for Mr. Barbecue-Smith was once more pursuing the tenor + of his discourse. + </p> + <p> + “At thirty-eight I was a poor, struggling, tired, overworked, unknown + journalist. Now, at fifty...” He paused modestly and made a little + gesture, moving his fat hands outwards, away from one another, and + expanding his fingers as though in demonstration. He was exhibiting + himself. Denis thought of that advertisement of Nestle’s milk—the + two cats on the wall, under the moon, one black and thin, the other white, + sleek, and fat. Before Inspiration and after. + </p> + <p> + “Inspiration has made the difference,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith solemnly. + “It came quite suddenly—like a gentle dew from heaven.” He lifted + his hand and let it fall back on to his knee to indicate the descent of + the dew. “It was one evening. I was writing my first little book about the + Conduct of Life—‘Humble Heroisms’. You may have read it; it has been + a comfort—at least I hope and think so—a comfort to many + thousands. I was in the middle of the second chapter, and I was stuck. + Fatigue, overwork—I had only written a hundred words in the last + hour, and I could get no further. I sat biting the end of my pen and + looking at the electric light, which hung above my table, a little above + and in front of me.” He indicated the position of the lamp with elaborate + care. “Have you ever looked at a bright light intently for a long time?” + he asked, turning to Denis. Denis didn’t think he had. “You can hypnotise + yourself that way,” Mr. Barbecue-Smith went on. + </p> + <p> + The gong sounded in a terrific crescendo from the hall. Still no sign of + the others. Denis was horribly hungry. + </p> + <p> + “That’s what happened to me,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. “I was hypnotised. + I lost consciousness like that.” He snapped his fingers. “When I came to, + I found that it was past midnight, and I had written four thousand words. + Four thousand,” he repeated, opening his mouth very wide on the “ou” of + thousand. “Inspiration had come to me.” + </p> + <p> + “What a very extraordinary thing,” said Denis. + </p> + <p> + “I was afraid of it at first. It didn’t seem to me natural. I didn’t feel, + somehow, that it was quite right, quite fair, I might almost say, to + produce a literary composition unconsciously. Besides, I was afraid I + might have written nonsense.” + </p> + <p> + “And had you written nonsense?” Denis asked. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly not,” Mr. Barbecue-Smith replied, with a trace of annoyance. + “Certainly not. It was admirable. Just a few spelling mistakes and slips, + such as there generally are in automatic writing. But the style, the + thought—all the essentials were admirable. After that, Inspiration + came to me regularly. I wrote the whole of ‘Humble Heroisms’ like that. It + was a great success, and so has everything been that I have written + since.” He leaned forward and jabbed at Denis with his finger. “That’s my + secret,” he said, “and that’s how you could write too, if you tried—without + effort, fluently, well.” + </p> + <p> + “But how?” asked Denis, trying not to show how deeply he had been insulted + by that final “well.” + </p> + <p> + “By cultivating your Inspiration, by getting into touch with your + Subconscious. Have you ever read my little book, ‘Pipe-Lines to the + Infinite’?” + </p> + <p> + Denis had to confess that that was, precisely, one of the few, perhaps the + only one, of Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s works he had not read. + </p> + <p> + “Never mind, never mind,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. “It’s just a little + book about the connection of the Subconscious with the Infinite. Get into + touch with the Subconscious and you are in touch with the Universe. + Inspiration, in fact. You follow me?” + </p> + <p> + “Perfectly, perfectly,” said Denis. “But don’t you find that the Universe + sometimes sends you very irrelevant messages?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t allow it to,” Mr. Barbecue-Smith replied. “I canalise it. I bring + it down through pipes to work the turbines of my conscious mind.” + </p> + <p> + “Like Niagara,” Denis suggested. Some of Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s remarks + sounded strangely like quotations—quotations from his own works, no + doubt. + </p> + <p> + “Precisely. Like Niagara. And this is how I do it.” He leaned forward, and + with a raised forefinger marked his points as he made them, beating time, + as it were, to his discourse. “Before I go off into my trance, I + concentrate on the subject I wish to be inspired about. Let us say I am + writing about the humble heroisms; for ten minutes before I go into the + trance I think of nothing but orphans supporting their little brothers and + sisters, of dull work well and patiently done, and I focus my mind on such + great philosophical truths as the purification and uplifting of the soul + by suffering, and the alchemical transformation of leaden evil into golden + good.” (Denis again hung up his little festoon of quotation marks.) “Then + I pop off. Two or three hours later I wake up again, and find that + inspiration has done its work. Thousands of words, comforting, uplifting + words, lie before me. I type them out neatly on my machine and they are + ready for the printer.” + </p> + <p> + “It all sounds wonderfully simple,” said Denis. + </p> + <p> + “It is. All the great and splendid and divine things of life are + wonderfully simple.” (Quotation marks again.) “When I have to do my + aphorisms,” Mr. Barbecue-Smith continued, “I prelude my trance by turning + over the pages of any Dictionary of Quotations or Shakespeare Calendar + that comes to hand. That sets the key, so to speak; that ensures that the + Universe shall come flowing in, not in a continuous rush, but in + aphorismic drops. You see the idea?” + </p> + <p> + Denis nodded. Mr. Barbecue-Smith put his hand in his pocket and pulled out + a notebook. “I did a few in the train to-day,” he said, turning over the + pages. “Just dropped off into a trance in the corner of my carriage. I + find the train very conducive to good work. Here they are.” He cleared his + throat and read: + </p> + <p> + “The Mountain Road may be steep, but the air is pure up there, and it is + from the Summit that one gets the view.” + </p> + <p> + “The Things that Really Matter happen in the Heart.” + </p> + <p> + It was curious, Denis reflected, the way the Infinite sometimes repeated + itself. + </p> + <p> + “Seeing is Believing. Yes, but Believing is also Seeing. If I believe in + God, I see God, even in the things that seem to be evil.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Barbecue-Smith looked up from his notebook. “That last one,” he said, + “is particularly subtle and beautiful, don’t you think? Without + Inspiration I could never have hit on that.” He re-read the apophthegm + with a slower and more solemn utterance. “Straight from the Infinite,” he + commented reflectively, then addressed himself to the next aphorism. + </p> + <p> + “The flame of a candle gives Light, but it also Burns.” + </p> + <p> + Puzzled wrinkles appeared on Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s forehead. “I don’t + exactly know what that means,” he said. “It’s very gnomic. One could apply + it, of course to the Higher Education—illuminating, but provoking + the Lower Classes to discontent and revolution. Yes, I suppose that’s what + it is. But it’s gnomic, it’s gnomic.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. The + gong sounded again, clamorously, it seemed imploringly: dinner was growing + cold. It roused Mr. Barbecue-Smith from meditation. He turned to Denis. + </p> + <p> + “You understand me now when I advise you to cultivate your Inspiration. + Let your Subconscious work for you; turn on the Niagara of the Infinite.” + </p> + <p> + There was the sound of feet on the stairs. Mr. Barbecue-Smith got up, laid + his hand for an instant on Denis’s shoulder, and said: + </p> + <p> + “No more now. Another time. And remember, I rely absolutely on your + discretion in this matter. There are intimate, sacred things that one + doesn’t wish to be generally known.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” said Denis. “I quite understand.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VII. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>t Crome all the + beds were ancient hereditary pieces of furniture. Huge beds, like + four-masted ships, with furled sails of shining coloured stuff. Beds + carved and inlaid, beds painted and gilded. Beds of walnut and oak, of + rare exotic woods. Beds of every date and fashion from the time of Sir + Ferdinando, who built the house, to the time of his namesake in the late + eighteenth century, the last of the family, but all of them grandiose, + magnificent. + </p> + <p> + The finest of all was now Anne’s bed. Sir Julius, son to Sir Ferdinando, + had had it made in Venice against his wife’s first lying-in. Early + seicento Venice had expended all its extravagant art in the making of it. + The body of the bed was like a great square sarcophagus. Clustering roses + were carved in high relief on its wooden panels, and luscious putti + wallowed among the roses. On the black ground-work of the panels the + carved reliefs were gilded and burnished. The golden roses twined in + spirals up the four pillar-like posts, and cherubs, seated at the top of + each column, supported a wooden canopy fretted with the same carved + flowers. + </p> + <p> + Anne was reading in bed. Two candles stood on the little table beside her, + in their rich light her face, her bare arm and shoulder took on warm hues + and a sort of peach-like quality of surface. Here and there in the canopy + above her carved golden petals shone brightly among profound shadows, and + the soft light, falling on the sculptured panel of the bed, broke + restlessly among the intricate roses, lingered in a broad caress on the + blown cheeks, the dimpled bellies, the tight, absurd little posteriors of + the sprawling putti. + </p> + <p> + There was a discreet tap at the door. She looked up. “Come in, come in.” A + face, round and childish, within its sleek bell of golden hair, peered + round the opening door. More childish-looking still, a suit of mauve + pyjamas made its entrance. + </p> + <p> + It was Mary. “I thought I’d just look in for a moment to say good-night,” + she said, and sat down on the edge of the bed. + </p> + <p> + Anne closed her book. “That was very sweet of you.” + </p> + <p> + “What are you reading?” She looked at the book. “Rather second-rate, isn’t + it?” The tone in which Mary pronounced the word “second-rate” implied an + almost infinite denigration. She was accustomed in London to associate + only with first-rate people who liked first-rate things, and she knew that + there were very, very few first-rate things in the world, and that those + were mostly French. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I’m afraid I like it,” said Anne. There was nothing more to be + said. The silence that followed was a rather uncomfortable one. Mary + fiddled uneasily with the bottom button of her pyjama jacket. Leaning back + on her mound of heaped-up pillows, Anne waited and wondered what was + coming. + </p> + <p> + “I’m so awfully afraid of repressions,” said Mary at last, bursting + suddenly and surprisingly into speech. She pronounced the words on the + tail-end of an expiring breath, and had to gasp for new air almost before + the phrase was finished. + </p> + <p> + “What’s there to be depressed about?” + </p> + <p> + “I said repressions, not depressions.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, repressions; I see,” said Anne. “But repressions of what?” + </p> + <p> + Mary had to explain. “The natural instincts of sex...” she began + didactically. But Anne cut her short. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes. Perfectly. I understand. Repressions! old maids and all the + rest. But what about them?” + </p> + <p> + “That’s just it,” said Mary. “I’m afraid of them. It’s always dangerous to + repress one’s instincts. I’m beginning to detect in myself symptoms like + the ones you read of in the books. I constantly dream that I’m falling + down wells; and sometimes I even dream that I’m climbing up ladders. It’s + most disquieting. The symptoms are only too clear.” + </p> + <p> + “Are they?” + </p> + <p> + “One may become a nymphomaniac if one’s not careful. You’ve no idea how + serious these repressions are if you don’t get rid of them in time.” + </p> + <p> + “It sounds too awful,” said Anne. “But I don’t see that I can do anything + to help you.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought I’d just like to talk it over with you.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, of course; I’m only too happy, Mary darling.” + </p> + <p> + Mary coughed and drew a deep breath. “I presume,” she began sententiously, + “I presume we may take for granted that an intelligent young woman of + twenty-three who has lived in civilised society in the twentieth century + has no prejudices.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I confess I still have a few.” + </p> + <p> + “But not about repressions.” + </p> + <p> + “No, not many about repressions; that’s true.” + </p> + <p> + “Or, rather, about getting rid of repressions.” + </p> + <p> + “Exactly.” + </p> + <p> + “So much for our fundamental postulate,” said Mary. Solemnity was + expressed in every feature of her round young face, radiated from her + large blue eyes. “We come next to the desirability of possessing + experience. I hope we are agreed that knowledge is desirable and that + ignorance is undesirable.” + </p> + <p> + Obedient as one of those complaisant disciples from whom Socrates could + get whatever answer he chose, Anne gave her assent to this proposition. + </p> + <p> + “And we are equally agreed, I hope, that marriage is what it is.” + </p> + <p> + “It is.” + </p> + <p> + “Good!” said Mary. “And repressions being what they are...” + </p> + <p> + “Exactly.” + </p> + <p> + “There would therefore seem to be only one conclusion.” + </p> + <p> + “But I knew that,” Anne exclaimed, “before you began.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but now it’s been proved,” said Mary. “One must do things logically. + The question is now...” + </p> + <p> + “But where does the question come in? You’ve reached your only possible + conclusion—logically, which is more than I could have done. All that + remains is to impart the information to someone you like—someone you + like really rather a lot, someone you’re in love with, if I may express + myself so baldly.” + </p> + <p> + “But that’s just where the question comes in,” Mary exclaimed. “I’m not in + love with anybody.” + </p> + <p> + “Then, if I were you, I should wait till you are.” + </p> + <p> + “But I can’t go on dreaming night after night that I’m falling down a + well. It’s too dangerous.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, if it really is TOO dangerous, then of course you must do something + about it; you must find somebody else.” + </p> + <p> + “But who?” A thoughtful frown puckered Mary’s brow. “It must be somebody + intelligent, somebody with intellectual interests that I can share. And it + must be somebody with a proper respect for women, somebody who’s prepared + to talk seriously about his work and his ideas and about my work and my + ideas. It isn’t, as you see, at all easy to find the right person.” + </p> + <p> + “Well” said Anne, “there are three unattached and intelligent men in the + house at the present time. There’s Mr. Scogan, to begin with; but perhaps + he’s rather too much of a genuine antique. And there are Gombauld and + Denis. Shall we say that the choice is limited to the last two?” + </p> + <p> + Mary nodded. “I think we had better,” she said, and then hesitated, with a + certain air of embarrassment. + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” + </p> + <p> + “I was wondering,” said Mary, with a gasp, “whether they really were + unattached. I thought that perhaps you might...you might...” + </p> + <p> + “It was very nice of you to think of me, Mary darling,” said Anne, smiling + the tight cat’s smile. “But as far as I’m concerned, they are both + entirely unattached.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m very glad of that,” said Mary, looking relieved. “We are now + confronted with the question: Which of the two?” + </p> + <p> + “I can give no advice. It’s a matter for your taste.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s not a matter of my taste,” Mary pronounced, “but of their merits. We + must weigh them and consider them carefully and dispassionately.” + </p> + <p> + “You must do the weighing yourself,” said Anne; there was still the trace + of a smile at the corners of her mouth and round the half-closed eyes. “I + won’t run the risk of advising you wrongly.” + </p> + <p> + “Gombauld has more talent,” Mary began, “but he is less civilised than + Denis.” Mary’s pronunciation of “civilised” gave the word a special and + additional significance. She uttered it meticulously, in the very front of + her mouth, hissing delicately on the opening sibilant. So few people were + civilised, and they, like the first-rate works of art, were mostly French. + “Civilisation is most important, don’t you think?” + </p> + <p> + Anne held up her hand. “I won’t advise,” she said. “You must make the + decision.” + </p> + <p> + “Gombauld’s family,” Mary went on reflectively, “comes from Marseilles. + Rather a dangerous heredity, when one thinks of the Latin attitude towards + women. But then, I sometimes wonder whether Denis is altogether + serious-minded, whether he isn’t rather a dilettante. It’s very difficult. + What do you think?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not listening,” said Anne. “I refuse to take any responsibility.” + </p> + <p> + Mary sighed. “Well,” she said, “I think I had better go to bed and think + about it.” + </p> + <p> + “Carefully and dispassionately,” said Anne. + </p> + <p> + At the door Mary turned round. “Good-night,” she said, and wondered as she + said the words why Anne was smiling in that curious way. It was probably + nothing, she reflected. Anne often smiled for no apparent reason; it was + probably just a habit. “I hope I shan’t dream of falling down wells again + to-night,” she added. + </p> + <p> + “Ladders are worse,” said Anne. + </p> + <p> + Mary nodded. “Yes, ladders are much graver.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VIII. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>reakfast on Sunday + morning was an hour later than on week-days, and Priscilla, who usually + made no public appearance before luncheon, honoured it by her presence. + Dressed in black silk, with a ruby cross as well as her customary string + of pearls round her neck, she presided. An enormous Sunday paper concealed + all but the extreme pinnacle of her coiffure from the outer world. + </p> + <p> + “I see Surrey has won,” she said, with her mouth full, “by four wickets. + The sun is in Leo: that would account for it!” + </p> + <p> + “Splendid game, cricket,” remarked Mr. Barbecue-Smith heartily to no one + in particular; “so thoroughly English.” + </p> + <p> + Jenny, who was sitting next to him, woke up suddenly with a start. “What?” + she said. “What?” + </p> + <p> + “So English,” repeated Mr. Barbecue-Smith. + </p> + <p> + Jenny looked at him, surprised. “English? Of course I am.” + </p> + <p> + He was beginning to explain, when Mrs. Wimbush vailed her Sunday paper, + and appeared, a square, mauve-powdered face in the midst of orange + splendours. “I see there’s a new series of articles on the next world just + beginning,” she said to Mr. Barbecue-Smith. “This one’s called ‘Summer + Land and Gehenna.’” + </p> + <p> + “Summer Land,” echoed Mr. Barbecue-Smith, closing his eyes. “Summer Land. + A beautiful name. Beautiful—beautiful.” + </p> + <p> + Mary had taken the seat next to Denis’s. After a night of careful + consideration she had decided on Denis. He might have less talent than + Gombauld, he might be a little lacking in seriousness, but somehow he was + safer. + </p> + <p> + “Are you writing much poetry here in the country?” she asked, with a + bright gravity. + </p> + <p> + “None,” said Denis curtly. “I haven’t brought my typewriter.” + </p> + <p> + “But do you mean to say you can’t write without a typewriter?” + </p> + <p> + Denis shook his head. He hated talking at breakfast, and, besides, he + wanted to hear what Mr. Scogan was saying at the other end of the table. + </p> + <p> + “...My scheme for dealing with the Church,” Mr. Scogan was saying, “is + beautifully simple. At the present time the Anglican clergy wear their + collars the wrong way round. I would compel them to wear, not only their + collars, but all their clothes, turned back to frantic—coat, + waistcoat, trousers, boots—so that every clergyman should present to + the world a smooth facade, unbroken by stud, button, or lace. The + enforcement of such a livery would act as a wholesome deterrent to those + intending to enter the Church. At the same time it would enormously + enhance, what Archbishop Laud so rightly insisted on, the ‘beauty of + holiness’ in the few incorrigibles who could not be deterred.” + </p> + <p> + “In hell, it seems,” said Priscilla, reading in her Sunday paper, “the + children amuse themselves by flaying lambs alive.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, but, dear lady, that’s only a symbol,” exclaimed Mr. Barbecue-Smith, + “a material symbol of a h-piritual truth. Lambs signify...” + </p> + <p> + “Then there are military uniforms,” Mr. Scogan went on. “When scarlet and + pipe-clay were abandoned for khaki, there were some who trembled for the + future of war. But then, finding how elegant the new tunic was, how + closely it clipped the waist, how voluptuously, with the lateral bustles + of the pockets, it exaggerated the hips; when they realized the brilliant + potentialities of breeches and top-boots, they were reassured. Abolish + these military elegances, standardise a uniform of sack-cloth and + mackintosh, you will very soon find that...” + </p> + <p> + “Is anyone coming to church with me this morning?” asked Henry Wimbush. No + one responded. He baited his bare invitation. “I read the lessons, you + know. And there’s Mr. Bodiham. His sermons are sometimes worth hearing.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you, thank you,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. “I for one prefer to + worship in the infinite church of Nature. How does our Shakespeare put it? + ‘Sermons in books, stones in the running brooks.’” He waved his arm in a + fine gesture towards the window, and even as he did so he became vaguely, + but none the less insistently, none the less uncomfortably aware that + something had gone wrong with the quotation. Something—what could it + be? Sermons? Stones? Books? + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IX. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>r. Bodiham was + sitting in his study at the Rectory. The nineteenth-century Gothic + windows, narrow and pointed, admitted the light grudgingly; in spite of + the brilliant July weather, the room was sombre. Brown varnished + bookshelves lined the walls, filled with row upon row of those thick, + heavy theological works which the second-hand booksellers generally sell + by weight. The mantelpiece, the over-mantel, a towering structure of + spindly pillars and little shelves, were brown and varnished. The + writing-desk was brown and varnished. So were the chairs, so was the door. + A dark red-brown carpet with patterns covered the floor. Everything was + brown in the room, and there was a curious brownish smell. + </p> + <p> + In the midst of this brown gloom Mr. Bodiham sat at his desk. He was the + man in the Iron Mask. A grey metallic face with iron cheek-bones and a + narrow iron brow; iron folds, hard and unchanging, ran perpendicularly + down his cheeks; his nose was the iron beak of some thin, delicate bird of + rapine. He had brown eyes, set in sockets rimmed with iron; round them the + skin was dark, as though it had been charred. Dense wiry hair covered his + skull; it had been black, it was turning grey. His ears were very small + and fine. His jaws, his chin, his upper lip were dark, iron-dark, where he + had shaved. His voice, when he spoke and especially when he raised it in + preaching, was harsh, like the grating of iron hinges when a seldom-used + door is opened. + </p> + <p> + It was nearly half-past twelve. He had just come back from church, hoarse + and weary with preaching. He preached with fury, with passion, an iron man + beating with a flail upon the souls of his congregation. But the souls of + the faithful at Crome were made of india-rubber, solid rubber; the flail + rebounded. They were used to Mr. Bodiham at Crome. The flail thumped on + india-rubber, and as often as not the rubber slept. + </p> + <p> + That morning he had preached, as he had often preached before, on the + nature of God. He had tried to make them understand about God, what a + fearful thing it was to fall into His hands. God—they thought of + something soft and merciful. They blinded themselves to facts; still more, + they blinded themselves to the Bible. The passengers on the “Titanic” sang + “Nearer my God to Thee” as the ship was going down. Did they realise what + they were asking to be brought nearer to? A white fire of righteousness, + an angry fire... + </p> + <p> + When Savonarola preached, men sobbed and groaned aloud. Nothing broke the + polite silence with which Crome listened to Mr. Bodiham—only an + occasional cough and sometimes the sound of heavy breathing. In the front + pew sat Henry Wimbush, calm, well-bred, beautifully dressed. There were + times when Mr. Bodiham wanted to jump down from the pulpit and shake him + into life,—times when he would have liked to beat and kill his whole + congregation. + </p> + <p> + He sat at his desk dejectedly. Outside the Gothic windows the earth was + warm and marvellously calm. Everything was as it had always been. And yet, + and yet...It was nearly four years now since he had preached that sermon + on Matthew xxiv. 7: “For nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom + against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and + earthquakes, in divers places.” It was nearly four years. He had had the + sermon printed; it was so terribly, so vitally important that all the + world should know what he had to say. A copy of the little pamphlet lay on + his desk—eight small grey pages, printed by a fount of type that had + grown blunt, like an old dog’s teeth, by the endless champing and champing + of the press. He opened it and began to read it yet once again. + </p> + <p> + “‘For nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: + and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers + places.’ + </p> + <p> + “Nineteen centuries have elapsed since Our Lord gave utterance to those + words, and not a single one of them has been without wars, plagues, + famines, and earthquakes. Mighty empires have crashed in ruin to the + ground, diseases have unpeopled half the globe, there have been vast + natural cataclysms in which thousands have been overwhelmed by flood and + fire and whirlwind. Time and again, in the course of these nineteen + centuries, such things have happened, but they have not brought Christ + back to earth. They were ‘signs of the times’ inasmuch as they were signs + of God’s wrath against the chronic wickedness of mankind, but they were + not signs of the times in connection with the Second Coming. + </p> + <p> + “If earnest Christians have regarded the present war as a true sign of the + Lord’s approaching return, it is not merely because it happens to be a + great war involving the lives of millions of people, not merely because + famine is tightening its grip on every country in Europe, not merely + because disease of every kind, from syphilis to spotted fever, is rife + among the warring nations; no, it is not for these reasons that we regard + this war as a true Sign of the Times, but because in its origin and its + progress it is marked by certain characteristics which seem to connect it + almost beyond a doubt with the predictions in Christian Prophecy relating + to the Second Coming of the Lord. + </p> + <p> + “Let me enumerate the features of the present war which most clearly + suggest that it is a Sign foretelling the near approach of the Second + Advent. Our Lord said that ‘this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached + in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end + come.’ Although it would be presumptuous for us to say what degree of + evangelisation will be regarded by God as sufficient, we may at least + confidently hope that a century of unflagging missionary work has brought + the fulfilment of this condition at any rate near. True, the larger number + of the world’s inhabitants have remained deaf to the preaching of the true + religion; but that does not vitiate the fact that the Gospel HAS been + preached ‘for a witness’ to all unbelievers from the Papist to the Zulu. + The responsibility for the continued prevalence of unbelief lies, not with + the preachers, but with those preached to. + </p> + <p> + “Again, it has been generally recognised that ‘the drying up of the waters + of the great river Euphrates,’ mentioned in the sixteenth chapter of + Revelation, refers to the decay and extinction of Turkish power, and is a + sign of the near approaching end of the world as we know it. The capture + of Jerusalem and the successes in Mesopotamia are great strides forward in + the destruction of the Ottoman Empire; though it must be admitted that the + Gallipoli episode proved that the Turk still possesses a ‘notable horn’ of + strength. Historically speaking, this drying up of Ottoman power has been + going on for the past century; the last two years have witnessed a great + acceleration of the process, and there can be no doubt that complete + desiccation is within sight. + </p> + <p> + “Closely following on the words concerning the drying up of Euphrates + comes the prophecy of Armageddon, that world war with which the Second + Coming is to be so closely associated. Once begun, the world war can end + only with the return of Christ, and His coming will be sudden and + unexpected, like that of a thief in the night. + </p> + <p> + “Let us examine the facts. In history, exactly as in St. John’s Gospel, + the world war is immediately preceded by the drying up of Euphrates, or + the decay of Turkish power. This fact alone would be enough to connect the + present conflict with the Armageddon of Revelation and therefore to point + to the near approach of the Second Advent. But further evidence of an even + more solid and convincing nature can be adduced. + </p> + <p> + “Armageddon is brought about by the activities of three unclean spirits, + as it were toads, which come out of the mouths of the Dragon, the Beast, + and the False Prophet. If we can identify these three powers of evil much + light will clearly be thrown on the whole question. + </p> + <p> + “The Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet can all be identified in + history. Satan, who can only work through human agency, has used these + three powers in the long war against Christ which has filled the last + nineteen centuries with religious strife. The Dragon, it has been + sufficiently established, is pagan Rome, and the spirit issuing from its + mouth is the spirit of Infidelity. The Beast, alternatively symbolised as + a Woman, is undoubtedly the Papal power, and Popery is the spirit which it + spews forth. There is only one power which answers to the description of + the False Prophet, the wolf in sheep’s clothing, the agent of the devil + working in the guise of the Lamb, and that power is the so-called ‘Society + of Jesus.’ The spirit that issues from the mouth of the False Prophet is + the spirit of False Morality. + </p> + <p> + “We may assume, then, that the three evil spirits are Infidelity, Popery, + and False Morality. Have these three influences been the real cause of the + present conflict? The answer is clear. + </p> + <p> + “The spirit of Infidelity is the very spirit of German criticism. The + Higher Criticism, as it is mockingly called, denies the possibility of + miracles, prediction, and real inspiration, and attempts to account for + the Bible as a natural development. Slowly but surely, during the last + eighty years, the spirit of Infidelity has been robbing the Germans of + their Bible and their faith, so that Germany is to-day a nation of + unbelievers. Higher Criticism has thus made the war possible; for it would + be absolutely impossible for any Christian nation to wage war as Germany + is waging it. + </p> + <p> + “We come next to the spirit of Popery, whose influence in causing the war + was quite as great as that of Infidelity, though not, perhaps, so + immediately obvious. Since the Franco-Prussian War the Papal power has + steadily declined in France, while in Germany it has steadily increased. + To-day France is an anti-papal state, while Germany possesses a powerful + Roman Catholic minority. Two papally controlled states, Germany and + Austria, are at war with six anti-papal states—England, France, + Italy, Russia, Serbia, and Portugal. Belgium is, of course, a thoroughly + papal state, and there can be little doubt that the presence on the + Allies’ side of an element so essentially hostile has done much to hamper + the righteous cause and is responsible for our comparative ill-success. + That the spirit of Popery is behind the war is thus seen clearly enough in + the grouping of the opposed powers, while the rebellion in the Roman + Catholic parts of Ireland has merely confirmed a conclusion already + obvious to any unbiased mind. + </p> + <p> + “The spirit of False Morality has played as great a part in this war as + the two other evil spirits. The Scrap of Paper incident is the nearest and + most obvious example of Germany’s adherence to this essentially + unchristian or Jesuitical morality. The end is German world-power, and in + the attainment of this end, any means are justifiable. It is the true + principle of Jesuitry applied to international politics. + </p> + <p> + “The identification is now complete. As was predicted in Revelation, the + three evil spirits have gone forth just as the decay of the Ottoman power + was nearing completion, and have joined together to make the world war. + The warning, ‘Behold, I come as a thief,’ is therefore meant for the + present period—for you and me and all the world. This war will lead + on inevitably to the war of Armageddon, and will only be brought to an end + by the Lord’s personal return. + </p> + <p> + “And when He returns, what will happen? Those who are in Christ, St. John + tells us, will be called to the Supper of the Lamb. Those who are found + fighting against Him will be called to the Supper of the Great God—that + grim banquet where they shall not feast, but be feasted on. ‘For,’ as St. + John says, ‘I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried in a loud + voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and + gather yourselves together unto the supper of the Great God; that ye may + eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty + men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh + of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.’ All the enemies of + Christ will be slain with the sword of him that sits upon the horse, ‘and + all the fowls will be filled with their flesh.’ That is the Supper of the + Great God. + </p> + <p> + “It may be soon or it may, as men reckon time, be long; but sooner or + later, inevitably, the Lord will come and deliver the world from its + present troubles. And woe unto them who are called, not to the Supper of + the Lamb, but to the Supper of the Great God. They will realise then, but + too late, that God is a God of Wrath as well as a God of Forgiveness. The + God who sent bears to devour the mockers of Elisha, the God who smote the + Egyptians for their stubborn wickedness, will assuredly smite them too, + unless they make haste to repent. But perhaps it is already too late. Who + knows but that to-morrow, in a moment even, Christ may be upon us + unawares, like a thief? In a little while, who knows? The angel standing + in the sun may be summoning the ravens and vultures from their crannies in + the rocks to feed upon the putrefying flesh of the millions of unrighteous + whom God’s wrath has destroyed. Be ready, then; the coming of the Lord is + at hand. May it be for all of you an object of hope, not a moment to look + forward to with terror and trembling.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Bodiham closed the little pamphlet and leaned back in his chair. The + argument was sound, absolutely compelling; and yet—it was four years + since he had preached that sermon; four years, and England was at peace, + the sun shone, the people of Crome were as wicked and indifferent as ever—more + so, indeed, if that were possible. If only he could understand, if the + heavens would but make a sign! But his questionings remained unanswered. + Seated there in his brown varnished chair under the Ruskinian window, he + could have screamed aloud. He gripped the arms of his chair—gripping, + gripping for control. The knuckles of his hands whitened; he bit his lip. + In a few seconds he was able to relax the tension; he began to rebuke + himself for his rebellious impatience. + </p> + <p> + Four years, he reflected; what were four years, after all? It must + inevitably take a long time for Armageddon to ripen to yeast itself up. + The episode of 1914 had been a preliminary skirmish. And as for the war + having come to an end—why, that, of course, was illusory. It was + still going on, smouldering away in Silesia, in Ireland, in Anatolia; the + discontent in Egypt and India was preparing the way, perhaps, for a great + extension of the slaughter among the heathen peoples. The Chinese boycott + of Japan, and the rivalries of that country and America in the Pacific, + might be breeding a great new war in the East. The prospect, Mr. Bodiham + tried to assure himself, was hopeful; the real, the genuine Armageddon + might soon begin, and then, like a thief in the night...But, in spite of + all his comfortable reasoning, he remained unhappy, dissatisfied. Four + years ago he had been so confident; God’s intention seemed then so plain. + And now? Now, he did well to be angry. And now he suffered too. + </p> + <p> + Sudden and silent as a phantom Mrs. Bodiham appeared, gliding noiselessly + across the room. Above her black dress her face was pale with an opaque + whiteness, her eyes were pale as water in a glass, and her strawy hair was + almost colourless. She held a large envelope in her hand. + </p> + <p> + “This came for you by the post,” she said softly. + </p> + <p> + The envelope was unsealed. Mechanically Mr. Bodiham tore it open. It + contained a pamphlet, larger than his own and more elegant in appearance. + “The House of Sheeny, Clerical Outfitters, Birmingham.” He turned over the + pages. The catalogue was tastefully and ecclesiastically printed in + antique characters with illuminated Gothic initials. Red marginal lines, + crossed at the corners after the manner of an Oxford picture frame, + enclosed each page of type, little red crosses took the place of full + stops. Mr. Bodiham turned the pages. + </p> + <p> + “Soutane in best black merino. Ready to wear; in all sizes. Clerical frock + coats. From nine guineas. A dressy garment, tailored by our own + experienced ecclesiastical cutters.” + </p> + <p> + Half-tone illustrations represented young curates, some dapper, some + Rugbeian and muscular, some with ascetic faces and large ecstatic eyes, + dressed in jackets, in frock-coats, in surplices, in clerical evening + dress, in black Norfolk suitings. + </p> + <p> + “A large assortment of chasubles. + </p> + <p> + “Rope girdles. + </p> + <p> + “Sheeny’s Special Skirt Cassocks. Tied by a string about the waist...When + worn under a surplice presents an appearance indistinguishable from that + of a complete cassock...Recommended for summer wear and hot climates.” + </p> + <p> + With a gesture of horror and disgust Mr. Bodiham threw the catalogue into + the waste-paper basket. Mrs. Bodiham looked at him; her pale, glaucous + eyes reflected his action without comment. + </p> + <p> + “The village,” she said in her quiet voice, “the village grows worse and + worse every day.” + </p> + <p> + “What has happened now?” asked Mr. Bodiham, feeling suddenly very weary. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll tell you.” She pulled up a brown varnished chair and sat down. In + the village of Crome, it seemed, Sodom and Gomorrah had come to a second + birth. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER X. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">D</span>enis did not + dance, but when ragtime came squirting out of the pianola in gushes of + treacle and hot perfume, in jets of Bengal light, then things began to + dance inside him. Little black nigger corpuscles jigged and drummed in his + arteries. He became a cage of movement, a walking palais de danse. It was + very uncomfortable, like the preliminary symptoms of a disease. He sat in + one of the window-seats, glumly pretending to read. + </p> + <p> + At the pianola, Henry Wimbush, smoking a long cigar through a tunnelled + pillar of amber, trod out the shattering dance music with serene patience. + Locked together, Gombauld and Anne moved with a harmoniousness that made + them seem a single creature, two-headed and four-legged. Mr. Scogan, + solemnly buffoonish, shuffled round the room with Mary. Jenny sat in the + shadow behind the piano, scribbling, so it seemed, in a big red notebook. + In arm-chairs by the fireplace, Priscilla and Mr. Barbecue-Smith discussed + higher things, without, apparently, being disturbed by the noise on the + Lower Plane. + </p> + <p> + “Optimism,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith with a tone of finality, speaking + through strains of the “Wild, Wild Women”—“optimism is the opening + out of the soul towards the light; it is an expansion towards and into + God, it is a h-piritual self-unification with the Infinite.” + </p> + <p> + “How true!” sighed Priscilla, nodding the baleful splendours of her + coiffure. + </p> + <p> + “Pessimism, on the other hand, is the contraction of the soul towards + darkness; it is a focusing of the self upon a point in the Lower Plane; it + is a h-piritual slavery to mere facts; to gross physical phenomena.” + </p> + <p> + “They’re making a wild man of me.” The refrain sang itself over in Denis’s + mind. Yes, they were; damn them! A wild man, but not wild enough; that was + the trouble. Wild inside; raging, writhing—yes, “writhing” was the + word, writhing with desire. But outwardly he was hopelessly tame; + outwardly—baa, baa, baa. + </p> + <p> + There they were, Anne and Gombauld, moving together as though they were a + single supple creature. The beast with two backs. And he sat in a corner, + pretending to read, pretending he didn’t want to dance, pretending he + rather despised dancing. Why? It was the baa-baa business again. + </p> + <p> + Why was he born with a different face? Why WAS he? Gombauld had a face of + brass—one of those old, brazen rams that thumped against the walls + of cities till they fell. He was born with a different face—a woolly + face. + </p> + <p> + The music stopped. The single harmonious creature broke in two. Flushed, a + little breathless, Anne swayed across the room to the pianola, laid her + hand on Mr. Wimbush’s shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “A waltz this time, please, Uncle Henry,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “A waltz,” he repeated, and turned to the cabinet where the rolls were + kept. He trod off the old roll and trod on the new, a slave at the mill, + uncomplaining and beautifully well bred. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “Rum; Tum; Rum-ti-ti; Tum-ti-ti...” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + The melody wallowed oozily along, like a ship moving forward over a sleek + and oily swell. The four-legged creature, more graceful, more harmonious + in its movements than ever, slid across the floor. Oh, why was he born + with a different face? + </p> + <p> + “What are you reading?” + </p> + <p> + He looked up, startled. It was Mary. She had broken from the uncomfortable + embrace of Mr. Scogan, who had now seized on Jenny for his victim. + </p> + <p> + “What are you reading?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know,” said Denis truthfully. He looked at the title page; the + book was called “The Stock Breeder’s Vade Mecum.” + </p> + <p> + “I think you are so sensible to sit and read quietly,” said Mary, fixing + him with her china eyes. “I don’t know why one dances. It’s so boring.” + </p> + <p> + Denis made no reply; she exacerbated him. From the arm-chair by the + fireplace he heard Priscilla’s deep voice. + </p> + <p> + “Tell me, Mr Barbecue-Smith—you know all about science, I know—” + A deprecating noise came from Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s chair. “This Einstein + theory. It seems to upset the whole starry universe. It makes me so + worried about my horoscopes. You see...” + </p> + <p> + Mary renewed her attack. “Which of the contemporary poets do you like + best?” she asked. Denis was filled with fury. Why couldn’t this pest of a + girl leave him alone? He wanted to listen to the horrible music, to watch + them dancing—oh, with what grace, as though they had been made for + one another!—to savour his misery in peace. And she came and put him + through this absurd catechism! She was like “Mangold’s Questions”: “What + are the three diseases of wheat?”—“Which of the contemporary poets + do you like best?” + </p> + <p> + “Blight, Mildew, and Smut,” he replied, with the laconism of one who is + absolutely certain of his own mind. + </p> + <p> + It was several hours before Denis managed to go to sleep that night. Vague + but agonising miseries possessed his mind. It was not only Anne who made + him miserable; he was wretched about himself, the future, life in general, + the universe. “This adolescence business,” he repeated to himself every + now and then, “is horribly boring.” But the fact that he knew his disease + did not help him to cure it. + </p> + <p> + After kicking all the clothes off the bed, he got up and sought relief in + composition. He wanted to imprison his nameless misery in words. At the + end of an hour, nine more or less complete lines emerged from among the + blots and scratchings. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “I do not know what I desire + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + When summer nights are dark and still, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + When the wind’s many-voiced quire + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Sleeps among the muffled branches. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + I long and know not what I will: + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And not a sound of life or laughter stanches + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Time’s black and silent flow. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + I do not know what I desire, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + I do not know.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + He read it through aloud; then threw the scribbled sheet into the + waste-paper basket and got into bed again. In a very few minutes he was + asleep. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XI. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>r. Barbecue-Smith + was gone. The motor had whirled him away to the station; a faint smell of + burning oil commemorated his recent departure. A considerable detachment + had come into the courtyard to speed him on his way; and now they were + walking back, round the side of the house, towards the terrace and the + garden. They walked in silence; nobody had yet ventured to comment on the + departed guest. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” said Anne at last, turning with raised inquiring eyebrows to + Denis. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” It was time for someone to begin. + </p> + <p> + Denis declined the invitation; he passed it on to Mr Scogan. “Well?” he + said. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan did not respond; he only repeated the question, “Well?” + </p> + <p> + It was left for Henry Wimbush to make a pronouncement. “A very agreeable + adjunct to the week-end,” he said. His tone was obituary. + </p> + <p> + They had descended, without paying much attention where they were going, + the steep yew-walk that went down, under the flank of the terrace, to the + pool. The house towered above them, immensely tall, with the whole height + of the built-up terrace added to its own seventy feet of brick façade. The + perpendicular lines of the three towers soared up, uninterrupted, + enhancing the impression of height until it became overwhelming. They + paused at the edge of the pool to look back. + </p> + <p> + “The man who built this house knew his business,” said Denis. “He was an + architect.” + </p> + <p> + “Was he?” said Henry Wimbush reflectively. “I doubt it. The builder of + this house was Sir Ferdinando Lapith, who flourished during the reign of + Elizabeth. He inherited the estate from his father, to whom it had been + granted at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries; for Crome was + originally a cloister of monks and this swimming-pool their fish-pond. Sir + Ferdinando was not content merely to adapt the old monastic buildings to + his own purposes; but using them as a stone quarry for his barns and byres + and outhouses, he built for himself a grand new house of brick—the + house you see now.” + </p> + <p> + He waved his hand in the direction of the house and was silent, severe, + imposing, almost menacing, Crome loomed down on them. + </p> + <p> + “The great thing about Crome,” said Mr. Scogan, seizing the opportunity to + speak, “is the fact that it’s so unmistakably and aggressively a work of + art. It makes no compromise with nature, but affronts it and rebels + against it. It has no likeness to Shelley’s tower, in the ‘Epipsychidion,’ + which, if I remember rightly—” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “‘Seems not now a work of human art, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + But as it were titanic, in the heart + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Of earth having assumed its form and grown + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Out of the mountain, from the living stone, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Lifting itself in caverns light and high.’ + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + “No, no, there isn’t any nonsense of that sort about Crome. That the + hovels of the peasantry should look as though they had grown out of the + earth, to which their inmates are attached, is right, no doubt, and + suitable. But the house of an intelligent, civilised, and sophisticated + man should never seem to have sprouted from the clods. It should rather be + an expression of his grand unnatural remoteness from the cloddish life. + Since the days of William Morris that’s a fact which we in England have + been unable to comprehend. Civilised and sophisticated men have solemnly + played at being peasants. Hence quaintness, arts and crafts, cottage + architecture, and all the rest of it. In the suburbs of our cities you may + see, reduplicated in endless rows, studiedly quaint imitations and + adaptations of the village hovel. Poverty, ignorance, and a limited range + of materials produced the hovel, which possesses undoubtedly, in suitable + surroundings, its own ‘as it were titanic’ charm. We now employ our + wealth, our technical knowledge, our rich variety of materials for the + purpose of building millions of imitation hovels in totally unsuitable + surroundings. Could imbecility go further?” + </p> + <p> + Henry Wimbush took up the thread of his interrupted discourse. “All that + you say, my dear Scogan,” he began, “is certainly very just, very true. + But whether Sir Ferdinando shared your views about architecture or if, + indeed, he had any views about architecture at all, I very much doubt. In + building this house, Sir Ferdinando was, as a matter of fact, preoccupied + by only one thought—the proper placing of his privies. Sanitation + was the one great interest of his life. In 1573 he even published, on this + subject, a little book—now extremely scarce—called, ‘Certaine + Priuy Counsels’ by ‘One of Her Maiestie’s Most Honourable Priuy Counsels, + F.L. Knight’, in which the whole matter is treated with great learning and + elegance. His guiding principle in arranging the sanitation of a house was + to secure that the greatest possible distance should separate the privy + from the sewage arrangements. Hence it followed inevitably that the + privies were to be placed at the top of the house, being connected by + vertical shafts with pits or channels in the ground. It must not be + thought that Sir Ferdinando was moved only by material and merely sanitary + considerations; for the placing of his privies in an exalted position he + had also certain excellent spiritual reasons. For, he argues in the third + chapter of his ‘Priuy Counsels’, the necessities of nature are so base and + brutish that in obeying them we are apt to forget that we are the noblest + creatures of the universe. To counteract these degrading effects he + advised that the privy should be in every house the room nearest to + heaven, that it should be well provided with windows commanding an + extensive and noble prospect, and that the walls of the chamber should be + lined with bookshelves containing all the ripest products of human wisdom, + such as the Proverbs of Solomon, Boethius’s ‘Consolations of Philosophy’, + the apophthegms of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, the ‘Enchiridion’ of + Erasmus, and all other works, ancient or modern, which testify to the + nobility of the human soul. In Crome he was able to put his theories into + practice. At the top of each of the three projecting towers he placed a + privy. From these a shaft went down the whole height of the house, that is + to say, more than seventy feet, through the cellars, and into a series of + conduits provided with flowing water tunnelled in the ground on a level + with the base of the raised terrace. These conduits emptied themselves + into the stream several hundred yards below the fish-pond. The total depth + of the shafts from the top of the towers to their subterranean conduits + was a hundred and two feet. The eighteenth century, with its passion for + modernisation, swept away these monuments of sanitary ingenuity. Were it + not for tradition and the explicit account of them left by Sir Ferdinando, + we should be unaware that these noble privies had ever existed. We should + even suppose that Sir Ferdinando built his house after this strange and + splendid model for merely aesthetic reasons.” + </p> + <p> + The contemplation of the glories of the past always evoked in Henry + Wimbush a certain enthusiasm. Under the grey bowler his face worked and + glowed as he spoke. The thought of these vanished privies moved him + profoundly. He ceased to speak; the light gradually died out of his face, + and it became once more the replica of the grave, polite hat which shaded + it. There was a long silence; the same gently melancholy thoughts seemed + to possess the mind of each of them. Permanence, transience—Sir + Ferdinando and his privies were gone, Crome still stood. How brightly the + sun shone and how inevitable was death! The ways of God were strange; the + ways of man were stranger still... + </p> + <p> + “It does one’s heart good,” exclaimed Mr. Scogan at last, “to hear of + these fantastic English aristocrats. To have a theory about privies and to + build an immense and splendid house in order to put it into practise—it’s + magnificent, beautiful! I like to think of them all: the eccentric milords + rolling across Europe in ponderous carriages, bound on extraordinary + errands. One is going to Venice to buy La Bianchi’s larynx; he won’t get + it till she’s dead, of course, but no matter; he’s prepared to wait; he + has a collection, pickled in glass bottles, of the throats of famous opera + singers. And the instruments of renowned virtuosi—he goes in for + them too; he will try to bribe Paganini to part with his little Guarnerio, + but he has small hope of success. Paganini won’t sell his fiddle; but + perhaps he might sacrifice one of his guitars. Others are bound on + crusades—one to die miserably among the savage Greeks, another, in + his white top hat, to lead Italians against their oppressors. Others have + no business at all; they are just giving their oddity a continental + airing. At home they cultivate themselves at leisure and with greater + elaboration. Beckford builds towers, Portland digs holes in the ground, + Cavendish, the millionaire, lives in a stable, eats nothing but mutton, + and amuses himself—oh, solely for his private delectation—by + anticipating the electrical discoveries of half a century. Glorious + eccentrics! Every age is enlivened by their presence. Some day, my dear + Denis,” said Mr Scogan, turning a beady bright regard in his direction—“some + day you must become their biographer—‘The Lives of Queer Men.’ What + a subject! I should like to undertake it myself.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan paused, looked up once more at the towering house, then + murmured the word “Eccentricity,” two or three times. + </p> + <p> + “Eccentricity...It’s the justification of all aristocracies. It justifies + leisured classes and inherited wealth and privilege and endowments and all + the other injustices of that sort. If you’re to do anything reasonable in + this world, you must have a class of people who are secure, safe from + public opinion, safe from poverty, leisured, not compelled to waste their + time in the imbecile routines that go by the name of Honest Work. You must + have a class of which the members can think and, within the obvious + limits, do what they please. You must have a class in which people who + have eccentricities can indulge them and in which eccentricity in general + will be tolerated and understood. That’s the important thing about an + aristocracy. Not only is it eccentric itself—often grandiosely so; + it also tolerates and even encourages eccentricity in others. The + eccentricities of the artist and the new-fangled thinker don’t inspire it + with that fear, loathing, and disgust which the burgesses instinctively + feel towards them. It is a sort of Red Indian Reservation planted in the + midst of a vast horde of Poor Whites—colonials at that. Within its + boundaries wild men disport themselves—often, it must be admitted, a + little grossly, a little too flamboyantly; and when kindred spirits are + born outside the pale it offers them some sort of refuge from the hatred + which the Poor Whites, en bons bourgeois, lavish on anything that is wild + or out of the ordinary. After the social revolution there will be no + Reservations; the Redskins will be drowned in the great sea of Poor + Whites. What then? Will they suffer you to go on writing villanelles, my + good Denis? Will you, unhappy Henry, be allowed to live in this house of + the splendid privies, to continue your quiet delving in the mines of + futile knowledge? Will Anne...” + </p> + <p> + “And you,” said Anne, interrupting him, “will you be allowed to go on + talking?” + </p> + <p> + “You may rest assured,” Mr. Scogan replied, “that I shall not. I shall + have some Honest Work to do.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XII. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>light, Mildew, and + Smut...” Mary was puzzled and distressed. Perhaps her ears had played her + false. Perhaps what he had really said was, “Squire, Binyon, and Shanks,” + or “Childe, Blunden, and Earp,” or even “Abercrombie, Drinkwater, and + Rabindranath Tagore.” Perhaps. But then her ears never did play her false. + “Blight, Mildew, and Smut.” The impression was distinct and ineffaceable. + “Blight, Mildew...” she was forced to the conclusion, reluctantly, that + Denis had indeed pronounced those improbable words. He had deliberately + repelled her attempts to open a serious discussion. That was horrible. A + man who would not talk seriously to a woman just because she was a woman—oh, + impossible! Egeria or nothing. Perhaps Gombauld would be more + satisfactory. True, his meridional heredity was a little disquieting; but + at least he was a serious worker, and it was with his work that she would + associate herself. And Denis? After all, what WAS Denis? A dilettante, an + amateur... + </p> + <p> + Gombauld had annexed for his painting-room a little disused granary that + stood by itself in a green close beyond the farm-yard. It was a square + brick building with a peaked roof and little windows set high up in each + of its walls. A ladder of four rungs led up to the door; for the granary + was perched above the ground, and out of reach of the rats, on four + massive toadstools of grey stone. Within, there lingered a faint smell of + dust and cobwebs; and the narrow shaft of sunlight that came slanting in + at every hour of the day through one of the little windows was always + alive with silvery motes. Here Gombauld worked, with a kind of + concentrated ferocity, during six or seven hours of each day. He was + pursuing something new, something terrific, if only he could catch it. + </p> + <p> + During the last eight years, nearly half of which had been spent in the + process of winning the war, he had worked his way industriously through + cubism. Now he had come out on the other side. He had begun by painting a + formalised nature; then, little by little, he had risen from nature into + the world of pure form, till in the end he was painting nothing but his + own thoughts, externalised in the abstract geometrical forms of the mind’s + devising. He found the process arduous and exhilarating. And then, quite + suddenly, he grew dissatisfied; he felt himself cramped and confined + within intolerably narrow limitations. He was humiliated to find how few + and crude and uninteresting were the forms he could invent; the inventions + of nature were without number, inconceivably subtle and elaborate. He had + done with cubism. He was out on the other side. But the cubist discipline + preserved him from falling into excesses of nature worship. He took from + nature its rich, subtle, elaborate forms, but his aim was always to work + them into a whole that should have the thrilling simplicity and formality + of an idea; to combine prodigious realism with prodigious simplification. + Memories of Caravaggio’s portentous achievements haunted him. Forms of a + breathing, living reality emerged from darkness, built themselves up into + compositions as luminously simple and single as a mathematical idea. He + thought of the “Call of Matthew,” of “Peter Crucified,” of the “Lute + players,” of “Magdalen.” He had the secret, that astonishing ruffian, he + had the secret! And now Gombauld was after it, in hot pursuit. Yes, it + would be something terrific, if only he could catch it. + </p> + <p> + For a long time an idea had been stirring and spreading, yeastily, in his + mind. He had made a portfolio full of studies, he had drawn a cartoon; and + now the idea was taking shape on canvas. A man fallen from a horse. The + huge animal, a gaunt white cart-horse, filled the upper half of the + picture with its great body. Its head, lowered towards the ground, was in + shadow; the immense bony body was what arrested the eye, the body and the + legs, which came down on either side of the picture like the pillars of an + arch. On the ground, between the legs of the towering beast, lay the + foreshortened figure of a man, the head in the extreme foreground, the + arms flung wide to right and left. A white, relentless light poured down + from a point in the right foreground. The beast, the fallen man, were + sharply illuminated; round them, beyond and behind them, was the night. + They were alone in the darkness, a universe in themselves. The horse’s + body filled the upper part of the picture; the legs, the great hoofs, + frozen to stillness in the midst of their trampling, limited it on either + side. And beneath lay the man, his foreshortened face at the focal point + in the centre, his arms outstretched towards the sides of the picture. + Under the arch of the horse’s belly, between his legs, the eye looked + through into an intense darkness; below, the space was closed in by the + figure of the prostrate man. A central gulf of darkness surrounded by + luminous forms... + </p> + <p> + The picture was more than half finished. Gombauld had been at work all the + morning on the figure of the man, and now he was taking a rest—the + time to smoke a cigarette. Tilting back his chair till it touched the + wall, he looked thoughtfully at his canvas. He was pleased, and at the + same time he was desolated. In itself, the thing was good; he knew it. But + that something he was after, that something that would be so terrific if + only he could catch it—had he caught it? Would he ever catch it? + </p> + <p> + Three little taps—rat, tat, tat! Surprised, Gombauld turned his eyes + towards the door. Nobody ever disturbed him while he was at work; it was + one of the unwritten laws. “Come in!” he called. The door, which was ajar, + swung open, revealing, from the waist upwards, the form of Mary. She had + only dared to mount half-way up the ladder. If he didn’t want her, retreat + would be easier and more dignified than if she climbed to the top. + </p> + <p> + “May I come in?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly.” + </p> + <p> + She skipped up the remaining two rungs and was over the threshold in an + instant. “A letter came for you by the second post,” she said. “I thought + it might be important, so I brought it out to you.” Her eyes, her childish + face were luminously candid as she handed him the letter. There had never + been a flimsier pretext. + </p> + <p> + Gombauld looked at the envelope and put it in his pocket unopened. + “Luckily,” he said, “it isn’t at all important. Thanks very much all the + same.” + </p> + <p> + There was a silence; Mary felt a little uncomfortable. “May I have a look + at what you’ve been painting?” she had the courage to say at last. + </p> + <p> + Gombauld had only half smoked his cigarette; in any case he wouldn’t begin + work again till he had finished. He would give her the five minutes that + separated him from the bitter end. “This is the best place to see it + from,” he said. + </p> + <p> + Mary looked at the picture for some time without saying anything. Indeed, + she didn’t know what to say; she was taken aback, she was at a loss. She + had expected a cubist masterpiece, and here was a picture of a man and a + horse, not only recognisable as such, but even aggressively in drawing. + Trompe-l’oeil—there was no other word to describe the delineation of + that foreshortened figure under the trampling feet of the horse. What was + she to think, what was she to say? Her orientations were gone. One could + admire representationalism in the Old Masters. Obviously. But in a + modern...? At eighteen she might have done so. But now, after five years + of schooling among the best judges, her instinctive reaction to a + contemporary piece of representation was contempt—an outburst of + laughing disparagement. What could Gombauld be up to? She had felt so safe + in admiring his work before. But now—she didn’t know what to think. + It was very difficult, very difficult. + </p> + <p> + “There’s rather a lot of chiaroscuro, isn’t there?” she ventured at last, + and inwardly congratulated herself on having found a critical formula so + gentle and at the same time so penetrating. + </p> + <p> + “There is,” Gombauld agreed. + </p> + <p> + Mary was pleased; he accepted her criticism; it was a serious discussion. + She put her head on one side and screwed up her eyes. “I think it’s + awfully fine,” she said. “But of course it’s a little + too...too...trompe-l’oeil for my taste.” She looked at Gombauld, who made + no response, but continued to smoke, gazing meditatively all the time at + his picture. Mary went on gaspingly. “When I was in Paris this spring I + saw a lot of Tschuplitski. I admire his work so tremendously. Of course, + it’s frightfully abstract now—frightfully abstract and frightfully + intellectual. He just throws a few oblongs on to his canvas—quite + flat, you know, and painted in pure primary colours. But his design is + wonderful. He’s getting more and more abstract every day. He’d given up + the third dimension when I was there and was just thinking of giving up + the second. Soon, he says, there’ll be just the blank canvas. That’s the + logical conclusion. Complete abstraction. Painting’s finished; he’s + finishing it. When he’s reached pure abstraction he’s going to take up + architecture. He says it’s more intellectual than painting. Do you agree?” + she asked, with a final gasp. + </p> + <p> + Gombauld dropped his cigarette end and trod on it. “Tschuplitski’s + finished painting,” he said. “I’ve finished my cigarette. But I’m going on + painting.” And, advancing towards her, he put his arm round her shoulders + and turned her round, away from the picture. + </p> + <p> + Mary looked up at him; her hair swung back, a soundless bell of gold. Her + eyes were serene; she smiled. So the moment had come. His arm was round + her. He moved slowly, almost imperceptibly, and she moved with him. It was + a peripatetic embracement. “Do you agree with him?” she repeated. The + moment might have come, but she would not cease to be intellectual, + serious. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know. I shall have to think about it.” Gombauld loosened his + embrace, his hand dropped from her shoulder. “Be careful going down the + ladder,” he added solicitously. + </p> + <p> + Mary looked round, startled. They were in front of the open door. She + remained standing there for a moment in bewilderment. The hand that had + rested on her shoulder made itself felt lower down her back; it + administered three or four kindly little smacks. Replying automatically to + its stimulus, she moved forward. + </p> + <p> + “Be careful going down the ladder,” said Gombauld once more. + </p> + <p> + She was careful. The door closed behind her and she was alone in the + little green close. She walked slowly back through the farmyard; she was + pensive. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIII. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>enry Wimbush + brought down with him to dinner a budget of printed sheets loosely bound + together in a cardboard portfolio. + </p> + <p> + “To-day,” he said, exhibiting it with a certain solemnity, “to-day I have + finished the printing of my ‘History of Crome’. I helped to set up the + type of the last page this evening.” + </p> + <p> + “The famous History?” cried Anne. The writing and the printing of this + Magnum Opus had been going on as long as she could remember. All her + childhood long Uncle Henry’s History had been a vague and fabulous thing, + often heard of and never seen. + </p> + <p> + “It has taken me nearly thirty years,” said Mr. Wimbush. “Twenty-five + years of writing and nearly four of printing. And now it’s finished—the + whole chronicle, from Sir Ferdinando Lapith’s birth to the death of my + father William Wimbush—more than three centuries and a half: a + history of Crome, written at Crome, and printed at Crome by my own press.” + </p> + <p> + “Shall we be allowed to read it now it’s finished?” asked Denis. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Wimbush nodded. “Certainly,” he said. “And I hope you will not find it + uninteresting,” he added modestly. “Our muniment room is particularly rich + in ancient records, and I have some genuinely new light to throw on the + introduction of the three-pronged fork.” + </p> + <p> + “And the people?” asked Gombauld. “Sir Ferdinando and the rest of them—were + they amusing? Were there any crimes or tragedies in the family?” + </p> + <p> + “Let me see,” Henry Wimbush rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I can only + think of two suicides, one violent death, four or perhaps five broken + hearts, and half a dozen little blots on the scutcheon in the way of + misalliances, seductions, natural children, and the like. No, on the + whole, it’s a placid and uneventful record.” + </p> + <p> + “The Wimbushes and the Lapiths were always an unadventurous, respectable + crew,” said Priscilla, with a note of scorn in her voice. “If I were to + write my family history now! Why, it would be one long continuous blot + from beginning to end.” She laughed jovially, and helped herself to + another glass of wine. + </p> + <p> + “If I were to write mine,” Mr. Scogan remarked, “it wouldn’t exist. After + the second generation we Scogans are lost in the mists of antiquity.” + </p> + <p> + “After dinner,” said Henry Wimbush, a little piqued by his wife’s + disparaging comment on the masters of Crome, “I’ll read you an episode + from my History that will make you admit that even the Lapiths, in their + own respectable way, had their tragedies and strange adventures.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m glad to hear it,” said Priscilla. + </p> + <p> + “Glad to hear what?” asked Jenny, emerging suddenly from her private + interior world like a cuckoo from a clock. She received an explanation, + smiled, nodded, cuckooed at last “I see,” and popped back, clapping shut + the door behind her. + </p> + <p> + Dinner was eaten; the party had adjourned to the drawing-room. + </p> + <p> + “Now,” said Henry Wimbush, pulling up a chair to the lamp. He put on his + round pince-nez, rimmed with tortoise-shell, and began cautiously to turn + over the pages of his loose and still fragmentary book. He found his place + at last. “Shall I begin?” he asked, looking up. + </p> + <p> + “Do,” said Priscilla, yawning. + </p> + <p> + In the midst of an attentive silence Mr. Wimbush gave a little preliminary + cough and started to read. + </p> + <p> + “The infant who was destined to become the fourth baronet of the name of + Lapith was born in the year 1740. He was a very small baby, weighing not + more than three pounds at birth, but from the first he was sturdy and + healthy. In honour of his maternal grandfather, Sir Hercules Occam of + Bishop’s Occam, he was christened Hercules. His mother, like many other + mothers, kept a notebook, in which his progress from month to month was + recorded. He walked at ten months, and before his second year was out he + had learnt to speak a number of words. At three years he weighed but + twenty-four pounds, and at six, though he could read and write perfectly + and showed a remarkable aptitude for music, he was no larger and heavier + than a well-grown child of two. Meanwhile, his mother had borne two other + children, a boy and a girl, one of whom died of croup during infancy, + while the other was carried off by smallpox before it reached the age of + five. Hercules remained the only surviving child. + </p> + <p> + “On his twelfth birthday Hercules was still only three feet and two inches + in height. His head, which was very handsome and nobly shaped, was too big + for his body, but otherwise he was exquisitely proportioned, and, for his + size, of great strength and agility. His parents, in the hope of making + him grow, consulted all the most eminent physicians of the time. Their + various prescriptions were followed to the letter, but in vain. One + ordered a very plentiful meat diet; another exercise; a third constructed + a little rack, modelled on those employed by the Holy Inquisition, on + which young Hercules was stretched, with excruciating torments, for half + an hour every morning and evening. In the course of the next three years + Hercules gained perhaps two inches. After that his growth stopped + completely, and he remained for the rest of his life a pigmy of three feet + and four inches. His father, who had built the most extravagant hopes upon + his son, planning for him in his imagination a military career equal to + that of Marlborough, found himself a disappointed man. ‘I have brought an + abortion into the world,’ he would say, and he took so violent a dislike + to his son that the boy dared scarcely come into his presence. His temper, + which had been serene, was turned by disappointment to moroseness and + savagery. He avoided all company (being, as he said, ashamed to show + himself, the father of a lusus naturae, among normal, healthy human + beings), and took to solitary drinking, which carried him very rapidly to + his grave; for the year before Hercules came of age his father was taken + off by an apoplexy. His mother, whose love for him had increased with the + growth of his father’s unkindness, did not long survive, but little more + than a year after her husband’s death succumbed, after eating two dozen of + oysters, to an attack of typhoid fever. + </p> + <p> + “Hercules thus found himself at the age of twenty-one alone in the world, + and master of a considerable fortune, including the estate and mansion of + Crome. The beauty and intelligence of his childhood had survived into his + manly age, and, but for his dwarfish stature, he would have taken his + place among the handsomest and most accomplished young men of his time. He + was well read in the Greek and Latin authors, as well as in all the + moderns of any merit who had written in English, French, or Italian. He + had a good ear for music, and was no indifferent performer on the violin, + which he used to play like a bass viol, seated on a chair with the + instrument between his legs. To the music of the harpsichord and + clavichord he was extremely partial, but the smallness of his hands made + it impossible for him ever to perform upon these instruments. He had a + small ivory flute made for him, on which, whenever he was melancholy, he + used to play a simple country air or jig, affirming that this rustic music + had more power to clear and raise the spirits than the most artificial + productions of the masters. From an early age he practised the composition + of poetry, but, though conscious of his great powers in this art, he would + never publish any specimen of his writing. ‘My stature,’ he would say, ‘is + reflected in my verses; if the public were to read them it would not be + because I am a poet, but because I am a dwarf.’ Several MS. books of Sir + Hercules’s poems survive. A single specimen will suffice to illustrate his + qualities as a poet.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “‘In ancient days, while yet the world was young, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Ere Abram fed his flocks or Homer sung; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + When blacksmith Tubal tamed creative fire, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And Jabal dwelt in tents and Jubal struck the lyre; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Flesh grown corrupt brought forth a monstrous birth + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And obscene giants trod the shrinking earth, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Till God, impatient of their sinful brood, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Gave rein to wrath and drown’d them in the Flood. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Teeming again, repeopled Tellus bore + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + The lubber Hero and the Man of War; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Huge towers of Brawn, topp’d with an empty Skull, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Witlessly bold, heroically dull. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Long ages pass’d and Man grown more refin’d, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Slighter in muscle but of vaster Mind, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Smiled at his grandsire’s broadsword, bow and bill, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And learn’d to wield the Pencil and the Quill. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + The glowing canvas and the written page + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Immortaliz’d his name from age to age, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + His name emblazon’d on Fame’s temple wall; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + For Art grew great as Humankind grew small. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Thus man’s long progress step by step we trace; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + The Giant dies, the hero takes his place; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + The Giant vile, the dull heroic Block: + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + At one we shudder and at one we mock. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Man last appears. In him the Soul’s pure flame + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Burns brightlier in a not inord’nate frame. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Of old when Heroes fought and Giants swarmed, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Men were huge mounds of matter scarce inform’d; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Wearied by leavening so vast a mass, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + The spirit slept and all the mind was crass. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + The smaller carcase of these later days + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Is soon inform’d; the Soul unwearied plays + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And like a Pharos darts abroad her mental rays. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + But can we think that Providence will stay + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Man’s footsteps here upon the upward way? + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Mankind in understanding and in grace + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Advanc’d so far beyond the Giants’ race? + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Hence impious thought! Still led by GOD’S own Hand, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Mankind proceeds towards the Promised Land. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + A time will come (prophetic, I descry + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Remoter dawns along the gloomy sky), + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + When happy mortals of a Golden Age + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Will backward turn the dark historic page, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And in our vaunted race of Men behold + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + A form as gross, a Mind as dead and cold, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + As we in Giants see, in warriors of old. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + A time will come, wherein the soul shall be + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + From all superfluous matter wholly free; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + When the light body, agile as a fawn’s, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Shall sport with grace along the velvet lawns. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Nature’s most delicate and final birth, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Mankind perfected shall possess the earth. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + But ah, not yet! For still the Giants’ race, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Huge, though diminish’d, tramps the Earth’s fair face; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Gross and repulsive, yet perversely proud, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Men of their imperfections boast aloud. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Vain of their bulk, of all they still retain + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Of giant ugliness absurdly vain; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + At all that’s small they point their stupid scorn + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And, monsters, think themselves divinely born. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Sad is the Fate of those, ah, sad indeed, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + The rare precursors of the nobler breed! + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Who come man’s golden glory to foretell, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + But pointing Heav’nwards live themselves in Hell.’ + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + “As soon as he came into the estate, Sir Hercules set about remodelling + his household. For though by no means ashamed of his deformity—indeed, + if we may judge from the poem quoted above, he regarded himself as being + in many ways superior to the ordinary race of man—he found the + presence of full-grown men and women embarrassing. Realising, too, that he + must abandon all ambitions in the great world, he determined to retire + absolutely from it and to create, as it were, at Crome a private world of + his own, in which all should be proportionable to himself. Accordingly, he + discharged all the old servants of the house and replaced them gradually, + as he was able to find suitable successors, by others of dwarfish stature. + In the course of a few years he had assembled about himself a numerous + household, no member of which was above four feet high and the smallest + among them scarcely two feet and six inches. His father’s dogs, such as + setters, mastiffs, greyhounds, and a pack of beagles, he sold or gave away + as too large and too boisterous for his house, replacing them by pugs and + King Charles spaniels and whatever other breeds of dog were the smallest. + His father’s stable was also sold. For his own use, whether riding or + driving, he had six black Shetland ponies, with four very choice piebald + animals of New Forest breed. + </p> + <p> + “Having thus settled his household entirely to his own satisfaction, it + only remained for him to find some suitable companion with whom to share + his paradise. Sir Hercules had a susceptible heart, and had more than + once, between the ages of sixteen and twenty, felt what it was to love. + But here his deformity had been a source of the most bitter humiliation, + for, having once dared to declare himself to a young lady of his choice, + he had been received with laughter. On his persisting, she had picked him + up and shaken him like an importunate child, telling him to run away and + plague her no more. The story soon got about—indeed, the young lady + herself used to tell it as a particularly pleasant anecdote—and the + taunts and mockery it occasioned were a source of the most acute distress + to Hercules. From the poems written at this period we gather that he + meditated taking his own life. In course of time, however, he lived down + this humiliation; but never again, though he often fell in love, and that + very passionately, did he dare to make any advances to those in whom he + was interested. After coming to the estate and finding that he was in a + position to create his own world as he desired it, he saw that, if he was + to have a wife—which he very much desired, being of an affectionate + and, indeed, amorous temper—he must choose her as he had chosen his + servants—from among the race of dwarfs. But to find a suitable wife + was, he found, a matter of some difficulty; for he would marry none who + was not distinguished by beauty and gentle birth. The dwarfish daughter of + Lord Bemboro he refused on the ground that besides being a pigmy she was + hunchbacked; while another young lady, an orphan belonging to a very good + family in Hampshire, was rejected by him because her face, like that of so + many dwarfs, was wizened and repulsive. Finally, when he was almost + despairing of success, he heard from a reliable source that Count + Titimalo, a Venetian nobleman, possessed a daughter of exquisite beauty + and great accomplishments, who was by three feet in height. Setting out at + once for Venice, he went immediately on his arrival to pay his respects to + the count, whom he found living with his wife and five children in a very + mean apartment in one of the poorer quarters of the town. Indeed, the + count was so far reduced in his circumstances that he was even then + negotiating (so it was rumoured) with a travelling company of clowns and + acrobats, who had had the misfortune to lose their performing dwarf, for + the sale of his diminutive daughter Filomena. Sir Hercules arrived in time + to save her from this untoward fate, for he was so much charmed by + Filomena’s grace and beauty, that at the end of three days’ courtship he + made her a formal offer of marriage, which was accepted by her no less + joyfully than by her father, who perceived in an English son-in-law a rich + and unfailing source of revenue. After an unostentatious marriage, at + which the English ambassador acted as one of the witnesses, Sir Hercules + and his bride returned by sea to England, where they settled down, as it + proved, to a life of uneventful happiness. + </p> + <p> + “Crome and its household of dwarfs delighted Filomena, who felt herself + now for the first time to be a free woman living among her equals in a + friendly world. She had many tastes in common with her husband, especially + that of music. She had a beautiful voice, of a power surprising in one so + small, and could touch A in alt without effort. Accompanied by her husband + on his fine Cremona fiddle, which he played, as we have noted before, as + one plays a bass viol, she would sing all the liveliest and tenderest airs + from the operas and cantatas of her native country. Seated together at the + harpsichord, they found that they could with their four hands play all the + music written for two hands of ordinary size, a circumstance which gave + Sir Hercules unfailing pleasure. + </p> + <p> + “When they were not making music or reading together, which they often + did, both in English and Italian, they spent their time in healthful + outdoor exercises, sometimes rowing in a little boat on the lake, but more + often riding or driving, occupations in which, because they were entirely + new to her, Filomena especially delighted. When she had become a perfectly + proficient rider, Filomena and her husband used often to go hunting in the + park, at that time very much more extensive than it is now. They hunted + not foxes nor hares, but rabbits, using a pack of about thirty black and + fawn-coloured pugs, a kind of dog which, when not overfed, can course a + rabbit as well as any of the smaller breeds. Four dwarf grooms, dressed in + scarlet liveries and mounted on white Exmoor ponies, hunted the pack, + while their master and mistress, in green habits, followed either on the + black Shetlands or on the piebald New Forest ponies. A picture of the + whole hunt—dogs, horses, grooms, and masters—was painted by + William Stubbs, whose work Sir Hercules admired so much that he invited + him, though a man of ordinary stature, to come and stay at the mansion for + the purpose of executing this picture. Stubbs likewise painted a portrait + of Sir Hercules and his lady driving in their green enamelled calash drawn + by four black Shetlands. Sir Hercules wears a plum-coloured velvet coat + and white breeches; Filomena is dressed in flowered muslin and a very + large hat with pink feathers. The two figures in their gay carriage stand + out sharply against a dark background of trees; but to the left of the + picture the trees fall away and disappear, so that the four black ponies + are seen against a pale and strangely lurid sky that has the golden-brown + colour of thunder-clouds lighted up by the sun. + </p> + <p> + “In this way four years passed happily by. At the end of that time + Filomena found herself great with child. Sir Hercules was overjoyed. ‘If + God is good,’ he wrote in his day-book, ‘the name of Lapith will be + preserved and our rarer and more delicate race transmitted through the + generations until in the fullness of time the world shall recognise the + superiority of those beings whom now it uses to make mock of.’ On his + wife’s being brought to bed of a son he wrote a poem to the same effect. + The child was christened Ferdinando in memory of the builder of the house. + </p> + <p> + “With the passage of the months a certain sense of disquiet began to + invade the minds of Sir Hercules and his lady. For the child was growing + with an extraordinary rapidity. At a year he weighed as much as Hercules + had weighed when he was three. ‘Ferdinando goes crescendo,’ wrote Filomena + in her diary. ‘It seems not natural.’ At eighteen months the baby was + almost as tall as their smallest jockey, who was a man of thirty-six. + Could it be that Ferdinando was destined to become a man of the normal, + gigantic dimensions? It was a thought to which neither of his parents + dared yet give open utterance, but in the secrecy of their respective + diaries they brooded over it in terror and dismay. + </p> + <p> + “On his third birthday Ferdinando was taller than his mother and not more + than a couple of inches short of his father’s height. ‘To-day for the + first time’ wrote Sir Hercules, ‘we discussed the situation. The hideous + truth can be concealed no longer: Ferdinando is not one of us. On this, + his third birthday, a day when we should have been rejoicing at the + health, the strength, and beauty of our child, we wept together over the + ruin of our happiness. God give us strength to bear this cross.’ + </p> + <p> + “At the age of eight Ferdinando was so large and so exuberantly healthy + that his parents decided, though reluctantly, to send him to school. He + was packed off to Eton at the beginning of the next half. A profound peace + settled upon the house. Ferdinando returned for the summer holidays larger + and stronger than ever. One day he knocked down the butler and broke his + arm. ‘He is rough, inconsiderate, unamenable to persuasion,’ wrote his + father. ‘The only thing that will teach him manners is corporal + chastisement.’ Ferdinando, who at this age was already seventeen inches + taller than his father, received no corporal chastisement. + </p> + <p> + “One summer holidays about three years later Ferdinando returned to Crome + accompanied by a very large mastiff dog. He had bought it from an old man + at Windsor who had found the beast too expensive to feed. It was a savage, + unreliable animal; hardly had it entered the house when it attacked one of + Sir Hercules’s favourite pugs, seizing the creature in its jaws and + shaking it till it was nearly dead. Extremely put out by this occurrence, + Sir Hercules ordered that the beast should be chained up in the + stable-yard. Ferdinando sullenly answered that the dog was his, and he + would keep it where he pleased. His father, growing angry, bade him take + the animal out of the house at once, on pain of his utmost displeasure. + Ferdinando refused to move. His mother at this moment coming into the + room, the dog flew at her, knocked her down, and in a twinkling had very + severely mauled her arm and shoulder; in another instant it must + infallibly have had her by the throat, had not Sir Hercules drawn his + sword and stabbed the animal to the heart. Turning on his son, he ordered + him to leave the room immediately, as being unfit to remain in the same + place with the mother whom he had nearly murdered. So awe-inspiring was + the spectacle of Sir Hercules standing with one foot on the carcase of the + gigantic dog, his sword drawn and still bloody, so commanding were his + voice, his gestures, and the expression of his face that Ferdinando slunk + out of the room in terror and behaved himself for all the rest of the + vacation in an entirely exemplary fashion. His mother soon recovered from + the bites of the mastiff, but the effect on her mind of this adventure was + ineradicable; from that time forth she lived always among imaginary + terrors. + </p> + <p> + “The two years which Ferdinando spent on the Continent, making the Grand + Tour, were a period of happy repose for his parents. But even now the + thought of the future haunted them; nor were they able to solace + themselves with all the diversions of their younger days. The Lady + Filomena had lost her voice and Sir Hercules was grown too rheumatical to + play the violin. He, it is true, still rode after his pugs, but his wife + felt herself too old and, since the episode of the mastiff, too nervous + for such sports. At most, to please her husband, she would follow the hunt + at a distance in a little gig drawn by the safest and oldest of the + Shetlands. + </p> + <p> + “The day fixed for Ferdinando’s return came round. Filomena, sick with + vague dreads and presentiments, retired to her chamber and her bed. Sir + Hercules received his son alone. A giant in a brown travelling-suit + entered the room. ‘Welcome home, my son,’ said Sir Hercules in a voice + that trembled a little. + </p> + <p> + “‘I hope I see you well, sir.’ Ferdinando bent down to shake hands, then + straightened himself up again. The top of his father’s head reached to the + level of his hip. + </p> + <p> + “Ferdinando had not come alone. Two friends of his own age accompanied + him, and each of the young men had brought a servant. Not for thirty years + had Crome been desecrated by the presence of so many members of the common + race of men. Sir Hercules was appalled and indignant, but the laws of + hospitality had to be obeyed. He received the young gentlemen with grave + politeness and sent the servants to the kitchen, with orders that they + should be well cared for. + </p> + <p> + “The old family dining-table was dragged out into the light and dusted + (Sir Hercules and his lady were accustomed to dine at a small table twenty + inches high). Simon, the aged butler, who could only just look over the + edge of the big table, was helped at supper by the three servants brought + by Ferdinando and his guests. + </p> + <p> + “Sir Hercules presided, and with his usual grace supported a conversation + on the pleasures of foreign travel, the beauties of art and nature to be + met with abroad, the opera at Venice, the singing of the orphans in the + churches of the same city, and on other topics of a similar nature. The + young men were not particularly attentive to his discourses; they were + occupied in watching the efforts of the butler to change the plates and + replenish the glasses. They covered their laughter by violent and repeated + fits of coughing or choking. Sir Hercules affected not to notice, but + changed the subject of the conversation to sport. Upon this one of the + young men asked whether it was true, as he had heard, that he used to hunt + the rabbit with a pack of pug dogs. Sir Hercules replied that it was, and + proceeded to describe the chase in some detail. The young men roared with + laughter. + </p> + <p> + “When supper was over, Sir Hercules climbed down from his chair and, + giving as his excuse that he must see how his lady did, bade them + good-night. The sound of laughter followed him up the stairs. Filomena was + not asleep; she had been lying on her bed listening to the sound of + enormous laughter and the tread of strangely heavy feet on the stairs and + along the corridors. Sir Hercules drew a chair to her bedside and sat + there for a long time in silence, holding his wife’s hand and sometimes + gently squeezing it. At about ten o’clock they were startled by a violent + noise. There was a breaking of glass, a stamping of feet, with an outburst + of shouts and laughter. The uproar continuing for several minutes, Sir + Hercules rose to his feet and, in spite of his wife’s entreaties, prepared + to go and see what was happening. There was no light on the staircase, and + Sir Hercules groped his way down cautiously, lowering himself from stair + to stair and standing for a moment on each tread before adventuring on a + new step. The noise was louder here; the shouting articulated itself into + recognisable words and phrases. A line of light was visible under the + dining-room door. Sir Hercules tiptoed across the hall towards it. Just as + he approached the door there was another terrific crash of breaking glass + and jangled metal. What could they be doing? Standing on tiptoe he managed + to look through the keyhole. In the middle of the ravaged table old Simon, + the butler, so primed with drink that he could scarcely keep his balance, + was dancing a jig. His feet crunched and tinkled among the broken glass, + and his shoes were wet with spilt wine. The three young men sat round, + thumping the table with their hands or with the empty wine bottles, + shouting and laughing encouragement. The three servants leaning against + the wall laughed too. Ferdinando suddenly threw a handful of walnuts at + the dancer’s head, which so dazed and surprised the little man that he + staggered and fell down on his back, upsetting a decanter and several + glasses. They raised him up, gave him some brandy to drink, thumped him on + the back. The old man smiled and hiccoughed. ‘To-morrow,’ said Ferdinando, + ‘we’ll have a concerted ballet of the whole household.’ ‘With father + Hercules wearing his club and lion-skin,’ added one of his companions, and + all three roared with laughter. + </p> + <p> + “Sir Hercules would look and listen no further. He crossed the hall once + more and began to climb the stairs, lifting his knees painfully high at + each degree. This was the end; there was no place for him now in the + world, no place for him and Ferdinando together. + </p> + <p> + “His wife was still awake; to her questioning glance he answered, ‘They + are making mock of old Simon. To-morrow it will be our turn.’ They were + silent for a time. + </p> + <p> + “At last Filomena said, ‘I do not want to see to-morrow.’ + </p> + <p> + “‘It is better not,’ said Sir Hercules. Going into his closet he wrote in + his day-book a full and particular account of all the events of the + evening. While he was still engaged in this task he rang for a servant and + ordered hot water and a bath to be made ready for him at eleven o’clock. + When he had finished writing he went into his wife’s room, and preparing a + dose of opium twenty times as strong as that which she was accustomed to + take when she could not sleep, he brought it to her, saying, ‘Here is your + sleeping-draught.’ + </p> + <p> + “Filomena took the glass and lay for a little time, but did not drink + immediately. The tears came into her eyes. ‘Do you remember the songs we + used to sing, sitting out there sulla terrazza in the summer-time?’ She + began singing softly in her ghost of a cracked voice a few bars from + Stradella’s ‘Amor amor, non dormir piu.’ ‘And you playing on the violin, + it seems such a short time ago, and yet so long, long, long. Addio, amore, + a rivederti.’ She drank off the draught and, lying back on the pillow, + closed her eyes. Sir Hercules kissed her hand and tiptoed away, as though + he were afraid of waking her. He returned to his closet, and having + recorded his wife’s last words to him, he poured into his bath the water + that had been brought up in accordance with his orders. The water being + too hot for him to get into the bath at once, he took down from the shelf + his copy of Suetonius. He wished to read how Seneca had died. He opened + the book at random. ‘But dwarfs,’ he read, ‘he held in abhorrence as being + lusus naturae and of evil omen.’ He winced as though he had been struck. + This same Augustus, he remembered, had exhibited in the amphitheatre a + young man called Lucius, of good family, who was not quite two feet in + height and weighed seventeen pounds, but had a stentorian voice. He turned + over the pages. Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero: it was a tale of + growing horror. ‘Seneca his preceptor, he forced to kill himself.’ And + there was Petronius, who had called his friends about him at the last, + bidding them talk to him, not of the consolations of philosophy, but of + love and gallantry, while the life was ebbing away through his opened + veins. Dipping his pen once more in the ink he wrote on the last page of + his diary: ‘He died a Roman death.’ Then, putting the toes of one foot + into the water and finding that it was not too hot, he threw off his + dressing-gown and, taking a razor in his hand, sat down in the bath. With + one deep cut he severed the artery in his left wrist, then lay back and + composed his mind to meditation. The blood oozed out, floating through the + water in dissolving wreaths and spirals. In a little while the whole bath + was tinged with pink. The colour deepened; Sir Hercules felt himself + mastered by an invincible drowsiness; he was sinking from vague dream to + dream. Soon he was sound asleep. There was not much blood in his small + body.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIV. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>or their + after-luncheon coffee the party generally adjourned to the library. Its + windows looked east, and at this hour of the day it was the coolest place + in the whole house. It was a large room, fitted, during the eighteenth + century, with white painted shelves of an elegant design. In the middle of + one wall a door, ingeniously upholstered with rows of dummy books, gave + access to a deep cupboard, where, among a pile of letter-files and old + newspapers, the mummy-case of an Egyptian lady, brought back by the second + Sir Ferdinando on his return from the Grand Tour, mouldered in the + darkness. From ten yards away and at a first glance, one might almost have + mistaken this secret door for a section of shelving filled with genuine + books. Coffee-cup in hand, Mr. Scogan was standing in front of the dummy + book-shelf. Between the sips he discoursed. + </p> + <p> + “The bottom shelf,” he was saying, “is taken up by an Encyclopaedia in + fourteen volumes. Useful, but a little dull, as is also Caprimulge’s + ‘Dictionary of the Finnish Language’. The ‘Biographical Dictionary’ looks + more promising. ‘Biography of Men who were Born Great’, ‘Biography of Men + who Achieved Greatness’, ‘Biography of Men who had Greatness Thrust upon + Them’, and ‘Biography of Men who were Never Great at All’. Then there are + ten volumes of ‘Thom’s Works and Wanderings’, while the ‘Wild Goose Chase, + a Novel’, by an anonymous author, fills no less than six. But what’s this, + what’s this?” Mr. Scogan stood on tiptoe and peered up. “Seven volumes of + the ‘Tales of Knockespotch’. The ‘Tales of Knockespotch’,” he repeated. + “Ah, my dear Henry,” he said, turning round, “these are your best books. I + would willingly give all the rest of your library for them.” + </p> + <p> + The happy possessor of a multitude of first editions, Mr. Wimbush could + afford to smile indulgently. + </p> + <p> + “Is it possible,” Mr. Scogan went on, “that they possess nothing more than + a back and a title?” He opened the cupboard door and peeped inside, as + though he hoped to find the rest of the books behind it. “Phooh!” he said, + and shut the door again. “It smells of dust and mildew. How symbolical! + One comes to the great masterpieces of the past, expecting some miraculous + illumination, and one finds, on opening them, only darkness and dust and a + faint smell of decay. After all, what is reading but a vice, like drink or + venery or any other form of excessive self-indulgence? One reads to tickle + and amuse one’s mind; one reads, above all, to prevent oneself thinking. + Still—the ‘Tales of Knockespotch’...” + </p> + <p> + He paused, and thoughtfully drummed with his fingers on the backs of the + non-existent, unattainable books. + </p> + <p> + “But I disagree with you about reading,” said Mary. “About serious + reading, I mean.” + </p> + <p> + “Quite right, Mary, quite right,” Mr. Scogan answered. “I had forgotten + there were any serious people in the room.” + </p> + <p> + “I like the idea of the Biographies,” said Denis. “There’s room for us all + within the scheme; it’s comprehensive.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, the Biographies are good, the Biographies are excellent,” Mr Scogan + agreed. “I imagine them written in a very elegant Regency style—Brighton + Pavilion in words—perhaps by the great Dr. Lempriere himself. You + know his classical dictionary? Ah!” Mr. Scogan raised his hand and let it + limply fall again in a gesture which implied that words failed him. “Read + his biography of Helen; read how Jupiter, disguised as a swan, was + ‘enabled to avail himself of his situation’ vis-a-vis to Leda. And to + think that he may have, must have written these biographies of the Great! + What a work, Henry! And, owing to the idiotic arrangement of your library, + it can’t be read.” + </p> + <p> + “I prefer the ‘Wild Goose Chase’,” said Anne. “A novel in six volumes—it + must be restful.” + </p> + <p> + “Restful,” Mr. Scogan repeated. “You’ve hit on the right word. A ‘Wild + Goose Chase’ is sound, but a bit old-fashioned—pictures of clerical + life in the fifties, you know; specimens of the landed gentry; peasants + for pathos and comedy; and in the background, always the picturesque + beauties of nature soberly described. All very good and solid, but, like + certain puddings, just a little dull. Personally, I like much better the + notion of ‘Thom’s Works and Wanderings’. The eccentric Mr. Thom of Thom’s + Hill. Old Tom Thom, as his intimates used to call him. He spent ten years + in Thibet organising the clarified butter industry on modern European + lines, and was able to retire at thirty-six with a handsome fortune. The + rest of his life he devoted to travel and ratiocination; here is the + result.” Mr. Scogan tapped the dummy books. “And now we come to the ‘Tales + of Knockespotch’. What a masterpiece and what a great man! Knockespotch + knew how to write fiction. Ah, Denis, if you could only read Knockespotch + you wouldn’t be writing a novel about the wearisome development of a young + man’s character, you wouldn’t be describing in endless, fastidious detail, + cultured life in Chelsea and Bloomsbury and Hampstead. You would be trying + to write a readable book. But then, alas! owing to the peculiar + arrangement of our host’s library, you never will read Knockespotch.” + </p> + <p> + “Nobody could regret the fact more than I do,” said Denis. + </p> + <p> + “It was Knockespotch,” Mr. Scogan continued, “the great Knockespotch, who + delivered us from the dreary tyranny of the realistic novel. My life, + Knockespotch said, is not so long that I can afford to spend precious + hours writing or reading descriptions of middle-class interiors. He said + again, ‘I am tired of seeing the human mind bogged in a social plenum; I + prefer to paint it in a vacuum, freely and sportively bombinating.’” + </p> + <p> + “I say,” said Gombauld, “Knockespotch was a little obscure sometimes, + wasn’t he?” + </p> + <p> + “He was,” Mr. Scogan replied, “and with intention. It made him seem even + profounder than he actually was. But it was only in his aphorisms that he + was so dark and oracular. In his Tales he was always luminous. Oh, those + Tales—those Tales! How shall I describe them? Fabulous characters + shoot across his pages like gaily dressed performers on the trapeze. There + are extraordinary adventures and still more extraordinary speculations. + Intelligences and emotions, relieved of all the imbecile preoccupations of + civilised life, move in intricate and subtle dances, crossing and + recrossing, advancing, retreating, impinging. An immense erudition and an + immense fancy go hand in hand. All the ideas of the present and of the + past, on every possible subject, bob up among the Tales, smile gravely or + grimace a caricature of themselves, then disappear to make place for + something new. The verbal surface of his writing is rich and fantastically + diversified. The wit is incessant. The...” + </p> + <p> + “But couldn’t you give us a specimen,” Denis broke in—“a concrete + example?” + </p> + <p> + “Alas!” Mr. Scogan replied, “Knockespotch’s great book is like the sword + Excalibur. It remains struck fast in this door, awaiting the coming of a + writer with genius enough to draw it forth. I am not even a writer, I am + not so much as qualified to attempt the task. The extraction of + Knockespotch from his wooden prison I leave, my dear Denis, to you.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you,” said Denis. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XV. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>n the time of the + amiable Brantome,” Mr. Scogan was saying, “every debutante at the French + Court was invited to dine at the King’s table, where she was served with + wine in a handsome silver cup of Italian workmanship. It was no ordinary + cup, this goblet of the debutantes; for, inside, it had been most + curiously and ingeniously engraved with a series of very lively amorous + scenes. With each draught that the young lady swallowed these engravings + became increasingly visible, and the Court looked on with interest, every + time she put her nose in the cup, to see whether she blushed at what the + ebbing wine revealed. If the debutante blushed, they laughed at her for + her innocence; if she did not, she was laughed at for being too knowing.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you propose,” asked Anne, “that the custom should be revived at + Buckingham Palace?” + </p> + <p> + “I do not,” said Mr. Scogan. “I merely quoted the anecdote as an + illustration of the customs, so genially frank, of the sixteenth century. + I might have quoted other anecdotes to show that the customs of the + seventeenth and eighteenth, of the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries, and + indeed of every other century, from the time of Hammurabi onward, were + equally genial and equally frank. The only century in which customs were + not characterised by the same cheerful openness was the nineteenth, of + blessed memory. It was the astonishing exception. And yet, with what one + must suppose was a deliberate disregard of history, it looked upon its + horribly pregnant silences as normal and natural and right; the frankness + of the previous fifteen or twenty thousand years was considered abnormal + and perverse. It was a curious phenomenon.” + </p> + <p> + “I entirely agree.” Mary panted with excitement in her effort to bring out + what she had to say. “Havelock Ellis says...” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan, like a policeman arresting the flow of traffic, held up his + hand. “He does; I know. And that brings me to my next point: the nature of + the reaction.” + </p> + <p> + “Havelock Ellis...” + </p> + <p> + “The reaction, when it came—and we may say roughly that it set in a + little before the beginning of this century—the reaction was to + openness, but not to the same openness as had reigned in the earlier ages. + It was to a scientific openness, not to the jovial frankness of the past, + that we returned. The whole question of Amour became a terribly serious + one. Earnest young men wrote in the public prints that from this time + forth it would be impossible ever again to make a joke of any sexual + matter. Professors wrote thick books in which sex was sterilised and + dissected. It has become customary for serious young women, like Mary, to + discuss, with philosophic calm, matters of which the merest hint would + have sufficed to throw the youth of the sixties into a delirium of amorous + excitement. It is all very estimable, no doubt. But still”—Mr. + Scogan sighed.—“I for one should like to see, mingled with this + scientific ardour, a little more of the jovial spirit of Rabelais and + Chaucer.” + </p> + <p> + “I entirely disagree with you,” said Mary. “Sex isn’t a laughing matter; + it’s serious.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps,” answered Mr. Scogan, “perhaps I’m an obscene old man. For I + must confess that I cannot always regard it as wholly serious.” + </p> + <p> + “But I tell you...” began Mary furiously. Her face had flushed with + excitement. Her cheeks were the cheeks of a great ripe peach. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed,” Mr. Scogan continued, “it seems to me one of few permanently and + everlastingly amusing subjects that exist. Amour is the one human activity + of any importance in which laughter and pleasure preponderate, if ever so + slightly, over misery and pain.” + </p> + <p> + “I entirely disagree,” said Mary. There was a silence. + </p> + <p> + Anne looked at her watch. “Nearly a quarter to eight,” she said. “I wonder + when Ivor will turn up.” She got up from her deck-chair and, leaning her + elbows on the balustrade of the terrace, looked out over the valley and + towards the farther hills. Under the level evening light the architecture + of the land revealed itself. The deep shadows, the bright contrasting + lights gave the hills a new solidity. Irregularities of the surface, + unsuspected before, were picked out with light and shade. The grass, the + corn, the foliage of trees were stippled with intricate shadows. The + surface of things had taken on a marvellous enrichment. + </p> + <p> + “Look!” said Anne suddenly, and pointed. On the opposite side of the + valley, at the crest of the ridge, a cloud of dust flushed by the sunlight + to rosy gold was moving rapidly along the sky-line. “It’s Ivor. One can + tell by the speed.” + </p> + <p> + The dust cloud descended into the valley and was lost. A horn with the + voice of a sea-lion made itself heard, approaching. A minute later Ivor + came leaping round the corner of the house. His hair waved in the wind of + his own speed; he laughed as he saw them. + </p> + <p> + “Anne, darling,” he cried, and embraced her, embraced Mary, very nearly + embraced Mr. Scogan. “Well, here I am. I’ve come with incredulous speed.” + Ivor’s vocabulary was rich, but a little erratic. “I’m not late for + dinner, am I?” He hoisted himself up on to the balustrade, and sat there, + kicking his heels. With one arm he embraced a large stone flower-pot, + leaning his head sideways against its hard and lichenous flanks in an + attitude of trustful affection. He had brown, wavy hair, and his eyes were + of a very brilliant, pale, improbable blue. His head was narrow, his face + thin and rather long, his nose aquiline. In old age—though it was + difficult to imagine Ivor old—he might grow to have an Iron Ducal + grimness. But now, at twenty-six, it was not the structure of his face + that impressed one; it was its expression. That was charming and + vivacious, and his smile was an irradiation. He was forever moving, + restlessly and rapidly, but with an engaging gracefulness. His frail and + slender body seemed to be fed by a spring of inexhaustible energy. + </p> + <p> + “No, you’re not late.” + </p> + <p> + “You’re in time to answer a question,” said Mr. Scogan. “We were arguing + whether Amour were a serious matter or no. What do you think? Is it + serious?” + </p> + <p> + “Serious?” echoed Ivor. “Most certainly.” + </p> + <p> + “I told you so,” cried Mary triumphantly. + </p> + <p> + “But in what sense serious?” Mr. Scogan asked. + </p> + <p> + “I mean as an occupation. One can go on with it without ever getting + bored.” + </p> + <p> + “I see,” said Mr. Scogan. “Perfectly.” + </p> + <p> + “One can occupy oneself with it,” Ivor continued, “always and everywhere. + Women are always wonderfully the same. Shapes vary a little, that’s all. + In Spain”—with his free hand he described a series of ample curves—“one + can’t pass them on the stairs. In England”—he put the tip of his + forefinger against the tip of his thumb and, lowering his hand, drew out + this circle into an imaginary cylinder—“In England they’re tubular. + But their sentiments are always the same. At least, I’ve always found it + so.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m delighted to hear it,” said Mr. Scogan. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVI. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he ladies had left + the room and the port was circulating. Mr. Scogan filled his glass, passed + on the decanter, and, leaning back in his chair, looked about him for a + moment in silence. The conversation rippled idly round him, but he + disregarded it; he was smiling at some private joke. Gombauld noticed his + smile. + </p> + <p> + “What’s amusing you?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “I was just looking at you all, sitting round this table,” said Mr. + Scogan. + </p> + <p> + “Are we as comic as all that?” + </p> + <p> + “Not at all,” Mr. Scogan answered politely. “I was merely amused by my own + speculations.” + </p> + <p> + “And what were they?” + </p> + <p> + “The idlest, the most academic of speculations. I was looking at you one + by one and trying to imagine which of the first six Caesars you would each + resemble, if you were given the opportunity of behaving like a Caesar. The + Caesars are one of my touchstones,” Mr. Scogan explained. “They are + characters functioning, so to speak, in the void. They are human beings + developed to their logical conclusions. Hence their unequalled value as a + touchstone, a standard. When I meet someone for the first time, I ask + myself this question: Given the Caesarean environment, which of the + Caesars would this person resemble—Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, + Caligula, Claudius, Nero? I take each trait of character, each mental and + emotional bias, each little oddity, and magnify them a thousand times. The + resulting image gives me his Caesarean formula.” + </p> + <p> + “And which of the Caesars do you resemble?” asked Gombauld. + </p> + <p> + “I am potentially all of them,” Mr. Scogan replied, “all—with the + possible exception of Claudius, who was much too stupid to be a + development of anything in my character. The seeds of Julius’s courage and + compelling energy, of Augustus’s prudence, of the libidinousness and + cruelty of Tiberius, of Caligula’s folly, of Nero’s artistic genius and + enormous vanity, are all within me. Given the opportunities, I might have + been something fabulous. But circumstances were against me. I was born and + brought up in a country rectory; I passed my youth doing a great deal of + utterly senseless hard work for a very little money. The result is that + now, in middle age, I am the poor thing that I am. But perhaps it is as + well. Perhaps, too, it’s as well that Denis hasn’t been permitted to + flower into a little Nero, and that Ivor remains only potentially a + Caligula. Yes, it’s better so, no doubt. But it would have been more + amusing, as a spectacle, if they had had the chance to develop, + untrammelled, the full horror of their potentialities. It would have been + pleasant and interesting to watch their tics and foibles and little vices + swelling and burgeoning and blossoming into enormous and fantastic flowers + of cruelty and pride and lewdness and avarice. The Caesarean environment + makes the Caesar, as the special food and the queenly cell make the queen + bee. We differ from the bees in so far that, given the proper food, they + can be sure of making a queen every time. With us there is no such + certainty; out of every ten men placed in the Caesarean environment one + will be temperamentally good, or intelligent, or great. The rest will + blossom into Caesars; he will not. Seventy and eighty years ago + simple-minded people, reading of the exploits of the Bourbons in South + Italy, cried out in amazement: To think that such things should be + happening in the nineteenth century! And a few years since we too were + astonished to find that in our still more astonishing twentieth century, + unhappy blackamoors on the Congo and the Amazon were being treated as + English serfs were treated in the time of Stephen. To-day we are no longer + surprised at these things. The Black and Tans harry Ireland, the Poles + maltreat the Silesians, the bold Fascisti slaughter their poorer + countrymen: we take it all for granted. Since the war we wonder at + nothing. We have created a Caesarean environment and a host of little + Caesars has sprung up. What could be more natural?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan drank off what was left of his port and refilled the glass. + </p> + <p> + “At this very moment,” he went on, “the most frightful horrors are taking + place in every corner of the world. People are being crushed, slashed, + disembowelled, mangled; their dead bodies rot and their eyes decay with + the rest. Screams of pain and fear go pulsing through the air at the rate + of eleven hundred feet per second. After travelling for three seconds they + are perfectly inaudible. These are distressing facts; but do we enjoy life + any the less because of them? Most certainly we do not. We feel sympathy, + no doubt; we represent to ourselves imaginatively the sufferings of + nations and individuals and we deplore them. But, after all, what are + sympathy and imagination? Precious little, unless the person for whom we + feel sympathy happens to be closely involved in our affections; and even + then they don’t go very far. And a good thing too; for if one had an + imagination vivid enough and a sympathy sufficiently sensitive really to + comprehend and to feel the sufferings of other people, one would never + have a moment’s peace of mind. A really sympathetic race would not so much + as know the meaning of happiness. But luckily, as I’ve already said, we + aren’t a sympathetic race. At the beginning of the war I used to think I + really suffered, through imagination and sympathy, with those who + physically suffered. But after a month or two I had to admit that, + honestly, I didn’t. And yet I think I have a more vivid imagination than + most. One is always alone in suffering; the fact is depressing when one + happens to be the sufferer, but it makes pleasure possible for the rest of + the world.” + </p> + <p> + There was a pause. Henry Wimbush pushed back his chair. + </p> + <p> + “I think perhaps we ought to go and join the ladies,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “So do I,” said Ivor, jumping up with alacrity. He turned to Mr. Scogan. + “Fortunately,” he said, “we can share our pleasures. We are not always + condemned to be happy alone.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVII. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>vor brought his + hands down with a bang on to the final chord of his rhapsody. There was + just a hint in that triumphant harmony that the seventh had been struck + along with the octave by the thumb of the left hand; but the general + effect of splendid noise emerged clearly enough. Small details matter + little so long as the general effect is good. And, besides, that hint of + the seventh was decidedly modern. He turned round in his seat and tossed + the hair back out of his eyes. + </p> + <p> + “There,” he said. “That’s the best I can do for you, I’m afraid.” + </p> + <p> + Murmurs of applause and gratitude were heard, and Mary, her large china + eyes fixed on the performer, cried out aloud, “Wonderful!” and gasped for + new breath as though she were suffocating. + </p> + <p> + Nature and fortune had vied with one another in heaping on Ivor Lombard + all their choicest gifts. He had wealth and he was perfectly independent. + He was good looking, possessed an irresistible charm of manner, and was + the hero of more amorous successes than he could well remember. His + accomplishments were extraordinary for their number and variety. He had a + beautiful untrained tenor voice; he could improvise, with a startling + brilliance, rapidly and loudly, on the piano. He was a good amateur medium + and telepathist, and had a considerable first-hand knowledge of the next + world. He could write rhymed verses with an extraordinary rapidity. For + painting symbolical pictures he had a dashing style, and if the drawing + was sometimes a little weak, the colour was always pyrotechnical. He + excelled in amateur theatricals and, when occasion offered, he could cook + with genius. He resembled Shakespeare in knowing little Latin and less + Greek. For a mind like his, education seemed supererogatory. Training + would only have destroyed his natural aptitudes. + </p> + <p> + “Let’s go out into the garden,” Ivor suggested. “It’s a wonderful night.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you,” said Mr. Scogan, “but I for one prefer these still more + wonderful arm-chairs.” His pipe had begun to bubble oozily every time he + pulled at it. He was perfectly happy. + </p> + <p> + Henry Wimbush was also happy. He looked for a moment over his pince-nez in + Ivor’s direction and then, without saying anything, returned to the grimy + little sixteenth-century account books which were now his favourite + reading. He knew more about Sir Ferdinando’s household expenses than about + his own. + </p> + <p> + The outdoor party, enrolled under Ivor’s banner, consisted of Anne, Mary, + Denis, and, rather unexpectedly, Jenny. Outside it was warm and dark; + there was no moon. They walked up and down the terrace, and Ivor sang a + Neapolitan song: “Stretti, stretti”—close, close—with + something about the little Spanish girl to follow. The atmosphere began to + palpitate. Ivor put his arm round Anne’s waist, dropped his head sideways + onto her shoulder, and in that position walked on, singing as he walked. + It seemed the easiest, the most natural, thing in the world. Denis + wondered why he had never done it. He hated Ivor. + </p> + <p> + “Let’s go down to the pool,” said Ivor. He disengaged his embrace and + turned round to shepherd his little flock. They made their way along the + side of the house to the entrance of the yew-tree walk that led down to + the lower garden. Between the blank precipitous wall of the house and the + tall yew trees the path was a chasm of impenetrable gloom. Somewhere there + were steps down to the right, a gap in the yew hedge. Denis, who headed + the party, groped his way cautiously; in this darkness, one had an + irrational fear of yawning precipices, of horrible spiked obstructions. + Suddenly from behind him he heard a shrill, startled, “Oh!” and then a + sharp, dry concussion that might have been the sound of a slap. After + that, Jenny’s voice was heard pronouncing, “I am going back to the house.” + Her tone was decided, and even as she pronounced the words she was melting + away into the darkness. The incident, whatever it had been, was closed. + Denis resumed his forward groping. From somewhere behind Ivor began to + sing again, softly: + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “Phillis plus avare que tendre + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Ne gagnant rien à refuser, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Un jour exigea à Silvandre + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Trente moutons pour un baiser.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + The melody drooped and climbed again with a kind of easy languor; the warm + darkness seemed to pulse like blood about them. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “Le lendemain, nouvelle affaire: + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Pour le berger le troc fut bon...” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + “Here are the steps,” cried Denis. He guided his companions over the + danger, and in a moment they had the turf of the yew-tree walk under their + feet. It was lighter here, or at least it was just perceptibly less dark; + for the yew walk was wider than the path that had led them under the lea + of the house. Looking up, they could see between the high black hedges a + strip of sky and a few stars. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “Car il obtint de la bergere...” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + Went on Ivor, and then interrupted himself to shout, “I’m going to run + down,” and he was off, full speed, down the invisible slope, singing + unevenly as he went: + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “Trente baisers pour un mouton.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + The others followed. Denis shambled in the rear, vainly exhorting everyone + to caution: the slope was steep, one might break one’s neck. What was + wrong with these people, he wondered? They had become like young kittens + after a dose of cat-nip. He himself felt a certain kittenishness sporting + within him; but it was, like all his emotions, rather a theoretical + feeling; it did not overmasteringly seek to express itself in a practical + demonstration of kittenishness. + </p> + <p> + “Be careful,” he shouted once more, and hardly were the words out of his + mouth when, thump! there was the sound of a heavy fall in front of him, + followed by the long “F-f-f-f-f” of a breath indrawn with pain and + afterwards by a very sincere, “Oo-ooh!” Denis was almost pleased; he had + told them so, the idiots, and they wouldn’t listen. He trotted down the + slope towards the unseen sufferer. + </p> + <p> + Mary came down the hill like a runaway steam-engine. It was tremendously + exciting, this blind rush through the dark; she felt she would never stop. + But the ground grew level beneath her feet, her speed insensibly + slackened, and suddenly she was caught by an extended arm and brought to + an abrupt halt. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Ivor as he tightened his embrace, “you’re caught now, Anne.” + </p> + <p> + She made an effort to release herself. “It’s not Anne. It’s Mary.” + </p> + <p> + Ivor burst into a peal of amused laughter. “So it is!” he exclaimed. “I + seem to be making nothing but floaters this evening. I’ve already made one + with Jenny.” He laughed again, and there was something so jolly about his + laughter that Mary could not help laughing too. He did not remove his + encircling arm, and somehow it was all so amusing and natural that Mary + made no further attempt to escape from it. They walked along by the side + of the pool, interlaced. Mary was too short for him to be able, with any + comfort, to lay his head on her shoulder. He rubbed his cheek, caressed + and caressing, against the thick, sleek mass of her hair. In a little + while he began to sing again; the night trembled amorously to the sound of + his voice. When he had finished he kissed her. Anne or Mary: Mary or Anne. + It didn’t seem to make much difference which it was. There were + differences in detail, of course; but the general effect was the same; + and, after all, the general effect was the important thing. + </p> + <p> + Denis made his way down the hill. + </p> + <p> + “Any damage done?” he called out. + </p> + <p> + “Is that you, Denis? I’ve hurt my ankle so—and my knee, and my hand. + I’m all in pieces.” + </p> + <p> + “My poor Anne,” he said. “But then,” he couldn’t help adding, “it was + silly to start running downhill in the dark.” + </p> + <p> + “Ass!” she retorted in a tone of tearful irritation; “of course it was.” + </p> + <p> + He sat down beside her on the grass, and found himself breathing the + faint, delicious atmosphere of perfume that she carried always with her. + </p> + <p> + “Light a match,” she commanded. “I want to look at my wounds.” + </p> + <p> + He felt in his pockets for the match-box. The light spurted and then grew + steady. Magically, a little universe had been created, a world of colours + and forms—Anne’s face, the shimmering orange of her dress, her + white, bare arms, a patch of green turf—and round about a darkness + that had become solid and utterly blind. Anne held out her hands; both + were green and earthy with her fall, and the left exhibited two or three + red abrasions. + </p> + <p> + “Not so bad,” she said. But Denis was terribly distressed, and his emotion + was intensified when, looking up at her face, he saw that the trace of + tears, involuntary tears of pain, lingered on her eyelashes. He pulled out + his handkerchief and began to wipe away the dirt from the wounded hand. + The match went out; it was not worth while to light another. Anne allowed + herself to be attended to, meekly and gratefully. “Thank you,” she said, + when he had finished cleaning and bandaging her hand; and there was + something in her tone that made him feel that she had lost her superiority + over him, that she was younger than he, had become, suddenly, almost a + child. He felt tremendously large and protective. The feeling was so + strong that instinctively he put his arm about her. She drew closer, + leaned against him, and so they sat in silence. Then, from below, soft but + wonderfully clear through the still darkness, they heard the sound of + Ivor’s singing. He was going on with his half-finished song: + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “Le lendemain Phillis plus tendre, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Ne voulant deplaire au berger, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Fut trop heureuse de lui rendre + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Trente moutons pour un baiser.” + </p> + <p> + There was a rather prolonged pause. It was as though time were being + allowed for the giving and receiving of a few of those thirty kisses. Then + the voice sang on: + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “Le lendemain Phillis peu sage + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Aurait donne moutons et chien + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Pour un baiser que le volage + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + À Lisette donnait pour rien.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + The last note died away into an uninterrupted silence. + </p> + <p> + “Are you better?” Denis whispered. “Are you comfortable like this?” + </p> + <p> + She nodded a Yes to both questions. + </p> + <p> + “Trente moutons pour un baiser.” The sheep, the woolly mutton—baa, + baa, baa...? Or the shepherd? Yes, decidedly, he felt himself to be the + shepherd now. He was the master, the protector. A wave of courage swelled + through him, warm as wine. He turned his head, and began to kiss her face, + at first rather randomly, then, with more precision, on the mouth. + </p> + <p> + Anne averted her head; he kissed the ear, the smooth nape that this + movement presented him. “No,” she protested; “no, Denis.” + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” + </p> + <p> + “It spoils our friendship, and that was so jolly.” + </p> + <p> + “Bosh!” said Denis. + </p> + <p> + She tried to explain. “Can’t you see,” she said, “it isn’t...it isn’t our + stunt at all.” It was true. Somehow she had never thought of Denis in the + light of a man who might make love; she had never so much as conceived the + possibilities of an amorous relationship with him. He was so absurdly + young, so...so...she couldn’t find the adjective, but she knew what she + meant. + </p> + <p> + “Why isn’t it our stunt?” asked Denis. “And, by the way, that’s a horrible + and inappropriate expression.” + </p> + <p> + “Because it isn’t.” + </p> + <p> + “But if I say it is?” + </p> + <p> + “It makes no difference. I say it isn’t.” + </p> + <p> + “I shall make you say it is.” + </p> + <p> + “All right, Denis. But you must do it another time. I must go in and get + my ankle into hot water. It’s beginning to swell.” + </p> + <p> + Reasons of health could not be gainsaid. Denis got up reluctantly, and + helped his companion to her feet. She took a cautious step. “Ooh!” She + halted and leaned heavily on his arm. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll carry you,” Denis offered. He had never tried to carry a woman, but + on the cinema it always looked an easy piece of heroism. + </p> + <p> + “You couldn’t,” said Anne. + </p> + <p> + “Of course I can.” He felt larger and more protective than ever. “Put your + arms round my neck,” he ordered. She did so and, stooping, he picked her + up under the knees and lifted her from the ground. Good heavens, what a + weight! He took five staggering steps up the slope, then almost lost his + equilibrium, and had to deposit his burden suddenly, with something of a + bump. + </p> + <p> + Anne was shaking with laughter. “I said you couldn’t, my poor Denis.” + </p> + <p> + “I can,” said Denis, without conviction. “I’ll try again.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s perfectly sweet of you to offer, but I’d rather walk, thanks.” She + laid her hand on his shoulder and, thus supported, began to limp slowly up + the hill. + </p> + <p> + “My poor Denis!” she repeated, and laughed again. Humiliated, he was + silent. It seemed incredible that, only two minutes ago, he should have + been holding her in his embrace, kissing her. Incredible. She was helpless + then, a child. Now she had regained all her superiority; she was once more + the far-off being, desired and unassailable. Why had he been such a fool + as to suggest that carrying stunt? He reached the house in a state of the + profoundest depression. + </p> + <p> + He helped Anne upstairs, left her in the hands of a maid, and came down + again to the drawing-room. He was surprised to find them all sitting just + where he had left them. He had expected that, somehow, everything would be + quite different—it seemed such a prodigious time since he went away. + All silent and all damned, he reflected, as he looked at them. Mr. + Scogan’s pipe still wheezed; that was the only sound. Henry Wimbush was + still deep in his account books; he had just made the discovery that Sir + Ferdinando was in the habit of eating oysters the whole summer through, + regardless of the absence of the justifying R. Gombauld, in horn-rimmed + spectacles, was reading. Jenny was mysteriously scribbling in her red + notebook. And, seated in her favourite arm-chair at the corner of the + hearth, Priscilla was looking through a pile of drawings. One by one she + held them out at arm’s length and, throwing back her mountainous orange + head, looked long and attentively through half-closed eyelids. She wore a + pale sea-green dress; on the slope of her mauve-powdered decolletage + diamonds twinkled. An immensely long cigarette-holder projected at an + angle from her face. Diamonds were embedded in her high-piled coiffure; + they glittered every time she moved. It was a batch of Ivor’s drawings—sketches + of Spirit Life, made in the course of tranced tours through the other + world. On the back of each sheet descriptive titles were written: + “Portrait of an Angel, 15th March ‘20;” “Astral Beings at Play, 3rd + December ‘19;” “A Party of Souls on their Way to a Higher Sphere, 21st May + ‘21.” Before examining the drawing on the obverse of each sheet, she + turned it over to read the title. Try as she could—and she tried + hard—Priscilla had never seen a vision or succeeded in establishing + any communication with the Spirit World. She had to be content with the + reported experiences of others. + </p> + <p> + “What have you done with the rest of your party?” she asked, looking up as + Denis entered the room. + </p> + <p> + He explained. Anne had gone to bed, Ivor and Mary were still in the + garden. He selected a book and a comfortable chair, and tried, as far as + the disturbed state of his mind would permit him, to compose himself for + an evening’s reading. The lamplight was utterly serene; there was no + movement save the stir of Priscilla among her papers. All silent and all + damned, Denis repeated to himself, all silent and all damned... + </p> + <p> + It was nearly an hour later when Ivor and Mary made their appearance. + </p> + <p> + “We waited to see the moon rise,” said Ivor. + </p> + <p> + “It was gibbous, you know,” Mary explained, very technical and scientific. + </p> + <p> + “It was so beautiful down in the garden! The trees, the scent of the + flowers, the stars...” Ivor waved his arms. “And when the moon came up, it + was really too much. It made me burst into tears.” He sat down at the + piano and opened the lid. + </p> + <p> + “There were a great many meteorites,” said Mary to anyone who would + listen. “The earth must just be coming into the summer shower of them. In + July and August...” + </p> + <p> + But Ivor had already begun to strike the keys. He played the garden, the + stars, the scent of flowers, the rising moon. He even put in a nightingale + that was not there. Mary looked on and listened with parted lips. The + others pursued their occupations, without appearing to be seriously + disturbed. On this very July day, exactly three hundred and fifty years + ago, Sir Ferdinando had eaten seven dozen oysters. The discovery of this + fact gave Henry Wimbush a peculiar pleasure. He had a natural piety which + made him delight in the celebration of memorial feasts. The three hundred + and fiftieth anniversary of the seven dozen oysters...He wished he had + known before dinner; he would have ordered champagne. + </p> + <p> + On her way to bed Mary paid a call. The light was out in Anne’s room, but + she was not yet asleep. + </p> + <p> + “Why didn’t you come down to the garden with us?” Mary asked. + </p> + <p> + “I fell down and twisted my ankle. Denis helped me home.” + </p> + <p> + Mary was full of sympathy. Inwardly, too, she was relieved to find Anne’s + non-appearance so simply accounted for. She had been vaguely suspicious, + down there in the garden—suspicious of what, she hardly knew; but + there had seemed to be something a little louche in the way she had + suddenly found herself alone with Ivor. Not that she minded, of course; + far from it. But she didn’t like the idea that perhaps she was the victim + of a put-up job. + </p> + <p> + “I do hope you’ll be better to-morrow,” she said, and she commiserated + with Anne on all she had missed—the garden, the stars, the scent of + flowers, the meteorites through whose summer shower the earth was now + passing, the rising moon and its gibbosity. And then they had had such + interesting conversation. What about? About almost everything. Nature, + art, science, poetry, the stars, spiritualism, the relations of the sexes, + music, religion. Ivor, she thought, had an interesting mind. + </p> + <p> + The two young ladies parted affectionately. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVIII. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he nearest Roman + Catholic church was upwards of twenty miles away. Ivor, who was + punctilious in his devotions, came down early to breakfast and had his car + at the door, ready to start, by a quarter to ten. It was a smart, + expensive-looking machine, enamelled a pure lemon yellow and upholstered + in emerald green leather. There were two seats—three if you squeezed + tightly enough—and their occupants were protected from wind, dust, + and weather by a glazed sedan that rose, an elegant eighteenth-century + hump, from the midst of the body of the car. + </p> + <p> + Mary had never been to a Roman Catholic service, thought it would be an + interesting experience, and, when the car moved off through the great + gates of the courtyard, she was occupying the spare seat in the sedan. The + sea-lion horn roared, faintlier, faintlier, and they were gone. + </p> + <p> + In the parish church of Crome Mr. Bodiham preached on 1 Kings vi. 18: “And + the cedar of the house within was carved with knops”—a sermon of + immediately local interest. For the past two years the problem of the War + Memorial had exercised the minds of all those in Crome who had enough + leisure, or mental energy, or party spirit to think of such things. Henry + Wimbush was all for a library—a library of local literature, stocked + with county histories, old maps of the district, monographs on the local + antiquities, dialect dictionaries, handbooks of the local geology and + natural history. He liked to think of the villagers, inspired by such + reading, making up parties of a Sunday afternoon to look for fossils and + flint arrow-heads. The villagers themselves favoured the idea of a + memorial reservoir and water supply. But the busiest and most articulate + party followed Mr. Bodiham in demanding something religious in character—a + second lich-gate, for example, a stained-glass window, a monument of + marble, or, if possible, all three. So far, however, nothing had been + done, partly because the memorial committee had never been able to agree, + partly for the more cogent reason that too little money had been + subscribed to carry out any of the proposed schemes. Every three or four + months Mr. Bodiham preached a sermon on the subject. His last had been + delivered in March; it was high time that his congregation had a fresh + reminder. + </p> + <p> + “And the cedar of the house within was carved with knops.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Bodiham touched lightly on Solomon’s temple. From thence he passed to + temples and churches in general. What were the characteristics of these + buildings dedicated to God? Obviously, the fact of their, from a human + point of view, complete uselessness. They were unpractical buildings + “carved with knops.” Solomon might have built a library—indeed, what + could be more to the taste of the world’s wisest man? He might have dug a + reservoir—what more useful in a parched city like Jerusalem? He did + neither; he built a house all carved with knops, useless and unpractical. + Why? Because he was dedicating the work to God. There had been much talk + in Crome about the proposed War Memorial. A War Memorial was, in its very + nature, a work dedicated to God. It was a token of thankfulness that the + first stage in the culminating world-war had been crowned by the triumph + of righteousness; it was at the same time a visibly embodied supplication + that God might not long delay the Advent which alone could bring the final + peace. A library, a reservoir? Mr. Bodiham scornfully and indignantly + condemned the idea. These were works dedicated to man, not to God. As a + War Memorial they were totally unsuitable. A lich-gate had been suggested. + This was an object which answered perfectly to the definition of a War + Memorial: a useless work dedicated to God and carved with knops. One + lich-gate, it was true, already existed. But nothing would be easier than + to make a second entrance into the churchyard; and a second entrance would + need a second gate. Other suggestions had been made. Stained-glass + windows, a monument of marble. Both these were admirable, especially the + latter. It was high time that the War Memorial was erected. It might soon + be too late. At any moment, like a thief in the night, God might come. + Meanwhile a difficulty stood in the way. Funds were inadequate. All should + subscribe according to their means. Those who had lost relations in the + war might reasonably be expected to subscribe a sum equal to that which + they would have had to pay in funeral expenses if the relative had died + while at home. Further delay was disastrous. The War Memorial must be + built at once. He appealed to the patriotism and the Christian sentiments + of all his hearers. + </p> + <p> + Henry Wimbush walked home thinking of the books he would present to the + War Memorial Library, if ever it came into existence. He took the path + through the fields; it was pleasanter than the road. At the first stile a + group of village boys, loutish young fellows all dressed in the hideous + ill-fitting black which makes a funeral of every English Sunday and + holiday, were assembled, drearily guffawing as they smoked their + cigarettes. They made way for Henry Wimbush, touching their caps as he + passed. He returned their salute; his bowler and face were one in their + unruffled gravity. + </p> + <p> + In Sir Ferdinando’s time, he reflected, in the time of his son, Sir + Julius, these young men would have had their Sunday diversions even at + Crome, remote and rustic Crome. There would have been archery, skittles, + dancing—social amusements in which they would have partaken as + members of a conscious community. Now they had nothing, nothing except Mr. + Bodiham’s forbidding Boys’ Club and the rare dances and concerts organised + by himself. Boredom or the urban pleasures of the county metropolis were + the alternatives that presented themselves to these poor youths. Country + pleasures were no more; they had been stamped out by the Puritans. + </p> + <p> + In Manningham’s Diary for 1600 there was a queer passage, he remembered, a + very queer passage. Certain magistrates in Berkshire, Puritan magistrates, + had had wind of a scandal. One moonlit summer night they had ridden out + with their posse and there, among the hills, they had come upon a company + of men and women, dancing, stark naked, among the sheepcotes. The + magistrates and their men had ridden their horses into the crowd. How + self-conscious the poor people must suddenly have felt, how helpless + without their clothes against armed and booted horsemen! The dancers were + arrested, whipped, gaoled, set in the stocks; the moonlight dance is never + danced again. What old, earthy, Panic rite came to extinction here? he + wondered. Who knows?—perhaps their ancestors had danced like this in + the moonlight ages before Adam and Eve were so much as thought of. He + liked to think so. And now it was no more. These weary young men, if they + wanted to dance, would have to bicycle six miles to the town. The country + was desolate, without life of its own, without indigenous pleasures. The + pious magistrates had snuffed out for ever a little happy flame that had + burned from the beginning of time. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “And as on Tullia’s tomb one lamp burned clear, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Unchanged for fifteen hundred year...” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + He repeated the lines to himself, and was desolated to think of all the + murdered past. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIX. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>enry Wimbush’s + long cigar burned aromatically. The “History of Crome” lay on his knee; + slowly he turned over the pages. + </p> + <p> + “I can’t decide what episode to read you to-night,” he said thoughtfully. + “Sir Ferdinando’s voyages are not without interest. Then, of course, + there’s his son, Sir Julius. It was he who suffered from the delusion that + his perspiration engendered flies; it drove him finally to suicide. Or + there’s Sir Cyprian.” He turned the pages more rapidly. “Or Sir Henry. Or + Sir George...No, I’m inclined to think I won’t read about any of these.” + </p> + <p> + “But you must read something,” insisted Mr. Scogan, taking his pipe out of + his mouth. + </p> + <p> + “I think I shall read about my grandfather,” said Henry Wimbush, “and the + events that led up to his marriage with the eldest daughter of the last + Sir Ferdinando.” + </p> + <p> + “Good,” said Mr. Scogan. “We are listening.” + </p> + <p> + “Before I begin reading,” said Henry Wimbush, looking up from the book and + taking off the pince-nez which he had just fitted to his nose—“before + I begin, I must say a few preliminary words about Sir Ferdinando, the last + of the Lapiths. At the death of the virtuous and unfortunate Sir Hercules, + Ferdinando found himself in possession of the family fortune, not a little + increased by his father’s temperance and thrift; he applied himself + forthwith to the task of spending it, which he did in an ample and jovial + fashion. By the time he was forty he had eaten and, above all, drunk and + loved away about half his capital, and would infallibly have soon got rid + of the rest in the same manner, if he had not had the good fortune to + become so madly enamoured of the Rector’s daughter as to make a proposal + of marriage. The young lady accepted him, and in less than a year had + become the absolute mistress of Crome and her husband. An extraordinary + reformation made itself apparent in Sir Ferdinando’s character. He grew + regular and economical in his habits; he even became temperate, rarely + drinking more than a bottle and a half of port at a sitting. The waning + fortune of the Lapiths began once more to wax, and that in despite of the + hard times (for Sir Ferdinando married in 1809 in the height of the + Napoleonic Wars). A prosperous and dignified old age, cheered by the + spectacle of his children’s growth and happiness—for Lady Lapith had + already borne him three daughters, and there seemed no good reason why she + should not bear many more of them, and sons as well—a patriarchal + decline into the family vault, seemed now to be Sir Ferdinando’s enviable + destiny. But Providence willed otherwise. To Napoleon, cause already of + such infinite mischief, was due, though perhaps indirectly, the untimely + and violent death which put a period to this reformed existence. + </p> + <p> + “Sir Ferdinando, who was above all things a patriot, had adopted, from the + earliest days of the conflict with the French, his own peculiar method of + celebrating our victories. When the happy news reached London, it was his + custom to purchase immediately a large store of liquor and, taking a place + on whichever of the outgoing coaches he happened to light on first, to + drive through the country proclaiming the good news to all he met on the + road and dispensing it, along with the liquor, at every stopping-place to + all who cared to listen or drink. Thus, after the Nile, he had driven as + far as Edinburgh; and later, when the coaches, wreathed with laurel for + triumph, with cypress for mourning, were setting out with the news of + Nelson’s victory and death, he sat through all a chilly October night on + the box of the Norwich ‘Meteor’ with a nautical keg of rum on his knees + and two cases of old brandy under the seat. This genial custom was one of + the many habits which he abandoned on his marriage. The victories in the + Peninsula, the retreat from Moscow, Leipzig, and the abdication of the + tyrant all went uncelebrated. It so happened, however, that in the summer + of 1815 Sir Ferdinando was staying for a few weeks in the capital. There + had been a succession of anxious, doubtful days; then came the glorious + news of Waterloo. It was too much for Sir Ferdinando; his joyous youth + awoke again within him. He hurried to his wine merchant and bought a dozen + bottles of 1760 brandy. The Bath coach was on the point of starting; he + bribed his way on to the box and, seated in glory beside the driver, + proclaimed aloud the downfall of the Corsican bandit and passed about the + warm liquid joy. They clattered through Uxbridge, Slough, Maidenhead. + Sleeping Reading was awakened by the great news. At Didcot one of the + ostlers was so much overcome by patriotic emotions and the 1760 brandy + that he found it impossible to do up the buckles of the harness. The night + began to grow chilly, and Sir Ferdinando found that it was not enough to + take a nip at every stage: to keep up his vital warmth he was compelled to + drink between the stages as well. They were approaching Swindon. The coach + was travelling at a dizzy speed—six miles in the last half-hour—when, + without having manifested the slightest premonitory symptom of + unsteadiness, Sir Ferdinando suddenly toppled sideways off his seat and + fell, head foremost, into the road. An unpleasant jolt awakened the + slumbering passengers. The coach was brought to a standstill; the guard + ran back with a light. He found Sir Ferdinando still alive, but + unconscious; blood was oozing from his mouth. The back wheels of the coach + had passed over his body, breaking most of his ribs and both arms. His + skull was fractured in two places. They picked him up, but he was dead + before they reached the next stage. So perished Sir Ferdinando, a victim + to his own patriotism. Lady Lapith did not marry again, but determined to + devote the rest of her life to the well-being of her three children—Georgiana, + now five years old, and Emmeline and Caroline, twins of two.” + </p> + <p> + Henry Wimbush paused, and once more put on his pince-nez. “So much by way + of introduction,” he said. “Now I can begin to read about my grandfather.” + </p> + <p> + “One moment,” said Mr. Scogan, “till I’ve refilled my pipe.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Wimbush waited. Seated apart in a corner of the room, Ivor was showing + Mary his sketches of Spirit Life. They spoke together in whispers. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan had lighted his pipe again. “Fire away,” he said. + </p> + <p> + Henry Wimbush fired away. + </p> + <p> + “It was in the spring of 1833 that my grandfather, George Wimbush, first + made the acquaintance of the ‘three lovely Lapiths,’ as they were always + called. He was then a young man of twenty-two, with curly yellow hair and + a smooth pink face that was the mirror of his youthful and ingenuous mind. + He had been educated at Harrow and Christ Church, he enjoyed hunting and + all other field sports, and, though his circumstances were comfortable to + the verge of affluence, his pleasures were temperate and innocent. His + father, an East Indian merchant, had destined him for a political career, + and had gone to considerable expense in acquiring a pleasant little + Cornish borough as a twenty-first birthday gift for his son. He was justly + indignant when, on the very eve of George’s majority, the Reform Bill of + 1832 swept the borough out of existence. The inauguration of George’s + political career had to be postponed. At the time he got to know the + lovely Lapiths he was waiting; he was not at all impatient. + </p> + <p> + “The lovely Lapiths did not fail to impress him. Georgiana, the eldest, + with her black ringlets, her flashing eyes, her noble aquiline profile, + her swan-like neck, and sloping shoulders, was orientally dazzling; and + the twins, with their delicately turned-up noses, their blue eyes, and + chestnut hair, were an identical pair of ravishingly English charmers. + </p> + <p> + “Their conversation at this first meeting proved, however, to be so + forbidding that, but for the invincible attraction exercised by their + beauty, George would never have had the courage to follow up the + acquaintance. The twins, looking up their noses at him with an air of + languid superiority, asked him what he thought of the latest French poetry + and whether he liked the ‘Indiana’ of George Sand. But what was almost + worse was the question with which Georgiana opened her conversation with + him. ‘In music,’ she asked, leaning forward and fixing him with her large + dark eyes, ‘are you a classicist or a transcendentalist?’ George did not + lose his presence of mind. He had enough appreciation of music to know + that he hated anything classical, and so, with a promptitude which did him + credit, he replied, ‘I am a transcendentalist.’ Georgiana smiled + bewitchingly. ‘I am glad,’ she said; ‘so am I. You went to hear Paganini + last week, of course. “The prayer of Moses”—ah!’ She closed her + eyes. ‘Do you know anything more transcendental than that?’ ‘No,’ said + George, ‘I don’t.’ He hesitated, was about to go on speaking, and then + decided that after all it would be wiser not to say—what was in fact + true—that he had enjoyed above all Paganini’s Farmyard Imitations. + The man had made his fiddle bray like an ass, cluck like a hen, grunt, + squeal, bark, neigh, quack, bellow, and growl; that last item, in George’s + estimation, had almost compensated for the tediousness of the rest of the + concert. He smiled with pleasure at the thought of it. Yes, decidedly, he + was no classicist in music; he was a thoroughgoing transcendentalist. + </p> + <p> + “George followed up this first introduction by paying a call on the young + ladies and their mother, who occupied, during the season, a small but + elegant house in the neighbourhood of Berkeley Square. Lady Lapith made a + few discreet inquiries, and having found that George’s financial position, + character, and family were all passably good, she asked him to dine. She + hoped and expected that her daughters would all marry into the peerage; + but, being a prudent woman, she knew it was advisable to prepare for all + contingencies. George Wimbush, she thought, would make an excellent second + string for one of the twins. + </p> + <p> + “At this first dinner, George’s partner was Emmeline. They talked of + Nature. Emmeline protested that to her high mountains were a feeling and + the hum of human cities torture. George agreed that the country was very + agreeable, but held that London during the season also had its charms. He + noticed with surprise and a certain solicitous distress that Miss + Emmeline’s appetite was poor, that it didn’t, in fact, exist. Two + spoonfuls of soup, a morsel of fish, no bird, no meat, and three grapes—that + was her whole dinner. He looked from time to time at her two sisters; + Georgiana and Caroline seemed to be quite as abstemious. They waved away + whatever was offered them with an expression of delicate disgust, shutting + their eyes and averting their faces from the proffered dish, as though the + lemon sole, the duck, the loin of veal, the trifle, were objects revolting + to the sight and smell. George, who thought the dinner capital, ventured + to comment on the sisters’ lack of appetite. + </p> + <p> + “‘Pray, don’t talk to me of eating,’ said Emmeline, drooping like a + sensitive plant. ‘We find it so coarse, so unspiritual, my sisters and I. + One can’t think of one’s soul while one is eating.’ + </p> + <p> + “George agreed; one couldn’t. ‘But one must live,’ he said. + </p> + <p> + “‘Alas!’ Emmeline sighed. ‘One must. Death is very beautiful, don’t you + think?’ She broke a corner off a piece of toast and began to nibble at it + languidly. ‘But since, as you say, one must live...’ She made a little + gesture of resignation. ‘Luckily a very little suffices to keep one + alive.’ She put down her corner of toast half eaten. + </p> + <p> + “George regarded her with some surprise. She was pale, but she looked + extraordinarily healthy, he thought; so did her sisters. Perhaps if you + were really spiritual you needed less food. He, clearly, was not + spiritual. + </p> + <p> + “After this he saw them frequently. They all liked him, from Lady Lapith + downwards. True, he was not very romantic or poetical; but he was such a + pleasant, unpretentious, kind-hearted young man, that one couldn’t help + liking him. For his part, he thought them wonderful, wonderful, especially + Georgiana. He enveloped them all in a warm, protective affection. For they + needed protection; they were altogether too frail, too spiritual for this + world. They never ate, they were always pale, they often complained of + fever, they talked much and lovingly of death, they frequently swooned. + Georgiana was the most ethereal of all; of the three she ate least, + swooned most often, talked most of death, and was the palest—with a + pallor that was so startling as to appear positively artificial. At any + moment, it seemed, she might loose her precarious hold on this material + world and become all spirit. To George the thought was a continual agony. + If she were to die... + </p> + <p> + “She contrived, however, to live through the season, and that in spite of + the numerous balls, routs, and other parties of pleasure which, in company + with the rest of the lovely trio, she never failed to attend. In the + middle of July the whole household moved down to the country. George was + invited to spend the month of August at Crome. + </p> + <p> + “The house-party was distinguished; in the list of visitors figured the + names of two marriageable young men of title. George had hoped that + country air, repose, and natural surroundings might have restored to the + three sisters their appetites and the roses of their cheeks. He was + mistaken. For dinner, the first evening, Georgiana ate only an olive, two + or three salted almonds, and half a peach. She was as pale as ever. During + the meal she spoke of love. + </p> + <p> + “‘True love,’ she said, ‘being infinite and eternal, can only be + consummated in eternity. Indiana and Sir Rodolphe celebrated the mystic + wedding of their souls by jumping into Niagara. Love is incompatible with + life. The wish of two people who truly love one another is not to live + together but to die together.’ + </p> + <p> + “‘Come, come, my dear,’ said Lady Lapith, stout and practical. ‘What would + become of the next generation, pray, if all the world acted on your + principles?’ + </p> + <p> + “‘Mamma!...’ Georgiana protested, and dropped her eyes. + </p> + <p> + “‘In my young days,’ Lady Lapith went on, ‘I should have been laughed out + of countenance if I’d said a thing like that. But then in my young days + souls weren’t as fashionable as they are now and we didn’t think death was + at all poetical. It was just unpleasant.’ + </p> + <p> + “‘Mamma!...’ Emmeline and Caroline implored in unison. + </p> + <p> + “‘In my young days—’ Lady Lapith was launched into her subject; + nothing, it seemed, could stop her now. ‘In my young days, if you didn’t + eat, people told you you needed a dose of rhubarb. Nowadays...’ + </p> + <p> + “There was a cry; Georgiana had swooned sideways on to Lord Timpany’s + shoulder. It was a desperate expedient; but it was successful. Lady Lapith + was stopped. + </p> + <p> + “The days passed in an uneventful round of pleasures. Of all the gay party + George alone was unhappy. Lord Timpany was paying his court to Georgiana, + and it was clear that he was not unfavourably received. George looked on, + and his soul was a hell of jealousy and despair. The boisterous company of + the young men became intolerable to him; he shrank from them, seeking + gloom and solitude. One morning, having broken away from them on some + vague pretext, he returned to the house alone. The young men were bathing + in the pool below; their cries and laughter floated up to him, making the + quiet house seem lonelier and more silent. The lovely sisters and their + mamma still kept their chambers; they did not customarily make their + appearance till luncheon, so that the male guests had the morning to + themselves. George sat down in the hall and abandoned himself to thought. + </p> + <p> + “At any moment she might die; at any moment she might become Lady Timpany. + It was terrible, terrible. If she died, then he would die too; he would go + to seek her beyond the grave. If she became Lady Timpany...ah, then! The + solution of the problem would not be so simple. If she became Lady + Timpany: it was a horrible thought. But then suppose she were in love with + Timpany—though it seemed incredible that anyone could be in love + with Timpany—suppose her life depended on Timpany, suppose she + couldn’t live without him? He was fumbling his way along this clueless + labyrinth of suppositions when the clock struck twelve. On the last + stroke, like an automaton released by the turning clockwork, a little + maid, holding a large covered tray, popped out of the door that led from + the kitchen regions into the hall. From his deep arm-chair George watched + her (himself, it was evident, unobserved) with an idle curiosity. She + pattered across the room and came to a halt in front of what seemed a + blank expense of panelling. She reached out her hand and, to George’s + extreme astonishment, a little door swung open, revealing the foot of a + winding staircase. Turning sideways in order to get her tray through the + narrow opening, the little maid darted in with a rapid crab-like motion. + The door closed behind her with a click. A minute later it opened again + and the maid, without her tray, hurried back across the hall and + disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. George tried to recompose his + thoughts, but an invincible curiosity drew his mind towards the hidden + door, the staircase, the little maid. It was in vain he told himself that + the matter was none of his business, that to explore the secrets of that + surprising door, that mysterious staircase within, would be a piece of + unforgivable rudeness and indiscretion. It was in vain; for five minutes + he struggled heroically with his curiosity, but at the end of that time he + found himself standing in front of the innocent sheet of panelling through + which the little maid had disappeared. A glance sufficed to show him the + position of the secret door—secret, he perceived, only to those who + looked with a careless eye. It was just an ordinary door let in flush with + the panelling. No latch nor handle betrayed its position, but an + unobtrusive catch sunk in the wood invited the thumb. George was + astonished that he had not noticed it before; now he had seen it, it was + so obvious, almost as obvious as the cupboard door in the library with its + lines of imitation shelves and its dummy books. He pulled back the catch + and peeped inside. The staircase, of which the degrees were made not of + stone but of blocks of ancient oak, wound up and out of sight. A slit-like + window admitted the daylight; he was at the foot of the central tower, and + the little window looked out over the terrace; they were still shouting + and splashing in the pool below. + </p> + <p> + “George closed the door and went back to his seat. But his curiosity was + not satisfied. Indeed, this partial satisfaction had but whetted its + appetite. Where did the staircase lead? What was the errand of the little + maid? It was no business of his, he kept repeating—no business of + his. He tried to read, but his attention wandered. A quarter-past twelve + sounded on the harmonious clock. Suddenly determined, George rose, crossed + the room, opened the hidden door, and began to ascend the stairs. He + passed the first window, corkscrewed round, and came to another. He paused + for a moment to look out; his heart beat uncomfortably, as though he were + affronting some unknown danger. What he was doing, he told himself, was + extremely ungentlemanly, horribly underbred. He tiptoed onward and upward. + One turn more, then half a turn, and a door confronted him. He halted + before it, listened; he could hear no sound. Putting his eye to the + keyhole, he saw nothing but a stretch of white sunlit wall. Emboldened, he + turned the handle and stepped across the threshold. There he halted, + petrified by what he saw, mutely gaping. + </p> + <p> + “In the middle of a pleasantly sunny little room—‘it is now + Priscilla’s boudoir,’ Mr. Wimbush remarked parenthetically—stood a + small circular table of mahogany. Crystal, porcelain, and silver,—all + the shining apparatus of an elegant meal—were mirrored in its + polished depths. The carcase of a cold chicken, a bowl of fruit, a great + ham, deeply gashed to its heart of tenderest white and pink, the brown + cannon ball of a cold plum-pudding, a slender Hock bottle, and a decanter + of claret jostled one another for a place on this festive board. And round + the table sat the three sisters, the three lovely Lapiths—eating! + </p> + <p> + “At George’s sudden entrance they had all looked towards the door, and now + they sat, petrified by the same astonishment which kept George fixed and + staring. Georgiana, who sat immediately facing the door, gazed at him with + dark, enormous eyes. Between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand + she was holding a drumstick of the dismembered chicken; her little finger, + elegantly crooked, stood apart from the rest of her hand. Her mouth was + open, but the drumstick had never reached its destination; it remained, + suspended, frozen, in mid-air. The other two sisters had turned round to + look at the intruder. Caroline still grasped her knife and fork; + Emmeline’s fingers were round the stem of her claret glass. For what + seemed a very long time, George and the three sisters stared at one + another in silence. They were a group of statues. Then suddenly there was + movement. Georgiana dropped her chicken bone, Caroline’s knife and fork + clattered on her plate. The movement propagated itself, grew more + decisive; Emmeline sprang to her feet, uttering a cry. The wave of panic + reached George; he turned and, mumbling something unintelligible as he + went, rushed out of the room and down the winding stairs. He came to a + standstill in the hall, and there, all by himself in the quiet house, he + began to laugh. + </p> + <p> + “At luncheon it was noticed that the sisters ate a little more than usual. + Georgiana toyed with some French beans and a spoonful of calves’-foot + jelly. ‘I feel a little stronger to-day,’ she said to Lord Timpany, when + he congratulated her on this increase of appetite; ‘a little more + material,’ she added, with a nervous laugh. Looking up, she caught + George’s eye; a blush suffused her cheeks and she looked hastily away. + </p> + <p> + “In the garden that afternoon they found themselves for a moment alone. + </p> + <p> + “You won’t tell anyone, George? Promise you won’t tell anyone,’ she + implored. ‘It would make us look so ridiculous. And besides, eating IS + unspiritual, isn’t it? Say you won’t tell anyone.’ + </p> + <p> + “‘I will,’ said George brutally. ‘I’ll tell everyone, unless...’ + </p> + <p> + “‘It’s blackmail.’ + </p> + <p> + “‘I don’t care, said George. ‘I’ll give you twenty-four hours to decide.’ + </p> + <p> + “Lady Lapith was disappointed, of course; she had hoped for better things—for + Timpany and a coronet. But George, after all, wasn’t so bad. They were + married at the New Year. + </p> + <p> + “My poor grandfather!” Mr. Wimbush added, as he closed his book and put + away his pince-nez. “Whenever I read in the papers about oppressed + nationalities, I think of him.” He relighted his cigar. “It was a maternal + government, highly centralised, and there were no representative + institutions.” + </p> + <p> + Henry Wimbush ceased speaking. In the silence that ensued Ivor’s whispered + commentary on the spirit sketches once more became audible. Priscilla, who + had been dozing, suddenly woke up. + </p> + <p> + “What?” she said in the startled tones of one newly returned to + consciousness; “what?” + </p> + <p> + Jenny caught the words. She looked up, smiled, nodded reassuringly. “It’s + about a ham,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “What’s about a ham?” + </p> + <p> + “What Henry has been reading.” She closed the red notebook lying on her + knees and slipped a rubber band round it. “I’m going to bed,” she + announced, and got up. + </p> + <p> + “So am I,” said Anne, yawning. But she lacked the energy to rise from her + arm-chair. + </p> + <p> + The night was hot and oppressive. Round the open windows the curtains hung + unmoving. Ivor, fanning himself with the portrait of an Astral Being, + looked out into the darkness and drew a breath. + </p> + <p> + “The air’s like wool,” he declared. + </p> + <p> + “It will get cooler after midnight,” said Henry Wimbush, and cautiously + added, “perhaps.” + </p> + <p> + “I shan’t sleep, I know.” + </p> + <p> + Priscilla turned her head in his direction; the monumental coiffure nodded + exorbitantly at her slightest movement. “You must make an effort,” she + said. “When I can’t sleep, I concentrate my will: I say, ‘I will sleep, I + am asleep!’ And pop! off I go. That’s the power of thought.” + </p> + <p> + “But does it work on stuffy nights?” Ivor inquired. “I simply cannot sleep + on a stuffy night.” + </p> + <p> + “Nor can I,” said Mary, “except out of doors.” + </p> + <p> + “Out of doors! What a wonderful idea!” In the end they decided to sleep on + the towers—Mary on the western tower, Ivor on the eastern. There was + a flat expanse of leads on each of the towers, and you could get a + mattress through the trap doors that opened on to them. Under the stars, + under the gibbous moon, assuredly they would sleep. The mattresses were + hauled up, sheets and blankets were spread, and an hour later the two + insomniasts, each on his separate tower, were crying their good-nights + across the dividing gulf. + </p> + <p> + On Mary the sleep-compelling charm of the open air did not work with its + expected magic. Even through the mattress one could not fail to be aware + that the leads were extremely hard. Then there were noises: the owls + screeched tirelessly, and once, roused by some unknown terror, all the + geese of the farmyard burst into a sudden frenzy of cackling. The stars + and the gibbous moon demanded to be looked at, and when one meteorite had + streaked across the sky, you could not help waiting, open-eyed and alert, + for the next. Time passed; the moon climbed higher and higher in the sky. + Mary felt less sleepy than she had when she first came out. She sat up and + looked over the parapet. Had Ivor been able to sleep? she wondered. And as + though in answer to her mental question, from behind the chimney-stack at + the farther end of the roof a white form noiselessly emerged—a form + that, in the moonlight, was recognisably Ivor’s. Spreading his arms to + right and left, like a tight-rope dancer, he began to walk forward along + the roof-tree of the house. He swayed terrifyingly as he advanced. Mary + looked on speechlessly; perhaps he was walking in his sleep! Suppose he + were to wake up suddenly, now! If she spoke or moved it might mean his + death. She dared look no more, but sank back on her pillows. She listened + intently. For what seemed an immensely long time there was no sound. Then + there was a patter of feet on the tiles, followed by a scrabbling noise + and a whispered “Damn!” And suddenly Ivor’s head and shoulders appeared + above the parapet. One leg followed, then the other. He was on the leads. + Mary pretended to wake up with a start. + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” she said. “What are you doing here?” + </p> + <p> + “I couldn’t sleep,” he explained, “so I came along to see if you couldn’t. + One gets bored by oneself on a tower. Don’t you find it so?” + </p> + <p> + It was light before five. Long, narrow clouds barred the east, their edges + bright with orange fire. The sky was pale and watery. With the mournful + scream of a soul in pain, a monstrous peacock, flying heavily up from + below, alighted on the parapet of the tower. Ivor and Mary started broad + awake. + </p> + <p> + “Catch him!” cried Ivor, jumping up. “We’ll have a feather.” The + frightened peacock ran up and down the parapet in an absurd distress, + curtseying and bobbing and clucking; his long tail swung ponderously back + and forth as he turned and turned again. Then with a flap and swish he + launched himself upon the air and sailed magnificently earthward, with a + recovered dignity. But he had left a trophy. Ivor had his feather, a + long-lashed eye of purple and green, of blue and gold. He handed it to his + companion. + </p> + <p> + “An angel’s feather,” he said. + </p> + <p> + Mary looked at it for a moment, gravely and intently. Her purple pyjamas + clothed her with an ampleness that hid the lines of her body; she looked + like some large, comfortable, unjointed toy, a sort of Teddy-bear—but + a Teddy bear with an angel’s head, pink cheeks, and hair like a bell of + gold. An angel’s face, the feather of an angel’s wing...Somehow the whole + atmosphere of this sunrise was rather angelic. + </p> + <p> + “It’s extraordinary to think of sexual selection,” she said at last, + looking up from her contemplation of the miraculous feather. + </p> + <p> + “Extraordinary!” Ivor echoed. “I select you, you select me. What luck!” + </p> + <p> + He put his arm round her shoulders and they stood looking eastward. The + first sunlight had begun to warm and colour the pale light of the dawn. + Mauve pyjamas and white pyjamas; they were a young and charming couple. + The rising sun touched their faces. It was all extremely symbolic; but + then, if you choose to think so, nothing in this world is not symbolical. + Profound and beautiful truth! + </p> + <p> + “I must be getting back to my tower,” said Ivor at last. + </p> + <p> + “Already?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m afraid so. The varletry will soon be up and about.” + </p> + <p> + “Ivor...” There was a prolonged and silent farewell. + </p> + <p> + “And now,” said Ivor, “I repeat my tight-rope stunt.” + </p> + <p> + Mary threw her arms round his neck. “You mustn’t, Ivor. It’s dangerous. + Please.” + </p> + <p> + He had to yield at last to her entreaties. “All right,” he said, “I’ll go + down through the house and up at the other end.” + </p> + <p> + He vanished through the trap door into the darkness that still lurked + within the shuttered house. A minute later he had reappeared on the + farther tower; he waved his hand, and then sank down, out of sight, behind + the parapet. From below, in the house, came the thin wasp-like buzzing of + an alarum-clock. He had gone back just in time. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XX. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>vor was gone. + Lounging behind the wind-screen in his yellow sedan he was whirling across + rural England. Social and amorous engagements of the most urgent character + called him from hall to baronial hall, from castle to castle, from + Elizabethan manor-house to Georgian mansion, over the whole expanse of the + kingdom. To-day in Somerset, to-morrow in Warwickshire, on Saturday in the + West riding, by Tuesday morning in Argyll—Ivor never rested. The + whole summer through, from the beginning of July till the end of + September, he devoted himself to his engagements; he was a martyr to them. + In the autumn he went back to London for a holiday. Crome had been a + little incident, an evanescent bubble on the stream of his life; it + belonged already to the past. By tea-time he would be at Gobley, and there + would be Zenobia’s welcoming smile. And on Thursday morning—but that + was a long, long way ahead. He would think of Thursday morning when + Thursday morning arrived. Meanwhile there was Gobley, meanwhile Zenobia. + </p> + <p> + In the visitor’s book at Crome Ivor had left, according to his invariable + custom in these cases, a poem. He had improvised it magisterially in the + ten minutes preceding his departure. Denis and Mr. Scogan strolled back + together from the gates of the courtyard, whence they had bidden their + last farewells; on the writing-table in the hall they found the visitor’s + book, open, and Ivor’s composition scarcely dry. Mr. Scogan read it aloud: + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “The magic of those immemorial kings, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Who webbed enchantment on the bowls of night. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Sleeps in the soul of all created things; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + In the blue sea, th’ Acroceraunian height, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + In the eyed butterfly’s auricular wings + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And orgied visions of the anchorite; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + In all that singing flies and flying sings, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + In rain, in pain, in delicate delight. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + But much more magic, much more cogent spells + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Weave here their wizardries about my soul. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Crome calls me like the voice of vesperal bells, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Haunts like a ghostly-peopled necropole. + </p> + <p class="indent20"> + Fate tears me hence. Hard fate! since far from Crome + </p> + <p class="indent20"> + My soul must weep, remembering its Home.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + “Very nice and tasteful and tactful,” said Mr. Scogan, when he had + finished. “I am only troubled by the butterfly’s auricular wings. You have + a first-hand knowledge of the workings of a poet’s mind, Denis; perhaps + you can explain.” + </p> + <p> + “What could be simpler,” said Denis. “It’s a beautiful word, and Ivor + wanted to say that the wings were golden.” + </p> + <p> + “You make it luminously clear.” + </p> + <p> + “One suffers so much,” Denis went on, “from the fact that beautiful words + don’t always mean what they ought to mean. Recently, for example, I had a + whole poem ruined, just because the word ‘carminative’ didn’t mean what it + ought to have meant. Carminative—it’s admirable, isn’t it?” + </p> + <p> + “Admirable,” Mr. Scogan agreed. “And what does it mean?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a word I’ve treasured from my earliest infancy,” said Denis, + “treasured and loved. They used to give me cinnamon when I had a cold—quite + useless, but not disagreeable. One poured it drop by drop out of narrow + bottles, a golden liquor, fierce and fiery. On the label was a list of its + virtues, and among other things it was described as being in the highest + degree carminative. I adored the word. ‘Isn’t it carminative?’ I used to + say to myself when I’d taken my dose. It seemed so wonderfully to describe + that sensation of internal warmth, that glow, that—what shall I call + it?—physical self-satisfaction which followed the drinking of + cinnamon. Later, when I discovered alcohol, ‘carminative’ described for me + that similar, but nobler, more spiritual glow which wine evokes not only + in the body but in the soul as well. The carminative virtues of burgundy, + of rum, of old brandy, of Lacryma Christi, of Marsala, of Aleatico, of + stout, of gin, of champagne, of claret, of the raw new wine of this year’s + Tuscan vintage—I compared them, I classified them. Marsala is + rosily, downily carminative; gin pricks and refreshes while it warms. I + had a whole table of carmination values. And now”—Denis spread out + his hands, palms upwards, despairingly—“now I know what carminative + really means.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, what DOES it mean?” asked Mr. Scogan, a little impatiently. + </p> + <p> + “Carminative,” said Denis, lingering lovingly over the syllables, + “carminative. I imagined vaguely that it had something to do with + carmen-carminis, still more vaguely with caro-carnis, and its derivations, + like carnival and carnation. Carminative—there was the idea of + singing and the idea of flesh, rose-coloured and warm, with a suggestion + of the jollities of mi-Careme and the masked holidays of Venice. + Carminative—the warmth, the glow, the interior ripeness were all in + the word. Instead of which...” + </p> + <p> + “Do come to the point, my dear Denis,” protested Mr. Scogan. “Do come to + the point.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I wrote a poem the other day,” said Denis; “I wrote a poem about + the effects of love.” + </p> + <p> + “Others have done the same before you,” said Mr. Scogan. “There is no need + to be ashamed.” + </p> + <p> + “I was putting forward the notion,” Denis went on, “that the effects of + love were often similar to the effects of wine, that Eros could intoxicate + as well as Bacchus. Love, for example, is essentially carminative. It + gives one the sense of warmth, the glow. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + ‘<i>And passion carminative as wine</i>...’ + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + was what I wrote. Not only was the line elegantly sonorous; it was also, I + flattered myself, very aptly compendiously expressive. Everything was in + the word carminative—a detailed, exact foreground, an immense, + indefinite hinterland of suggestion. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + ‘<i>And passion carminative as wine</i>...’ + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + I was not ill-pleased. And then suddenly it occurred to me that I had + never actually looked up the word in a dictionary. Carminative had grown + up with me from the days of the cinnamon bottle. It had always been taken + for granted. Carminative: for me the word was as rich in content as some + tremendous, elaborate work of art; it was a complete landscape with + figures. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + ‘<i>And passion carminative as wine</i>...’ + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + It was the first time I had ever committed the word to writing, and all at + once I felt I would like lexicographical authority for it. A small + English-German dictionary was all I had at hand. I turned up C, ca, car, + carm. There it was: ‘Carminative: windtreibend.’ Windtreibend!” he + repeated. Mr. Scogan laughed. Denis shook his head. “Ah,” he said, “for me + it was no laughing matter. For me it marked the end of a chapter, the + death of something young and precious. There were the years—years of + childhood and innocence—when I had believed that carminative meant—well, + carminative. And now, before me lies the rest of my life—a day, + perhaps, ten years, half a century, when I shall know that carminative + means windtreibend. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent20"> + ‘Plus ne suis ce que j’ai ete + </p> + <p class="indent20"> + Et ne le saurai jamais etre.’ + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + It is a realisation that makes one rather melancholy.” + </p> + <p> + “Carminative,” said Mr. Scogan thoughtfully. + </p> + <p> + “Carminative,” Denis repeated, and they were silent for a time. “Words,” + said Denis at last, “words—I wonder if you can realise how much I + love them. You are too much preoccupied with mere things and ideas and + people to understand the full beauty of words. Your mind is not a literary + mind. The spectacle of Mr. Gladstone finding thirty-four rhymes to the + name ‘Margot’ seems to you rather pathetic than anything else. Mallarmé’s + envelopes with their versified addresses leave you cold, unless they leave + you pitiful; you can’t see that + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent20"> + ‘Apte à ne point te cabrer, hue! + </p> + <p class="indent20"> + Poste et j’ajouterai, dia! + </p> + <p class="indent20"> + Si tu ne fuis onze-bis Rue + </p> + <p class="indent20"> + Balzac, chez cet Hérédia,’ + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + is a little miracle.” + </p> + <p> + “You’re right,” said Mr. Scogan. “I can’t.” + </p> + <p> + “You don’t feel it to be magical?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s the test for the literary mind,” said Denis; “the feeling of + magic, the sense that words have power. The technical, verbal part of + literature is simply a development of magic. Words are man’s first and + most grandiose invention. With language he created a whole new universe; + what wonder if he loved words and attributed power to them! With fitted, + harmonious words the magicians summoned rabbits out of empty hats and + spirits from the elements. Their descendants, the literary men, still go + on with the process, morticing their verbal formulas together, and, before + the power of the finished spell, trembling with delight and awe. Rabbits + out of empty hats? No, their spells are more subtly powerful, for they + evoke emotions out of empty minds. Formulated by their art the most + insipid statements become enormously significant. For example, I proffer + the constatation, ‘Black ladders lack bladders.’ A self-evident truth, one + on which it would not have been worth while to insist, had I chosen to + formulate it in such words as ‘Black fire-escapes have no bladders,’ or, + ‘Les echelles noires manquent de vessie.’ But since I put it as I do, + ‘Black ladders lack bladders,’ it becomes, for all its self-evidence, + significant, unforgettable, moving. The creation by word-power of + something out of nothing—what is that but magic? And, I may add, + what is that but literature? Half the world’s greatest poetry is simply + ‘Les echelles noires manquent de vessie,’ translated into magic + significance as, ‘Black ladders lack bladders.’ And you can’t appreciate + words. I’m sorry for you.” + </p> + <p> + “A mental carminative,” said Mr. Scogan reflectively. “That’s what you + need.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXI. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">P</span>erched on its four + stone mushrooms, the little granary stood two or three feet above the + grass of the green close. Beneath it there was a perpetual shade and a + damp growth of long, luxuriant grasses. Here, in the shadow, in the green + dampness, a family of white ducks had sought shelter from the afternoon + sun. Some stood, preening themselves, some reposed with their long bellies + pressed to the ground, as though the cool grass were water. Little social + noises burst fitfully forth, and from time to time some pointed tail would + execute a brilliant Lisztian tremolo. Suddenly their jovial repose was + shattered. A prodigious thump shook the wooden flooring above their heads; + the whole granary trembled, little fragments of dirt and crumbled wood + rained down among them. With a loud, continuous quacking the ducks rushed + out from beneath this nameless menace, and did not stay their flight till + they were safely in the farmyard. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t lose your temper,” Anne was saying. “Listen! You’ve frightened the + ducks. Poor dears! no wonder.” She was sitting sideways in a low, wooden + chair. Her right elbow rested on the back of the chair and she supported + her cheek on her hand. Her long, slender body drooped into curves of a + lazy grace. She was smiling, and she looked at Gombauld through + half-closed eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Damn you!” Gombauld repeated, and stamped his foot again. He glared at + her round the half-finished portrait on the easel. + </p> + <p> + “Poor ducks!” Anne repeated. The sound of their quacking was faint in the + distance; it was inaudible. + </p> + <p> + “Can’t you see you make me lose my time?” he asked. “I can’t work with you + dangling about distractingly like this.” + </p> + <p> + “You’d lose less time if you stopped talking and stamping your feet and + did a little painting for a change. After all, what am I dangling about + for, except to be painted?” + </p> + <p> + Gombauld made a noise like a growl. “You’re awful,” he said, with + conviction. “Why do you ask me to come and stay here? Why do you tell me + you’d like me to paint your portrait?” + </p> + <p> + “For the simple reasons that I like you—at least, when you’re in a + good temper—and that I think you’re a good painter.” + </p> + <p> + “For the simple reason”—Gombauld mimicked her voice—“that you + want me to make love to you and, when I do, to have the amusement of + running away.” + </p> + <p> + Anne threw back her head and laughed. “So you think it amuses me to have + to evade your advances! So like a man! If you only knew how gross and + awful and boring men are when they try to make love and you don’t want + them to make love! If you could only see yourselves through our eyes!” + </p> + <p> + Gombauld picked up his palette and brushes and attacked his canvas with + the ardour of irritation. “I suppose you’ll be saying next that you didn’t + start the game, that it was I who made the first advances, and that you + were the innocent victim who sat still and never did anything that could + invite or allure me on.” + </p> + <p> + “So like a man again!” said Anne. “It’s always the same old story about + the woman tempting the man. The woman lures, fascinates, invites; and man—noble + man, innocent man—falls a victim. My poor Gombauld! Surely you’re + not going to sing that old song again. It’s so unintelligent, and I always + thought you were a man of sense.” + </p> + <p> + “Thanks,” said Gombauld. + </p> + <p> + “Be a little objective,” Anne went on. “Can’t you see that you’re simply + externalising your own emotions? That’s what you men are always doing; + it’s so barbarously naive. You feel one of your loose desires for some + woman, and because you desire her strongly you immediately accuse her of + luring you on, of deliberately provoking and inviting the desire. You have + the mentality of savages. You might just as well say that a plate of + strawberries and cream deliberately lures you on to feel greedy. In + ninety-nine cases out of a hundred women are as passive and innocent as + the strawberries and cream.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, all I can say is that this must be the hundredth case,” said + Gombauld, without looking up. + </p> + <p> + Anne shrugged her shoulders and gave vent to a sigh. “I’m at a loss to + know whether you’re more silly or more rude.” + </p> + <p> + After painting for a little time in silence Gombauld began to speak again. + “And then there’s Denis,” he said, renewing the conversation as though it + had only just been broken off. “You’re playing the same game with him. Why + can’t you leave that wretched young man in peace?” + </p> + <p> + Anne flushed with a sudden and uncontrollable anger. “It’s perfectly + untrue about Denis,” she said indignantly. “I never dreamt of playing what + you beautifully call the same game with him.” Recovering her calm, she + added in her ordinary cooing voice and with her exacerbating smile, + “You’ve become very protective towards poor Denis all of a sudden.” + </p> + <p> + “I have,” Gombauld replied, with a gravity that was somehow a little too + solemn. “I don’t like to see a young man...” + </p> + <p> + “...being whirled along the road to ruin,” said Anne, continuing his + sentence for him. “I admire your sentiments and, believe me, I share + them.” + </p> + <p> + She was curiously irritated at what Gombauld had said about Denis. It + happened to be so completely untrue. Gombauld might have some slight + ground for his reproaches. But Denis—no, she had never flirted with + Denis. Poor boy! He was very sweet. She became somewhat pensive. + </p> + <p> + Gombauld painted on with fury. The restlessness of an unsatisfied desire, + which, before, had distracted his mind, making work impossible, seemed now + to have converted itself into a kind of feverish energy. When it was + finished, he told himself, the portrait would be diabolic. He was painting + her in the pose she had naturally adopted at the first sitting. Seated + sideways, her elbow on the back of the chair, her head and shoulders + turned at an angle from the rest of her body, towards the front, she had + fallen into an attitude of indolent abandonment. He had emphasised the + lazy curves of her body; the lines sagged as they crossed the canvas, the + grace of the painted figure seemed to be melting into a kind of soft + decay. The hand that lay along the knee was as limp as a glove. He was at + work on the face now; it had begun to emerge on the canvas, doll-like in + its regularity and listlessness. It was Anne’s face—but her face as + it would be, utterly unillumined by the inward lights of thought and + emotion. It was the lazy, expressionless mask which was sometimes her + face. The portrait was terribly like; and at the same time it was the most + malicious of lies. Yes, it would be diabolic when it was finished, + Gombauld decided; he wondered what she would think of it. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXII. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>or the sake of + peace and quiet Denis had retired earlier on this same afternoon to his + bedroom. He wanted to work, but the hour was a drowsy one, and lunch, so + recently eaten, weighed heavily on body and mind. The meridian demon was + upon him; he was possessed by that bored and hopeless post-prandial + melancholy which the coenobites of old knew and feared under the name of + “accidie.” He felt, like Ernest Dowson, “a little weary.” He was in the + mood to write something rather exquisite and gentle and quietist in tone; + something a little droopy and at the same time—how should he put it?—a + little infinite. He thought of Anne, of love hopeless and unattainable. + Perhaps that was the ideal kind of love, the hopeless kind—the + quiet, theoretical kind of love. In this sad mood of repletion he could + well believe it. He began to write. One elegant quatrain had flowed from + beneath his pen: + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “A brooding love which is at most + </p> + <p class="indent20"> + The stealth of moonbeams when they slide, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Evoking colour’s bloodless ghost, + </p> + <p class="indent20"> + O’er some scarce-breathing breast or side...” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + when his attention was attracted by a sound from outside. He looked down + from his window; there they were, Anne and Gombauld, talking, laughing + together. They crossed the courtyard in front, and passed out of sight + through the gate in the right-hand wall. That was the way to the green + close and the granary; she was going to sit for him again. His pleasantly + depressing melancholy was dissipated by a puff of violent emotion; angrily + he threw his quatrain into the waste-paper basket and ran downstairs. “The + stealth of moonbeams,” indeed! + </p> + <p> + In the hall he saw Mr. Scogan; the man seemed to be lying in wait. Denis + tried to escape, but in vain. Mr. Scogan’s eye glittered like the eye of + the Ancient Mariner. + </p> + <p> + “Not so fast,” he said, stretching out a small saurian hand with pointed + nails—“not so fast. I was just going down to the flower garden to + take the sun. We’ll go together.” + </p> + <p> + Denis abandoned himself; Mr. Scogan put on his hat and they went out arm + in arm. On the shaven turf of the terrace Henry Wimbush and Mary were + playing a solemn game of bowls. They descended by the yew-tree walk. It + was here, thought Denis, here that Anne had fallen, here that he had + kissed her, here—and he blushed with retrospective shame at the + memory—here that he had tried to carry her and failed. Life was + awful! + </p> + <p> + “Sanity!” said Mr. Scogan, suddenly breaking a long silence. “Sanity—that’s + what’s wrong with me and that’s what will be wrong with you, my dear + Denis, when you’re old enough to be sane or insane. In a sane world I + should be a great man; as things are, in this curious establishment, I am + nothing at all; to all intents and purposes I don’t exist. I am just Vox + et praeterea nihil.” + </p> + <p> + Denis made no response; he was thinking of other things. “After all,” he + said to himself—“after all, Gombauld is better looking than I, more + entertaining, more confident; and, besides, he’s already somebody and I’m + still only potential...” + </p> + <p> + “Everything that ever gets done in this world is done by madmen,” Mr. + Scogan went on. Denis tried not to listen, but the tireless insistence of + Mr. Scogan’s discourse gradually compelled his attention. “Men such as I + am, such as you may possibly become, have never achieved anything. We’re + too sane; we’re merely reasonable. We lack the human touch, the compelling + enthusiastic mania. People are quite ready to listen to the philosophers + for a little amusement, just as they would listen to a fiddler or a + mountebank. But as to acting on the advice of the men of reason—never. + Wherever the choice has had to be made between the man of reason and the + madman, the world has unhesitatingly followed the madman. For the madman + appeals to what is fundamental, to passion and the instincts; the + philosophers to what is superficial and supererogatory—reason.” + </p> + <p> + They entered the garden; at the head of one of the alleys stood a green + wooden bench, embayed in the midst of a fragrant continent of lavender + bushes. It was here, though the place was shadeless and one breathed hot, + dry perfume instead of air—it was here that Mr. Scogan elected to + sit. He thrived on untempered sunlight. + </p> + <p> + “Consider, for example, the case of Luther and Erasmus.” He took out his + pipe and began to fill it as he talked. “There was Erasmus, a man of + reason if ever there was one. People listened to him at first—a new + virtuoso performing on that elegant and resourceful instrument, the + intellect; they even admired and venerated him. But did he move them to + behave as he wanted them to behave—reasonably, decently, or at least + a little less porkishly than usual? He did not. And then Luther appears, + violent, passionate, a madman insanely convinced about matters in which + there can be no conviction. He shouted, and men rushed to follow him. + Erasmus was no longer listened to; he was reviled for his reasonableness. + Luther was serious, Luther was reality—like the Great War. Erasmus + was only reason and decency; he lacked the power, being a sage, to move + men to action. Europe followed Luther and embarked on a century and a half + of war and bloody persecution. It’s a melancholy story.” Mr. Scogan + lighted a match. In the intense light the flame was all but invisible. The + smell of burning tobacco began to mingle with the sweetly acrid smell of + the lavender. + </p> + <p> + “If you want to get men to act reasonably, you must set about persuading + them in a maniacal manner. The very sane precepts of the founders of + religions are only made infectious by means of enthusiasms which to a sane + man must appear deplorable. It is humiliating to find how impotent + unadulterated sanity is. Sanity, for example, informs us that the only way + in which we can preserve civilisation is by behaving decently and + intelligently. Sanity appeals and argues; our rulers persevere in their + customary porkishness, while we acquiesce and obey. The only hope is a + maniacal crusade; I am ready, when it comes, to beat a tambourine with the + loudest, but at the same time I shall feel a little ashamed of myself. + However”—Mr. Scogan shrugged his shoulders and, pipe in hand, made a + gesture of resignation—“It’s futile to complain that things are as + they are. The fact remains that sanity unassisted is useless. What we + want, then, is a sane and reasonable exploitation of the forces of + insanity. We sane men will have the power yet.” Mr. Scogan’s eyes shone + with a more than ordinary brightness, and, taking his pipe out of his + mouth, he gave vent to his loud, dry, and somehow rather fiendish laugh. + </p> + <p> + “But I don’t want power,” said Denis. He was sitting in limp discomfort at + one end of the bench, shading his eyes from the intolerable light. Mr. + Scogan, bolt upright at the other end, laughed again. + </p> + <p> + “Everybody wants power,” he said. “Power in some form or other. The sort + of power you hanker for is literary power. Some people want power to + persecute other human beings; you expend your lust for power in + persecuting words, twisting them, moulding them, torturing them to obey + you. But I divagate.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you?” asked Denis faintly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” Mr. Scogan continued, unheeding, “the time will come. We men of + intelligence will learn to harness the insanities to the service of + reason. We can’t leave the world any longer to the direction of chance. We + can’t allow dangerous maniacs like Luther, mad about dogma, like Napoleon, + mad about himself, to go on casually appearing and turning everything + upside down. In the past it didn’t so much matter; but our modern machine + is too delicate. A few more knocks like the Great War, another Luther or + two, and the whole concern will go to pieces. In future, the men of reason + must see that the madness of the world’s maniacs is canalised into proper + channels, is made to do useful work, like a mountain torrent driving a + dynamo...” + </p> + <p> + “Making electricity to light a Swiss hotel,” said Denis. “You ought to + complete the simile.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan waved away the interruption. “There’s only one thing to be + done,” he said. “The men of intelligence must combine, must conspire, and + seize power from the imbeciles and maniacs who now direct us. They must + found the Rational State.” + </p> + <p> + The heat that was slowly paralysing all Denis’s mental and bodily + faculties, seemed to bring to Mr. Scogan additional vitality. He talked + with an ever-increasing energy, his hands moved in sharp, quick, precise + gestures, his eyes shone. Hard, dry, and continuous, his voice went on + sounding and sounding in Denis’s ears with the insistence of a mechanical + noise. + </p> + <p> + “In the Rational State,” he heard Mr. Scogan saying, “human beings will be + separated out into distinct species, not according to the colour of their + eyes or the shape of their skulls, but according to the qualities of their + mind and temperament. Examining psychologists, trained to what would now + seem an almost superhuman clairvoyance, will test each child that is born + and assign it to its proper species. Duly labelled and docketed, the child + will be given the education suitable to members of its species, and will + be set, in adult life, to perform those functions which human beings of + his variety are capable of performing.” + </p> + <p> + “How many species will there be?” asked Denis. + </p> + <p> + “A great many, no doubt,” Mr. Scogan answered; “the classification will be + subtle and elaborate. But it is not in the power of a prophet to go into + details, nor is it his business. I will do more than indicate the three + main species into which the subjects of the Rational State will be + divided.” + </p> + <p> + He paused, cleared his throat, and coughed once or twice, evoking in + Denis’s mind the vision of a table with a glass and water-bottle, and, + lying across one corner, a long white pointer for the lantern pictures. + </p> + <p> + “The three main species,” Mr. Scogan went on, “will be these: the + Directing Intelligences, the Men of Faith, and the Herd. Among the + Intelligences will be found all those capable of thought, those who know + how to attain a certain degree of freedom—and, alas, how limited, + even among the most intelligent, that freedom is!—from the mental + bondage of their time. A select body of Intelligences, drawn from among + those who have turned their attention to the problems of practical life, + will be the governors of the Rational State. They will employ as their + instruments of power the second great species of humanity—the men of + Faith, the Madmen, as I have been calling them, who believe in things + unreasonably, with passion, and are ready to die for their beliefs and + their desires. These wild men, with their fearful potentialities for good + or for mischief, will no longer be allowed to react casually to a casual + environment. There will be no more Caesar Borgias, no more Luthers and + Mohammeds, no more Joanna Southcotts, no more Comstocks. The old-fashioned + Man of Faith and Desire, that haphazard creature of brute circumstance, + who might drive men to tears and repentance, or who might equally well set + them on to cutting one another’s throats, will be replaced by a new sort + of madman, still externally the same, still bubbling with a seemingly + spontaneous enthusiasm, but, ah, how very different from the madman of the + past! For the new Man of Faith will be expending his passion, his desire, + and his enthusiasm in the propagation of some reasonable idea. He will be, + all unawares, the tool of some superior intelligence.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan chuckled maliciously; it was as though he were taking a + revenge, in the name of reason, on enthusiasts. “From their earliest + years, as soon, that is, as the examining psychologists have assigned them + their place in the classified scheme, the Men of Faith will have had their + special education under the eye of the Intelligences. Moulded by a long + process of suggestion, they will go out into the world, preaching and + practising with a generous mania the coldly reasonable projects of the + Directors from above. When these projects are accomplished, or when the + ideas that were useful a decade ago have ceased to be useful, the + Intelligences will inspire a new generation of madmen with a new eternal + truth. The principal function of the Men of Faith will be to move and + direct the Multitude, that third great species consisting of those + countless millions who lack intelligence and are without valuable + enthusiasm. When any particular effort is required of the Herd, when it is + thought necessary, for the sake of solidarity, that humanity shall be + kindled and united by some single enthusiastic desire or idea, the Men of + Faith, primed with some simple and satisfying creed, will be sent out on a + mission of evangelisation. At ordinary times, when the high spiritual + temperature of a Crusade would be unhealthy, the Men of Faith will be + quietly and earnestly busy with the great work of education. In the + upbringing of the Herd, humanity’s almost boundless suggestibility will be + scientifically exploited. Systematically, from earliest infancy, its + members will be assured that there is no happiness to be found except in + work and obedience; they will be made to believe that they are happy, that + they are tremendously important beings, and that everything they do is + noble and significant. For the lower species the earth will be restored to + the centre of the universe and man to pre-eminence on the earth. Oh, I + envy the lot of the commonality in the Rational State! Working their eight + hours a day, obeying their betters, convinced of their own grandeur and + significance and immortality, they will be marvellously happy, happier + than any race of men has ever been. They will go through life in a rosy + state of intoxication, from which they will never awake. The Men of Faith + will play the cup-bearers at this lifelong bacchanal, filling and ever + filling again with the warm liquor that the Intelligences, in sad and + sober privacy behind the scenes, will brew for the intoxication of their + subjects.” + </p> + <p> + “And what will be my place in the Rational State?” Denis drowsily inquired + from under his shading hand. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan looked at him for a moment in silence. “It’s difficult to see + where you would fit in,” he said at last. “You couldn’t do manual work; + you’re too independent and unsuggestible to belong to the larger Herd; you + have none of the characteristics required in a Man of Faith. As for the + Directing Intelligences, they will have to be marvellously clear and + merciless and penetrating.” He paused and shook his head. “No, I can see + no place for you; only the lethal chamber.” + </p> + <p> + Deeply hurt, Denis emitted the imitation of a loud Homeric laugh. “I’m + getting sunstroke here,” he said, and got up. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan followed his example, and they walked slowly away down the + narrow path, brushing the blue lavender flowers in their passage. Denis + pulled a sprig of lavender and sniffed at it; then some dark leaves of + rosemary that smelt like incense in a cavernous church. They passed a bed + of opium poppies, dispetaled now; the round, ripe seedheads were brown and + dry—like Polynesian trophies, Denis thought; severed heads stuck on + poles. He liked the fancy enough to impart it to Mr. Scogan. + </p> + <p> + “Like Polynesian trophies...” Uttered aloud, the fancy seemed less + charming and significant than it did when it first occurred to him. + </p> + <p> + There was a silence, and in a growing wave of sound the whir of the + reaping machines swelled up from the fields beyond the garden and then + receded into a remoter hum. + </p> + <p> + “It is satisfactory to think,” said Mr. Scogan, as they strolled slowly + onward, “that a multitude of people are toiling in the harvest fields in + order that we may talk of Polynesia. Like every other good thing in this + world, leisure and culture have to be paid for. Fortunately, however, it + is not the leisured and the cultured who have to pay. Let us be duly + thankful for that, my dear Denis—duly thankful,” he repeated, and + knocked the ashes out of his pipe. + </p> + <p> + Denis was not listening. He had suddenly remembered Anne. She was with + Gombauld—alone with him in his studio. It was an intolerable + thought. + </p> + <p> + “Shall we go and pay a call on Gombauld?” he suggested carelessly. “It + would be amusing to see what he’s doing now.” + </p> + <p> + He laughed inwardly to think how furious Gombauld would be when he saw + them arriving. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIII. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">G</span>ombauld was by no + means so furious at their apparition as Denis had hoped and expected he + would be. Indeed, he was rather pleased than annoyed when the two faces, + one brown and pointed, the other round and pale, appeared in the frame of + the open door. The energy born of his restless irritation was dying within + him, returning to its emotional elements. A moment more and he would have + been losing his temper again—and Anne would be keeping hers, + infuriatingly. Yes, he was positively glad to see them. + </p> + <p> + “Come in, come in,” he called out hospitably. + </p> + <p> + Followed by Mr. Scogan, Denis climbed the little ladder and stepped over + the threshold. He looked suspiciously from Gombauld to his sitter, and + could learn nothing from the expression of their faces except that they + both seemed pleased to see the visitors. Were they really glad, or were + they cunningly simulating gladness? He wondered. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan, meanwhile, was looking at the portrait. + </p> + <p> + “Excellent,” he said approvingly, “excellent. Almost too true to + character, if that is possible; yes, positively too true. But I’m + surprised to find you putting in all this psychology business.” He pointed + to the face, and with his extended finger followed the slack curves of the + painted figure. “I thought you were one of the fellows who went in + exclusively for balanced masses and impinging planes.” + </p> + <p> + Gombauld laughed. “This is a little infidelity,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “I’m sorry,” said Mr. Scogan. “I for one, without ever having had the + slightest appreciation of painting, have always taken particular pleasure + in Cubismus. I like to see pictures from which nature has been completely + banished, pictures which are exclusively the product of the human mind. + They give me the same pleasure as I derive from a good piece of reasoning + or a mathematical problem or an achievement of engineering. Nature, or + anything that reminds me of nature, disturbs me; it is too large, too + complicated, above all too utterly pointless and incomprehensible. I am at + home with the works of man; if I choose to set my mind to it, I can + understand anything that any man has made or thought. That is why I always + travel by Tube, never by bus if I can possibly help it. For, travelling by + bus, one can’t avoid seeing, even in London, a few stray works of God—the + sky, for example, an occasional tree, the flowers in the window-boxes. But + travel by Tube and you see nothing but the works of man—iron riveted + into geometrical forms, straight lines of concrete, patterned expanses of + tiles. All is human and the product of friendly and comprehensible minds. + All philosophies and all religions—what are they but spiritual Tubes + bored through the universe! Through these narrow tunnels, where all is + recognisably human, one travels comfortable and secure, contriving to + forget that all round and below and above them stretches the blind mass of + earth, endless and unexplored. Yes, give me the Tube and Cubismus every + time; give me ideas, so snug and neat and simple and well made. And + preserve me from nature, preserve me from all that’s inhumanly large and + complicated and obscure. I haven’t the courage, and, above all, I haven’t + the time to start wandering in that labyrinth.” + </p> + <p> + While Mr. Scogan was discoursing, Denis had crossed over to the farther + side of the little square chamber, where Anne was sitting, still in her + graceful, lazy pose, on the low chair. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” he demanded, looking at her almost fiercely. What was he asking of + her? He hardly knew himself. + </p> + <p> + Anne looked up at him, and for answer echoed his “Well?” in another, a + laughing key. + </p> + <p> + Denis had nothing more, at the moment, to say. Two or three canvases stood + in the corner behind Anne’s chair, their faces turned to the wall. He + pulled them out and began to look at the paintings. + </p> + <p> + “May I see too?” Anne requested. + </p> + <p> + He stood them in a row against the wall. Anne had to turn round in her + chair to look at them. There was the big canvas of the man fallen from the + horse, there was a painting of flowers, there was a small landscape. His + hands on the back of the chair, Denis leaned over her. From behind the + easel at the other side of the room Mr. Scogan was talking away. For a + long time they looked at the pictures, saying nothing; or, rather, Anne + looked at the pictures, while Denis, for the most part, looked at Anne. + </p> + <p> + “I like the man and the horse; don’t you?” she said at last, looking up + with an inquiring smile. + </p> + <p> + Denis nodded, and then in a queer, strangled voice, as though it had cost + him a great effort to utter the words, he said, “I love you.” + </p> + <p> + It was a remark which Anne had heard a good many times before and mostly + heard with equanimity. But on this occasion—perhaps because they had + come so unexpectedly, perhaps for some other reason—the words + provoked in her a certain surprised commotion. + </p> + <p> + “My poor Denis,” she managed to say, with a laugh; but she was blushing as + she spoke. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIV. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t was noon. Denis, + descending from his chamber, where he had been making an unsuccessful + effort to write something about nothing in particular, found the + drawing-room deserted. He was about to go out into the garden when his eye + fell on a familiar but mysterious object—the large red notebook in + which he had so often seen Jenny quietly and busily scribbling. She had + left it lying on the window-seat. The temptation was great. He picked up + the book and slipped off the elastic band that kept it discreetly closed. + </p> + <p> + “Private. Not to be opened,” was written in capital letters on the cover. + He raised his eyebrows. It was the sort of thing one wrote in one’s Latin + Grammar while one was still at one’s preparatory school. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “Black is the raven, black is the rook, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + But blacker the thief who steals this book!” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + It was curiously childish, he thought, and he smiled to himself. He opened + the book. What he saw made him wince as though he had been struck. + </p> + <p> + Denis was his own severest critic; so, at least, he had always believed. + He liked to think of himself as a merciless vivisector probing into the + palpitating entrails of his own soul; he was Brown Dog to himself. His + weaknesses, his absurdities—no one knew them better than he did. + Indeed, in a vague way he imagined that nobody beside himself was aware of + them at all. It seemed, somehow, inconceivable that he should appear to + other people as they appeared to him; inconceivable that they ever spoke + of him among themselves in that same freely critical and, to be quite + honest, mildly malicious tone in which he was accustomed to talk of them. + In his own eyes he had defects, but to see them was a privilege reserved + to him alone. For the rest of the world he was surely an image of flawless + crystal. It was almost axiomatic. + </p> + <p> + On opening the red notebook that crystal image of himself crashed to the + ground, and was irreparably shattered. He was not his own severest critic + after all. The discovery was a painful one. + </p> + <p> + The fruit of Jenny’s unobtrusive scribbling lay before him. A caricature + of himself, reading (the book was upside-down). In the background a + dancing couple, recognisable as Gombauld and Anne. Beneath, the legend: + “Fable of the Wallflower and the Sour Grapes.” Fascinated and horrified, + Denis pored over the drawing. It was masterful. A mute, inglorious + Rouveyre appeared in every one of those cruelly clear lines. The + expression of the face, an assumed aloofness and superiority tempered by a + feeble envy; the attitude of the body and limbs, an attitude of studious + and scholarly dignity, given away by the fidgety pose of the turned-in + feet—these things were terrible. And, more terrible still, was the + likeness, was the magisterial certainty with which his physical + peculiarities were all recorded and subtly exaggerated. + </p> + <p> + Denis looked deeper into the book. There were caricatures of other people: + of Priscilla and Mr. Barbecue-Smith; of Henry Wimbush, of Anne and + Gombauld; of Mr. Scogan, whom Jenny had represented in a light that was + more than slightly sinister, that was, indeed, diabolic; of Mary and Ivor. + He scarcely glanced at them. A fearful desire to know the worst about + himself possessed him. He turned over the leaves, lingering at nothing + that was not his own image. Seven full pages were devoted to him. + </p> + <p> + “Private. Not to be opened.” He had disobeyed the injunction; he had only + got what he deserved. Thoughtfully he closed the book, and slid the rubber + band once more into its place. Sadder and wiser, he went out on to the + terrace. And so this, he reflected, this was how Jenny employed the + leisure hours in her ivory tower apart. And he had thought her a + simple-minded, uncritical creature! It was he, it seemed, who was the + fool. He felt no resentment towards Jenny. No, the distressing thing + wasn’t Jenny herself; it was what she and the phenomenon of her red book + represented, what they stood for and concretely symbolised. They + represented all the vast conscious world of men outside himself; they + symbolised something that in his studious solitariness he was apt not to + believe in. He could stand at Piccadilly Circus, could watch the crowds + shuffle past, and still imagine himself the one fully conscious, + intelligent, individual being among all those thousands. It seemed, + somehow, impossible that other people should be in their way as elaborate + and complete as he in his. Impossible; and yet, periodically he would make + some painful discovery about the external world and the horrible reality + of its consciousness and its intelligence. The red notebook was one of + these discoveries, a footprint in the sand. It put beyond a doubt the fact + that the outer world really existed. + </p> + <p> + Sitting on the balustrade of the terrace, he ruminated this unpleasant + truth for some time. Still chewing on it, he strolled pensively down + towards the swimming-pool. A peacock and his hen trailed their shabby + finery across the turf of the lower lawn. Odious birds! Their necks, thick + and greedily fleshy at the roots, tapered up to the cruel inanity of their + brainless heads, their flat eyes and piercing beaks. The fabulists were + right, he reflected, when they took beasts to illustrate their tractates + of human morality. Animals resemble men with all the truthfulness of a + caricature. (Oh, the red notebook!) He threw a piece of stick at the + slowly pacing birds. They rushed towards it, thinking it was something to + eat. + </p> + <p> + He walked on. The profound shade of a giant ilex tree engulfed him. Like a + great wooden octopus, it spread its long arms abroad. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “Under the spreading ilex tree...” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + He tried to remember who the poem was by, but couldn’t. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “The smith, a brawny man is he, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + With arms like rubber bands.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + Just like his; he would have to try and do his Muller exercises more + regularly. + </p> + <p> + He emerged once more into the sunshine. The pool lay before him, + reflecting in its bronze mirror the blue and various green of the summer + day. Looking at it, he thought of Anne’s bare arms and seal-sleek + bathing-dress, her moving knees and feet. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “And little Luce with the white legs, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And bouncing Barbary...” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + Oh, these rags and tags of other people’s making! Would he ever be able to + call his brain his own? Was there, indeed, anything in it that was truly + his own, or was it simply an education? + </p> + <p> + He walked slowly round the water’s edge. In an embayed recess among the + surrounding yew trees, leaning her back against the pedestal of a + pleasantly comic version of the Medici Venus, executed by some nameless + mason of the seicento, he saw Mary pensively sitting. + </p> + <p> + “Hullo!” he said, for he was passing so close to her that he had to say + something. + </p> + <p> + Mary looked up. “Hullo!” she answered in a melancholy, uninterested tone. + </p> + <p> + In this alcove hewed out of the dark trees, the atmosphere seemed to Denis + agreeably elegiac. He sat down beside her under the shadow of the pudic + goddess. There was a prolonged silence. + </p> + <p> + At breakfast that morning Mary had found on her plate a picture postcard + of Gobley Great Park. A stately Georgian pile, with a facade sixteen + windows wide; parterres in the foreground; huge, smooth lawns receding out + of the picture to right and left. Ten years more of the hard times and + Gobley, with all its peers, will be deserted and decaying. Fifty years, + and the countryside will know the old landmarks no more. They will have + vanished as the monasteries vanished before them. At the moment, however, + Mary’s mind was not moved by these considerations. + </p> + <p> + On the back of the postcard, next to the address, was written, in Ivor’s + bold, large hand, a single quatrain. + </p> + <p class="indent10"> + “Hail, maid of moonlight! Bride of the sun, farewell! + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Like bright plumes moulted in an angel’s flight, + </p> + <p class="indent10"> + There sleep within my heart’s most mystic cell + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Memories of morning, memories of the night.” + </p> + <p> + There followed a postscript of three lines: “Would you mind asking one of + the housemaids to forward the packet of safety-razor blades I left in the + drawer of my washstand. Thanks.—Ivor.” + </p> + <p> + Seated under the Venus’s immemorial gesture, Mary considered life and + love. The abolition of her repressions, so far from bringing the expected + peace of mind, had brought nothing but disquiet, a new and hitherto + unexperienced misery. Ivor, Ivor...She couldn’t do without him now. It was + evident, on the other hand, from the poem on the back of the picture + postcard, that Ivor could very well do without her. He was at Gobley now, + so was Zenobia. Mary knew Zenobia. She thought of the last verse of the + song he had sung that night in the garden. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “Le lendemain, Phillis peu sage + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Aurait donne moutons et chien + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Pour un baiser que le volage + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + A Lisette donnait pour rien.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + Mary shed tears at the memory; she had never been so unhappy in all her + life before. + </p> + <p> + It was Denis who first broke the silence. “The individual,” he began in a + soft and sadly philosophical tone, “is not a self-supporting universe. + There are times when he comes into contact with other individuals, when he + is forced to take cognisance of the existence of other universes besides + himself.” + </p> + <p> + He had contrived this highly abstract generalisation as a preliminary to a + personal confidence. It was the first gambit in a conversation that was to + lead up to Jenny’s caricatures. + </p> + <p> + “True,” said Mary; and, generalising for herself, she added, “When one + individual comes into intimate contact with another, she—or he, of + course, as the case may be—must almost inevitably receive or inflict + suffering.” + </p> + <p> + “One is apt,” Denis went on, “to be so spellbound by the spectacle of + one’s own personality that one forgets that the spectacle presents itself + to other people as well as to oneself.” + </p> + <p> + Mary was not listening. “The difficulty,” she said, “makes itself acutely + felt in matters of sex. If one individual seeks intimate contact with + another individual in the natural way, she is certain to receive or + inflict suffering. If on the other hand, she avoids contacts, she risks + the equally grave sufferings that follow on unnatural repressions. As you + see, it’s a dilemma.” + </p> + <p> + “When I think of my own case,” said Denis, making a more decided move in + the desired direction, “I am amazed how ignorant I am of other people’s + mentality in general, and above all and in particular, of their opinions + about myself. Our minds are sealed books only occasionally opened to the + outside world.” He made a gesture that was faintly suggestive of the + drawing off of a rubber band. + </p> + <p> + “It’s an awful problem,” said Mary thoughtfully. “One has to have had + personal experience to realise quite how awful it is.” + </p> + <p> + “Exactly.” Denis nodded. “One has to have had first-hand experience.” He + leaned towards her and slightly lowered his voice. “This very morning, for + example...” he began, but his confidences were cut short. The deep voice + of the gong, tempered by distance to a pleasant booming, floated down from + the house. It was lunch-time. Mechanically Mary rose to her feet, and + Denis, a little hurt that she should exhibit such a desperate anxiety for + her food and so slight an interest in his spiritual experiences, followed + her. They made their way up to the house without speaking. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXV. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> hope you all + realise,” said Henry Wimbush during dinner, “that next Monday is Bank + Holiday, and that you will all be expected to help in the Fair.” + </p> + <p> + “Heavens!” cried Anne. “The Fair—I had forgotten all about it. What + a nightmare! Couldn’t you put a stop to it, Uncle Henry?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Wimbush sighed and shook his head. “Alas,” he said, “I fear I cannot. + I should have liked to put an end to it years ago; but the claims of + Charity are strong.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s not charity we want,” Anne murmured rebelliously; “it’s justice.” + </p> + <p> + “Besides,” Mr. Wimbush went on, “the Fair has become an institution. Let + me see, it must be twenty-two years since we started it. It was a modest + affair then. Now...” he made a sweeping movement with his hand and was + silent. + </p> + <p> + It spoke highly for Mr. Wimbush’s public spirit that he still continued to + tolerate the Fair. Beginning as a sort of glorified church bazaar, Crome’s + yearly Charity Fair had grown into a noisy thing of merry-go-rounds, + cocoanut shies, and miscellaneous side shows—a real genuine fair on + the grand scale. It was the local St. Bartholomew, and the people of all + the neighbouring villages, with even a contingent from the county town, + flocked into the park for their Bank Holiday amusement. The local hospital + profited handsomely, and it was this fact alone which prevented Mr. + Wimbush, to whom the Fair was a cause of recurrent and never-diminishing + agony, from putting a stop to the nuisance which yearly desecrated his + park and garden. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve made all the arrangements already,” Henry Wimbush went on. “Some of + the larger marquees will be put up to-morrow. The swings and the + merry-go-round arrive on Sunday.” + </p> + <p> + “So there’s no escape,” said Anne, turning to the rest of the party. + “You’ll all have to do something. As a special favour you’re allowed to + choose your slavery. My job is the tea tent, as usual, Aunt Priscilla...” + </p> + <p> + “My dear,” said Mrs. Wimbush, interrupting her, “I have more important + things to think about than the Fair. But you need have no doubt that I + shall do my best when Monday comes to encourage the villagers.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s splendid,” said Anne. “Aunt Priscilla will encourage the + villagers. What will you do, Mary?” + </p> + <p> + “I won’t do anything where I have to stand by and watch other people eat.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you’ll look after the children’s sports.” + </p> + <p> + “All right,” Mary agreed. “I’ll look after the children’s sports.” + </p> + <p> + “And Mr. Scogan?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan reflected. “May I be allowed to tell fortunes?” he asked at + last. “I think I should be good at telling fortunes.” + </p> + <p> + “But you can’t tell fortunes in that costume!” + </p> + <p> + “Can’t I?” Mr. Scogan surveyed himself. + </p> + <p> + “You’ll have to be dressed up. Do you still persist?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m ready to suffer all indignities.” + </p> + <p> + “Good!” said Anne; and turning to Gombauld, “You must be our lightning + artist,” she said. “‘Your portrait for a shilling in five minutes.’” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a pity I’m not Ivor,” said Gombauld, with a laugh. “I could throw in + a picture of their Auras for an extra sixpence.” + </p> + <p> + Mary flushed. “Nothing is to be gained,” she said severely, “by speaking + with levity of serious subjects. And, after all, whatever your personal + views may be, psychical research is a perfectly serious subject.” + </p> + <p> + “And what about Denis?” + </p> + <p> + Denis made a deprecating gesture. “I have no accomplishments,” he said, + “I’ll just be one of those men who wear a thing in their buttonholes and + go about telling people which is the way to tea and not to walk on the + grass.” + </p> + <p> + “No, no,” said Anne. “That won’t do. You must do something more than + that.” + </p> + <p> + “But what? All the good jobs are taken, and I can do nothing but lisp in + numbers.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, then, you must lisp,” concluded Anne. “You must write a poem for + the occasion—an ‘Ode on Bank Holiday.’ We’ll print it on Uncle + Henry’s press and sell it at twopence a copy.” + </p> + <p> + “Sixpence,” Denis protested. “It’ll be worth sixpence.” + </p> + <p> + Anne shook her head. “Twopence,” she repeated firmly. “Nobody will pay + more than twopence.” + </p> + <p> + “And now there’s Jenny,” said Mr Wimbush. “Jenny,” he said, raising his + voice, “what will you do?” + </p> + <p> + Denis thought of suggesting that she might draw caricatures at sixpence an + execution, but decided it would be wiser to go on feigning ignorance of + her talent. His mind reverted to the red notebook. Could it really be true + that he looked like that? + </p> + <p> + “What will I do,” Jenny echoed, “what will I do?” She frowned thoughtfully + for a moment; then her face brightened and she smiled. “When I was young,” + she said, “I learnt to play the drums.” + </p> + <p> + “The drums?” + </p> + <p> + Jenny nodded, and, in proof of her assertion, agitated her knife and fork, + like a pair of drumsticks, over her plate. “If there’s any opportunity of + playing the drums...” she began. + </p> + <p> + “But of course,” said Anne, “there’s any amount of opportunity. We’ll put + you down definitely for the drums. That’s the lot,” she added. + </p> + <p> + “And a very good lot too,” said Gombauld. “I look forward to my Bank + Holiday. It ought to be gay.” + </p> + <p> + “It ought indeed,” Mr Scogan assented. “But you may rest assured that it + won’t be. No holiday is ever anything but a disappointment.” + </p> + <p> + “Come, come,” protested Gombauld. “My holiday at Crome isn’t being a + disappointment.” + </p> + <p> + “Isn’t it?” Anne turned an ingenuous mask towards him. + </p> + <p> + “No, it isn’t,” he answered. + </p> + <p> + “I’m delighted to hear it.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s in the very nature of things,” Mr. Scogan went on; “our holidays + can’t help being disappointments. Reflect for a moment. What is a holiday? + The ideal, the Platonic Holiday of Holidays is surely a complete and + absolute change. You agree with me in my definition?” Mr. Scogan glanced + from face to face round the table; his sharp nose moved in a series of + rapid jerks through all the points of the compass. There was no sign of + dissent; he continued: “A complete and absolute change; very well. But + isn’t a complete and absolute change precisely the thing we can never have—never, + in the very nature of things?” Mr. Scogan once more looked rapidly about + him. “Of course it is. As ourselves, as specimens of Homo Sapiens, as + members of a society, how can we hope to have anything like an absolute + change? We are tied down by the frightful limitation of our human + faculties, by the notions which society imposes on us through our fatal + suggestibility, by our own personalities. For us, a complete holiday is + out of the question. Some of us struggle manfully to take one, but we + never succeed, if I may be allowed to express myself metaphorically, we + never succeed in getting farther than Southend.” + </p> + <p> + “You’re depressing,” said Anne. + </p> + <p> + “I mean to be,” Mr. Scogan replied, and, expanding the fingers of his + right hand, he went on: “Look at me, for example. What sort of a holiday + can I take? In endowing me with passions and faculties Nature has been + horribly niggardly. The full range of human potentialities is in any case + distressingly limited; my range is a limitation within a limitation. Out + of the ten octaves that make up the human instrument, I can compass + perhaps two. Thus, while I may have a certain amount of intelligence, I + have no aesthetic sense; while I possess the mathematical faculty, I am + wholly without the religious emotions; while I am naturally addicted to + venery, I have little ambition and am not at all avaricious. Education has + further limited my scope. Having been brought up in society, I am + impregnated with its laws; not only should I be afraid of taking a holiday + from them, I should also feel it painful to try to do so. In a word, I + have a conscience as well as a fear of gaol. Yes, I know it by experience. + How often have I tried to take holidays, to get away from myself, my own + boring nature, my insufferable mental surroundings!” Mr. Scogan sighed. + “But always without success,” he added, “always without success. In my + youth I was always striving—how hard!—to feel religiously and + aesthetically. Here, said I to myself, are two tremendously important and + exciting emotions. Life would be richer, warmer, brighter, altogether more + amusing, if I could feel them. I try to feel them. I read the works of the + mystics. They seemed to me nothing but the most deplorable claptrap—as + indeed they always must to anyone who does not feel the same emotion as + the authors felt when they were writing. For it is the emotion that + matters. The written work is simply an attempt to express emotion, which + is in itself inexpressible, in terms of intellect and logic. The mystic + objectifies a rich feeling in the pit of the stomach into a cosmology. For + other mystics that cosmology is a symbol of the rich feeling. For the + unreligious it is a symbol of nothing, and so appears merely grotesque. A + melancholy fact! But I divagate.” Mr. Scogan checked himself. “So much for + the religious emotion. As for the aesthetic—I was at even greater + pains to cultivate that. I have looked at all the right works of art in + every part of Europe. There was a time when, I venture to believe, I knew + more about Taddeo da Poggibonsi, more about the cryptic Amico di Taddeo, + even than Henry does. To-day, I am happy to say, I have forgotten most of + the knowledge I then so laboriously acquired; but without vanity I can + assert that it was prodigious. I don’t pretend, of course, to know + anything about nigger sculpture or the later seventeenth century in Italy; + but about all the periods that were fashionable before 1900 I am, or was, + omniscient. Yes, I repeat it, omniscient. But did that fact make me any + more appreciative of art in general? It did not. Confronted by a picture, + of which I could tell you all the known and presumed history—the + date when it was painted, the character of the painter, the influences + that had gone to make it what it was—I felt none of that strange + excitement and exaltation which is, as I am informed by those who do feel + it, the true aesthetic emotion. I felt nothing but a certain interest in + the subject of the picture; or more often, when the subject was hackneyed + and religious, I felt nothing but a great weariness of spirit. + Nevertheless, I must have gone on looking at pictures for ten years before + I would honestly admit to myself that they merely bored me. Since then I + have given up all attempts to take a holiday. I go on cultivating my old + stale daily self in the resigned spirit with which a bank clerk performs + from ten till six his daily task. A holiday, indeed! I’m sorry for you, + Gombauld, if you still look forward to having a holiday.” + </p> + <p> + Gombauld shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps,” he said, “my standards aren’t + as elevated as yours. But personally I found the war quite as thorough a + holiday from all the ordinary decencies and sanities, all the common + emotions and preoccupations, as I ever want to have.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” Mr. Scogan thoughtfully agreed. “Yes, the war was certainly + something of a holiday. It was a step beyond Southend; it was + Weston-super-Mare; it was almost Ilfracombe.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVI. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span> little canvas + village of tents and booths had sprung up, just beyond the boundaries of + the garden, in the green expanse of the park. A crowd thronged its + streets, the men dressed mostly in black—holiday best, funeral best—the + women in pale muslins. Here and there tricolour bunting hung inert. In the + midst of the canvas town, scarlet and gold and crystal, the merry-go-round + glittered in the sun. The balloon-man walked among the crowd, and above + his head, like a huge, inverted bunch of many-coloured grapes, the + balloons strained upwards. With a scythe-like motion the boat-swings + reaped the air, and from the funnel of the engine which worked the + roundabout rose a thin, scarcely wavering column of black smoke. + </p> + <p> + Denis had climbed to the top of one of Sir Ferdinando’s towers, and there, + standing on the sun-baked leads, his elbows resting on the parapet, he + surveyed the scene. The steam-organ sent up prodigious music. The clashing + of automatic cymbals beat out with inexorable precision the rhythm of + piercingly sounded melodies. The harmonies were like a musical shattering + of glass and brass. Far down in the bass the Last Trump was hugely + blowing, and with such persistence, such resonance, that its alternate + tonic and dominant detached themselves from the rest of the music and made + a tune of their own, a loud, monotonous see-saw. + </p> + <p> + Denis leaned over the gulf of swirling noise. If he threw himself over the + parapet, the noise would surely buoy him up, keep him suspended, bobbing, + as a fountain balances a ball on its breaking crest. Another fancy came to + him, this time in metrical form. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “My soul is a thin white sheet of parchment stretched + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Over a bubbling cauldron.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + Bad, bad. But he liked the idea of something thin and distended being + blown up from underneath. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “My soul is a thin tent of gut...” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + or better— + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “My soul is a pale, tenuous membrane...” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + That was pleasing: a thin, tenuous membrane. It had the right anatomical + quality. Tight blown, quivering in the blast of noisy life. It was time + for him to descend from the serene empyrean of words into the actual + vortex. He went down slowly. “My soul is a thin, tenuous membrane...” + </p> + <p> + On the terrace stood a knot of distinguished visitors. There was old Lord + Moleyn, like a caricature of an English milord in a French comic paper: a + long man, with a long nose and long, drooping moustaches and long teeth of + old ivory, and lower down, absurdly, a short covert coat, and below that + long, long legs cased in pearl-grey trousers—legs that bent + unsteadily at the knee and gave a kind of sideways wobble as he walked. + Beside him, short and thick-set, stood Mr. Callamay, the venerable + conservative statesman, with a face like a Roman bust, and short white + hair. Young girls didn’t much like going for motor drives alone with Mr. + Callamay; and of old Lord Moleyn one wondered why he wasn’t living in + gilded exile on the island of Capri among the other distinguished persons + who, for one reason or another, find it impossible to live in England. + They were talking to Anne, laughing, the one profoundly, the other + hootingly. + </p> + <p> + A black silk balloon towing a black-and-white striped parachute proved to + be old Mrs. Budge from the big house on the other side of the valley. She + stood low on the ground, and the spikes of her black-and-white sunshade + menaced the eyes of Priscilla Wimbush, who towered over her—a + massive figure dressed in purple and topped with a queenly toque on which + the nodding black plumes recalled the splendours of a first-class Parisian + funeral. + </p> + <p> + Denis peeped at them discreetly from the window of the morning-room. His + eyes were suddenly become innocent, childlike, unprejudiced. They seemed, + these people, inconceivably fantastic. And yet they really existed, they + functioned by themselves, they were conscious, they had minds. Moreover, + he was like them. Could one believe it? But the evidence of the red + notebook was conclusive. + </p> + <p> + It would have been polite to go and say, “How d’you do?” But at the moment + Denis did not want to talk, could not have talked. His soul was a tenuous, + tremulous, pale membrane. He would keep its sensibility intact and virgin + as long as he could. Cautiously he crept out by a side door and made his + way down towards the park. His soul fluttered as he approached the noise + and movement of the fair. He paused for a moment on the brink, then + stepped in and was engulfed. + </p> + <p> + Hundreds of people, each with his own private face and all of them real, + separate, alive: the thought was disquieting. He paid twopence and saw the + Tatooed Woman; twopence more, the Largest Rat in the World. From the home + of the Rat he emerged just in time to see a hydrogen-filled balloon break + loose for home. A child howled up after it; but calmly, a perfect sphere + of flushed opal, it mounted, mounted. Denis followed it with his eyes + until it became lost in the blinding sunlight. If he could but send his + soul to follow it!... + </p> + <p> + He sighed, stuck his steward’s rosette in his buttonhole, and started to + push his way, aimlessly but officially, through the crowd. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVII. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>r. Scogan had been + accommodated in a little canvas hut. Dressed in a black skirt and a red + bodice, with a yellow-and-red bandana handkerchief tied round his black + wig, he looked—sharp-nosed, brown, and wrinkled—like the + Bohemian Hag of Frith’s Derby Day. A placard pinned to the curtain of the + doorway announced the presence within the tent of “Sesostris, the + Sorceress of Ecbatana.” Seated at a table, Mr. Scogan received his clients + in mysterious silence, indicating with a movement of the finger that they + were to sit down opposite him and to extend their hands for his + inspection. He then examined the palm that was presented him, using a + magnifying glass and a pair of horn spectacles. He had a terrifying way of + shaking his head, frowning and clicking with his tongue as he looked at + the lines. Sometimes he would whisper, as though to himself, “Terrible, + terrible!” or “God preserve us!” sketching out the sign of the cross as he + uttered the words. The clients who came in laughing grew suddenly grave; + they began to take the witch seriously. She was a formidable-looking + woman; could it be, was it possible, that there was something in this sort + of thing after all? After all, they thought, as the hag shook her head + over their hands, after all...And they waited, with an uncomfortably + beating heart, for the oracle to speak. After a long and silent + inspection, Mr. Scogan would suddenly look up and ask, in a hoarse + whisper, some horrifying question, such as, “Have you ever been hit on the + head with a hammer by a young man with red hair?” When the answer was in + the negative, which it could hardly fail to be, Mr. Scogan would nod + several times, saying, “I was afraid so. Everything is still to come, + still to come, though it can’t be very far off now.” Sometimes, after a + long examination, he would just whisper, “Where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis + folly to be wise,” and refuse to divulge any details of a future too + appalling to be envisaged without despair. Sesostris had a success of + horror. People stood in a queue outside the witch’s booth waiting for the + privilege of hearing sentence pronounced upon them. + </p> + <p> + Denis, in the course of his round, looked with curiosity at this crowd of + suppliants before the shrine of the oracle. He had a great desire to see + how Mr. Scogan played his part. The canvas booth was a rickety, ill-made + structure. Between its walls and its sagging roof were long gaping chinks + and crannies. Denis went to the tea-tent and borrowed a wooden bench and a + small Union Jack. With these he hurried back to the booth of Sesostris. + Setting down the bench at the back of the booth, he climbed up, and with a + great air of busy efficiency began to tie the Union Jack to the top of one + of the tent-poles. Through the crannies in the canvas he could see almost + the whole of the interior of the tent. Mr. Scogan’s bandana-covered head + was just below him; his terrifying whispers came clearly up. Denis looked + and listened while the witch prophesied financial losses, death by + apoplexy, destruction by air-raids in the next war. + </p> + <p> + “Is there going to be another war?” asked the old lady to whom he had + predicted this end. + </p> + <p> + “Very soon,” said Mr. Scogan, with an air of quiet confidence. + </p> + <p> + The old lady was succeeded by a girl dressed in white muslin, garnished + with pink ribbons. She was wearing a broad hat, so that Denis could not + see her face; but from her figure and the roundness of her bare arms he + judged her young and pleasing. Mr. Scogan looked at her hand, then + whispered, “You are still virtuous.” + </p> + <p> + The young lady giggled and exclaimed, “Oh, lor’!” + </p> + <p> + “But you will not remain so for long,” added Mr. Scogan sepulchrally. The + young lady giggled again. “Destiny, which interests itself in small things + no less than in great, has announced the fact upon your hand.” Mr. Scogan + took up the magnifying-glass and began once more to examine the white + palm. “Very interesting,” he said, as though to himself—“very + interesting. It’s as clear as day.” He was silent. + </p> + <p> + “What’s clear?” asked the girl. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think I ought to tell you.” Mr. Scogan shook his head; the + pendulous brass ear-rings which he had screwed on to his ears tinkled. + </p> + <p> + “Please, please!” she implored. + </p> + <p> + The witch seemed to ignore her remark. “Afterwards, it’s not at all clear. + The fates don’t say whether you will settle down to married life and have + four children or whether you will try to go on the cinema and have none. + They are only specific about this one rather crucial incident.” + </p> + <p> + “What is it? What is it? Oh, do tell me!” + </p> + <p> + The white muslin figure leant eagerly forward. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan sighed. “Very well,” he said, “if you must know, you must know. + But if anything untoward happens you must blame your own curiosity. + Listen. Listen.” He lifted up a sharp, claw-nailed forefinger. “This is + what the fates have written. Next Sunday afternoon at six o’clock you will + be sitting on the second stile on the footpath that leads from the church + to the lower road. At that moment a man will appear walking along the + footpath.” Mr. Scogan looked at her hand again as though to refresh his + memory of the details of the scene. “A man,” he repeated—“a small + man with a sharp nose, not exactly good looking nor precisely young, but + fascinating.” He lingered hissingly over the word. “He will ask you, ‘Can + you tell me the way to Paradise?’ and you will answer, ‘Yes, I’ll show + you,’ and walk with him down towards the little hazel copse. I cannot read + what will happen after that.” There was a silence. + </p> + <p> + “Is it really true?” asked white muslin. + </p> + <p> + The witch gave a shrug of the shoulders. “I merely tell you what I read in + your hand. Good afternoon. That will be sixpence. Yes, I have change. + Thank you. Good afternoon.” + </p> + <p> + Denis stepped down from the bench; tied insecurely and crookedly to the + tentpole, the Union Jack hung limp on the windless air. “If only I could + do things like that!” he thought, as he carried the bench back to the + tea-tent. + </p> + <p> + Anne was sitting behind a long table filling thick white cups from an urn. + A neat pile of printed sheets lay before her on the table. Denis took one + of them and looked at it affectionately. It was his poem. They had printed + five hundred copies, and very nice the quarto broadsheets looked. + </p> + <p> + “Have you sold many?” he asked in a casual tone. + </p> + <p> + Anne put her head on one side deprecatingly. “Only three so far, I’m + afraid. But I’m giving a free copy to everyone who spends more than a + shilling on his tea. So in any case it’s having a circulation.” + </p> + <p> + Denis made no reply, but walked slowly away. He looked at the broadsheet + in his hand and read the lines to himself relishingly as he walked along: + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “This day of roundabouts and swings, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Struck weights, shied cocoa-nuts, tossed rings, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Switchbacks, Aunt Sallies, and all such small + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + High jinks—you call it ferial? + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + A holiday? But paper noses + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Sniffed the artificial roses + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Of round Venetian cheeks through half + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Each carnival year, and masks might laugh + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + At things the naked face for shame + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Would blush at—laugh and think no blame. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + A holiday? But Galba showed + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Elephants on an airy road; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Jumbo trod the tightrope then, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And in the circus armed men + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Stabbed home for sport and died to break + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Those dull imperatives that make + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + A prison of every working day, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Where all must drudge and all obey. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Sing Holiday! You do not know + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + How to be free. The Russian snow + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Flowered with bright blood whose roses spread + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Petals of fading, fading red + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + That died into the snow again, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Into the virgin snow; and men + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + From all ancient bonds were freed. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Old law, old custom, and old creed, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Old right and wrong there bled to death; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + The frozen air received their breath, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + A little smoke that died away; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And round about them where they lay + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + The snow bloomed roses. Blood was there + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + A red gay flower and only fair. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Sing Holiday! Beneath the Tree + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Of Innocence and Liberty, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Paper Nose and Red Cockade + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Dance within the magic shade + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + That makes them drunken, merry, and strong + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + To laugh and sing their ferial song: + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + ‘Free, free...!’ + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent20"> + But Echo answers + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Faintly to the laughing dancers, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + ‘Free’—and faintly laughs, and still, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Within the hollows of the hill, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Faintlier laughs and whispers, ‘Free,’ + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Fadingly, diminishingly: + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + ‘Free,’ and laughter faints away... + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Sing Holiday! Sing Holiday!” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + He folded the sheet carefully and put it in his pocket. The thing had its + merits. Oh, decidedly, decidedly! But how unpleasant the crowd smelt! He + lit a cigarette. The smell of cows was preferable. He passed through the + gate in the park wall into the garden. The swimming-pool was a centre of + noise and activity. + </p> + <p> + “Second Heat in the Young Ladies’ Championship.” It was the polite voice + of Henry Wimbush. A crowd of sleek, seal-like figures in black + bathing-dresses surrounded him. His grey bowler hat, smooth, round, and + motionless in the midst of a moving sea, was an island of aristocratic + calm. + </p> + <p> + Holding his tortoise-shell-rimmed pince-nez an inch or two in front of his + eyes, he read out names from a list. + </p> + <p> + “Miss Dolly Miles, Miss Rebecca Balister, Miss Doris Gabell...” + </p> + <p> + Five young persons ranged themselves on the brink. From their seats of + honour at the other end of the pool, old Lord Moleyn and Mr. Callamay + looked on with eager interest. + </p> + <p> + Henry Wimbush raised his hand. There was an expectant silence. “When I say + ‘Go,’ go. Go!” he said. There was an almost simultaneous splash. + </p> + <p> + Denis pushed his way through the spectators. Somebody plucked him by the + sleeve; he looked down. It was old Mrs. Budge. + </p> + <p> + “Delighted to see you again, Mr. Stone,” she said in her rich, husky + voice. She panted a little as she spoke, like a short-winded lap-dog. It + was Mrs. Budge who, having read in the “Daily Mirror” that the Government + needed peach stones—what they needed them for she never knew—had + made the collection of peach stones her peculiar “bit” of war work. She + had thirty-six peach trees in her walled garden, as well as four + hot-houses in which trees could be forced, so that she was able to eat + peaches practically the whole year round. In 1916 she ate 4200 peaches, + and sent the stones to the Government. In 1917 the military authorities + called up three of her gardeners, and what with this and the fact that it + was a bad year for wall fruit, she only managed to eat 2900 peaches during + that crucial period of the national destinies. In 1918 she did rather + better, for between January 1st and the date of the Armistice she ate 3300 + peaches. Since the Armistice she had relaxed her efforts; now she did not + eat more than two or three peaches a day. Her constitution, she + complained, had suffered; but it had suffered for a good cause. + </p> + <p> + Denis answered her greeting by a vague and polite noise. + </p> + <p> + “So nice to see the young people enjoying themselves,” Mrs. Budge went on. + “And the old people too, for that matter. Look at old Lord Moleyn and dear + Mr. Callamay. Isn’t it delightful to see the way they enjoy themselves?” + </p> + <p> + Denis looked. He wasn’t sure whether it was so very delightful after all. + Why didn’t they go and watch the sack races? The two old gentlemen were + engaged at the moment in congratulating the winner of the race; it seemed + an act of supererogatory graciousness; for, after all, she had only won a + heat. + </p> + <p> + “Pretty little thing, isn’t she?” said Mrs. Budge huskily, and panted two + or three times. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” Denis nodded agreement. Sixteen, slender, but nubile, he said to + himself, and laid up the phrase in his memory as a happy one. Old Mr. + Callamay had put on his spectacles to congratulate the victor, and Lord + Moleyn, leaning forward over his walking-stick, showed his long ivory + teeth, hungrily smiling. + </p> + <p> + “Capital performance, capital,” Mr. Callamay was saying in his deep voice. + </p> + <p> + The victor wriggled with embarrassment. She stood with her hands behind + her back, rubbing one foot nervously on the other. Her wet bathing-dress + shone, a torso of black polished marble. + </p> + <p> + “Very good indeed,” said Lord Moleyn. His voice seemed to come from just + behind his teeth, a toothy voice. It was as though a dog should suddenly + begin to speak. He smiled again, Mr. Callamay readjusted his spectacles. + </p> + <p> + “When I say ‘Go,’ go. Go!” + </p> + <p> + Splash! The third heat had started. + </p> + <p> + “Do you know, I never could learn to swim,” said Mrs. Budge. + </p> + <p> + “Really?” + </p> + <p> + “But I used to be able to float.” + </p> + <p> + Denis imagined her floating—up and down, up and down on a great + green swell. A blown black bladder; no, that wasn’t good, that wasn’t good + at all. A new winner was being congratulated. She was atrociously stubby + and fat. The last one, long and harmoniously, continuously curved from + knee to breast, had been an Eve by Cranach; but this, this one was a bad + Rubens. + </p> + <p> + “...go—go—go!” Henry Wimbush’s polite level voice once more + pronounced the formula. Another batch of young ladies dived in. + </p> + <p> + Grown a little weary of sustaining a conversation with Mrs. Budge, Denis + conveniently remembered that his duties as a steward called him elsewhere. + He pushed out through the lines of spectators and made his way along the + path left clear behind them. He was thinking again that his soul was a + pale, tenuous membrane, when he was startled by hearing a thin, sibilant + voice, speaking apparently from just above his head, pronounce the single + word “Disgusting!” + </p> + <p> + He looked up sharply. The path along which he was walking passed under the + lee of a wall of clipped yew. Behind the hedge the ground sloped steeply + up towards the foot of the terrace and the house; for one standing on the + higher ground it was easy to look over the dark barrier. Looking up, Denis + saw two heads overtopping the hedge immediately above him. He recognised + the iron mask of Mr. Bodiham and the pale, colourless face of his wife. + They were looking over his head, over the heads of the spectators, at the + swimmers in the pond. + </p> + <p> + “Disgusting!” Mrs. Bodiham repeated, hissing softly. + </p> + <p> + The rector turned up his iron mask towards the solid cobalt of the sky. + “How long?” he said, as though to himself; “how long?” He lowered his eyes + again, and they fell on Denis’s upturned curious face. There was an abrupt + movement, and Mr. and Mrs. Bodiham popped out of sight behind the hedge. + </p> + <p> + Denis continued his promenade. He wandered past the merry-go-round, + through the thronged streets of the canvas village; the membrane of his + soul flapped tumultuously in the noise and laughter. In a roped-off space + beyond, Mary was directing the children’s sports. Little creatures seethed + round about her, making a shrill, tinny clamour; others clustered about + the skirts and trousers of their parents. Mary’s face was shining in the + heat; with an immense output of energy she started a three-legged race. + Denis looked on in admiration. + </p> + <p> + “You’re wonderful,” he said, coming up behind her and touching her on the + arm. “I’ve never seen such energy.” + </p> + <p> + She turned towards him a face, round, red, and honest as the setting sun; + the golden bell of her hair swung silently as she moved her head and + quivered to rest. + </p> + <p> + “Do you know, Denis,” she said, in a low, serious voice, gasping a little + as she spoke—“do you know that there’s a woman here who has had + three children in thirty-one months?” + </p> + <p> + “Really,” said Denis, making rapid mental calculations. + </p> + <p> + “It’s appalling. I’ve been telling her about the Malthusian League. One + really ought...” + </p> + <p> + But a sudden violent renewal of the metallic yelling announced the fact + that somebody had won the race. Mary became once more the centre of a + dangerous vortex. It was time, Denis thought, to move on; he might be + asked to do something if he stayed too long. + </p> + <p> + He turned back towards the canvas village. The thought of tea was making + itself insistent in his mind. Tea, tea, tea. But the tea-tent was horribly + thronged. Anne, with an unusual expression of grimness on her flushed + face, was furiously working the handle of the urn; the brown liquid + spurted incessantly into the proffered cups. Portentous, in the farther + corner of the tent, Priscilla, in her royal toque, was encouraging the + villagers. In a momentary lull Denis could hear her deep, jovial laughter + and her manly voice. Clearly, he told himself, this was no place for one + who wanted tea. He stood irresolute at the entrance to the tent. A + beautiful thought suddenly came to him; if he went back to the house, went + unobtrusively, without being observed, if he tiptoed into the dining-room + and noiselessly opened the little doors of the sideboard—ah, then! + In the cool recess within he would find bottles and a siphon; a bottle of + crystal gin and a quart of soda water, and then for the cups that + inebriate as well as cheer... + </p> + <p> + A minute later he was walking briskly up the shady yew-tree walk. Within + the house it was deliciously quiet and cool. Carrying his well-filled + tumbler with care, he went into the library. There, the glass on the + corner of the table beside him, he settled into a chair with a volume of + Sainte-Beuve. There was nothing, he found, like a Causerie du Lundi for + settling and soothing the troubled spirits. That tenuous membrane of his + had been too rudely buffeted by the afternoon’s emotions; it required a + rest. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVIII. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>owards sunset the + fair itself became quiescent. It was the hour for the dancing to begin. At + one side of the village of tents a space had been roped off. Acetylene + lamps, hung round it on posts, cast a piercing white light. In one corner + sat the band, and, obedient to its scraping and blowing, two or three + hundred dancers trampled across the dry ground, wearing away the grass + with their booted feet. Round this patch of all but daylight, alive with + motion and noise, the night seemed preternaturally dark. Bars of light + reached out into it, and every now and then a lonely figure or a couple of + lovers, interlaced, would cross the bright shaft, flashing for a moment + into visible existence, to disappear again as quickly and surprisingly as + they had come. + </p> + <p> + Denis stood by the entrance of the enclosure, watching the swaying, + shuffling crowd. The slow vortex brought the couples round and round again + before him, as though he were passing them in review. There was Priscilla, + still wearing her queenly toque, still encouraging the villagers—this + time by dancing with one of the tenant farmers. There was Lord Moleyn, who + had stayed on to the disorganised, passoverish meal that took the place of + dinner on this festal day; he one-stepped shamblingly, his bent knees more + precariously wobbly than ever, with a terrified village beauty. Mr. Scogan + trotted round with another. Mary was in the embrace of a young farmer of + heroic proportions; she was looking up at him, talking, as Denis could + see, very seriously. What about? he wondered. The Malthusian League, + perhaps. Seated in the corner among the band, Jenny was performing wonders + of virtuosity upon the drums. Her eyes shone, she smiled to herself. A + whole subterranean life seemed to be expressing itself in those loud + rat-tats, those long rolls and flourishes of drumming. Looking at her, + Denis ruefully remembered the red notebook; he wondered what sort of a + figure he was cutting now. But the sight of Anne and Gombauld swimming + past—Anne with her eyes almost shut and sleeping, as it were, on the + sustaining wings of movement and music—dissipated these + preoccupations. Male and female created He them...There they were, Anne + and Gombauld, and a hundred couples more—all stepping harmoniously + together to the old tune of Male and Female created He them. But Denis sat + apart; he alone lacked his complementary opposite. They were all coupled + but he; all but he... + </p> + <p> + Somebody touched him on the shoulder and he looked up. It was Henry + Wimbush. + </p> + <p> + “I never showed you our oaken drainpipes,” he said. “Some of the ones we + dug up are lying quite close to here. Would you like to come and see + them?” + </p> + <p> + Denis got up, and they walked off together into the darkness. The music + grew fainter behind them. Some of the higher notes faded out altogether. + Jenny’s drumming and the steady sawing of the bass throbbed on, tuneless + and meaningless in their ears. Henry Wimbush halted. + </p> + <p> + “Here we are,” he said, and, taking an electric torch out of his pocket, + he cast a dim beam over two or three blackened sections of tree trunk, + scooped out into the semblance of pipes, which were lying forlornly in a + little depression in the ground. + </p> + <p> + “Very interesting,” said Denis, with a rather tepid enthusiasm. + </p> + <p> + They sat down on the grass. A faint white glare, rising from behind a belt + of trees, indicated the position of the dancing-floor. The music was + nothing but a muffled rhythmic pulse. + </p> + <p> + “I shall be glad,” said Henry Wimbush, “when this function comes at last + to an end.” + </p> + <p> + “I can believe it.” + </p> + <p> + “I do not know how it is,” Mr. Wimbush continued, “but the spectacle of + numbers of my fellow-creatures in a state of agitation moves in me a + certain weariness, rather than any gaiety or excitement. The fact is, they + don’t very much interest me. They’re aren’t in my line. You follow me? I + could never take much interest, for example, in a collection of postage + stamps. Primitives or seventeenth-century books—yes. They are my + line. But stamps, no. I don’t know anything about them; they’re not my + line. They don’t interest me, they give me no emotion. It’s rather the + same with people, I’m afraid. I’m more at home with these pipes.” He + jerked his head sideways towards the hollowed logs. “The trouble with the + people and events of the present is that you never know anything about + them. What do I know of contemporary politics? Nothing. What do I know of + the people I see round about me? Nothing. What they think of me or of + anything else in the world, what they will do in five minutes’ time, are + things I can’t guess at. For all I know, you may suddenly jump up and try + to murder me in a moment’s time.” + </p> + <p> + “Come, come,” said Denis. + </p> + <p> + “True,” Mr. Wimbush continued, “the little I know about your past is + certainly reassuring. But I know nothing of your present, and neither you + nor I know anything of your future. It’s appalling; in living people, one + is dealing with unknown and unknowable quantities. One can only hope to + find out anything about them by a long series of the most disagreeable and + boring human contacts, involving a terrible expense of time. It’s the same + with current events; how can I find out anything about them except by + devoting years to the most exhausting first-hand study, involving once + more an endless number of the most unpleasant contacts? No, give me the + past. It doesn’t change; it’s all there in black and white, and you can + get to know about it comfortably and decorously and, above all, privately—by + reading. By reading I know a great deal of Caesar Borgia, of St. Francis, + of Dr. Johnson; a few weeks have made me thoroughly acquainted with these + interesting characters, and I have been spared the tedious and revolting + process of getting to know them by personal contact, which I should have + to do if they were living now. How gay and delightful life would be if one + could get rid of all the human contacts! Perhaps, in the future, when + machines have attained to a state of perfection—for I confess that I + am, like Godwin and Shelley, a believer in perfectibility, the + perfectibility of machinery—then, perhaps, it will be possible for + those who, like myself, desire it, to live in a dignified seclusion, + surrounded by the delicate attentions of silent and graceful machines, and + entirely secure from any human intrusion. It is a beautiful thought.” + </p> + <p> + “Beautiful,” Denis agreed. “But what about the desirable human contacts, + like love and friendship?” + </p> + <p> + The black silhouette against the darkness shook its head. “The pleasures + even of these contacts are much exaggerated,” said the polite level voice. + “It seems to me doubtful whether they are equal to the pleasures of + private reading and contemplation. Human contacts have been so highly + valued in the past only because reading was not a common accomplishment + and because books were scarce and difficult to reproduce. The world, you + must remember, is only just becoming literate. As reading becomes more and + more habitual and widespread, an ever-increasing number of people will + discover that books will give them all the pleasures of social life and + none of its intolerable tedium. At present people in search of pleasure + naturally tend to congregate in large herds and to make a noise; in future + their natural tendency will be to seek solitude and quiet. The proper + study of mankind is books.” + </p> + <p> + “I sometimes think that it may be,” said Denis; he was wondering if Anne + and Gombauld were still dancing together. + </p> + <p> + “Instead of which,” said Mr. Wimbush, with a sigh, “I must go and see if + all is well on the dancing-floor.” They got up and began to walk slowly + towards the white glare. “If all these people were dead,” Henry Wimbush + went on, “this festivity would be extremely agreeable. Nothing would be + pleasanter than to read in a well-written book of an open-air ball that + took place a century ago. How charming! one would say; how pretty and how + amusing! But when the ball takes place to-day, when one finds oneself + involved in it, then one sees the thing in its true light. It turns out to + be merely this.” He waved his hand in the direction of the acetylene + flares. “In my youth,” he went on after a pause, “I found myself, quite + fortuitously, involved in a series of the most phantasmagorical amorous + intrigues. A novelist could have made his fortune out of them, and even if + I were to tell you, in my bald style, the details of these adventures, you + would be amazed at the romantic tale. But I assure you, while they were + happening—these romantic adventures—they seemed to me no more + and no less exciting than any other incident of actual life. To climb by + night up a rope-ladder to a second-floor window in an old house in Toledo + seemed to me, while I was actually performing this rather dangerous feat, + an action as obvious, as much to be taken for granted, as—how shall + I put it?—as quotidian as catching the 8.52 from Surbiton to go to + business on a Monday morning. Adventures and romance only take on their + adventurous and romantic qualities at second-hand. Live them, and they are + just a slice of life like the rest. In literature they become as charming + as this dismal ball would be if we were celebrating its tercentenary.” + They had come to the entrance of the enclosure and stood there, blinking + in the dazzling light. “Ah, if only we were!” Henry Wimbush added. + </p> + <p> + Anne and Gombauld were still dancing together. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIX. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t was after ten + o’clock. The dancers had already dispersed and the last lights were being + put out. To-morrow the tents would be struck, the dismantled + merry-go-round would be packed into waggons and carted away. An expanse of + worn grass, a shabby brown patch in the wide green of the park, would be + all that remained. Crome Fair was over. + </p> + <p> + By the edge of the pool two figures lingered. + </p> + <p> + “No, no, no,” Anne was saying in a breathless whisper, leaning backwards, + turning her head from side to side in an effort to escape Gombauld’s + kisses. “No, please. No.” Her raised voice had become imperative. + </p> + <p> + Gombauld relaxed his embrace a little. “Why not?” he said. “I will.” + </p> + <p> + With a sudden effort Anne freed herself. “You won’t,” she retorted. + “You’ve tried to take the most unfair advantage of me.” + </p> + <p> + “Unfair advantage?” echoed Gombauld in genuine surprise. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, unfair advantage. You attack me after I’ve been dancing for two + hours, while I’m still reeling drunk with the movement, when I’ve lost my + head, when I’ve got no mind left but only a rhythmical body! It’s as bad + as making love to someone you’ve drugged or intoxicated.” + </p> + <p> + Gombauld laughed angrily. “Call me a White Slaver and have done with it.” + </p> + <p> + “Luckily,” said Anne, “I am now completely sobered, and if you try and + kiss me again I shall box your ears. Shall we take a few turns round the + pool?” she added. “The night is delicious.” + </p> + <p> + For answer Gombauld made an irritated noise. They paced off slowly, side + by side. + </p> + <p> + “What I like about the painting of Degas...” Anne began in her most + detached and conversational tone. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, damn Degas!” Gombauld was almost shouting. + </p> + <p> + From where he stood, leaning in an attitude of despair against the parapet + of the terrace, Denis had seen them, the two pale figures in a patch of + moonlight, far down by the pool’s edge. He had seen the beginning of what + promised to be an endless passionate embracement, and at the sight he had + fled. It was too much; he couldn’t stand it. In another moment, he felt, + he would have burst into irrepressible tears. + </p> + <p> + Dashing blindly into the house, he almost ran into Mr. Scogan, who was + walking up and down the hall smoking a final pipe. + </p> + <p> + “Hullo!” said Mr. Scogan, catching him by the arm; dazed and hardly + conscious of what he was doing or where he was, Denis stood there for a + moment like a somnambulist. “What’s the matter?” Mr. Scogan went on. “you + look disturbed, distressed, depressed.” + </p> + <p> + Denis shook his head without replying. + </p> + <p> + “Worried about the cosmos, eh?” Mr. Scogan patted him on the arm. “I know + the feeling,” he said. “It’s a most distressing symptom. ‘What’s the point + of it all? All is vanity. What’s the good of continuing to function if + one’s doomed to be snuffed out at last along with everything else?’ Yes, + yes. I know exactly how you feel. It’s most distressing if one allows + oneself to be distressed. But then why allow oneself to be distressed? + After all, we all know that there’s no ultimate point. But what difference + does that make?” + </p> + <p> + At this point the somnambulist suddenly woke up. “What?” he said, blinking + and frowning at his interlocutor. “What?” Then breaking away he dashed up + the stairs, two steps at a time. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan ran to the foot of the stairs and called up after him. “It + makes no difference, none whatever. Life is gay all the same, always, + under whatever circumstances—under whatever circumstances,” he + added, raising his voice to a shout. But Denis was already far out of + hearing, and even if he had not been, his mind to-night was proof against + all the consolations of philosophy. Mr. Scogan replaced his pipe between + his teeth and resumed his meditative pacing. “Under any circumstances,” he + repeated to himself. It was ungrammatical to begin with; was it true? And + is life really its own reward? He wondered. When his pipe had burned + itself to its stinking conclusion he took a drink of gin and went to bed. + In ten minutes he was deeply, innocently asleep. + </p> + <p> + Denis had mechanically undressed and, clad in those flowered silk pyjamas + of which he was so justly proud, was lying face downwards on his bed. Time + passed. When at last he looked up, the candle which he had left alight at + his bedside had burned down almost to the socket. He looked at his watch; + it was nearly half-past one. His head ached, his dry, sleepless eyes felt + as though they had been bruised from behind, and the blood was beating + within his ears a loud arterial drum. He got up, opened the door, tiptoed + noiselessly along the passage, and began to mount the stairs towards the + higher floors. Arrived at the servants’ quarters under the roof, he + hesitated, then turning to the right he opened a little door at the end of + the corridor. Within was a pitch-dark cupboard-like boxroom, hot, stuffy, + and smelling of dust and old leather. He advanced cautiously into the + blackness, groping with his hands. It was from this den that the ladder + went up to the leads of the western tower. He found the ladder, and set + his feet on the rungs; noiselessly, he lifted the trap-door above his + head; the moonlit sky was over him, he breathed the fresh, cool air of the + night. In a moment he was standing on the leads, gazing out over the dim, + colourless landscape, looking perpendicularly down at the terrace seventy + feet below. + </p> + <p> + Why had he climbed up to this high, desolate place? Was it to look at the + moon? Was it to commit suicide? As yet he hardly knew. Death—the + tears came into his eyes when he thought of it. His misery assumed a + certain solemnity; he was lifted up on the wings of a kind of exaltation. + It was a mood in which he might have done almost anything, however + foolish. He advanced towards the farther parapet; the drop was sheer there + and uninterrupted. A good leap, and perhaps one might clear the narrow + terrace and so crash down yet another thirty feet to the sun-baked ground + below. He paused at the corner of the tower, looking now down into the + shadowy gulf below, now up towards the rare stars and the waning moon. He + made a gesture with his hand, muttered something, he could not afterwards + remember what; but the fact that he had said it aloud gave the utterance a + peculiarly terrible significance. Then he looked down once more into the + depths. + </p> + <p> + “What ARE you doing, Denis?” questioned a voice from somewhere very close + behind him. + </p> + <p> + Denis uttered a cry of frightened surprise, and very nearly went over the + parapet in good earnest. His heart was beating terribly, and he was pale + when, recovering himself, he turned round in the direction from which the + voice had come. + </p> + <p> + “Are you ill?” + </p> + <p> + In the profound shadow that slept under the eastern parapet of the tower, + he saw something he had not previously noticed—an oblong shape. It + was a mattress, and someone was lying on it. Since that first memorable + night on the tower, Mary had slept out every evening; it was a sort of + manifestation of fidelity. + </p> + <p> + “It gave me a fright,” she went on, “to wake up and see you waving your + arms and gibbering there. What on earth were you doing?” + </p> + <p> + Denis laughed melodramatically. “What, indeed!” he said. If she hadn’t + woken up as she did, he would be lying in pieces at the bottom of the + tower; he was certain of that, now. + </p> + <p> + “You hadn’t got designs on me, I hope?” Mary inquired, jumping too rapidly + to conclusions. + </p> + <p> + “I didn’t know you were here,” said Denis, laughing more bitterly and + artificially than before. + </p> + <p> + “What IS the matter, Denis?” + </p> + <p> + He sat down on the edge of the mattress, and for all reply went on + laughing in the same frightful and improbable tone. + </p> + <p> + An hour later he was reposing with his head on Mary’s knees, and she, with + an affectionate solicitude that was wholly maternal, was running her + fingers through his tangled hair. He had told her everything, everything: + his hopeless love, his jealousy, his despair, his suicide—as it were + providentially averted by her interposition. He had solemnly promised + never to think of self-destruction again. And now his soul was floating in + a sad serenity. It was embalmed in the sympathy that Mary so generously + poured. And it was not only in receiving sympathy that Denis found + serenity and even a kind of happiness; it was also in giving it. For if he + had told Mary everything about his miseries, Mary, reacting to these + confidences, had told him in return everything, or very nearly everything, + about her own. + </p> + <p> + “Poor Mary!” He was very sorry for her. Still, she might have guessed that + Ivor wasn’t precisely a monument of constancy. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” she concluded, “one must put a good face on it.” She wanted to + cry, but she wouldn’t allow herself to be weak. There was a silence. + </p> + <p> + “Do you think,” asked Denis hesitatingly—“do you really think that + she...that Gombauld...” + </p> + <p> + “I’m sure of it,” Mary answered decisively. There was another long pause. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know what to do about it,” he said at last, utterly dejected. + </p> + <p> + “You’d better go away,” advised Mary. “It’s the safest thing, and the most + sensible.” + </p> + <p> + “But I’ve arranged to stay here three weeks more.” + </p> + <p> + “You must concoct an excuse.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you’re right.” + </p> + <p> + “I know I am,” said Mary, who was recovering all her firm self-possession. + “You can’t go on like this, can you?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I can’t go on like this,” he echoed. + </p> + <p> + Immensely practical, Mary invented a plan of action. Startlingly, in the + darkness, the church clock struck three. + </p> + <p> + “You must go to bed at once,” she said. “I’d no idea it was so late.” + </p> + <p> + Denis clambered down the ladder, cautiously descended the creaking stairs. + His room was dark; the candle had long ago guttered to extinction. He got + into bed and fell asleep almost at once. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXX. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">D</span>enis had been + called, but in spite of the parted curtains he had dropped off again into + that drowsy, dozy state when sleep becomes a sensual pleasure almost + consciously savoured. In this condition he might have remained for another + hour if he had not been disturbed by a violent rapping at the door. + </p> + <p> + “Come in,” he mumbled, without opening his eyes. The latch clicked, a hand + seized him by the shoulder and he was rudely shaken. + </p> + <p> + “Get up, get up!” + </p> + <p> + His eyelids blinked painfully apart, and he saw Mary standing over him, + bright-faced and earnest. + </p> + <p> + “Get up!” she repeated. “You must go and send the telegram. Don’t you + remember?” + </p> + <p> + “O Lord!” He threw off the bed-clothes; his tormentor retired. + </p> + <p> + Denis dressed as quickly as he could and ran up the road to the village + post office. Satisfaction glowed within him as he returned. He had sent a + long telegram, which would in a few hours evoke an answer ordering him + back to town at once—on urgent business. It was an act performed, a + decisive step taken—and he so rarely took decisive steps; he felt + pleased with himself. It was with a whetted appetite that he came in to + breakfast. + </p> + <p> + “Good-morning,” said Mr. Scogan. “I hope you’re better.” + </p> + <p> + “Better?” + </p> + <p> + “You were rather worried about the cosmos last night.” + </p> + <p> + Denis tried to laugh away the impeachment. “Was I?” he lightly asked. + </p> + <p> + “I wish,” said Mr. Scogan, “that I had nothing worse to prey on my mind. I + should be a happy man.” + </p> + <p> + “One is only happy in action,” Denis enunciated, thinking of the telegram. + </p> + <p> + He looked out of the window. Great florid baroque clouds floated high in + the blue heaven. A wind stirred among the trees, and their shaken foliage + twinkled and glittered like metal in the sun. Everything seemed + marvellously beautiful. At the thought that he would soon be leaving all + this beauty he felt a momentary pang; but he comforted himself by + recollecting how decisively he was acting. + </p> + <p> + “Action,” he repeated aloud, and going over to the sideboard he helped + himself to an agreeable mixture of bacon and fish. + </p> + <p> + Breakfast over, Denis repaired to the terrace, and, sitting there, raised + the enormous bulwark of the “Times” against the possible assaults of Mr. + Scogan, who showed an unappeased desire to go on talking about the + Universe. Secure behind the crackling pages, he meditated. In the light of + this brilliant morning the emotions of last night seemed somehow rather + remote. And what if he had seen them embracing in the moonlight? Perhaps + it didn’t mean much after all. And even if it did, why shouldn’t he stay? + He felt strong enough to stay, strong enough to be aloof, disinterested, a + mere friendly acquaintance. And even if he weren’t strong enough... + </p> + <p> + “What time do you think the telegram will arrive?” asked Mary suddenly, + thrusting in upon him over the top of the paper. + </p> + <p> + Denis started guiltily. “I don’t know at all,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “I was only wondering,” said Mary, “because there’s a very good train at + 3.27, and it would be nice if you could catch it, wouldn’t it?” + </p> + <p> + “Awfully nice,” he agreed weakly. He felt as though he were making + arrangements for his own funeral. Train leaves Waterloo 3.27. No + flowers...Mary was gone. No, he was blowed if he’d let himself be hurried + down to the Necropolis like this. He was blowed. The sight of Mr. Scogan + looking out, with a hungry expression, from the drawing-room window made + him precipitately hoist the “Times” once more. For a long while he kept it + hoisted. Lowering it at last to take another cautious peep at his + surroundings, he found himself, with what astonishment! confronted by + Anne’s faint, amused, malicious smile. She was standing before him,—the + woman who was a tree,—the swaying grace of her movement arrested in + a pose that seemed itself a movement. + </p> + <p> + “How long have you been standing there?” he asked, when he had done gaping + at her. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, about half an hour, I suppose,” she said airily. “You were so very + deep in your paper—head over ears—I didn’t like to disturb + you.” + </p> + <p> + “You look lovely this morning,” Denis exclaimed. It was the first time he + had ever had the courage to utter a personal remark of the kind. + </p> + <p> + Anne held up her hand as though to ward off a blow. “Don’t bludgeon me, + please.” She sat down on the bench beside him. He was a nice boy, she + thought, quite charming; and Gombauld’s violent insistences were really + becoming rather tiresome. “Why don’t you wear white trousers?” she asked. + “I like you so much in white trousers.” + </p> + <p> + “They’re at the wash,” Denis replied rather curtly. This white-trouser + business was all in the wrong spirit. He was just preparing a scheme to + manoeuvre the conversation back to the proper path, when Mr. Scogan + suddenly darted out of the house, crossed the terrace with clockwork + rapidity, and came to a halt in front of the bench on which they were + seated. + </p> + <p> + “To go on with our interesting conversation about the cosmos,” he began, + “I become more and more convinced that the various parts of the concern + are fundamentally discrete...But would you mind, Denis, moving a shade to + your right?” He wedged himself between them on the bench. “And if you + would shift a few inches to the left, my dear Anne...Thank you. Discrete, + I think, was what I was saying.” + </p> + <p> + “You were,” said Anne. Denis was speechless. + </p> + <p> + They were taking their after luncheon coffee in the library when the + telegram arrived. Denis blushed guiltily as he took the orange envelope + from the salver and tore it open. “Return at once. Urgent family + business.” It was too ridiculous. As if he had any family business! + Wouldn’t it be best just to crumple the thing up and put it in his pocket + without saying anything about it? He looked up; Mary’s large blue china + eyes were fixed upon him, seriously, penetratingly. He blushed more deeply + than ever, hesitated in a horrible uncertainty. + </p> + <p> + “What’s your telegram about?” Mary asked significantly. + </p> + <p> + He lost his head, “I’m afraid,” he mumbled, “I’m afraid this means I shall + have to go back to town at once.” He frowned at the telegram ferociously. + </p> + <p> + “But that’s absurd, impossible,” cried Anne. She had been standing by the + window talking to Gombauld; but at Denis’s words she came swaying across + the room towards him. + </p> + <p> + “It’s urgent,” he repeated desperately. + </p> + <p> + “But you’ve only been here such a short time,” Anne protested. + </p> + <p> + “I know,” he said, utterly miserable. Oh, if only she could understand! + Women were supposed to have intuition. + </p> + <p> + “If he must go, he must,” put in Mary firmly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I must.” He looked at the telegram again for inspiration. “You see, + it’s urgent family business,” he explained. + </p> + <p> + Priscilla got up from her chair in some excitement. “I had a distinct + presentiment of this last night,” she said. “A distinct presentiment.” + </p> + <p> + “A mere coincidence, no doubt,” said Mary, brushing Mrs. Wimbush out of + the conversation. “There’s a very good train at 3.27.” She looked at the + clock on the mantelpiece. “You’ll have nice time to pack.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll order the motor at once.” Henry Wimbush rang the bell. The funeral + was well under way. It was awful, awful. + </p> + <p> + “I am wretched you should be going,” said Anne. + </p> + <p> + Denis turned towards her; she really did look wretched. He abandoned + himself hopelessly, fatalistically to his destiny. This was what came of + action, of doing something decisive. If only he’d just let things drift! + If only... + </p> + <p> + “I shall miss your conversation,” said Mr. Scogan. + </p> + <p> + Mary looked at the clock again. “I think perhaps you ought to go and + pack,” she said. + </p> + <p> + Obediently Denis left the room. Never again, he said to himself, never + again would he do anything decisive. Camlet, West Bowlby, Knipswich for + Timpany, Spavin Delawarr; and then all the other stations; and then, + finally, London. The thought of the journey appalled him. And what on + earth was he going to do in London when he got there? He climbed wearily + up the stairs. It was time for him to lay himself in his coffin. + </p> + <p> + The car was at the door—the hearse. The whole party had assembled to + see him go. Good-bye, good-bye. Mechanically he tapped the barometer that + hung in the porch; the needle stirred perceptibly to the left. A sudden + smile lighted up his lugubrious face. + </p> + <p> + “‘It sinks and I am ready to depart,’” he said, quoting Landor with an + exquisite aptness. He looked quickly round from face to face. Nobody had + noticed. He climbed into the hearse. + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Crome Yellow, by Aldous Huxley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CROME YELLOW *** + +***** This file should be named 1999-h.htm or 1999-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/9/1999/ + +Produced by Sue Asscher, and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Crome Yellow + +Author: Aldous Huxley + +Release Date: September 26, 2008 [EBook #1999] +Last Updated: November 8, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CROME YELLOW *** + + + + +Produced by Sue Asscher, and David Widger + + +</pre> + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + CROME YELLOW + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Aldous Huxley + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX. </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER I. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>long this + particular stretch of line no express had ever passed. All the trains—the + few that there were—stopped at all the stations. Denis knew the + names of those stations by heart. Bole, Tritton, Spavin Delawarr, + Knipswich for Timpany, West Bowlby, and, finally, Camlet-on-the-Water. + Camlet was where he always got out, leaving the train to creep indolently + onward, goodness only knew whither, into the green heart of England. + </p> + <p> + They were snorting out of West Bowlby now. It was the next station, thank + Heaven. Denis took his chattels off the rack and piled them neatly in the + corner opposite his own. A futile proceeding. But one must have something + to do. When he had finished, he sank back into his seat and closed his + eyes. It was extremely hot. + </p> + <p> + Oh, this journey! It was two hours cut clean out of his life; two hours in + which he might have done so much, so much—written the perfect poem, + for example, or read the one illuminating book. Instead of which—his + gorge rose at the smell of the dusty cushions against which he was + leaning. + </p> + <p> + Two hours. One hundred and twenty minutes. Anything might be done in that + time. Anything. Nothing. Oh, he had had hundreds of hours, and what had he + done with them? Wasted them, spilt the precious minutes as though his + reservoir were inexhaustible. Denis groaned in the spirit, condemned + himself utterly with all his works. What right had he to sit in the + sunshine, to occupy corner seats in third-class carriages, to be alive? + None, none, none. + </p> + <p> + Misery and a nameless nostalgic distress possessed him. He was + twenty-three, and oh! so agonizingly conscious of the fact. + </p> + <p> + The train came bumpingly to a halt. Here was Camlet at last. Denis jumped + up, crammed his hat over his eyes, deranged his pile of baggage, leaned + out of the window and shouted for a porter, seized a bag in either hand, + and had to put them down again in order to open the door. When at last he + had safely bundled himself and his baggage on to the platform, he ran up + the train towards the van. + </p> + <p> + “A bicycle, a bicycle!” he said breathlessly to the guard. He felt himself + a man of action. The guard paid no attention, but continued methodically + to hand out, one by one, the packages labelled to Camlet. “A bicycle!” + Denis repeated. “A green machine, cross-framed, name of Stone. S-T-O-N-E.” + </p> + <p> + “All in good time, sir,” said the guard soothingly. He was a large, + stately man with a naval beard. One pictured him at home, drinking tea, + surrounded by a numerous family. It was in that tone that he must have + spoken to his children when they were tiresome. “All in good time, sir.” + Denis’s man of action collapsed, punctured. + </p> + <p> + He left his luggage to be called for later, and pushed off on his bicycle. + He always took his bicycle when he went into the country. It was part of + the theory of exercise. One day one would get up at six o’clock and pedal + away to Kenilworth, or Stratford-on-Avon—anywhere. And within a + radius of twenty miles there were always Norman churches and Tudor + mansions to be seen in the course of an afternoon’s excursion. Somehow + they never did get seen, but all the same it was nice to feel that the + bicycle was there, and that one fine morning one really might get up at + six. + </p> + <p> + Once at the top of the long hill which led up from Camlet station, he felt + his spirits mounting. The world, he found, was good. The far-away blue + hills, the harvests whitening on the slopes of the ridge along which his + road led him, the treeless sky-lines that changed as he moved—yes, + they were all good. He was overcome by the beauty of those deeply embayed + combes, scooped in the flanks of the ridge beneath him. Curves, curves: he + repeated the word slowly, trying as he did so to find some term in which + to give expression to his appreciation. Curves—no, that was + inadequate. He made a gesture with his hand, as though to scoop the + achieved expression out of the air, and almost fell off his bicycle. What + was the word to describe the curves of those little valleys? They were as + fine as the lines of a human body, they were informed with the subtlety of + art... + </p> + <p> + Galbe. That was a good word; but it was French. Le galbe evase de ses + hanches: had one ever read a French novel in which that phrase didn’t + occur? Some day he would compile a dictionary for the use of novelists. + Galbe, gonfle, goulu: parfum, peau, pervers, potele, pudeur: vertu, + volupte. + </p> + <p> + But he really must find that word. Curves curves...Those little valleys + had the lines of a cup moulded round a woman’s breast; they seemed the + dinted imprints of some huge divine body that had rested on these hills. + Cumbrous locutions, these; but through them he seemed to be getting nearer + to what he wanted. Dinted, dimpled, wimpled—his mind wandered down + echoing corridors of assonance and alliteration ever further and further + from the point. He was enamoured with the beauty of words. + </p> + <p> + Becoming once more aware of the outer world, he found himself on the crest + of a descent. The road plunged down, steep and straight, into a + considerable valley. There, on the opposite slope, a little higher up the + valley, stood Crome, his destination. He put on his brakes; this view of + Crome was pleasant to linger over. The facade with its three projecting + towers rose precipitously from among the dark trees of the garden. The + house basked in full sunlight; the old brick rosily glowed. How ripe and + rich it was, how superbly mellow! And at the same time, how austere! The + hill was becoming steeper and steeper; he was gaining speed in spite of + his brakes. He loosed his grip of the levers, and in a moment was rushing + headlong down. Five minutes later he was passing through the gate of the + great courtyard. The front door stood hospitably open. He left his bicycle + leaning against the wall and walked in. He would take them by surprise. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>e took nobody by + surprise; there was nobody to take. All was quiet; Denis wandered from + room to empty room, looking with pleasure at the familiar pictures and + furniture, at all the little untidy signs of life that lay scattered here + and there. He was rather glad that they were all out; it was amusing to + wander through the house as though one were exploring a dead, deserted + Pompeii. What sort of life would the excavator reconstruct from these + remains; how would he people these empty chambers? There was the long + gallery, with its rows of respectable and (though, of course, one couldn’t + publicly admit it) rather boring Italian primitives, its Chinese + sculptures, its unobtrusive, dateless furniture. There was the panelled + drawing-room, where the huge chintz-covered arm-chairs stood, oases of + comfort among the austere flesh-mortifying antiques. There was the + morning-room, with its pale lemon walls, its painted Venetian chairs and + rococo tables, its mirrors, its modern pictures. There was the library, + cool, spacious, and dark, book-lined from floor to ceiling, rich in + portentous folios. There was the dining-room, solidly, portwinily English, + with its great mahogany table, its eighteenth-century chairs and + sideboard, its eighteenth-century pictures—family portraits, + meticulous animal paintings. What could one reconstruct from such data? + There was much of Henry Wimbush in the long gallery and the library, + something of Anne, perhaps, in the morning-room. That was all. Among the + accumulations of ten generations the living had left but few traces. + </p> + <p> + Lying on the table in the morning-room he saw his own book of poems. What + tact! He picked it up and opened it. It was what the reviewers call “a + slim volume.” He read at hazard: + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “...But silence and the topless dark + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Vault in the lights of Luna Park; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And Blackpool from the nightly gloom + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Hollows a bright tumultuous tomb.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + He put it down again, shook his head, and sighed. “What genius I had + then!” he reflected, echoing the aged Swift. It was nearly six months + since the book had been published; he was glad to think he would never + write anything of the same sort again. Who could have been reading it, he + wondered? Anne, perhaps; he liked to think so. Perhaps, too, she had at + last recognised herself in the Hamadryad of the poplar sapling; the slim + Hamadryad whose movements were like the swaying of a young tree in the + wind. “The Woman who was a Tree” was what he had called the poem. He had + given her the book when it came out, hoping that the poem would tell her + what he hadn’t dared to say. She had never referred to it. + </p> + <p> + He shut his eyes and saw a vision of her in a red velvet cloak, swaying + into the little restaurant where they sometimes dined together in London—three + quarters of an hour late, and he at his table, haggard with anxiety, + irritation, hunger. Oh, she was damnable! + </p> + <p> + It occurred to him that perhaps his hostess might be in her boudoir. It + was a possibility; he would go and see. Mrs. Wimbush’s boudoir was in the + central tower on the garden front. A little staircase cork-screwed up to + it from the hall. Denis mounted, tapped at the door. “Come in.” Ah, she + was there; he had rather hoped she wouldn’t be. He opened the door. + </p> + <p> + Priscilla Wimbush was lying on the sofa. A blotting-pad rested on her + knees and she was thoughtfully sucking the end of a silver pencil. + </p> + <p> + “Hullo,” she said, looking up. “I’d forgotten you were coming.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, here I am, I’m afraid,” said Denis deprecatingly. “I’m awfully + sorry.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Wimbush laughed. Her voice, her laughter, were deep and masculine. + Everything about her was manly. She had a large, square, middle-aged face, + with a massive projecting nose and little greenish eyes, the whole + surmounted by a lofty and elaborate coiffure of a curiously improbable + shade of orange. Looking at her, Denis always thought of Wilkie Bard as + the cantatrice. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “That’s why I’m going to + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Sing in op’ra, sing in op’ra, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Sing in op-pop-pop-pop-pop-popera.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + Today she was wearing a purple silk dress with a high collar and a row of + pearls. The costume, so richly dowagerish, so suggestive of the Royal + Family, made her look more than ever like something on the Halls. + </p> + <p> + “What have you been doing all this time?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Denis, and he hesitated, almost voluptuously. He had a + tremendously amusing account of London and its doings all ripe and ready + in his mind. It would be a pleasure to give it utterance. “To begin with,” + he said... + </p> + <p> + But he was too late. Mrs. Wimbush’s question had been what the grammarians + call rhetorical; it asked for no answer. It was a little conversational + flourish, a gambit in the polite game. + </p> + <p> + “You find me busy at my horoscopes,” she said, without even being aware + that she had interrupted him. + </p> + <p> + A little pained, Denis decided to reserve his story for more receptive + ears. He contented himself, by way of revenge, with saying “Oh?” rather + icily. + </p> + <p> + “Did I tell you how I won four hundred on the Grand National this year?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he replied, still frigid and mono-syllabic. She must have told him + at least six times. + </p> + <p> + “Wonderful, isn’t it? Everything is in the Stars. In the Old Days, before + I had the Stars to help me, I used to lose thousands. Now”—she + paused an instant—“well, look at that four hundred on the Grand + National. That’s the Stars.” + </p> + <p> + Denis would have liked to hear more about the Old Days. But he was too + discreet and, still more, too shy to ask. There had been something of a + bust up; that was all he knew. Old Priscilla—not so old then, of + course, and sprightlier—had lost a great deal of money, dropped it + in handfuls and hatfuls on every race-course in the country. She had + gambled too. The number of thousands varied in the different legends, but + all put it high. Henry Wimbush was forced to sell some of his Primitives—a + Taddeo da Poggibonsi, an Amico di Taddeo, and four or five nameless + Sienese—to the Americans. There was a crisis. For the first time in + his life Henry asserted himself, and with good effect, it seemed. + </p> + <p> + Priscilla’s gay and gadding existence had come to an abrupt end. Nowadays + she spent almost all her time at Crome, cultivating a rather ill-defined + malady. For consolation she dallied with New Thought and the Occult. Her + passion for racing still possessed her, and Henry, who was a kind-hearted + fellow at bottom, allowed her forty pounds a month betting money. Most of + Priscilla’s days were spent in casting the horoscopes of horses, and she + invested her money scientifically, as the stars dictated. She betted on + football too, and had a large notebook in which she registered the + horoscopes of all the players in all the teams of the League. The process + of balancing the horoscopes of two elevens one against the other was a + very delicate and difficult one. A match between the Spurs and the Villa + entailed a conflict in the heavens so vast and so complicated that it was + not to be wondered at if she sometimes made a mistake about the outcome. + </p> + <p> + “Such a pity you don’t believe in these things, Denis, such a pity,” said + Mrs. Wimbush in her deep, distinct voice. + </p> + <p> + “I can’t say I feel it so.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, that’s because you don’t know what it’s like to have faith. You’ve no + idea how amusing and exciting life becomes when you do believe. All that + happens means something; nothing you do is ever insignificant. It makes + life so jolly, you know. Here am I at Crome. Dull as ditchwater, you’d + think; but no, I don’t find it so. I don’t regret the Old Days a bit. I + have the Stars...” She picked up the sheet of paper that was lying on the + blotting-pad. “Inman’s horoscope,” she explained. “(I thought I’d like to + have a little fling on the billiards championship this autumn.) I have the + Infinite to keep in tune with,” she waved her hand. “And then there’s the + next world and all the spirits, and one’s Aura, and Mrs. Eddy and saying + you’re not ill, and the Christian Mysteries and Mrs. Besant. It’s all + splendid. One’s never dull for a moment. I can’t think how I used to get + on before—in the Old Days. Pleasure—running about, that’s all + it was; just running about. Lunch, tea, dinner, theatre, supper every day. + It was fun, of course, while it lasted. But there wasn’t much left of it + afterwards. There’s rather a good thing about that in Barbecue-Smith’s new + book. Where is it?” + </p> + <p> + She sat up and reached for a book that was lying on the little table by + the head of the sofa. + </p> + <p> + “Do you know him, by the way?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Who?” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Barbecue-Smith.” + </p> + <p> + Denis knew of him vaguely. Barbecue-Smith was a name in the Sunday papers. + He wrote about the Conduct of Life. He might even be the author of “What a + Young Girl Ought to Know”. + </p> + <p> + “No, not personally,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve invited him for next week-end.” She turned over the pages of the + book. “Here’s the passage I was thinking of. I marked it. I always mark + the things I like.” + </p> + <p> + Holding the book almost at arm’s length, for she was somewhat + long-sighted, and making suitable gestures with her free hand, she began + to read, slowly, dramatically. + </p> + <p> + “‘What are thousand pound fur coats, what are quarter million incomes?’” + She looked up from the page with a histrionic movement of the head; her + orange coiffure nodded portentously. Denis looked at it, fascinated. Was + it the Real Thing and henna, he wondered, or was it one of those Complete + Transformations one sees in the advertisements? + </p> + <p> + “‘What are Thrones and Sceptres?’” + </p> + <p> + The orange Transformation—yes, it must be a Transformation—bobbed + up again. + </p> + <p> + “‘What are the gaieties of the Rich, the splendours of the Powerful, what + is the pride of the Great, what are the gaudy pleasures of High Society?’” + </p> + <p> + The voice, which had risen in tone, questioningly, from sentence to + sentence, dropped suddenly and boomed reply. + </p> + <p> + “‘They are nothing. Vanity, fluff, dandelion seed in the wind, thin + vapours of fever. The things that matter happen in the heart. Seen things + are sweet, but those unseen are a thousand times more significant. It is + the unseen that counts in Life.’” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Wimbush lowered the book. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” she said. + </p> + <p> + Denis preferred not to hazard an opinion, but uttered a non-committal + “H’m.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, it’s a fine book this, a beautiful book,” said Priscilla, as she let + the pages flick back, one by one, from under her thumb. “And here’s the + passage about the Lotus Pool. He compares the Soul to a Lotus Pool, you + know.” She held up the book again and read. “‘A Friend of mine has a Lotus + Pool in his garden. It lies in a little dell embowered with wild roses and + eglantine, among which the nightingale pours forth its amorous descant all + the summer long. Within the pool the Lotuses blossom, and the birds of the + air come to drink and bathe themselves in its crystal waters...’ Ah, and + that reminds me,” Priscilla exclaimed, shutting the book with a clap and + uttering her big profound laugh—“that reminds me of the things that + have been going on in our bathing-pool since you were here last. We gave + the village people leave to come and bathe here in the evenings. You’ve no + idea of the things that happened.” + </p> + <p> + She leaned forward, speaking in a confidential whisper; every now and then + she uttered a deep gurgle of laughter. “...mixed bathing...saw them out of + my window...sent for a pair of field-glasses to make sure...no doubt of + it...” The laughter broke out again. Denis laughed too. Barbecue-Smith was + tossed on the floor. + </p> + <p> + “It’s time we went to see if tea’s ready,” said Priscilla. She hoisted + herself up from the sofa and went swishing off across the room, striding + beneath the trailing silk. Denis followed her, faintly humming to himself: + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “That’s why I’m going to + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Sing in op’ra, sing in op’ra, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Sing in op-pop-pop-pop-pop-popera.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + And then the little twiddly bit of accompaniment at the end: “ra-ra.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he terrace in + front of the house was a long narrow strip of turf, bounded along its + outer edge by a graceful stone balustrade. Two little summer-houses of + brick stood at either end. Below the house the ground sloped very steeply + away, and the terrace was a remarkably high one; from the balusters to the + sloping lawn beneath was a drop of thirty feet. Seen from below, the high + unbroken terrace wall, built like the house itself of brick, had the + almost menacing aspect of a fortification—a castle bastion, from + whose parapet one looked out across airy depths to distances level with + the eye. Below, in the foreground, hedged in by solid masses of sculptured + yew trees, lay the stone-brimmed swimming-pool. Beyond it stretched the + park, with its massive elms, its green expanses of grass, and, at the + bottom of the valley, the gleam of the narrow river. On the farther side + of the stream the land rose again in a long slope, chequered with + cultivation. Looking up the valley, to the right, one saw a line of blue, + far-off hills. + </p> + <p> + The tea-table had been planted in the shade of one of the little + summer-houses, and the rest of the party was already assembled about it + when Denis and Priscilla made their appearance. Henry Wimbush had begun to + pour out the tea. He was one of those ageless, unchanging men on the + farther side of fifty, who might be thirty, who might be anything. Denis + had known him almost as long as he could remember. In all those years his + pale, rather handsome face had never grown any older; it was like the pale + grey bowler hat which he always wore, winter and summer—unageing, + calm, serenely without expression. + </p> + <p> + Next him, but separated from him and from the rest of the world by the + almost impenetrable barriers of her deafness, sat Jenny Mullion. She was + perhaps thirty, had a tilted nose and a pink-and-white complexion, and + wore her brown hair plaited and coiled in two lateral buns over her ears. + In the secret tower of her deafness she sat apart, looking down at the + world through sharply piercing eyes. What did she think of men and women + and things? That was something that Denis had never been able to discover. + In her enigmatic remoteness Jenny was a little disquieting. Even now some + interior joke seemed to be amusing her, for she was smiling to herself, + and her brown eyes were like very bright round marbles. + </p> + <p> + On his other side the serious, moonlike innocence of Mary Bracegirdle’s + face shone pink and childish. She was nearly twenty-three, but one + wouldn’t have guessed it. Her short hair, clipped like a page’s, hung in a + bell of elastic gold about her cheeks. She had large blue china eyes, + whose expression was one of ingenuous and often puzzled earnestness. + </p> + <p> + Next to Mary a small gaunt man was sitting, rigid and erect in his chair. + In appearance Mr. Scogan was like one of those extinct bird-lizards of the + Tertiary. His nose was beaked, his dark eye had the shining quickness of a + robin’s. But there was nothing soft or gracious or feathery about him. The + skin of his wrinkled brown face had a dry and scaly look; his hands were + the hands of a crocodile. His movements were marked by the lizard’s + disconcertingly abrupt clockwork speed; his speech was thin, fluty, and + dry. Henry Wimbush’s school-fellow and exact contemporary, Mr. Scogan + looked far older and, at the same time, far more youthfully alive than did + that gentle aristocrat with the face like a grey bowler. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan might look like an extinct saurian, but Gombauld was altogether + and essentially human. In the old-fashioned natural histories of the + ‘thirties he might have figured in a steel engraving as a type of Homo + Sapiens—an honour which at that time commonly fell to Lord Byron. + Indeed, with more hair and less collar, Gombauld would have been + completely Byronic—more than Byronic, even, for Gombauld was of + Provencal descent, a black-haired young corsair of thirty, with flashing + teeth and luminous large dark eyes. Denis looked at him enviously. He was + jealous of his talent: if only he wrote verse as well as Gombauld painted + pictures! Still more, at the moment, he envied Gombauld his looks, his + vitality, his easy confidence of manner. Was it surprising that Anne + should like him? Like him?—it might even be something worse, Denis + reflected bitterly, as he walked at Priscilla’s side down the long grass + terrace. + </p> + <p> + Between Gombauld and Mr. Scogan a very much lowered deck-chair presented + its back to the new arrivals as they advanced towards the tea-table. + Gombauld was leaning over it; his face moved vivaciously; he smiled, he + laughed, he made quick gestures with his hands. From the depths of the + chair came up a sound of soft, lazy laughter. Denis started as he heard + it. That laughter—how well he knew it! What emotions it evoked in + him! He quickened his pace. + </p> + <p> + In her low deck-chair Anne was nearer to lying than to sitting. Her long, + slender body reposed in an attitude of listless and indolent grace. Within + its setting of light brown hair her face had a pretty regularity that was + almost doll-like. And indeed there were moments when she seemed nothing + more than a doll; when the oval face, with its long-lashed, pale blue + eyes, expressed nothing; when it was no more than a lazy mask of wax. She + was Henry Wimbush’s own niece; that bowler-like countenance was one of the + Wimbush heirlooms; it ran in the family, appearing in its female members + as a blank doll-face. But across this dollish mask, like a gay melody + dancing over an unchanging fundamental bass, passed Anne’s other + inheritance—quick laughter, light ironic amusement, and the changing + expressions of many moods. She was smiling now as Denis looked down at + her: her cat’s smile, he called it, for no very good reason. The mouth was + compressed, and on either side of it two tiny wrinkles had formed + themselves in her cheeks. An infinity of slightly malicious amusement + lurked in those little folds, in the puckers about the half-closed eyes, + in the eyes themselves, bright and laughing between the narrowed lids. + </p> + <p> + The preliminary greetings spoken, Denis found an empty chair between + Gombauld and Jenny and sat down. + </p> + <p> + “How are you, Jenny?” he shouted to her. + </p> + <p> + Jenny nodded and smiled in mysterious silence, as though the subject of + her health were a secret that could not be publicly divulged. + </p> + <p> + “How’s London been since I went away?” Anne inquired from the depth of her + chair. + </p> + <p> + The moment had come; the tremendously amusing narrative was waiting for + utterance. “Well,” said Denis, smiling happily, “to begin with...” + </p> + <p> + “Has Priscilla told you of our great antiquarian find?” Henry Wimbush + leaned forward; the most promising of buds was nipped. + </p> + <p> + “To begin with,” said Denis desperately, “there was the Ballet...” + </p> + <p> + “Last week,” Mr. Wimbush went on softly and implacably, “we dug up fifty + yards of oaken drain-pipes; just tree trunks with a hole bored through the + middle. Very interesting indeed. Whether they were laid down by the monks + in the fifteenth century, or whether...” + </p> + <p> + Denis listened gloomily. “Extraordinary!” he said, when Mr. Wimbush had + finished; “quite extraordinary!” He helped himself to another slice of + cake. He didn’t even want to tell his tale about London now; he was + damped. + </p> + <p> + For some time past Mary’s grave blue eyes had been fixed upon him. “What + have you been writing lately?” she asked. It would be nice to have a + little literary conversation. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, verse and prose,” said Denis—“just verse and prose.” + </p> + <p> + “Prose?” Mr. Scogan pounced alarmingly on the word. “You’ve been writing + prose?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Not a novel?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “My poor Denis!” exclaimed Mr. Scogan. “What about?” + </p> + <p> + Denis felt rather uncomfortable. “Oh, about the usual things, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” Mr. Scogan groaned. “I’ll describe the plot for you. Little + Percy, the hero, was never good at games, but he was always clever. He + passes through the usual public school and the usual university and comes + to London, where he lives among the artists. He is bowed down with + melancholy thought; he carries the whole weight of the universe upon his + shoulders. He writes a novel of dazzling brilliance; he dabbles delicately + in Amour and disappears, at the end of the book, into the luminous + Future.” + </p> + <p> + Denis blushed scarlet. Mr. Scogan had described the plan of his novel with + an accuracy that was appalling. He made an effort to laugh. “You’re + entirely wrong,” he said. “My novel is not in the least like that.” It was + a heroic lie. Luckily, he reflected, only two chapters were written. He + would tear them up that very evening when he unpacked. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan paid no attention to his denial, but went on: “Why will you + young men continue to write about things that are so entirely + uninteresting as the mentality of adolescents and artists? Professional + anthropologists might find it interesting to turn sometimes from the + beliefs of the Blackfellow to the philosophical preoccupations of the + undergraduate. But you can’t expect an ordinary adult man, like myself, to + be much moved by the story of his spiritual troubles. And after all, even + in England, even in Germany and Russia, there are more adults than + adolescents. As for the artist, he is preoccupied with problems that are + so utterly unlike those of the ordinary adult man—problems of pure + aesthetics which don’t so much as present themselves to people like myself—that + a description of his mental processes is as boring to the ordinary reader + as a piece of pure mathematics. A serious book about artists regarded as + artists is unreadable; and a book about artists regarded as lovers, + husbands, dipsomaniacs, heroes, and the like is really not worth writing + again. Jean-Christophe is the stock artist of literature, just as + Professor Radium of ‘Comic Cuts’ is its stock man of science.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m sorry to hear I’m as uninteresting as all that,” said Gombauld. + </p> + <p> + “Not at all, my dear Gombauld,” Mr. Scogan hastened to explain. “As a + lover or a dipsomaniac, I’ve no doubt of your being a most fascinating + specimen. But as a combiner of forms, you must honestly admit it, you’re a + bore.” + </p> + <p> + “I entirely disagree with you,” exclaimed Mary. She was somehow always out + of breath when she talked. And her speech was punctuated by little gasps. + “I’ve known a great many artists, and I’ve always found their mentality + very interesting. Especially in Paris. Tschuplitski, for example—I + saw a great deal of Tschuplitski in Paris this spring...” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, but then you’re an exception, Mary, you’re an exception,” said Mr. + Scogan. “You are a femme superieure.” + </p> + <p> + A flush of pleasure turned Mary’s face into a harvest moon. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">D</span>enis woke up next + morning to find the sun shining, the sky serene. He decided to wear white + flannel trousers—white flannel trousers and a black jacket, with a + silk shirt and his new peach-coloured tie. And what shoes? White was the + obvious choice, but there was something rather pleasing about the notion + of black patent leather. He lay in bed for several minutes considering the + problem. + </p> + <p> + Before he went down—patent leather was his final choice—he + looked at himself critically in the glass. His hair might have been more + golden, he reflected. As it was, its yellowness had the hint of a greenish + tinge in it. But his forehead was good. His forehead made up in height + what his chin lacked in prominence. His nose might have been longer, but + it would pass. His eyes might have been blue and not green. But his coat + was very well cut and, discreetly padded, made him seem robuster than he + actually was. His legs, in their white casing, were long and elegant. + Satisfied, he descended the stairs. Most of the party had already finished + their breakfast. He found himself alone with Jenny. + </p> + <p> + “I hope you slept well,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, isn’t it lovely?” Jenny replied, giving two rapid little nods. “But + we had such awful thunderstorms last week.” + </p> + <p> + Parallel straight lines, Denis reflected, meet only at infinity. He might + talk for ever of care-charmer sleep and she of meteorology till the end of + time. Did one ever establish contact with anyone? We are all parallel + straight lines. Jenny was only a little more parallel than most. + </p> + <p> + “They are very alarming, these thunderstorms,” he said, helping himself to + porridge. “Don’t you think so? Or are you above being frightened?” + </p> + <p> + “No. I always go to bed in a storm. One is so much safer lying down.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” + </p> + <p> + “Because,” said Jenny, making a descriptive gesture, “because lightning + goes downwards and not flat ways. When you’re lying down you’re out of the + current.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s very ingenious.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s true.” + </p> + <p> + There was a silence. Denis finished his porridge and helped himself to + bacon. For lack of anything better to say, and because Mr. Scogan’s absurd + phrase was for some reason running in his head, he turned to Jenny and + asked: + </p> + <p> + “Do you consider yourself a femme superieure?” He had to repeat the + question several times before Jenny got the hang of it. + </p> + <p> + “No,” she said, rather indignantly, when at last she heard what Denis was + saying. “Certainly not. Has anyone been suggesting that I am?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Denis. “Mr. Scogan told Mary she was one.” + </p> + <p> + “Did he?” Jenny lowered her voice. “Shall I tell you what I think of that + man? I think he’s slightly sinister.” + </p> + <p> + Having made this pronouncement, she entered the ivory tower of her + deafness and closed the door. Denis could not induce her to say anything + more, could not induce her even to listen. She just smiled at him, smiled + and occasionally nodded. + </p> + <p> + Denis went out on to the terrace to smoke his after-breakfast pipe and to + read his morning paper. An hour later, when Anne came down, she found him + still reading. By this time he had got to the Court Circular and the + Forthcoming Weddings. He got up to meet her as she approached, a Hamadryad + in white muslin, across the grass. + </p> + <p> + “Why, Denis,” she exclaimed, “you look perfectly sweet in your white + trousers.” + </p> + <p> + Denis was dreadfully taken aback. There was no possible retort. “You speak + as though I were a child in a new frock,” he said, with a show of + irritation. + </p> + <p> + “But that’s how I feel about you, Denis dear.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you oughtn’t to.” + </p> + <p> + “But I can’t help it. I’m so much older than you.” + </p> + <p> + “I like that,” he said. “Four years older.” + </p> + <p> + “And if you do look perfectly sweet in your white trousers, why shouldn’t + I say so? And why did you put them on, if you didn’t think you were going + to look sweet in them?” + </p> + <p> + “Let’s go into the garden,” said Denis. He was put out; the conversation + had taken such a preposterous and unexpected turn. He had planned a very + different opening, in which he was to lead off with, “You look adorable + this morning,” or something of the kind, and she was to answer, “Do I?” + and then there was to be a pregnant silence. And now she had got in first + with the trousers. It was provoking; his pride was hurt. + </p> + <p> + That part of the garden that sloped down from the foot of the terrace to + the pool had a beauty which did not depend on colour so much as on forms. + It was as beautiful by moonlight as in the sun. The silver of water, the + dark shapes of yew and ilex trees remained, at all hours and seasons, the + dominant features of the scene. It was a landscape in black and white. For + colour there was the flower-garden; it lay to one side of the pool, + separated from it by a huge Babylonian wall of yews. You passed through a + tunnel in the hedge, you opened a wicket in a wall, and you found + yourself, startlingly and suddenly, in the world of colour. The July + borders blazed and flared under the sun. Within its high brick walls the + garden was like a great tank of warmth and perfume and colour. + </p> + <p> + Denis held open the little iron gate for his companion. “It’s like passing + from a cloister into an Oriental palace,” he said, and took a deep breath + of the warm, flower-scented air. “‘In fragrant volleys they let fly...’ + How does it go?” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “‘Well shot, ye firemen! Oh how sweet + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And round your equal fires do meet; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Whose shrill report no ear can tell, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + But echoes to the eye and smell...’” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + “You have a bad habit of quoting,” said Anne. “As I never know the context + or author, I find it humiliating.” + </p> + <p> + Denis apologized. “It’s the fault of one’s education. Things somehow seem + more real and vivid when one can apply somebody else’s ready-made phrase + about them. And then there are lots of lovely names and words—Monophysite, + Iamblichus, Pomponazzi; you bring them out triumphantly, and feel you’ve + clinched the argument with the mere magical sound of them. That’s what + comes of the higher education.” + </p> + <p> + “You may regret your education,” said Anne; “I’m ashamed of my lack of it. + Look at those sunflowers! Aren’t they magnificent?” + </p> + <p> + “Dark faces and golden crowns—they’re kings of Ethiopia. And I like + the way the tits cling to the flowers and pick out the seeds, while the + other loutish birds, grubbing dirtily for their food, look up in envy from + the ground. Do they look up in envy? That’s the literary touch, I’m + afraid. Education again. It always comes back to that.” He was silent. + </p> + <p> + Anne had sat down on a bench that stood in the shade of an old apple tree. + “I’m listening,” she said. + </p> + <p> + He did not sit down, but walked backwards and forwards in front of the + bench, gesticulating a little as he talked. “Books,” he said—“books. + One reads so many, and one sees so few people and so little of the world. + Great thick books about the universe and the mind and ethics. You’ve no + idea how many there are. I must have read twenty or thirty tons of them in + the last five years. Twenty tons of ratiocination. Weighted with that, + one’s pushed out into the world.” + </p> + <p> + He went on walking up and down. His voice rose, fell, was silent a moment, + and then talked on. He moved his hands, sometimes he waved his arms. Anne + looked and listened quietly, as though she were at a lecture. He was a + nice boy, and to-day he looked charming—charming! + </p> + <p> + One entered the world, Denis pursued, having ready-made ideas about + everything. One had a philosophy and tried to make life fit into it. One + should have lived first and then made one’s philosophy to fit life...Life, + facts, things were horribly complicated; ideas, even the most difficult of + them, deceptively simple. In the world of ideas everything was clear; in + life all was obscure, embroiled. Was it surprising that one was miserable, + horribly unhappy? Denis came to a halt in front of the bench, and as he + asked this last question he stretched out his arms and stood for an + instant in an attitude of crucifixion, then let them fall again to his + sides. + </p> + <p> + “My poor Denis!” Anne was touched. He was really too pathetic as he stood + there in front of her in his white flannel trousers. “But does one suffer + about these things? It seems very extraordinary.” + </p> + <p> + “You’re like Scogan,” cried Denis bitterly. “You regard me as a specimen + for an anthropologist. Well, I suppose I am.” + </p> + <p> + “No, no,” she protested, and drew in her skirt with a gesture that + indicated that he was to sit down beside her. He sat down. “Why can’t you + just take things for granted and as they come?” she asked. “It’s so much + simpler.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course it is,” said Denis. “But it’s a lesson to be learnt gradually. + There are the twenty tons of ratiocination to be got rid of first.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve always taken things as they come,” said Anne. “It seems so obvious. + One enjoys the pleasant things, avoids the nasty ones. There’s nothing + more to be said.” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing—for you. But, then, you were born a pagan; I am trying + laboriously to make myself one. I can take nothing for granted, I can + enjoy nothing as it comes along. Beauty, pleasure, art, women—I have + to invent an excuse, a justification for everything that’s delightful. + Otherwise I can’t enjoy it with an easy conscience. I make up a little + story about beauty and pretend that it has something to do with truth and + goodness. I have to say that art is the process by which one reconstructs + the divine reality out of chaos. Pleasure is one of the mystical roads to + union with the infinite—the ecstasies of drinking, dancing, + love-making. As for women, I am perpetually assuring myself that they’re + the broad highway to divinity. And to think that I’m only just beginning + to see through the silliness of the whole thing! It’s incredible to me + that anyone should have escaped these horrors.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s still more incredible to me,” said Anne, “that anyone should have + been a victim to them. I should like to see myself believing that men are + the highway to divinity.” The amused malice of her smile planted two + little folds on either side of her mouth, and through their half-closed + lids her eyes shone with laughter. “What you need, Denis, is a nice plump + young wife, a fixed income, and a little congenial but regular work.” + </p> + <p> + “What I need is you.” That was what he ought to have retorted, that was + what he wanted passionately to say. He could not say it. His desire fought + against his shyness. “What I need is you.” Mentally he shouted the words, + but not a sound issued from his lips. He looked at her despairingly. + Couldn’t she see what was going on inside him? Couldn’t she understand? + “What I need is you.” He would say it, he would—he would. + </p> + <p> + “I think I shall go and bathe,” said Anne. “It’s so hot.” The opportunity + had passed. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>r. Wimbush had + taken them to see the sights of the Home Farm, and now they were standing, + all six of them—Henry Wimbush, Mr. Scogan, Denis, Gombauld, Anne, + and Mary—by the low wall of the piggery, looking into one of the + styes. + </p> + <p> + “This is a good sow,” said Henry Wimbush. “She had a litter of fourteen. + </p> + <p> + “Fourteen?” Mary echoed incredulously. She turned astonished blue eyes + towards Mr. Wimbush, then let them fall onto the seething mass of elan + vital that fermented in the sty. + </p> + <p> + An immense sow reposed on her side in the middle of the pen. Her round, + black belly, fringed with a double line of dugs, presented itself to the + assault of an army of small, brownish-black swine. With a frantic greed + they tugged at their mother’s flank. The old sow stirred sometimes + uneasily or uttered a little grunt of pain. One small pig, the runt, the + weakling of the litter, had been unable to secure a place at the banquet. + Squealing shrilly, he ran backwards and forwards, trying to push in among + his stronger brothers or even to climb over their tight little black backs + towards the maternal reservoir. + </p> + <p> + “There ARE fourteen,” said Mary. “You’re quite right. I counted. It’s + extraordinary.” + </p> + <p> + “The sow next door,” Mr. Wimbush went on, “has done very badly. She only + had five in her litter. I shall give her another chance. If she does no + better next time, I shall fat her up and kill her. There’s the boar,” he + pointed towards a farther sty. “Fine old beast, isn’t he? But he’s getting + past his prime. He’ll have to go too.” + </p> + <p> + “How cruel!” Anne exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + “But how practical, how eminently realistic!” said Mr. Scogan. “In this + farm we have a model of sound paternal government. Make them breed, make + them work, and when they’re past working or breeding or begetting, + slaughter them.” + </p> + <p> + “Farming seems to be mostly indecency and cruelty,” said Anne. + </p> + <p> + With the ferrule of his walking-stick Denis began to scratch the boar’s + long bristly back. The animal moved a little so as to bring himself within + easier range of the instrument that evoked in him such delicious + sensations; then he stood stock still, softly grunting his contentment. + The mud of years flaked off his sides in a grey powdery scurf. + </p> + <p> + “What a pleasure it is,” said Denis, “to do somebody a kindness. I believe + I enjoy scratching this pig quite as much as he enjoys being scratched. If + only one could always be kind with so little expense or trouble...” + </p> + <p> + A gate slammed; there was a sound of heavy footsteps. + </p> + <p> + “Morning, Rowley!” said Henry Wimbush. + </p> + <p> + “Morning, sir,” old Rowley answered. He was the most venerable of the + labourers on the farm—a tall, solid man, still unbent, with grey + side-whiskers and a steep, dignified profile. Grave, weighty in his + manner, splendidly respectable, Rowley had the air of a great English + statesman of the mid-nineteenth century. He halted on the outskirts of the + group, and for a moment they all looked at the pigs in a silence that was + only broken by the sound of grunting or the squelch of a sharp hoof in the + mire. Rowley turned at last, slowly and ponderously and nobly, as he did + everything, and addressed himself to Henry Wimbush. + </p> + <p> + “Look at them, sir,” he said, with a motion of his hand towards the + wallowing swine. “Rightly is they called pigs.” + </p> + <p> + “Rightly indeed,” Mr. Wimbush agreed. + </p> + <p> + “I am abashed by that man,” said Mr. Scogan, as old Rowley plodded off + slowly and with dignity. “What wisdom, what judgment, what a sense of + values! ‘Rightly are they called swine.’ Yes. And I wish I could, with as + much justice, say, ‘Rightly are we called men.’” + </p> + <p> + They walked on towards the cowsheds and the stables of the cart-horses. + Five white geese, taking the air this fine morning, even as they were + doing, met them in the way. They hesitated, cackled; then, converting + their lifted necks into rigid, horizontal snakes, they rushed off in + disorder, hissing horribly as they went. Red calves paddled in the dung + and mud of a spacious yard. In another enclosure stood the bull, massive + as a locomotive. He was a very calm bull, and his face wore an expression + of melancholy stupidity. He gazed with reddish-brown eyes at his visitors, + chewed thoughtfully at the tangible memories of an earlier meal, swallowed + and regurgitated, chewed again. His tail lashed savagely from side to + side; it seemed to have nothing to do with his impassive bulk. Between his + short horns was a triangle of red curls, short and dense. + </p> + <p> + “Splendid animal,” said Henry Wimbush. “Pedigree stock. But he’s getting a + little old, like the boar.” + </p> + <p> + “Fat him up and slaughter him,” Mr. Scogan pronounced, with a delicate + old-maidish precision of utterance. + </p> + <p> + “Couldn’t you give the animals a little holiday from producing children?” + asked Anne. “I’m so sorry for the poor things.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Wimbush shook his head. “Personally,” he said, “I rather like seeing + fourteen pigs grow where only one grew before. The spectacle of so much + crude life is refreshing.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m glad to hear you say so,” Gombauld broke in warmly. “Lots of life: + that’s what we want. I like pullulation; everything ought to increase and + multiply as hard as it can.” + </p> + <p> + Gombauld grew lyrical. Everybody ought to have children—Anne ought + to have them, Mary ought to have them—dozens and dozens. He + emphasised his point by thumping with his walking-stick on the bull’s + leather flanks. Mr. Scogan ought to pass on his intelligence to little + Scogans, and Denis to little Denises. The bull turned his head to see what + was happening, regarded the drumming stick for several seconds, then + turned back again satisfied, it seemed, that nothing was happening. + Sterility was odious, unnatural, a sin against life. Life, life, and still + more life. The ribs of the placid bull resounded. + </p> + <p> + Standing with his back against the farmyard pump, a little apart, Denis + examined the group. Gombauld, passionate and vivacious, was its centre. + The others stood round, listening—Henry Wimbush, calm and polite + beneath his grey bowler; Mary, with parted lips and eyes that shone with + the indignation of a convinced birth-controller. Anne looked on through + half-shut eyes, smiling; and beside her stood Mr. Scogan, bolt upright in + an attitude of metallic rigidity that contrasted strangely with that fluid + grace of hers which even in stillness suggested a soft movement. + </p> + <p> + Gombauld ceased talking, and Mary, flushed and outraged, opened her mouth + to refute him. But she was too slow. Before she could utter a word Mr. + Scogan’s fluty voice had pronounced the opening phrases of a discourse. + There was no hope of getting so much as a word in edgeways; Mary had + perforce to resign herself. + </p> + <p> + “Even your eloquence, my dear Gombauld,” he was saying—“even your + eloquence must prove inadequate to reconvert the world to a belief in the + delights of mere multiplication. With the gramophone, the cinema, and the + automatic pistol, the goddess of Applied Science has presented the world + with another gift, more precious even than these—the means of + dissociating love from propagation. Eros, for those who wish it, is now an + entirely free god; his deplorable associations with Lucina may be broken + at will. In the course of the next few centuries, who knows? the world may + see a more complete severance. I look forward to it optimistically. Where + the great Erasmus Darwin and Miss Anna Seward, Swan of Lichfield, + experimented—and, for all their scientific ardour, failed—our + descendants will experiment and succeed. An impersonal generation will + take the place of Nature’s hideous system. In vast state incubators, rows + upon rows of gravid bottles will supply the world with the population it + requires. The family system will disappear; society, sapped at its very + base, will have to find new foundations; and Eros, beautifully and + irresponsibly free, will flit like a gay butterfly from flower to flower + through a sunlit world.” + </p> + <p> + “It sounds lovely,” said Anne. + </p> + <p> + “The distant future always does.” + </p> + <p> + Mary’s china blue eyes, more serious and more astonished than ever, were + fixed on Mr. Scogan. “Bottles?” she said. “Do you really think so? + Bottles...” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VI. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>r. Barbecue-Smith + arrived in time for tea on Saturday afternoon. He was a short and + corpulent man, with a very large head and no neck. In his earlier middle + age he had been distressed by this absence of neck, but was comforted by + reading in Balzac’s “Louis Lambert” that all the world’s great men have + been marked by the same peculiarity, and for a simple and obvious reason: + Greatness is nothing more nor less than the harmonious functioning of the + faculties of the head and heart; the shorter the neck, the more closely + these two organs approach one another; argal...It was convincing. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Barbecue-Smith belonged to the old school of journalists. He sported a + leonine head with a greyish-black mane of oddly unappetising hair brushed + back from a broad but low forehead. And somehow he always seemed slightly, + ever so slightly, soiled. In younger days he had gaily called himself a + Bohemian. He did so no longer. He was a teacher now, a kind of prophet. + Some of his books of comfort and spiritual teaching were in their hundred + and twentieth thousand. + </p> + <p> + Priscilla received him with every mark of esteem. He had never been to + Crome before; she showed him round the house. Mr. Barbecue-Smith was full + of admiration. + </p> + <p> + “So quaint, so old-world,” he kept repeating. He had a rich, rather + unctuous voice. + </p> + <p> + Priscilla praised his latest book. “Splendid, I thought it was,” she said + in her large, jolly way. + </p> + <p> + “I’m happy to think you found it a comfort,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, tremendously! And the bit about the Lotus Pool—I thought that + so beautiful.” + </p> + <p> + “I knew you would like that. It came to me, you know, from without.” He + waved his hand to indicate the astral world. + </p> + <p> + They went out into the garden for tea. Mr. Barbecue-Smith was duly + introduced. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Stone is a writer too,” said Priscilla, as she introduced Denis. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed!” Mr. Barbecue-Smith smiled benignly, and, looking up at Denis + with an expression of Olympian condescension, “And what sort of things do + you write?” + </p> + <p> + Denis was furious, and, to make matters worse, he felt himself blushing + hotly. Had Priscilla no sense of proportion? She was putting them in the + same category—Barbecue-Smith and himself. They were both writers, + they both used pen and ink. To Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s question he answered, + “Oh, nothing much, nothing,” and looked away. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Stone is one of our younger poets.” It was Anne’s voice. He scowled + at her, and she smiled back exasperatingly. + </p> + <p> + “Excellent, excellent,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith, and he squeezed Denis’s + arm encouragingly. “The Bard’s is a noble calling.” + </p> + <p> + As soon as tea was over Mr. Barbecue-Smith excused himself; he had to do + some writing before dinner. Priscilla quite understood. The prophet + retired to his chamber. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Barbecue-Smith came down to the drawing-room at ten to eight. He was + in a good humour, and, as he descended the stairs, he smiled to himself + and rubbed his large white hands together. In the drawing-room someone was + playing softly and ramblingly on the piano. He wondered who it could be. + One of the young ladies, perhaps. But no, it was only Denis, who got up + hurriedly and with some embarrassment as he came into the room. + </p> + <p> + “Do go on, do go on,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. “I am very fond of music.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I couldn’t possibly go on,” Denis replied. “I only make noises.” + </p> + <p> + There was a silence. Mr. Barbecue-Smith stood with his back to the hearth, + warming himself at the memory of last winter’s fires. He could not control + his interior satisfaction, but still went on smiling to himself. At last + he turned to Denis. + </p> + <p> + “You write,” he asked, “don’t you?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, yes—a little, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “How many words do you find you can write in an hour?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think I’ve ever counted.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, you ought to, you ought to. It’s most important.” + </p> + <p> + Denis exercised his memory. “When I’m in good form,” he said, “I fancy I + do a twelve-hundred-word review in about four hours. But sometimes it + takes me much longer.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Barbecue-Smith nodded. “Yes, three hundred words an hour at your + best.” He walked out into the middle of the room, turned round on his + heels, and confronted Denis again. “Guess how many words I wrote this + evening between five and half-past seven.” + </p> + <p> + “I can’t imagine.” + </p> + <p> + “No, but you must guess. Between five and half-past seven—that’s two + and a half hours.” + </p> + <p> + “Twelve hundred words,” Denis hazarded. + </p> + <p> + “No, no, no.” Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s expanded face shone with gaiety. “Try + again.” + </p> + <p> + “Fifteen hundred.” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “I give it up,” said Denis. He found he couldn’t summon up much interest + in Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s writing. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I’ll tell you. Three thousand eight hundred.” + </p> + <p> + Denis opened his eyes. “You must get a lot done in a day,” he said. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Barbecue-Smith suddenly became extremely confidential. He pulled up a + stool to the side of Denis’s arm-chair, sat down in it, and began to talk + softly and rapidly. + </p> + <p> + “Listen to me,” he said, laying his hand on Denis’s sleeve. “You want to + make your living by writing; you’re young, you’re inexperienced. Let me + give you a little sound advice.” + </p> + <p> + What was the fellow going to do? Denis wondered: give him an introduction + to the editor of “John o’ London’s Weekly”, or tell him where he could + sell a light middle for seven guineas? Mr. Barbecue-Smith patted his arm + several times and went on. + </p> + <p> + “The secret of writing,” he said, breathing it into the young man’s ear—“the + secret of writing is Inspiration.” + </p> + <p> + Denis looked at him in astonishment. + </p> + <p> + “Inspiration...” Mr. Barbecue-Smith repeated. + </p> + <p> + “You mean the native wood-note business?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Barbecue-Smith nodded. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, then I entirely agree with you,” said Denis. “But what if one hasn’t + got Inspiration?” + </p> + <p> + “That was precisely the question I was waiting for,” said Mr. + Barbecue-Smith. “You ask me what one should do if one hasn’t got + Inspiration. I answer: you have Inspiration; everyone has Inspiration. + It’s simply a question of getting it to function.” + </p> + <p> + The clock struck eight. There was no sign of any of the other guests; + everybody was always late at Crome. Mr. Barbecue-Smith went on. + </p> + <p> + “That’s my secret,” he said. “I give it you freely.” (Denis made a + suitably grateful murmur and grimace.) “I’ll help you to find your + Inspiration, because I don’t like to see a nice, steady young man like you + exhausting his vitality and wasting the best years of his life in a + grinding intellectual labour that could be completely obviated by + Inspiration. I did it myself, so I know what it’s like. Up till the time I + was thirty-eight I was a writer like you—a writer without + Inspiration. All I wrote I squeezed out of myself by sheer hard work. Why, + in those days I was never able to do more than six-fifty words an hour, + and what’s more, I often didn’t sell what I wrote.” He sighed. “We + artists,” he said parenthetically, “we intellectuals aren’t much + appreciated here in England.” Denis wondered if there was any method, + consistent, of course, with politeness, by which he could dissociate + himself from Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s “we.” There was none; and besides, it + was too late now, for Mr. Barbecue-Smith was once more pursuing the tenor + of his discourse. + </p> + <p> + “At thirty-eight I was a poor, struggling, tired, overworked, unknown + journalist. Now, at fifty...” He paused modestly and made a little + gesture, moving his fat hands outwards, away from one another, and + expanding his fingers as though in demonstration. He was exhibiting + himself. Denis thought of that advertisement of Nestle’s milk—the + two cats on the wall, under the moon, one black and thin, the other white, + sleek, and fat. Before Inspiration and after. + </p> + <p> + “Inspiration has made the difference,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith solemnly. + “It came quite suddenly—like a gentle dew from heaven.” He lifted + his hand and let it fall back on to his knee to indicate the descent of + the dew. “It was one evening. I was writing my first little book about the + Conduct of Life—‘Humble Heroisms’. You may have read it; it has been + a comfort—at least I hope and think so—a comfort to many + thousands. I was in the middle of the second chapter, and I was stuck. + Fatigue, overwork—I had only written a hundred words in the last + hour, and I could get no further. I sat biting the end of my pen and + looking at the electric light, which hung above my table, a little above + and in front of me.” He indicated the position of the lamp with elaborate + care. “Have you ever looked at a bright light intently for a long time?” + he asked, turning to Denis. Denis didn’t think he had. “You can hypnotise + yourself that way,” Mr. Barbecue-Smith went on. + </p> + <p> + The gong sounded in a terrific crescendo from the hall. Still no sign of + the others. Denis was horribly hungry. + </p> + <p> + “That’s what happened to me,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. “I was hypnotised. + I lost consciousness like that.” He snapped his fingers. “When I came to, + I found that it was past midnight, and I had written four thousand words. + Four thousand,” he repeated, opening his mouth very wide on the “ou” of + thousand. “Inspiration had come to me.” + </p> + <p> + “What a very extraordinary thing,” said Denis. + </p> + <p> + “I was afraid of it at first. It didn’t seem to me natural. I didn’t feel, + somehow, that it was quite right, quite fair, I might almost say, to + produce a literary composition unconsciously. Besides, I was afraid I + might have written nonsense.” + </p> + <p> + “And had you written nonsense?” Denis asked. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly not,” Mr. Barbecue-Smith replied, with a trace of annoyance. + “Certainly not. It was admirable. Just a few spelling mistakes and slips, + such as there generally are in automatic writing. But the style, the + thought—all the essentials were admirable. After that, Inspiration + came to me regularly. I wrote the whole of ‘Humble Heroisms’ like that. It + was a great success, and so has everything been that I have written + since.” He leaned forward and jabbed at Denis with his finger. “That’s my + secret,” he said, “and that’s how you could write too, if you tried—without + effort, fluently, well.” + </p> + <p> + “But how?” asked Denis, trying not to show how deeply he had been insulted + by that final “well.” + </p> + <p> + “By cultivating your Inspiration, by getting into touch with your + Subconscious. Have you ever read my little book, ‘Pipe-Lines to the + Infinite’?” + </p> + <p> + Denis had to confess that that was, precisely, one of the few, perhaps the + only one, of Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s works he had not read. + </p> + <p> + “Never mind, never mind,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. “It’s just a little + book about the connection of the Subconscious with the Infinite. Get into + touch with the Subconscious and you are in touch with the Universe. + Inspiration, in fact. You follow me?” + </p> + <p> + “Perfectly, perfectly,” said Denis. “But don’t you find that the Universe + sometimes sends you very irrelevant messages?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t allow it to,” Mr. Barbecue-Smith replied. “I canalise it. I bring + it down through pipes to work the turbines of my conscious mind.” + </p> + <p> + “Like Niagara,” Denis suggested. Some of Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s remarks + sounded strangely like quotations—quotations from his own works, no + doubt. + </p> + <p> + “Precisely. Like Niagara. And this is how I do it.” He leaned forward, and + with a raised forefinger marked his points as he made them, beating time, + as it were, to his discourse. “Before I go off into my trance, I + concentrate on the subject I wish to be inspired about. Let us say I am + writing about the humble heroisms; for ten minutes before I go into the + trance I think of nothing but orphans supporting their little brothers and + sisters, of dull work well and patiently done, and I focus my mind on such + great philosophical truths as the purification and uplifting of the soul + by suffering, and the alchemical transformation of leaden evil into golden + good.” (Denis again hung up his little festoon of quotation marks.) “Then + I pop off. Two or three hours later I wake up again, and find that + inspiration has done its work. Thousands of words, comforting, uplifting + words, lie before me. I type them out neatly on my machine and they are + ready for the printer.” + </p> + <p> + “It all sounds wonderfully simple,” said Denis. + </p> + <p> + “It is. All the great and splendid and divine things of life are + wonderfully simple.” (Quotation marks again.) “When I have to do my + aphorisms,” Mr. Barbecue-Smith continued, “I prelude my trance by turning + over the pages of any Dictionary of Quotations or Shakespeare Calendar + that comes to hand. That sets the key, so to speak; that ensures that the + Universe shall come flowing in, not in a continuous rush, but in + aphorismic drops. You see the idea?” + </p> + <p> + Denis nodded. Mr. Barbecue-Smith put his hand in his pocket and pulled out + a notebook. “I did a few in the train to-day,” he said, turning over the + pages. “Just dropped off into a trance in the corner of my carriage. I + find the train very conducive to good work. Here they are.” He cleared his + throat and read: + </p> + <p> + “The Mountain Road may be steep, but the air is pure up there, and it is + from the Summit that one gets the view.” + </p> + <p> + “The Things that Really Matter happen in the Heart.” + </p> + <p> + It was curious, Denis reflected, the way the Infinite sometimes repeated + itself. + </p> + <p> + “Seeing is Believing. Yes, but Believing is also Seeing. If I believe in + God, I see God, even in the things that seem to be evil.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Barbecue-Smith looked up from his notebook. “That last one,” he said, + “is particularly subtle and beautiful, don’t you think? Without + Inspiration I could never have hit on that.” He re-read the apophthegm + with a slower and more solemn utterance. “Straight from the Infinite,” he + commented reflectively, then addressed himself to the next aphorism. + </p> + <p> + “The flame of a candle gives Light, but it also Burns.” + </p> + <p> + Puzzled wrinkles appeared on Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s forehead. “I don’t + exactly know what that means,” he said. “It’s very gnomic. One could apply + it, of course to the Higher Education—illuminating, but provoking + the Lower Classes to discontent and revolution. Yes, I suppose that’s what + it is. But it’s gnomic, it’s gnomic.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. The + gong sounded again, clamorously, it seemed imploringly: dinner was growing + cold. It roused Mr. Barbecue-Smith from meditation. He turned to Denis. + </p> + <p> + “You understand me now when I advise you to cultivate your Inspiration. + Let your Subconscious work for you; turn on the Niagara of the Infinite.” + </p> + <p> + There was the sound of feet on the stairs. Mr. Barbecue-Smith got up, laid + his hand for an instant on Denis’s shoulder, and said: + </p> + <p> + “No more now. Another time. And remember, I rely absolutely on your + discretion in this matter. There are intimate, sacred things that one + doesn’t wish to be generally known.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” said Denis. “I quite understand.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VII. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>t Crome all the + beds were ancient hereditary pieces of furniture. Huge beds, like + four-masted ships, with furled sails of shining coloured stuff. Beds + carved and inlaid, beds painted and gilded. Beds of walnut and oak, of + rare exotic woods. Beds of every date and fashion from the time of Sir + Ferdinando, who built the house, to the time of his namesake in the late + eighteenth century, the last of the family, but all of them grandiose, + magnificent. + </p> + <p> + The finest of all was now Anne’s bed. Sir Julius, son to Sir Ferdinando, + had had it made in Venice against his wife’s first lying-in. Early + seicento Venice had expended all its extravagant art in the making of it. + The body of the bed was like a great square sarcophagus. Clustering roses + were carved in high relief on its wooden panels, and luscious putti + wallowed among the roses. On the black ground-work of the panels the + carved reliefs were gilded and burnished. The golden roses twined in + spirals up the four pillar-like posts, and cherubs, seated at the top of + each column, supported a wooden canopy fretted with the same carved + flowers. + </p> + <p> + Anne was reading in bed. Two candles stood on the little table beside her, + in their rich light her face, her bare arm and shoulder took on warm hues + and a sort of peach-like quality of surface. Here and there in the canopy + above her carved golden petals shone brightly among profound shadows, and + the soft light, falling on the sculptured panel of the bed, broke + restlessly among the intricate roses, lingered in a broad caress on the + blown cheeks, the dimpled bellies, the tight, absurd little posteriors of + the sprawling putti. + </p> + <p> + There was a discreet tap at the door. She looked up. “Come in, come in.” A + face, round and childish, within its sleek bell of golden hair, peered + round the opening door. More childish-looking still, a suit of mauve + pyjamas made its entrance. + </p> + <p> + It was Mary. “I thought I’d just look in for a moment to say good-night,” + she said, and sat down on the edge of the bed. + </p> + <p> + Anne closed her book. “That was very sweet of you.” + </p> + <p> + “What are you reading?” She looked at the book. “Rather second-rate, isn’t + it?” The tone in which Mary pronounced the word “second-rate” implied an + almost infinite denigration. She was accustomed in London to associate + only with first-rate people who liked first-rate things, and she knew that + there were very, very few first-rate things in the world, and that those + were mostly French. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I’m afraid I like it,” said Anne. There was nothing more to be + said. The silence that followed was a rather uncomfortable one. Mary + fiddled uneasily with the bottom button of her pyjama jacket. Leaning back + on her mound of heaped-up pillows, Anne waited and wondered what was + coming. + </p> + <p> + “I’m so awfully afraid of repressions,” said Mary at last, bursting + suddenly and surprisingly into speech. She pronounced the words on the + tail-end of an expiring breath, and had to gasp for new air almost before + the phrase was finished. + </p> + <p> + “What’s there to be depressed about?” + </p> + <p> + “I said repressions, not depressions.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, repressions; I see,” said Anne. “But repressions of what?” + </p> + <p> + Mary had to explain. “The natural instincts of sex...” she began + didactically. But Anne cut her short. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes. Perfectly. I understand. Repressions! old maids and all the + rest. But what about them?” + </p> + <p> + “That’s just it,” said Mary. “I’m afraid of them. It’s always dangerous to + repress one’s instincts. I’m beginning to detect in myself symptoms like + the ones you read of in the books. I constantly dream that I’m falling + down wells; and sometimes I even dream that I’m climbing up ladders. It’s + most disquieting. The symptoms are only too clear.” + </p> + <p> + “Are they?” + </p> + <p> + “One may become a nymphomaniac if one’s not careful. You’ve no idea how + serious these repressions are if you don’t get rid of them in time.” + </p> + <p> + “It sounds too awful,” said Anne. “But I don’t see that I can do anything + to help you.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought I’d just like to talk it over with you.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, of course; I’m only too happy, Mary darling.” + </p> + <p> + Mary coughed and drew a deep breath. “I presume,” she began sententiously, + “I presume we may take for granted that an intelligent young woman of + twenty-three who has lived in civilised society in the twentieth century + has no prejudices.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I confess I still have a few.” + </p> + <p> + “But not about repressions.” + </p> + <p> + “No, not many about repressions; that’s true.” + </p> + <p> + “Or, rather, about getting rid of repressions.” + </p> + <p> + “Exactly.” + </p> + <p> + “So much for our fundamental postulate,” said Mary. Solemnity was + expressed in every feature of her round young face, radiated from her + large blue eyes. “We come next to the desirability of possessing + experience. I hope we are agreed that knowledge is desirable and that + ignorance is undesirable.” + </p> + <p> + Obedient as one of those complaisant disciples from whom Socrates could + get whatever answer he chose, Anne gave her assent to this proposition. + </p> + <p> + “And we are equally agreed, I hope, that marriage is what it is.” + </p> + <p> + “It is.” + </p> + <p> + “Good!” said Mary. “And repressions being what they are...” + </p> + <p> + “Exactly.” + </p> + <p> + “There would therefore seem to be only one conclusion.” + </p> + <p> + “But I knew that,” Anne exclaimed, “before you began.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but now it’s been proved,” said Mary. “One must do things logically. + The question is now...” + </p> + <p> + “But where does the question come in? You’ve reached your only possible + conclusion—logically, which is more than I could have done. All that + remains is to impart the information to someone you like—someone you + like really rather a lot, someone you’re in love with, if I may express + myself so baldly.” + </p> + <p> + “But that’s just where the question comes in,” Mary exclaimed. “I’m not in + love with anybody.” + </p> + <p> + “Then, if I were you, I should wait till you are.” + </p> + <p> + “But I can’t go on dreaming night after night that I’m falling down a + well. It’s too dangerous.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, if it really is TOO dangerous, then of course you must do something + about it; you must find somebody else.” + </p> + <p> + “But who?” A thoughtful frown puckered Mary’s brow. “It must be somebody + intelligent, somebody with intellectual interests that I can share. And it + must be somebody with a proper respect for women, somebody who’s prepared + to talk seriously about his work and his ideas and about my work and my + ideas. It isn’t, as you see, at all easy to find the right person.” + </p> + <p> + “Well” said Anne, “there are three unattached and intelligent men in the + house at the present time. There’s Mr. Scogan, to begin with; but perhaps + he’s rather too much of a genuine antique. And there are Gombauld and + Denis. Shall we say that the choice is limited to the last two?” + </p> + <p> + Mary nodded. “I think we had better,” she said, and then hesitated, with a + certain air of embarrassment. + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” + </p> + <p> + “I was wondering,” said Mary, with a gasp, “whether they really were + unattached. I thought that perhaps you might...you might...” + </p> + <p> + “It was very nice of you to think of me, Mary darling,” said Anne, smiling + the tight cat’s smile. “But as far as I’m concerned, they are both + entirely unattached.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m very glad of that,” said Mary, looking relieved. “We are now + confronted with the question: Which of the two?” + </p> + <p> + “I can give no advice. It’s a matter for your taste.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s not a matter of my taste,” Mary pronounced, “but of their merits. We + must weigh them and consider them carefully and dispassionately.” + </p> + <p> + “You must do the weighing yourself,” said Anne; there was still the trace + of a smile at the corners of her mouth and round the half-closed eyes. “I + won’t run the risk of advising you wrongly.” + </p> + <p> + “Gombauld has more talent,” Mary began, “but he is less civilised than + Denis.” Mary’s pronunciation of “civilised” gave the word a special and + additional significance. She uttered it meticulously, in the very front of + her mouth, hissing delicately on the opening sibilant. So few people were + civilised, and they, like the first-rate works of art, were mostly French. + “Civilisation is most important, don’t you think?” + </p> + <p> + Anne held up her hand. “I won’t advise,” she said. “You must make the + decision.” + </p> + <p> + “Gombauld’s family,” Mary went on reflectively, “comes from Marseilles. + Rather a dangerous heredity, when one thinks of the Latin attitude towards + women. But then, I sometimes wonder whether Denis is altogether + serious-minded, whether he isn’t rather a dilettante. It’s very difficult. + What do you think?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not listening,” said Anne. “I refuse to take any responsibility.” + </p> + <p> + Mary sighed. “Well,” she said, “I think I had better go to bed and think + about it.” + </p> + <p> + “Carefully and dispassionately,” said Anne. + </p> + <p> + At the door Mary turned round. “Good-night,” she said, and wondered as she + said the words why Anne was smiling in that curious way. It was probably + nothing, she reflected. Anne often smiled for no apparent reason; it was + probably just a habit. “I hope I shan’t dream of falling down wells again + to-night,” she added. + </p> + <p> + “Ladders are worse,” said Anne. + </p> + <p> + Mary nodded. “Yes, ladders are much graver.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VIII. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>reakfast on Sunday + morning was an hour later than on week-days, and Priscilla, who usually + made no public appearance before luncheon, honoured it by her presence. + Dressed in black silk, with a ruby cross as well as her customary string + of pearls round her neck, she presided. An enormous Sunday paper concealed + all but the extreme pinnacle of her coiffure from the outer world. + </p> + <p> + “I see Surrey has won,” she said, with her mouth full, “by four wickets. + The sun is in Leo: that would account for it!” + </p> + <p> + “Splendid game, cricket,” remarked Mr. Barbecue-Smith heartily to no one + in particular; “so thoroughly English.” + </p> + <p> + Jenny, who was sitting next to him, woke up suddenly with a start. “What?” + she said. “What?” + </p> + <p> + “So English,” repeated Mr. Barbecue-Smith. + </p> + <p> + Jenny looked at him, surprised. “English? Of course I am.” + </p> + <p> + He was beginning to explain, when Mrs. Wimbush vailed her Sunday paper, + and appeared, a square, mauve-powdered face in the midst of orange + splendours. “I see there’s a new series of articles on the next world just + beginning,” she said to Mr. Barbecue-Smith. “This one’s called ‘Summer + Land and Gehenna.’” + </p> + <p> + “Summer Land,” echoed Mr. Barbecue-Smith, closing his eyes. “Summer Land. + A beautiful name. Beautiful—beautiful.” + </p> + <p> + Mary had taken the seat next to Denis’s. After a night of careful + consideration she had decided on Denis. He might have less talent than + Gombauld, he might be a little lacking in seriousness, but somehow he was + safer. + </p> + <p> + “Are you writing much poetry here in the country?” she asked, with a + bright gravity. + </p> + <p> + “None,” said Denis curtly. “I haven’t brought my typewriter.” + </p> + <p> + “But do you mean to say you can’t write without a typewriter?” + </p> + <p> + Denis shook his head. He hated talking at breakfast, and, besides, he + wanted to hear what Mr. Scogan was saying at the other end of the table. + </p> + <p> + “...My scheme for dealing with the Church,” Mr. Scogan was saying, “is + beautifully simple. At the present time the Anglican clergy wear their + collars the wrong way round. I would compel them to wear, not only their + collars, but all their clothes, turned back to frantic—coat, + waistcoat, trousers, boots—so that every clergyman should present to + the world a smooth facade, unbroken by stud, button, or lace. The + enforcement of such a livery would act as a wholesome deterrent to those + intending to enter the Church. At the same time it would enormously + enhance, what Archbishop Laud so rightly insisted on, the ‘beauty of + holiness’ in the few incorrigibles who could not be deterred.” + </p> + <p> + “In hell, it seems,” said Priscilla, reading in her Sunday paper, “the + children amuse themselves by flaying lambs alive.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, but, dear lady, that’s only a symbol,” exclaimed Mr. Barbecue-Smith, + “a material symbol of a h-piritual truth. Lambs signify...” + </p> + <p> + “Then there are military uniforms,” Mr. Scogan went on. “When scarlet and + pipe-clay were abandoned for khaki, there were some who trembled for the + future of war. But then, finding how elegant the new tunic was, how + closely it clipped the waist, how voluptuously, with the lateral bustles + of the pockets, it exaggerated the hips; when they realized the brilliant + potentialities of breeches and top-boots, they were reassured. Abolish + these military elegances, standardise a uniform of sack-cloth and + mackintosh, you will very soon find that...” + </p> + <p> + “Is anyone coming to church with me this morning?” asked Henry Wimbush. No + one responded. He baited his bare invitation. “I read the lessons, you + know. And there’s Mr. Bodiham. His sermons are sometimes worth hearing.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you, thank you,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. “I for one prefer to + worship in the infinite church of Nature. How does our Shakespeare put it? + ‘Sermons in books, stones in the running brooks.’” He waved his arm in a + fine gesture towards the window, and even as he did so he became vaguely, + but none the less insistently, none the less uncomfortably aware that + something had gone wrong with the quotation. Something—what could it + be? Sermons? Stones? Books? + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IX. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>r. Bodiham was + sitting in his study at the Rectory. The nineteenth-century Gothic + windows, narrow and pointed, admitted the light grudgingly; in spite of + the brilliant July weather, the room was sombre. Brown varnished + bookshelves lined the walls, filled with row upon row of those thick, + heavy theological works which the second-hand booksellers generally sell + by weight. The mantelpiece, the over-mantel, a towering structure of + spindly pillars and little shelves, were brown and varnished. The + writing-desk was brown and varnished. So were the chairs, so was the door. + A dark red-brown carpet with patterns covered the floor. Everything was + brown in the room, and there was a curious brownish smell. + </p> + <p> + In the midst of this brown gloom Mr. Bodiham sat at his desk. He was the + man in the Iron Mask. A grey metallic face with iron cheek-bones and a + narrow iron brow; iron folds, hard and unchanging, ran perpendicularly + down his cheeks; his nose was the iron beak of some thin, delicate bird of + rapine. He had brown eyes, set in sockets rimmed with iron; round them the + skin was dark, as though it had been charred. Dense wiry hair covered his + skull; it had been black, it was turning grey. His ears were very small + and fine. His jaws, his chin, his upper lip were dark, iron-dark, where he + had shaved. His voice, when he spoke and especially when he raised it in + preaching, was harsh, like the grating of iron hinges when a seldom-used + door is opened. + </p> + <p> + It was nearly half-past twelve. He had just come back from church, hoarse + and weary with preaching. He preached with fury, with passion, an iron man + beating with a flail upon the souls of his congregation. But the souls of + the faithful at Crome were made of india-rubber, solid rubber; the flail + rebounded. They were used to Mr. Bodiham at Crome. The flail thumped on + india-rubber, and as often as not the rubber slept. + </p> + <p> + That morning he had preached, as he had often preached before, on the + nature of God. He had tried to make them understand about God, what a + fearful thing it was to fall into His hands. God—they thought of + something soft and merciful. They blinded themselves to facts; still more, + they blinded themselves to the Bible. The passengers on the “Titanic” sang + “Nearer my God to Thee” as the ship was going down. Did they realise what + they were asking to be brought nearer to? A white fire of righteousness, + an angry fire... + </p> + <p> + When Savonarola preached, men sobbed and groaned aloud. Nothing broke the + polite silence with which Crome listened to Mr. Bodiham—only an + occasional cough and sometimes the sound of heavy breathing. In the front + pew sat Henry Wimbush, calm, well-bred, beautifully dressed. There were + times when Mr. Bodiham wanted to jump down from the pulpit and shake him + into life,—times when he would have liked to beat and kill his whole + congregation. + </p> + <p> + He sat at his desk dejectedly. Outside the Gothic windows the earth was + warm and marvellously calm. Everything was as it had always been. And yet, + and yet...It was nearly four years now since he had preached that sermon + on Matthew xxiv. 7: “For nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom + against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and + earthquakes, in divers places.” It was nearly four years. He had had the + sermon printed; it was so terribly, so vitally important that all the + world should know what he had to say. A copy of the little pamphlet lay on + his desk—eight small grey pages, printed by a fount of type that had + grown blunt, like an old dog’s teeth, by the endless champing and champing + of the press. He opened it and began to read it yet once again. + </p> + <p> + “‘For nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: + and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers + places.’ + </p> + <p> + “Nineteen centuries have elapsed since Our Lord gave utterance to those + words, and not a single one of them has been without wars, plagues, + famines, and earthquakes. Mighty empires have crashed in ruin to the + ground, diseases have unpeopled half the globe, there have been vast + natural cataclysms in which thousands have been overwhelmed by flood and + fire and whirlwind. Time and again, in the course of these nineteen + centuries, such things have happened, but they have not brought Christ + back to earth. They were ‘signs of the times’ inasmuch as they were signs + of God’s wrath against the chronic wickedness of mankind, but they were + not signs of the times in connection with the Second Coming. + </p> + <p> + “If earnest Christians have regarded the present war as a true sign of the + Lord’s approaching return, it is not merely because it happens to be a + great war involving the lives of millions of people, not merely because + famine is tightening its grip on every country in Europe, not merely + because disease of every kind, from syphilis to spotted fever, is rife + among the warring nations; no, it is not for these reasons that we regard + this war as a true Sign of the Times, but because in its origin and its + progress it is marked by certain characteristics which seem to connect it + almost beyond a doubt with the predictions in Christian Prophecy relating + to the Second Coming of the Lord. + </p> + <p> + “Let me enumerate the features of the present war which most clearly + suggest that it is a Sign foretelling the near approach of the Second + Advent. Our Lord said that ‘this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached + in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end + come.’ Although it would be presumptuous for us to say what degree of + evangelisation will be regarded by God as sufficient, we may at least + confidently hope that a century of unflagging missionary work has brought + the fulfilment of this condition at any rate near. True, the larger number + of the world’s inhabitants have remained deaf to the preaching of the true + religion; but that does not vitiate the fact that the Gospel HAS been + preached ‘for a witness’ to all unbelievers from the Papist to the Zulu. + The responsibility for the continued prevalence of unbelief lies, not with + the preachers, but with those preached to. + </p> + <p> + “Again, it has been generally recognised that ‘the drying up of the waters + of the great river Euphrates,’ mentioned in the sixteenth chapter of + Revelation, refers to the decay and extinction of Turkish power, and is a + sign of the near approaching end of the world as we know it. The capture + of Jerusalem and the successes in Mesopotamia are great strides forward in + the destruction of the Ottoman Empire; though it must be admitted that the + Gallipoli episode proved that the Turk still possesses a ‘notable horn’ of + strength. Historically speaking, this drying up of Ottoman power has been + going on for the past century; the last two years have witnessed a great + acceleration of the process, and there can be no doubt that complete + desiccation is within sight. + </p> + <p> + “Closely following on the words concerning the drying up of Euphrates + comes the prophecy of Armageddon, that world war with which the Second + Coming is to be so closely associated. Once begun, the world war can end + only with the return of Christ, and His coming will be sudden and + unexpected, like that of a thief in the night. + </p> + <p> + “Let us examine the facts. In history, exactly as in St. John’s Gospel, + the world war is immediately preceded by the drying up of Euphrates, or + the decay of Turkish power. This fact alone would be enough to connect the + present conflict with the Armageddon of Revelation and therefore to point + to the near approach of the Second Advent. But further evidence of an even + more solid and convincing nature can be adduced. + </p> + <p> + “Armageddon is brought about by the activities of three unclean spirits, + as it were toads, which come out of the mouths of the Dragon, the Beast, + and the False Prophet. If we can identify these three powers of evil much + light will clearly be thrown on the whole question. + </p> + <p> + “The Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet can all be identified in + history. Satan, who can only work through human agency, has used these + three powers in the long war against Christ which has filled the last + nineteen centuries with religious strife. The Dragon, it has been + sufficiently established, is pagan Rome, and the spirit issuing from its + mouth is the spirit of Infidelity. The Beast, alternatively symbolised as + a Woman, is undoubtedly the Papal power, and Popery is the spirit which it + spews forth. There is only one power which answers to the description of + the False Prophet, the wolf in sheep’s clothing, the agent of the devil + working in the guise of the Lamb, and that power is the so-called ‘Society + of Jesus.’ The spirit that issues from the mouth of the False Prophet is + the spirit of False Morality. + </p> + <p> + “We may assume, then, that the three evil spirits are Infidelity, Popery, + and False Morality. Have these three influences been the real cause of the + present conflict? The answer is clear. + </p> + <p> + “The spirit of Infidelity is the very spirit of German criticism. The + Higher Criticism, as it is mockingly called, denies the possibility of + miracles, prediction, and real inspiration, and attempts to account for + the Bible as a natural development. Slowly but surely, during the last + eighty years, the spirit of Infidelity has been robbing the Germans of + their Bible and their faith, so that Germany is to-day a nation of + unbelievers. Higher Criticism has thus made the war possible; for it would + be absolutely impossible for any Christian nation to wage war as Germany + is waging it. + </p> + <p> + “We come next to the spirit of Popery, whose influence in causing the war + was quite as great as that of Infidelity, though not, perhaps, so + immediately obvious. Since the Franco-Prussian War the Papal power has + steadily declined in France, while in Germany it has steadily increased. + To-day France is an anti-papal state, while Germany possesses a powerful + Roman Catholic minority. Two papally controlled states, Germany and + Austria, are at war with six anti-papal states—England, France, + Italy, Russia, Serbia, and Portugal. Belgium is, of course, a thoroughly + papal state, and there can be little doubt that the presence on the + Allies’ side of an element so essentially hostile has done much to hamper + the righteous cause and is responsible for our comparative ill-success. + That the spirit of Popery is behind the war is thus seen clearly enough in + the grouping of the opposed powers, while the rebellion in the Roman + Catholic parts of Ireland has merely confirmed a conclusion already + obvious to any unbiased mind. + </p> + <p> + “The spirit of False Morality has played as great a part in this war as + the two other evil spirits. The Scrap of Paper incident is the nearest and + most obvious example of Germany’s adherence to this essentially + unchristian or Jesuitical morality. The end is German world-power, and in + the attainment of this end, any means are justifiable. It is the true + principle of Jesuitry applied to international politics. + </p> + <p> + “The identification is now complete. As was predicted in Revelation, the + three evil spirits have gone forth just as the decay of the Ottoman power + was nearing completion, and have joined together to make the world war. + The warning, ‘Behold, I come as a thief,’ is therefore meant for the + present period—for you and me and all the world. This war will lead + on inevitably to the war of Armageddon, and will only be brought to an end + by the Lord’s personal return. + </p> + <p> + “And when He returns, what will happen? Those who are in Christ, St. John + tells us, will be called to the Supper of the Lamb. Those who are found + fighting against Him will be called to the Supper of the Great God—that + grim banquet where they shall not feast, but be feasted on. ‘For,’ as St. + John says, ‘I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried in a loud + voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and + gather yourselves together unto the supper of the Great God; that ye may + eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty + men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh + of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.’ All the enemies of + Christ will be slain with the sword of him that sits upon the horse, ‘and + all the fowls will be filled with their flesh.’ That is the Supper of the + Great God. + </p> + <p> + “It may be soon or it may, as men reckon time, be long; but sooner or + later, inevitably, the Lord will come and deliver the world from its + present troubles. And woe unto them who are called, not to the Supper of + the Lamb, but to the Supper of the Great God. They will realise then, but + too late, that God is a God of Wrath as well as a God of Forgiveness. The + God who sent bears to devour the mockers of Elisha, the God who smote the + Egyptians for their stubborn wickedness, will assuredly smite them too, + unless they make haste to repent. But perhaps it is already too late. Who + knows but that to-morrow, in a moment even, Christ may be upon us + unawares, like a thief? In a little while, who knows? The angel standing + in the sun may be summoning the ravens and vultures from their crannies in + the rocks to feed upon the putrefying flesh of the millions of unrighteous + whom God’s wrath has destroyed. Be ready, then; the coming of the Lord is + at hand. May it be for all of you an object of hope, not a moment to look + forward to with terror and trembling.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Bodiham closed the little pamphlet and leaned back in his chair. The + argument was sound, absolutely compelling; and yet—it was four years + since he had preached that sermon; four years, and England was at peace, + the sun shone, the people of Crome were as wicked and indifferent as ever—more + so, indeed, if that were possible. If only he could understand, if the + heavens would but make a sign! But his questionings remained unanswered. + Seated there in his brown varnished chair under the Ruskinian window, he + could have screamed aloud. He gripped the arms of his chair—gripping, + gripping for control. The knuckles of his hands whitened; he bit his lip. + In a few seconds he was able to relax the tension; he began to rebuke + himself for his rebellious impatience. + </p> + <p> + Four years, he reflected; what were four years, after all? It must + inevitably take a long time for Armageddon to ripen to yeast itself up. + The episode of 1914 had been a preliminary skirmish. And as for the war + having come to an end—why, that, of course, was illusory. It was + still going on, smouldering away in Silesia, in Ireland, in Anatolia; the + discontent in Egypt and India was preparing the way, perhaps, for a great + extension of the slaughter among the heathen peoples. The Chinese boycott + of Japan, and the rivalries of that country and America in the Pacific, + might be breeding a great new war in the East. The prospect, Mr. Bodiham + tried to assure himself, was hopeful; the real, the genuine Armageddon + might soon begin, and then, like a thief in the night...But, in spite of + all his comfortable reasoning, he remained unhappy, dissatisfied. Four + years ago he had been so confident; God’s intention seemed then so plain. + And now? Now, he did well to be angry. And now he suffered too. + </p> + <p> + Sudden and silent as a phantom Mrs. Bodiham appeared, gliding noiselessly + across the room. Above her black dress her face was pale with an opaque + whiteness, her eyes were pale as water in a glass, and her strawy hair was + almost colourless. She held a large envelope in her hand. + </p> + <p> + “This came for you by the post,” she said softly. + </p> + <p> + The envelope was unsealed. Mechanically Mr. Bodiham tore it open. It + contained a pamphlet, larger than his own and more elegant in appearance. + “The House of Sheeny, Clerical Outfitters, Birmingham.” He turned over the + pages. The catalogue was tastefully and ecclesiastically printed in + antique characters with illuminated Gothic initials. Red marginal lines, + crossed at the corners after the manner of an Oxford picture frame, + enclosed each page of type, little red crosses took the place of full + stops. Mr. Bodiham turned the pages. + </p> + <p> + “Soutane in best black merino. Ready to wear; in all sizes. Clerical frock + coats. From nine guineas. A dressy garment, tailored by our own + experienced ecclesiastical cutters.” + </p> + <p> + Half-tone illustrations represented young curates, some dapper, some + Rugbeian and muscular, some with ascetic faces and large ecstatic eyes, + dressed in jackets, in frock-coats, in surplices, in clerical evening + dress, in black Norfolk suitings. + </p> + <p> + “A large assortment of chasubles. + </p> + <p> + “Rope girdles. + </p> + <p> + “Sheeny’s Special Skirt Cassocks. Tied by a string about the waist...When + worn under a surplice presents an appearance indistinguishable from that + of a complete cassock...Recommended for summer wear and hot climates.” + </p> + <p> + With a gesture of horror and disgust Mr. Bodiham threw the catalogue into + the waste-paper basket. Mrs. Bodiham looked at him; her pale, glaucous + eyes reflected his action without comment. + </p> + <p> + “The village,” she said in her quiet voice, “the village grows worse and + worse every day.” + </p> + <p> + “What has happened now?” asked Mr. Bodiham, feeling suddenly very weary. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll tell you.” She pulled up a brown varnished chair and sat down. In + the village of Crome, it seemed, Sodom and Gomorrah had come to a second + birth. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER X. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">D</span>enis did not + dance, but when ragtime came squirting out of the pianola in gushes of + treacle and hot perfume, in jets of Bengal light, then things began to + dance inside him. Little black nigger corpuscles jigged and drummed in his + arteries. He became a cage of movement, a walking palais de danse. It was + very uncomfortable, like the preliminary symptoms of a disease. He sat in + one of the window-seats, glumly pretending to read. + </p> + <p> + At the pianola, Henry Wimbush, smoking a long cigar through a tunnelled + pillar of amber, trod out the shattering dance music with serene patience. + Locked together, Gombauld and Anne moved with a harmoniousness that made + them seem a single creature, two-headed and four-legged. Mr. Scogan, + solemnly buffoonish, shuffled round the room with Mary. Jenny sat in the + shadow behind the piano, scribbling, so it seemed, in a big red notebook. + In arm-chairs by the fireplace, Priscilla and Mr. Barbecue-Smith discussed + higher things, without, apparently, being disturbed by the noise on the + Lower Plane. + </p> + <p> + “Optimism,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith with a tone of finality, speaking + through strains of the “Wild, Wild Women”—“optimism is the opening + out of the soul towards the light; it is an expansion towards and into + God, it is a h-piritual self-unification with the Infinite.” + </p> + <p> + “How true!” sighed Priscilla, nodding the baleful splendours of her + coiffure. + </p> + <p> + “Pessimism, on the other hand, is the contraction of the soul towards + darkness; it is a focusing of the self upon a point in the Lower Plane; it + is a h-piritual slavery to mere facts; to gross physical phenomena.” + </p> + <p> + “They’re making a wild man of me.” The refrain sang itself over in Denis’s + mind. Yes, they were; damn them! A wild man, but not wild enough; that was + the trouble. Wild inside; raging, writhing—yes, “writhing” was the + word, writhing with desire. But outwardly he was hopelessly tame; + outwardly—baa, baa, baa. + </p> + <p> + There they were, Anne and Gombauld, moving together as though they were a + single supple creature. The beast with two backs. And he sat in a corner, + pretending to read, pretending he didn’t want to dance, pretending he + rather despised dancing. Why? It was the baa-baa business again. + </p> + <p> + Why was he born with a different face? Why WAS he? Gombauld had a face of + brass—one of those old, brazen rams that thumped against the walls + of cities till they fell. He was born with a different face—a woolly + face. + </p> + <p> + The music stopped. The single harmonious creature broke in two. Flushed, a + little breathless, Anne swayed across the room to the pianola, laid her + hand on Mr. Wimbush’s shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “A waltz this time, please, Uncle Henry,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “A waltz,” he repeated, and turned to the cabinet where the rolls were + kept. He trod off the old roll and trod on the new, a slave at the mill, + uncomplaining and beautifully well bred. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “Rum; Tum; Rum-ti-ti; Tum-ti-ti...” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + The melody wallowed oozily along, like a ship moving forward over a sleek + and oily swell. The four-legged creature, more graceful, more harmonious + in its movements than ever, slid across the floor. Oh, why was he born + with a different face? + </p> + <p> + “What are you reading?” + </p> + <p> + He looked up, startled. It was Mary. She had broken from the uncomfortable + embrace of Mr. Scogan, who had now seized on Jenny for his victim. + </p> + <p> + “What are you reading?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know,” said Denis truthfully. He looked at the title page; the + book was called “The Stock Breeder’s Vade Mecum.” + </p> + <p> + “I think you are so sensible to sit and read quietly,” said Mary, fixing + him with her china eyes. “I don’t know why one dances. It’s so boring.” + </p> + <p> + Denis made no reply; she exacerbated him. From the arm-chair by the + fireplace he heard Priscilla’s deep voice. + </p> + <p> + “Tell me, Mr Barbecue-Smith—you know all about science, I know—” + A deprecating noise came from Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s chair. “This Einstein + theory. It seems to upset the whole starry universe. It makes me so + worried about my horoscopes. You see...” + </p> + <p> + Mary renewed her attack. “Which of the contemporary poets do you like + best?” she asked. Denis was filled with fury. Why couldn’t this pest of a + girl leave him alone? He wanted to listen to the horrible music, to watch + them dancing—oh, with what grace, as though they had been made for + one another!—to savour his misery in peace. And she came and put him + through this absurd catechism! She was like “Mangold’s Questions”: “What + are the three diseases of wheat?”—“Which of the contemporary poets + do you like best?” + </p> + <p> + “Blight, Mildew, and Smut,” he replied, with the laconism of one who is + absolutely certain of his own mind. + </p> + <p> + It was several hours before Denis managed to go to sleep that night. Vague + but agonising miseries possessed his mind. It was not only Anne who made + him miserable; he was wretched about himself, the future, life in general, + the universe. “This adolescence business,” he repeated to himself every + now and then, “is horribly boring.” But the fact that he knew his disease + did not help him to cure it. + </p> + <p> + After kicking all the clothes off the bed, he got up and sought relief in + composition. He wanted to imprison his nameless misery in words. At the + end of an hour, nine more or less complete lines emerged from among the + blots and scratchings. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “I do not know what I desire + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + When summer nights are dark and still, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + When the wind’s many-voiced quire + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Sleeps among the muffled branches. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + I long and know not what I will: + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And not a sound of life or laughter stanches + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Time’s black and silent flow. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + I do not know what I desire, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + I do not know.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + He read it through aloud; then threw the scribbled sheet into the + waste-paper basket and got into bed again. In a very few minutes he was + asleep. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XI. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>r. Barbecue-Smith + was gone. The motor had whirled him away to the station; a faint smell of + burning oil commemorated his recent departure. A considerable detachment + had come into the courtyard to speed him on his way; and now they were + walking back, round the side of the house, towards the terrace and the + garden. They walked in silence; nobody had yet ventured to comment on the + departed guest. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” said Anne at last, turning with raised inquiring eyebrows to + Denis. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” It was time for someone to begin. + </p> + <p> + Denis declined the invitation; he passed it on to Mr Scogan. “Well?” he + said. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan did not respond; he only repeated the question, “Well?” + </p> + <p> + It was left for Henry Wimbush to make a pronouncement. “A very agreeable + adjunct to the week-end,” he said. His tone was obituary. + </p> + <p> + They had descended, without paying much attention where they were going, + the steep yew-walk that went down, under the flank of the terrace, to the + pool. The house towered above them, immensely tall, with the whole height + of the built-up terrace added to its own seventy feet of brick façade. The + perpendicular lines of the three towers soared up, uninterrupted, + enhancing the impression of height until it became overwhelming. They + paused at the edge of the pool to look back. + </p> + <p> + “The man who built this house knew his business,” said Denis. “He was an + architect.” + </p> + <p> + “Was he?” said Henry Wimbush reflectively. “I doubt it. The builder of + this house was Sir Ferdinando Lapith, who flourished during the reign of + Elizabeth. He inherited the estate from his father, to whom it had been + granted at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries; for Crome was + originally a cloister of monks and this swimming-pool their fish-pond. Sir + Ferdinando was not content merely to adapt the old monastic buildings to + his own purposes; but using them as a stone quarry for his barns and byres + and outhouses, he built for himself a grand new house of brick—the + house you see now.” + </p> + <p> + He waved his hand in the direction of the house and was silent, severe, + imposing, almost menacing, Crome loomed down on them. + </p> + <p> + “The great thing about Crome,” said Mr. Scogan, seizing the opportunity to + speak, “is the fact that it’s so unmistakably and aggressively a work of + art. It makes no compromise with nature, but affronts it and rebels + against it. It has no likeness to Shelley’s tower, in the ‘Epipsychidion,’ + which, if I remember rightly—” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “‘Seems not now a work of human art, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + But as it were titanic, in the heart + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Of earth having assumed its form and grown + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Out of the mountain, from the living stone, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Lifting itself in caverns light and high.’ + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + “No, no, there isn’t any nonsense of that sort about Crome. That the + hovels of the peasantry should look as though they had grown out of the + earth, to which their inmates are attached, is right, no doubt, and + suitable. But the house of an intelligent, civilised, and sophisticated + man should never seem to have sprouted from the clods. It should rather be + an expression of his grand unnatural remoteness from the cloddish life. + Since the days of William Morris that’s a fact which we in England have + been unable to comprehend. Civilised and sophisticated men have solemnly + played at being peasants. Hence quaintness, arts and crafts, cottage + architecture, and all the rest of it. In the suburbs of our cities you may + see, reduplicated in endless rows, studiedly quaint imitations and + adaptations of the village hovel. Poverty, ignorance, and a limited range + of materials produced the hovel, which possesses undoubtedly, in suitable + surroundings, its own ‘as it were titanic’ charm. We now employ our + wealth, our technical knowledge, our rich variety of materials for the + purpose of building millions of imitation hovels in totally unsuitable + surroundings. Could imbecility go further?” + </p> + <p> + Henry Wimbush took up the thread of his interrupted discourse. “All that + you say, my dear Scogan,” he began, “is certainly very just, very true. + But whether Sir Ferdinando shared your views about architecture or if, + indeed, he had any views about architecture at all, I very much doubt. In + building this house, Sir Ferdinando was, as a matter of fact, preoccupied + by only one thought—the proper placing of his privies. Sanitation + was the one great interest of his life. In 1573 he even published, on this + subject, a little book—now extremely scarce—called, ‘Certaine + Priuy Counsels’ by ‘One of Her Maiestie’s Most Honourable Priuy Counsels, + F.L. Knight’, in which the whole matter is treated with great learning and + elegance. His guiding principle in arranging the sanitation of a house was + to secure that the greatest possible distance should separate the privy + from the sewage arrangements. Hence it followed inevitably that the + privies were to be placed at the top of the house, being connected by + vertical shafts with pits or channels in the ground. It must not be + thought that Sir Ferdinando was moved only by material and merely sanitary + considerations; for the placing of his privies in an exalted position he + had also certain excellent spiritual reasons. For, he argues in the third + chapter of his ‘Priuy Counsels’, the necessities of nature are so base and + brutish that in obeying them we are apt to forget that we are the noblest + creatures of the universe. To counteract these degrading effects he + advised that the privy should be in every house the room nearest to + heaven, that it should be well provided with windows commanding an + extensive and noble prospect, and that the walls of the chamber should be + lined with bookshelves containing all the ripest products of human wisdom, + such as the Proverbs of Solomon, Boethius’s ‘Consolations of Philosophy’, + the apophthegms of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, the ‘Enchiridion’ of + Erasmus, and all other works, ancient or modern, which testify to the + nobility of the human soul. In Crome he was able to put his theories into + practice. At the top of each of the three projecting towers he placed a + privy. From these a shaft went down the whole height of the house, that is + to say, more than seventy feet, through the cellars, and into a series of + conduits provided with flowing water tunnelled in the ground on a level + with the base of the raised terrace. These conduits emptied themselves + into the stream several hundred yards below the fish-pond. The total depth + of the shafts from the top of the towers to their subterranean conduits + was a hundred and two feet. The eighteenth century, with its passion for + modernisation, swept away these monuments of sanitary ingenuity. Were it + not for tradition and the explicit account of them left by Sir Ferdinando, + we should be unaware that these noble privies had ever existed. We should + even suppose that Sir Ferdinando built his house after this strange and + splendid model for merely aesthetic reasons.” + </p> + <p> + The contemplation of the glories of the past always evoked in Henry + Wimbush a certain enthusiasm. Under the grey bowler his face worked and + glowed as he spoke. The thought of these vanished privies moved him + profoundly. He ceased to speak; the light gradually died out of his face, + and it became once more the replica of the grave, polite hat which shaded + it. There was a long silence; the same gently melancholy thoughts seemed + to possess the mind of each of them. Permanence, transience—Sir + Ferdinando and his privies were gone, Crome still stood. How brightly the + sun shone and how inevitable was death! The ways of God were strange; the + ways of man were stranger still... + </p> + <p> + “It does one’s heart good,” exclaimed Mr. Scogan at last, “to hear of + these fantastic English aristocrats. To have a theory about privies and to + build an immense and splendid house in order to put it into practise—it’s + magnificent, beautiful! I like to think of them all: the eccentric milords + rolling across Europe in ponderous carriages, bound on extraordinary + errands. One is going to Venice to buy La Bianchi’s larynx; he won’t get + it till she’s dead, of course, but no matter; he’s prepared to wait; he + has a collection, pickled in glass bottles, of the throats of famous opera + singers. And the instruments of renowned virtuosi—he goes in for + them too; he will try to bribe Paganini to part with his little Guarnerio, + but he has small hope of success. Paganini won’t sell his fiddle; but + perhaps he might sacrifice one of his guitars. Others are bound on + crusades—one to die miserably among the savage Greeks, another, in + his white top hat, to lead Italians against their oppressors. Others have + no business at all; they are just giving their oddity a continental + airing. At home they cultivate themselves at leisure and with greater + elaboration. Beckford builds towers, Portland digs holes in the ground, + Cavendish, the millionaire, lives in a stable, eats nothing but mutton, + and amuses himself—oh, solely for his private delectation—by + anticipating the electrical discoveries of half a century. Glorious + eccentrics! Every age is enlivened by their presence. Some day, my dear + Denis,” said Mr Scogan, turning a beady bright regard in his direction—“some + day you must become their biographer—‘The Lives of Queer Men.’ What + a subject! I should like to undertake it myself.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan paused, looked up once more at the towering house, then + murmured the word “Eccentricity,” two or three times. + </p> + <p> + “Eccentricity...It’s the justification of all aristocracies. It justifies + leisured classes and inherited wealth and privilege and endowments and all + the other injustices of that sort. If you’re to do anything reasonable in + this world, you must have a class of people who are secure, safe from + public opinion, safe from poverty, leisured, not compelled to waste their + time in the imbecile routines that go by the name of Honest Work. You must + have a class of which the members can think and, within the obvious + limits, do what they please. You must have a class in which people who + have eccentricities can indulge them and in which eccentricity in general + will be tolerated and understood. That’s the important thing about an + aristocracy. Not only is it eccentric itself—often grandiosely so; + it also tolerates and even encourages eccentricity in others. The + eccentricities of the artist and the new-fangled thinker don’t inspire it + with that fear, loathing, and disgust which the burgesses instinctively + feel towards them. It is a sort of Red Indian Reservation planted in the + midst of a vast horde of Poor Whites—colonials at that. Within its + boundaries wild men disport themselves—often, it must be admitted, a + little grossly, a little too flamboyantly; and when kindred spirits are + born outside the pale it offers them some sort of refuge from the hatred + which the Poor Whites, en bons bourgeois, lavish on anything that is wild + or out of the ordinary. After the social revolution there will be no + Reservations; the Redskins will be drowned in the great sea of Poor + Whites. What then? Will they suffer you to go on writing villanelles, my + good Denis? Will you, unhappy Henry, be allowed to live in this house of + the splendid privies, to continue your quiet delving in the mines of + futile knowledge? Will Anne...” + </p> + <p> + “And you,” said Anne, interrupting him, “will you be allowed to go on + talking?” + </p> + <p> + “You may rest assured,” Mr. Scogan replied, “that I shall not. I shall + have some Honest Work to do.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XII. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>light, Mildew, and + Smut...” Mary was puzzled and distressed. Perhaps her ears had played her + false. Perhaps what he had really said was, “Squire, Binyon, and Shanks,” + or “Childe, Blunden, and Earp,” or even “Abercrombie, Drinkwater, and + Rabindranath Tagore.” Perhaps. But then her ears never did play her false. + “Blight, Mildew, and Smut.” The impression was distinct and ineffaceable. + “Blight, Mildew...” she was forced to the conclusion, reluctantly, that + Denis had indeed pronounced those improbable words. He had deliberately + repelled her attempts to open a serious discussion. That was horrible. A + man who would not talk seriously to a woman just because she was a woman—oh, + impossible! Egeria or nothing. Perhaps Gombauld would be more + satisfactory. True, his meridional heredity was a little disquieting; but + at least he was a serious worker, and it was with his work that she would + associate herself. And Denis? After all, what WAS Denis? A dilettante, an + amateur... + </p> + <p> + Gombauld had annexed for his painting-room a little disused granary that + stood by itself in a green close beyond the farm-yard. It was a square + brick building with a peaked roof and little windows set high up in each + of its walls. A ladder of four rungs led up to the door; for the granary + was perched above the ground, and out of reach of the rats, on four + massive toadstools of grey stone. Within, there lingered a faint smell of + dust and cobwebs; and the narrow shaft of sunlight that came slanting in + at every hour of the day through one of the little windows was always + alive with silvery motes. Here Gombauld worked, with a kind of + concentrated ferocity, during six or seven hours of each day. He was + pursuing something new, something terrific, if only he could catch it. + </p> + <p> + During the last eight years, nearly half of which had been spent in the + process of winning the war, he had worked his way industriously through + cubism. Now he had come out on the other side. He had begun by painting a + formalised nature; then, little by little, he had risen from nature into + the world of pure form, till in the end he was painting nothing but his + own thoughts, externalised in the abstract geometrical forms of the mind’s + devising. He found the process arduous and exhilarating. And then, quite + suddenly, he grew dissatisfied; he felt himself cramped and confined + within intolerably narrow limitations. He was humiliated to find how few + and crude and uninteresting were the forms he could invent; the inventions + of nature were without number, inconceivably subtle and elaborate. He had + done with cubism. He was out on the other side. But the cubist discipline + preserved him from falling into excesses of nature worship. He took from + nature its rich, subtle, elaborate forms, but his aim was always to work + them into a whole that should have the thrilling simplicity and formality + of an idea; to combine prodigious realism with prodigious simplification. + Memories of Caravaggio’s portentous achievements haunted him. Forms of a + breathing, living reality emerged from darkness, built themselves up into + compositions as luminously simple and single as a mathematical idea. He + thought of the “Call of Matthew,” of “Peter Crucified,” of the “Lute + players,” of “Magdalen.” He had the secret, that astonishing ruffian, he + had the secret! And now Gombauld was after it, in hot pursuit. Yes, it + would be something terrific, if only he could catch it. + </p> + <p> + For a long time an idea had been stirring and spreading, yeastily, in his + mind. He had made a portfolio full of studies, he had drawn a cartoon; and + now the idea was taking shape on canvas. A man fallen from a horse. The + huge animal, a gaunt white cart-horse, filled the upper half of the + picture with its great body. Its head, lowered towards the ground, was in + shadow; the immense bony body was what arrested the eye, the body and the + legs, which came down on either side of the picture like the pillars of an + arch. On the ground, between the legs of the towering beast, lay the + foreshortened figure of a man, the head in the extreme foreground, the + arms flung wide to right and left. A white, relentless light poured down + from a point in the right foreground. The beast, the fallen man, were + sharply illuminated; round them, beyond and behind them, was the night. + They were alone in the darkness, a universe in themselves. The horse’s + body filled the upper part of the picture; the legs, the great hoofs, + frozen to stillness in the midst of their trampling, limited it on either + side. And beneath lay the man, his foreshortened face at the focal point + in the centre, his arms outstretched towards the sides of the picture. + Under the arch of the horse’s belly, between his legs, the eye looked + through into an intense darkness; below, the space was closed in by the + figure of the prostrate man. A central gulf of darkness surrounded by + luminous forms... + </p> + <p> + The picture was more than half finished. Gombauld had been at work all the + morning on the figure of the man, and now he was taking a rest—the + time to smoke a cigarette. Tilting back his chair till it touched the + wall, he looked thoughtfully at his canvas. He was pleased, and at the + same time he was desolated. In itself, the thing was good; he knew it. But + that something he was after, that something that would be so terrific if + only he could catch it—had he caught it? Would he ever catch it? + </p> + <p> + Three little taps—rat, tat, tat! Surprised, Gombauld turned his eyes + towards the door. Nobody ever disturbed him while he was at work; it was + one of the unwritten laws. “Come in!” he called. The door, which was ajar, + swung open, revealing, from the waist upwards, the form of Mary. She had + only dared to mount half-way up the ladder. If he didn’t want her, retreat + would be easier and more dignified than if she climbed to the top. + </p> + <p> + “May I come in?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly.” + </p> + <p> + She skipped up the remaining two rungs and was over the threshold in an + instant. “A letter came for you by the second post,” she said. “I thought + it might be important, so I brought it out to you.” Her eyes, her childish + face were luminously candid as she handed him the letter. There had never + been a flimsier pretext. + </p> + <p> + Gombauld looked at the envelope and put it in his pocket unopened. + “Luckily,” he said, “it isn’t at all important. Thanks very much all the + same.” + </p> + <p> + There was a silence; Mary felt a little uncomfortable. “May I have a look + at what you’ve been painting?” she had the courage to say at last. + </p> + <p> + Gombauld had only half smoked his cigarette; in any case he wouldn’t begin + work again till he had finished. He would give her the five minutes that + separated him from the bitter end. “This is the best place to see it + from,” he said. + </p> + <p> + Mary looked at the picture for some time without saying anything. Indeed, + she didn’t know what to say; she was taken aback, she was at a loss. She + had expected a cubist masterpiece, and here was a picture of a man and a + horse, not only recognisable as such, but even aggressively in drawing. + Trompe-l’oeil—there was no other word to describe the delineation of + that foreshortened figure under the trampling feet of the horse. What was + she to think, what was she to say? Her orientations were gone. One could + admire representationalism in the Old Masters. Obviously. But in a + modern...? At eighteen she might have done so. But now, after five years + of schooling among the best judges, her instinctive reaction to a + contemporary piece of representation was contempt—an outburst of + laughing disparagement. What could Gombauld be up to? She had felt so safe + in admiring his work before. But now—she didn’t know what to think. + It was very difficult, very difficult. + </p> + <p> + “There’s rather a lot of chiaroscuro, isn’t there?” she ventured at last, + and inwardly congratulated herself on having found a critical formula so + gentle and at the same time so penetrating. + </p> + <p> + “There is,” Gombauld agreed. + </p> + <p> + Mary was pleased; he accepted her criticism; it was a serious discussion. + She put her head on one side and screwed up her eyes. “I think it’s + awfully fine,” she said. “But of course it’s a little + too...too...trompe-l’oeil for my taste.” She looked at Gombauld, who made + no response, but continued to smoke, gazing meditatively all the time at + his picture. Mary went on gaspingly. “When I was in Paris this spring I + saw a lot of Tschuplitski. I admire his work so tremendously. Of course, + it’s frightfully abstract now—frightfully abstract and frightfully + intellectual. He just throws a few oblongs on to his canvas—quite + flat, you know, and painted in pure primary colours. But his design is + wonderful. He’s getting more and more abstract every day. He’d given up + the third dimension when I was there and was just thinking of giving up + the second. Soon, he says, there’ll be just the blank canvas. That’s the + logical conclusion. Complete abstraction. Painting’s finished; he’s + finishing it. When he’s reached pure abstraction he’s going to take up + architecture. He says it’s more intellectual than painting. Do you agree?” + she asked, with a final gasp. + </p> + <p> + Gombauld dropped his cigarette end and trod on it. “Tschuplitski’s + finished painting,” he said. “I’ve finished my cigarette. But I’m going on + painting.” And, advancing towards her, he put his arm round her shoulders + and turned her round, away from the picture. + </p> + <p> + Mary looked up at him; her hair swung back, a soundless bell of gold. Her + eyes were serene; she smiled. So the moment had come. His arm was round + her. He moved slowly, almost imperceptibly, and she moved with him. It was + a peripatetic embracement. “Do you agree with him?” she repeated. The + moment might have come, but she would not cease to be intellectual, + serious. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know. I shall have to think about it.” Gombauld loosened his + embrace, his hand dropped from her shoulder. “Be careful going down the + ladder,” he added solicitously. + </p> + <p> + Mary looked round, startled. They were in front of the open door. She + remained standing there for a moment in bewilderment. The hand that had + rested on her shoulder made itself felt lower down her back; it + administered three or four kindly little smacks. Replying automatically to + its stimulus, she moved forward. + </p> + <p> + “Be careful going down the ladder,” said Gombauld once more. + </p> + <p> + She was careful. The door closed behind her and she was alone in the + little green close. She walked slowly back through the farmyard; she was + pensive. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIII. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>enry Wimbush + brought down with him to dinner a budget of printed sheets loosely bound + together in a cardboard portfolio. + </p> + <p> + “To-day,” he said, exhibiting it with a certain solemnity, “to-day I have + finished the printing of my ‘History of Crome’. I helped to set up the + type of the last page this evening.” + </p> + <p> + “The famous History?” cried Anne. The writing and the printing of this + Magnum Opus had been going on as long as she could remember. All her + childhood long Uncle Henry’s History had been a vague and fabulous thing, + often heard of and never seen. + </p> + <p> + “It has taken me nearly thirty years,” said Mr. Wimbush. “Twenty-five + years of writing and nearly four of printing. And now it’s finished—the + whole chronicle, from Sir Ferdinando Lapith’s birth to the death of my + father William Wimbush—more than three centuries and a half: a + history of Crome, written at Crome, and printed at Crome by my own press.” + </p> + <p> + “Shall we be allowed to read it now it’s finished?” asked Denis. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Wimbush nodded. “Certainly,” he said. “And I hope you will not find it + uninteresting,” he added modestly. “Our muniment room is particularly rich + in ancient records, and I have some genuinely new light to throw on the + introduction of the three-pronged fork.” + </p> + <p> + “And the people?” asked Gombauld. “Sir Ferdinando and the rest of them—were + they amusing? Were there any crimes or tragedies in the family?” + </p> + <p> + “Let me see,” Henry Wimbush rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I can only + think of two suicides, one violent death, four or perhaps five broken + hearts, and half a dozen little blots on the scutcheon in the way of + misalliances, seductions, natural children, and the like. No, on the + whole, it’s a placid and uneventful record.” + </p> + <p> + “The Wimbushes and the Lapiths were always an unadventurous, respectable + crew,” said Priscilla, with a note of scorn in her voice. “If I were to + write my family history now! Why, it would be one long continuous blot + from beginning to end.” She laughed jovially, and helped herself to + another glass of wine. + </p> + <p> + “If I were to write mine,” Mr. Scogan remarked, “it wouldn’t exist. After + the second generation we Scogans are lost in the mists of antiquity.” + </p> + <p> + “After dinner,” said Henry Wimbush, a little piqued by his wife’s + disparaging comment on the masters of Crome, “I’ll read you an episode + from my History that will make you admit that even the Lapiths, in their + own respectable way, had their tragedies and strange adventures.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m glad to hear it,” said Priscilla. + </p> + <p> + “Glad to hear what?” asked Jenny, emerging suddenly from her private + interior world like a cuckoo from a clock. She received an explanation, + smiled, nodded, cuckooed at last “I see,” and popped back, clapping shut + the door behind her. + </p> + <p> + Dinner was eaten; the party had adjourned to the drawing-room. + </p> + <p> + “Now,” said Henry Wimbush, pulling up a chair to the lamp. He put on his + round pince-nez, rimmed with tortoise-shell, and began cautiously to turn + over the pages of his loose and still fragmentary book. He found his place + at last. “Shall I begin?” he asked, looking up. + </p> + <p> + “Do,” said Priscilla, yawning. + </p> + <p> + In the midst of an attentive silence Mr. Wimbush gave a little preliminary + cough and started to read. + </p> + <p> + “The infant who was destined to become the fourth baronet of the name of + Lapith was born in the year 1740. He was a very small baby, weighing not + more than three pounds at birth, but from the first he was sturdy and + healthy. In honour of his maternal grandfather, Sir Hercules Occam of + Bishop’s Occam, he was christened Hercules. His mother, like many other + mothers, kept a notebook, in which his progress from month to month was + recorded. He walked at ten months, and before his second year was out he + had learnt to speak a number of words. At three years he weighed but + twenty-four pounds, and at six, though he could read and write perfectly + and showed a remarkable aptitude for music, he was no larger and heavier + than a well-grown child of two. Meanwhile, his mother had borne two other + children, a boy and a girl, one of whom died of croup during infancy, + while the other was carried off by smallpox before it reached the age of + five. Hercules remained the only surviving child. + </p> + <p> + “On his twelfth birthday Hercules was still only three feet and two inches + in height. His head, which was very handsome and nobly shaped, was too big + for his body, but otherwise he was exquisitely proportioned, and, for his + size, of great strength and agility. His parents, in the hope of making + him grow, consulted all the most eminent physicians of the time. Their + various prescriptions were followed to the letter, but in vain. One + ordered a very plentiful meat diet; another exercise; a third constructed + a little rack, modelled on those employed by the Holy Inquisition, on + which young Hercules was stretched, with excruciating torments, for half + an hour every morning and evening. In the course of the next three years + Hercules gained perhaps two inches. After that his growth stopped + completely, and he remained for the rest of his life a pigmy of three feet + and four inches. His father, who had built the most extravagant hopes upon + his son, planning for him in his imagination a military career equal to + that of Marlborough, found himself a disappointed man. ‘I have brought an + abortion into the world,’ he would say, and he took so violent a dislike + to his son that the boy dared scarcely come into his presence. His temper, + which had been serene, was turned by disappointment to moroseness and + savagery. He avoided all company (being, as he said, ashamed to show + himself, the father of a lusus naturae, among normal, healthy human + beings), and took to solitary drinking, which carried him very rapidly to + his grave; for the year before Hercules came of age his father was taken + off by an apoplexy. His mother, whose love for him had increased with the + growth of his father’s unkindness, did not long survive, but little more + than a year after her husband’s death succumbed, after eating two dozen of + oysters, to an attack of typhoid fever. + </p> + <p> + “Hercules thus found himself at the age of twenty-one alone in the world, + and master of a considerable fortune, including the estate and mansion of + Crome. The beauty and intelligence of his childhood had survived into his + manly age, and, but for his dwarfish stature, he would have taken his + place among the handsomest and most accomplished young men of his time. He + was well read in the Greek and Latin authors, as well as in all the + moderns of any merit who had written in English, French, or Italian. He + had a good ear for music, and was no indifferent performer on the violin, + which he used to play like a bass viol, seated on a chair with the + instrument between his legs. To the music of the harpsichord and + clavichord he was extremely partial, but the smallness of his hands made + it impossible for him ever to perform upon these instruments. He had a + small ivory flute made for him, on which, whenever he was melancholy, he + used to play a simple country air or jig, affirming that this rustic music + had more power to clear and raise the spirits than the most artificial + productions of the masters. From an early age he practised the composition + of poetry, but, though conscious of his great powers in this art, he would + never publish any specimen of his writing. ‘My stature,’ he would say, ‘is + reflected in my verses; if the public were to read them it would not be + because I am a poet, but because I am a dwarf.’ Several MS. books of Sir + Hercules’s poems survive. A single specimen will suffice to illustrate his + qualities as a poet.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “‘In ancient days, while yet the world was young, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Ere Abram fed his flocks or Homer sung; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + When blacksmith Tubal tamed creative fire, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And Jabal dwelt in tents and Jubal struck the lyre; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Flesh grown corrupt brought forth a monstrous birth + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And obscene giants trod the shrinking earth, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Till God, impatient of their sinful brood, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Gave rein to wrath and drown’d them in the Flood. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Teeming again, repeopled Tellus bore + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + The lubber Hero and the Man of War; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Huge towers of Brawn, topp’d with an empty Skull, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Witlessly bold, heroically dull. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Long ages pass’d and Man grown more refin’d, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Slighter in muscle but of vaster Mind, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Smiled at his grandsire’s broadsword, bow and bill, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And learn’d to wield the Pencil and the Quill. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + The glowing canvas and the written page + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Immortaliz’d his name from age to age, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + His name emblazon’d on Fame’s temple wall; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + For Art grew great as Humankind grew small. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Thus man’s long progress step by step we trace; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + The Giant dies, the hero takes his place; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + The Giant vile, the dull heroic Block: + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + At one we shudder and at one we mock. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Man last appears. In him the Soul’s pure flame + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Burns brightlier in a not inord’nate frame. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Of old when Heroes fought and Giants swarmed, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Men were huge mounds of matter scarce inform’d; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Wearied by leavening so vast a mass, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + The spirit slept and all the mind was crass. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + The smaller carcase of these later days + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Is soon inform’d; the Soul unwearied plays + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And like a Pharos darts abroad her mental rays. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + But can we think that Providence will stay + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Man’s footsteps here upon the upward way? + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Mankind in understanding and in grace + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Advanc’d so far beyond the Giants’ race? + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Hence impious thought! Still led by GOD’S own Hand, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Mankind proceeds towards the Promised Land. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + A time will come (prophetic, I descry + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Remoter dawns along the gloomy sky), + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + When happy mortals of a Golden Age + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Will backward turn the dark historic page, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And in our vaunted race of Men behold + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + A form as gross, a Mind as dead and cold, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + As we in Giants see, in warriors of old. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + A time will come, wherein the soul shall be + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + From all superfluous matter wholly free; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + When the light body, agile as a fawn’s, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Shall sport with grace along the velvet lawns. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Nature’s most delicate and final birth, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Mankind perfected shall possess the earth. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + But ah, not yet! For still the Giants’ race, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Huge, though diminish’d, tramps the Earth’s fair face; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Gross and repulsive, yet perversely proud, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Men of their imperfections boast aloud. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Vain of their bulk, of all they still retain + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Of giant ugliness absurdly vain; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + At all that’s small they point their stupid scorn + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And, monsters, think themselves divinely born. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Sad is the Fate of those, ah, sad indeed, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + The rare precursors of the nobler breed! + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Who come man’s golden glory to foretell, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + But pointing Heav’nwards live themselves in Hell.’ + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + “As soon as he came into the estate, Sir Hercules set about remodelling + his household. For though by no means ashamed of his deformity—indeed, + if we may judge from the poem quoted above, he regarded himself as being + in many ways superior to the ordinary race of man—he found the + presence of full-grown men and women embarrassing. Realising, too, that he + must abandon all ambitions in the great world, he determined to retire + absolutely from it and to create, as it were, at Crome a private world of + his own, in which all should be proportionable to himself. Accordingly, he + discharged all the old servants of the house and replaced them gradually, + as he was able to find suitable successors, by others of dwarfish stature. + In the course of a few years he had assembled about himself a numerous + household, no member of which was above four feet high and the smallest + among them scarcely two feet and six inches. His father’s dogs, such as + setters, mastiffs, greyhounds, and a pack of beagles, he sold or gave away + as too large and too boisterous for his house, replacing them by pugs and + King Charles spaniels and whatever other breeds of dog were the smallest. + His father’s stable was also sold. For his own use, whether riding or + driving, he had six black Shetland ponies, with four very choice piebald + animals of New Forest breed. + </p> + <p> + “Having thus settled his household entirely to his own satisfaction, it + only remained for him to find some suitable companion with whom to share + his paradise. Sir Hercules had a susceptible heart, and had more than + once, between the ages of sixteen and twenty, felt what it was to love. + But here his deformity had been a source of the most bitter humiliation, + for, having once dared to declare himself to a young lady of his choice, + he had been received with laughter. On his persisting, she had picked him + up and shaken him like an importunate child, telling him to run away and + plague her no more. The story soon got about—indeed, the young lady + herself used to tell it as a particularly pleasant anecdote—and the + taunts and mockery it occasioned were a source of the most acute distress + to Hercules. From the poems written at this period we gather that he + meditated taking his own life. In course of time, however, he lived down + this humiliation; but never again, though he often fell in love, and that + very passionately, did he dare to make any advances to those in whom he + was interested. After coming to the estate and finding that he was in a + position to create his own world as he desired it, he saw that, if he was + to have a wife—which he very much desired, being of an affectionate + and, indeed, amorous temper—he must choose her as he had chosen his + servants—from among the race of dwarfs. But to find a suitable wife + was, he found, a matter of some difficulty; for he would marry none who + was not distinguished by beauty and gentle birth. The dwarfish daughter of + Lord Bemboro he refused on the ground that besides being a pigmy she was + hunchbacked; while another young lady, an orphan belonging to a very good + family in Hampshire, was rejected by him because her face, like that of so + many dwarfs, was wizened and repulsive. Finally, when he was almost + despairing of success, he heard from a reliable source that Count + Titimalo, a Venetian nobleman, possessed a daughter of exquisite beauty + and great accomplishments, who was by three feet in height. Setting out at + once for Venice, he went immediately on his arrival to pay his respects to + the count, whom he found living with his wife and five children in a very + mean apartment in one of the poorer quarters of the town. Indeed, the + count was so far reduced in his circumstances that he was even then + negotiating (so it was rumoured) with a travelling company of clowns and + acrobats, who had had the misfortune to lose their performing dwarf, for + the sale of his diminutive daughter Filomena. Sir Hercules arrived in time + to save her from this untoward fate, for he was so much charmed by + Filomena’s grace and beauty, that at the end of three days’ courtship he + made her a formal offer of marriage, which was accepted by her no less + joyfully than by her father, who perceived in an English son-in-law a rich + and unfailing source of revenue. After an unostentatious marriage, at + which the English ambassador acted as one of the witnesses, Sir Hercules + and his bride returned by sea to England, where they settled down, as it + proved, to a life of uneventful happiness. + </p> + <p> + “Crome and its household of dwarfs delighted Filomena, who felt herself + now for the first time to be a free woman living among her equals in a + friendly world. She had many tastes in common with her husband, especially + that of music. She had a beautiful voice, of a power surprising in one so + small, and could touch A in alt without effort. Accompanied by her husband + on his fine Cremona fiddle, which he played, as we have noted before, as + one plays a bass viol, she would sing all the liveliest and tenderest airs + from the operas and cantatas of her native country. Seated together at the + harpsichord, they found that they could with their four hands play all the + music written for two hands of ordinary size, a circumstance which gave + Sir Hercules unfailing pleasure. + </p> + <p> + “When they were not making music or reading together, which they often + did, both in English and Italian, they spent their time in healthful + outdoor exercises, sometimes rowing in a little boat on the lake, but more + often riding or driving, occupations in which, because they were entirely + new to her, Filomena especially delighted. When she had become a perfectly + proficient rider, Filomena and her husband used often to go hunting in the + park, at that time very much more extensive than it is now. They hunted + not foxes nor hares, but rabbits, using a pack of about thirty black and + fawn-coloured pugs, a kind of dog which, when not overfed, can course a + rabbit as well as any of the smaller breeds. Four dwarf grooms, dressed in + scarlet liveries and mounted on white Exmoor ponies, hunted the pack, + while their master and mistress, in green habits, followed either on the + black Shetlands or on the piebald New Forest ponies. A picture of the + whole hunt—dogs, horses, grooms, and masters—was painted by + William Stubbs, whose work Sir Hercules admired so much that he invited + him, though a man of ordinary stature, to come and stay at the mansion for + the purpose of executing this picture. Stubbs likewise painted a portrait + of Sir Hercules and his lady driving in their green enamelled calash drawn + by four black Shetlands. Sir Hercules wears a plum-coloured velvet coat + and white breeches; Filomena is dressed in flowered muslin and a very + large hat with pink feathers. The two figures in their gay carriage stand + out sharply against a dark background of trees; but to the left of the + picture the trees fall away and disappear, so that the four black ponies + are seen against a pale and strangely lurid sky that has the golden-brown + colour of thunder-clouds lighted up by the sun. + </p> + <p> + “In this way four years passed happily by. At the end of that time + Filomena found herself great with child. Sir Hercules was overjoyed. ‘If + God is good,’ he wrote in his day-book, ‘the name of Lapith will be + preserved and our rarer and more delicate race transmitted through the + generations until in the fullness of time the world shall recognise the + superiority of those beings whom now it uses to make mock of.’ On his + wife’s being brought to bed of a son he wrote a poem to the same effect. + The child was christened Ferdinando in memory of the builder of the house. + </p> + <p> + “With the passage of the months a certain sense of disquiet began to + invade the minds of Sir Hercules and his lady. For the child was growing + with an extraordinary rapidity. At a year he weighed as much as Hercules + had weighed when he was three. ‘Ferdinando goes crescendo,’ wrote Filomena + in her diary. ‘It seems not natural.’ At eighteen months the baby was + almost as tall as their smallest jockey, who was a man of thirty-six. + Could it be that Ferdinando was destined to become a man of the normal, + gigantic dimensions? It was a thought to which neither of his parents + dared yet give open utterance, but in the secrecy of their respective + diaries they brooded over it in terror and dismay. + </p> + <p> + “On his third birthday Ferdinando was taller than his mother and not more + than a couple of inches short of his father’s height. ‘To-day for the + first time’ wrote Sir Hercules, ‘we discussed the situation. The hideous + truth can be concealed no longer: Ferdinando is not one of us. On this, + his third birthday, a day when we should have been rejoicing at the + health, the strength, and beauty of our child, we wept together over the + ruin of our happiness. God give us strength to bear this cross.’ + </p> + <p> + “At the age of eight Ferdinando was so large and so exuberantly healthy + that his parents decided, though reluctantly, to send him to school. He + was packed off to Eton at the beginning of the next half. A profound peace + settled upon the house. Ferdinando returned for the summer holidays larger + and stronger than ever. One day he knocked down the butler and broke his + arm. ‘He is rough, inconsiderate, unamenable to persuasion,’ wrote his + father. ‘The only thing that will teach him manners is corporal + chastisement.’ Ferdinando, who at this age was already seventeen inches + taller than his father, received no corporal chastisement. + </p> + <p> + “One summer holidays about three years later Ferdinando returned to Crome + accompanied by a very large mastiff dog. He had bought it from an old man + at Windsor who had found the beast too expensive to feed. It was a savage, + unreliable animal; hardly had it entered the house when it attacked one of + Sir Hercules’s favourite pugs, seizing the creature in its jaws and + shaking it till it was nearly dead. Extremely put out by this occurrence, + Sir Hercules ordered that the beast should be chained up in the + stable-yard. Ferdinando sullenly answered that the dog was his, and he + would keep it where he pleased. His father, growing angry, bade him take + the animal out of the house at once, on pain of his utmost displeasure. + Ferdinando refused to move. His mother at this moment coming into the + room, the dog flew at her, knocked her down, and in a twinkling had very + severely mauled her arm and shoulder; in another instant it must + infallibly have had her by the throat, had not Sir Hercules drawn his + sword and stabbed the animal to the heart. Turning on his son, he ordered + him to leave the room immediately, as being unfit to remain in the same + place with the mother whom he had nearly murdered. So awe-inspiring was + the spectacle of Sir Hercules standing with one foot on the carcase of the + gigantic dog, his sword drawn and still bloody, so commanding were his + voice, his gestures, and the expression of his face that Ferdinando slunk + out of the room in terror and behaved himself for all the rest of the + vacation in an entirely exemplary fashion. His mother soon recovered from + the bites of the mastiff, but the effect on her mind of this adventure was + ineradicable; from that time forth she lived always among imaginary + terrors. + </p> + <p> + “The two years which Ferdinando spent on the Continent, making the Grand + Tour, were a period of happy repose for his parents. But even now the + thought of the future haunted them; nor were they able to solace + themselves with all the diversions of their younger days. The Lady + Filomena had lost her voice and Sir Hercules was grown too rheumatical to + play the violin. He, it is true, still rode after his pugs, but his wife + felt herself too old and, since the episode of the mastiff, too nervous + for such sports. At most, to please her husband, she would follow the hunt + at a distance in a little gig drawn by the safest and oldest of the + Shetlands. + </p> + <p> + “The day fixed for Ferdinando’s return came round. Filomena, sick with + vague dreads and presentiments, retired to her chamber and her bed. Sir + Hercules received his son alone. A giant in a brown travelling-suit + entered the room. ‘Welcome home, my son,’ said Sir Hercules in a voice + that trembled a little. + </p> + <p> + “‘I hope I see you well, sir.’ Ferdinando bent down to shake hands, then + straightened himself up again. The top of his father’s head reached to the + level of his hip. + </p> + <p> + “Ferdinando had not come alone. Two friends of his own age accompanied + him, and each of the young men had brought a servant. Not for thirty years + had Crome been desecrated by the presence of so many members of the common + race of men. Sir Hercules was appalled and indignant, but the laws of + hospitality had to be obeyed. He received the young gentlemen with grave + politeness and sent the servants to the kitchen, with orders that they + should be well cared for. + </p> + <p> + “The old family dining-table was dragged out into the light and dusted + (Sir Hercules and his lady were accustomed to dine at a small table twenty + inches high). Simon, the aged butler, who could only just look over the + edge of the big table, was helped at supper by the three servants brought + by Ferdinando and his guests. + </p> + <p> + “Sir Hercules presided, and with his usual grace supported a conversation + on the pleasures of foreign travel, the beauties of art and nature to be + met with abroad, the opera at Venice, the singing of the orphans in the + churches of the same city, and on other topics of a similar nature. The + young men were not particularly attentive to his discourses; they were + occupied in watching the efforts of the butler to change the plates and + replenish the glasses. They covered their laughter by violent and repeated + fits of coughing or choking. Sir Hercules affected not to notice, but + changed the subject of the conversation to sport. Upon this one of the + young men asked whether it was true, as he had heard, that he used to hunt + the rabbit with a pack of pug dogs. Sir Hercules replied that it was, and + proceeded to describe the chase in some detail. The young men roared with + laughter. + </p> + <p> + “When supper was over, Sir Hercules climbed down from his chair and, + giving as his excuse that he must see how his lady did, bade them + good-night. The sound of laughter followed him up the stairs. Filomena was + not asleep; she had been lying on her bed listening to the sound of + enormous laughter and the tread of strangely heavy feet on the stairs and + along the corridors. Sir Hercules drew a chair to her bedside and sat + there for a long time in silence, holding his wife’s hand and sometimes + gently squeezing it. At about ten o’clock they were startled by a violent + noise. There was a breaking of glass, a stamping of feet, with an outburst + of shouts and laughter. The uproar continuing for several minutes, Sir + Hercules rose to his feet and, in spite of his wife’s entreaties, prepared + to go and see what was happening. There was no light on the staircase, and + Sir Hercules groped his way down cautiously, lowering himself from stair + to stair and standing for a moment on each tread before adventuring on a + new step. The noise was louder here; the shouting articulated itself into + recognisable words and phrases. A line of light was visible under the + dining-room door. Sir Hercules tiptoed across the hall towards it. Just as + he approached the door there was another terrific crash of breaking glass + and jangled metal. What could they be doing? Standing on tiptoe he managed + to look through the keyhole. In the middle of the ravaged table old Simon, + the butler, so primed with drink that he could scarcely keep his balance, + was dancing a jig. His feet crunched and tinkled among the broken glass, + and his shoes were wet with spilt wine. The three young men sat round, + thumping the table with their hands or with the empty wine bottles, + shouting and laughing encouragement. The three servants leaning against + the wall laughed too. Ferdinando suddenly threw a handful of walnuts at + the dancer’s head, which so dazed and surprised the little man that he + staggered and fell down on his back, upsetting a decanter and several + glasses. They raised him up, gave him some brandy to drink, thumped him on + the back. The old man smiled and hiccoughed. ‘To-morrow,’ said Ferdinando, + ‘we’ll have a concerted ballet of the whole household.’ ‘With father + Hercules wearing his club and lion-skin,’ added one of his companions, and + all three roared with laughter. + </p> + <p> + “Sir Hercules would look and listen no further. He crossed the hall once + more and began to climb the stairs, lifting his knees painfully high at + each degree. This was the end; there was no place for him now in the + world, no place for him and Ferdinando together. + </p> + <p> + “His wife was still awake; to her questioning glance he answered, ‘They + are making mock of old Simon. To-morrow it will be our turn.’ They were + silent for a time. + </p> + <p> + “At last Filomena said, ‘I do not want to see to-morrow.’ + </p> + <p> + “‘It is better not,’ said Sir Hercules. Going into his closet he wrote in + his day-book a full and particular account of all the events of the + evening. While he was still engaged in this task he rang for a servant and + ordered hot water and a bath to be made ready for him at eleven o’clock. + When he had finished writing he went into his wife’s room, and preparing a + dose of opium twenty times as strong as that which she was accustomed to + take when she could not sleep, he brought it to her, saying, ‘Here is your + sleeping-draught.’ + </p> + <p> + “Filomena took the glass and lay for a little time, but did not drink + immediately. The tears came into her eyes. ‘Do you remember the songs we + used to sing, sitting out there sulla terrazza in the summer-time?’ She + began singing softly in her ghost of a cracked voice a few bars from + Stradella’s ‘Amor amor, non dormir piu.’ ‘And you playing on the violin, + it seems such a short time ago, and yet so long, long, long. Addio, amore, + a rivederti.’ She drank off the draught and, lying back on the pillow, + closed her eyes. Sir Hercules kissed her hand and tiptoed away, as though + he were afraid of waking her. He returned to his closet, and having + recorded his wife’s last words to him, he poured into his bath the water + that had been brought up in accordance with his orders. The water being + too hot for him to get into the bath at once, he took down from the shelf + his copy of Suetonius. He wished to read how Seneca had died. He opened + the book at random. ‘But dwarfs,’ he read, ‘he held in abhorrence as being + lusus naturae and of evil omen.’ He winced as though he had been struck. + This same Augustus, he remembered, had exhibited in the amphitheatre a + young man called Lucius, of good family, who was not quite two feet in + height and weighed seventeen pounds, but had a stentorian voice. He turned + over the pages. Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero: it was a tale of + growing horror. ‘Seneca his preceptor, he forced to kill himself.’ And + there was Petronius, who had called his friends about him at the last, + bidding them talk to him, not of the consolations of philosophy, but of + love and gallantry, while the life was ebbing away through his opened + veins. Dipping his pen once more in the ink he wrote on the last page of + his diary: ‘He died a Roman death.’ Then, putting the toes of one foot + into the water and finding that it was not too hot, he threw off his + dressing-gown and, taking a razor in his hand, sat down in the bath. With + one deep cut he severed the artery in his left wrist, then lay back and + composed his mind to meditation. The blood oozed out, floating through the + water in dissolving wreaths and spirals. In a little while the whole bath + was tinged with pink. The colour deepened; Sir Hercules felt himself + mastered by an invincible drowsiness; he was sinking from vague dream to + dream. Soon he was sound asleep. There was not much blood in his small + body.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIV. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>or their + after-luncheon coffee the party generally adjourned to the library. Its + windows looked east, and at this hour of the day it was the coolest place + in the whole house. It was a large room, fitted, during the eighteenth + century, with white painted shelves of an elegant design. In the middle of + one wall a door, ingeniously upholstered with rows of dummy books, gave + access to a deep cupboard, where, among a pile of letter-files and old + newspapers, the mummy-case of an Egyptian lady, brought back by the second + Sir Ferdinando on his return from the Grand Tour, mouldered in the + darkness. From ten yards away and at a first glance, one might almost have + mistaken this secret door for a section of shelving filled with genuine + books. Coffee-cup in hand, Mr. Scogan was standing in front of the dummy + book-shelf. Between the sips he discoursed. + </p> + <p> + “The bottom shelf,” he was saying, “is taken up by an Encyclopaedia in + fourteen volumes. Useful, but a little dull, as is also Caprimulge’s + ‘Dictionary of the Finnish Language’. The ‘Biographical Dictionary’ looks + more promising. ‘Biography of Men who were Born Great’, ‘Biography of Men + who Achieved Greatness’, ‘Biography of Men who had Greatness Thrust upon + Them’, and ‘Biography of Men who were Never Great at All’. Then there are + ten volumes of ‘Thom’s Works and Wanderings’, while the ‘Wild Goose Chase, + a Novel’, by an anonymous author, fills no less than six. But what’s this, + what’s this?” Mr. Scogan stood on tiptoe and peered up. “Seven volumes of + the ‘Tales of Knockespotch’. The ‘Tales of Knockespotch’,” he repeated. + “Ah, my dear Henry,” he said, turning round, “these are your best books. I + would willingly give all the rest of your library for them.” + </p> + <p> + The happy possessor of a multitude of first editions, Mr. Wimbush could + afford to smile indulgently. + </p> + <p> + “Is it possible,” Mr. Scogan went on, “that they possess nothing more than + a back and a title?” He opened the cupboard door and peeped inside, as + though he hoped to find the rest of the books behind it. “Phooh!” he said, + and shut the door again. “It smells of dust and mildew. How symbolical! + One comes to the great masterpieces of the past, expecting some miraculous + illumination, and one finds, on opening them, only darkness and dust and a + faint smell of decay. After all, what is reading but a vice, like drink or + venery or any other form of excessive self-indulgence? One reads to tickle + and amuse one’s mind; one reads, above all, to prevent oneself thinking. + Still—the ‘Tales of Knockespotch’...” + </p> + <p> + He paused, and thoughtfully drummed with his fingers on the backs of the + non-existent, unattainable books. + </p> + <p> + “But I disagree with you about reading,” said Mary. “About serious + reading, I mean.” + </p> + <p> + “Quite right, Mary, quite right,” Mr. Scogan answered. “I had forgotten + there were any serious people in the room.” + </p> + <p> + “I like the idea of the Biographies,” said Denis. “There’s room for us all + within the scheme; it’s comprehensive.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, the Biographies are good, the Biographies are excellent,” Mr Scogan + agreed. “I imagine them written in a very elegant Regency style—Brighton + Pavilion in words—perhaps by the great Dr. Lempriere himself. You + know his classical dictionary? Ah!” Mr. Scogan raised his hand and let it + limply fall again in a gesture which implied that words failed him. “Read + his biography of Helen; read how Jupiter, disguised as a swan, was + ‘enabled to avail himself of his situation’ vis-a-vis to Leda. And to + think that he may have, must have written these biographies of the Great! + What a work, Henry! And, owing to the idiotic arrangement of your library, + it can’t be read.” + </p> + <p> + “I prefer the ‘Wild Goose Chase’,” said Anne. “A novel in six volumes—it + must be restful.” + </p> + <p> + “Restful,” Mr. Scogan repeated. “You’ve hit on the right word. A ‘Wild + Goose Chase’ is sound, but a bit old-fashioned—pictures of clerical + life in the fifties, you know; specimens of the landed gentry; peasants + for pathos and comedy; and in the background, always the picturesque + beauties of nature soberly described. All very good and solid, but, like + certain puddings, just a little dull. Personally, I like much better the + notion of ‘Thom’s Works and Wanderings’. The eccentric Mr. Thom of Thom’s + Hill. Old Tom Thom, as his intimates used to call him. He spent ten years + in Thibet organising the clarified butter industry on modern European + lines, and was able to retire at thirty-six with a handsome fortune. The + rest of his life he devoted to travel and ratiocination; here is the + result.” Mr. Scogan tapped the dummy books. “And now we come to the ‘Tales + of Knockespotch’. What a masterpiece and what a great man! Knockespotch + knew how to write fiction. Ah, Denis, if you could only read Knockespotch + you wouldn’t be writing a novel about the wearisome development of a young + man’s character, you wouldn’t be describing in endless, fastidious detail, + cultured life in Chelsea and Bloomsbury and Hampstead. You would be trying + to write a readable book. But then, alas! owing to the peculiar + arrangement of our host’s library, you never will read Knockespotch.” + </p> + <p> + “Nobody could regret the fact more than I do,” said Denis. + </p> + <p> + “It was Knockespotch,” Mr. Scogan continued, “the great Knockespotch, who + delivered us from the dreary tyranny of the realistic novel. My life, + Knockespotch said, is not so long that I can afford to spend precious + hours writing or reading descriptions of middle-class interiors. He said + again, ‘I am tired of seeing the human mind bogged in a social plenum; I + prefer to paint it in a vacuum, freely and sportively bombinating.’” + </p> + <p> + “I say,” said Gombauld, “Knockespotch was a little obscure sometimes, + wasn’t he?” + </p> + <p> + “He was,” Mr. Scogan replied, “and with intention. It made him seem even + profounder than he actually was. But it was only in his aphorisms that he + was so dark and oracular. In his Tales he was always luminous. Oh, those + Tales—those Tales! How shall I describe them? Fabulous characters + shoot across his pages like gaily dressed performers on the trapeze. There + are extraordinary adventures and still more extraordinary speculations. + Intelligences and emotions, relieved of all the imbecile preoccupations of + civilised life, move in intricate and subtle dances, crossing and + recrossing, advancing, retreating, impinging. An immense erudition and an + immense fancy go hand in hand. All the ideas of the present and of the + past, on every possible subject, bob up among the Tales, smile gravely or + grimace a caricature of themselves, then disappear to make place for + something new. The verbal surface of his writing is rich and fantastically + diversified. The wit is incessant. The...” + </p> + <p> + “But couldn’t you give us a specimen,” Denis broke in—“a concrete + example?” + </p> + <p> + “Alas!” Mr. Scogan replied, “Knockespotch’s great book is like the sword + Excalibur. It remains struck fast in this door, awaiting the coming of a + writer with genius enough to draw it forth. I am not even a writer, I am + not so much as qualified to attempt the task. The extraction of + Knockespotch from his wooden prison I leave, my dear Denis, to you.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you,” said Denis. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XV. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>n the time of the + amiable Brantome,” Mr. Scogan was saying, “every debutante at the French + Court was invited to dine at the King’s table, where she was served with + wine in a handsome silver cup of Italian workmanship. It was no ordinary + cup, this goblet of the debutantes; for, inside, it had been most + curiously and ingeniously engraved with a series of very lively amorous + scenes. With each draught that the young lady swallowed these engravings + became increasingly visible, and the Court looked on with interest, every + time she put her nose in the cup, to see whether she blushed at what the + ebbing wine revealed. If the debutante blushed, they laughed at her for + her innocence; if she did not, she was laughed at for being too knowing.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you propose,” asked Anne, “that the custom should be revived at + Buckingham Palace?” + </p> + <p> + “I do not,” said Mr. Scogan. “I merely quoted the anecdote as an + illustration of the customs, so genially frank, of the sixteenth century. + I might have quoted other anecdotes to show that the customs of the + seventeenth and eighteenth, of the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries, and + indeed of every other century, from the time of Hammurabi onward, were + equally genial and equally frank. The only century in which customs were + not characterised by the same cheerful openness was the nineteenth, of + blessed memory. It was the astonishing exception. And yet, with what one + must suppose was a deliberate disregard of history, it looked upon its + horribly pregnant silences as normal and natural and right; the frankness + of the previous fifteen or twenty thousand years was considered abnormal + and perverse. It was a curious phenomenon.” + </p> + <p> + “I entirely agree.” Mary panted with excitement in her effort to bring out + what she had to say. “Havelock Ellis says...” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan, like a policeman arresting the flow of traffic, held up his + hand. “He does; I know. And that brings me to my next point: the nature of + the reaction.” + </p> + <p> + “Havelock Ellis...” + </p> + <p> + “The reaction, when it came—and we may say roughly that it set in a + little before the beginning of this century—the reaction was to + openness, but not to the same openness as had reigned in the earlier ages. + It was to a scientific openness, not to the jovial frankness of the past, + that we returned. The whole question of Amour became a terribly serious + one. Earnest young men wrote in the public prints that from this time + forth it would be impossible ever again to make a joke of any sexual + matter. Professors wrote thick books in which sex was sterilised and + dissected. It has become customary for serious young women, like Mary, to + discuss, with philosophic calm, matters of which the merest hint would + have sufficed to throw the youth of the sixties into a delirium of amorous + excitement. It is all very estimable, no doubt. But still”—Mr. + Scogan sighed.—“I for one should like to see, mingled with this + scientific ardour, a little more of the jovial spirit of Rabelais and + Chaucer.” + </p> + <p> + “I entirely disagree with you,” said Mary. “Sex isn’t a laughing matter; + it’s serious.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps,” answered Mr. Scogan, “perhaps I’m an obscene old man. For I + must confess that I cannot always regard it as wholly serious.” + </p> + <p> + “But I tell you...” began Mary furiously. Her face had flushed with + excitement. Her cheeks were the cheeks of a great ripe peach. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed,” Mr. Scogan continued, “it seems to me one of few permanently and + everlastingly amusing subjects that exist. Amour is the one human activity + of any importance in which laughter and pleasure preponderate, if ever so + slightly, over misery and pain.” + </p> + <p> + “I entirely disagree,” said Mary. There was a silence. + </p> + <p> + Anne looked at her watch. “Nearly a quarter to eight,” she said. “I wonder + when Ivor will turn up.” She got up from her deck-chair and, leaning her + elbows on the balustrade of the terrace, looked out over the valley and + towards the farther hills. Under the level evening light the architecture + of the land revealed itself. The deep shadows, the bright contrasting + lights gave the hills a new solidity. Irregularities of the surface, + unsuspected before, were picked out with light and shade. The grass, the + corn, the foliage of trees were stippled with intricate shadows. The + surface of things had taken on a marvellous enrichment. + </p> + <p> + “Look!” said Anne suddenly, and pointed. On the opposite side of the + valley, at the crest of the ridge, a cloud of dust flushed by the sunlight + to rosy gold was moving rapidly along the sky-line. “It’s Ivor. One can + tell by the speed.” + </p> + <p> + The dust cloud descended into the valley and was lost. A horn with the + voice of a sea-lion made itself heard, approaching. A minute later Ivor + came leaping round the corner of the house. His hair waved in the wind of + his own speed; he laughed as he saw them. + </p> + <p> + “Anne, darling,” he cried, and embraced her, embraced Mary, very nearly + embraced Mr. Scogan. “Well, here I am. I’ve come with incredulous speed.” + Ivor’s vocabulary was rich, but a little erratic. “I’m not late for + dinner, am I?” He hoisted himself up on to the balustrade, and sat there, + kicking his heels. With one arm he embraced a large stone flower-pot, + leaning his head sideways against its hard and lichenous flanks in an + attitude of trustful affection. He had brown, wavy hair, and his eyes were + of a very brilliant, pale, improbable blue. His head was narrow, his face + thin and rather long, his nose aquiline. In old age—though it was + difficult to imagine Ivor old—he might grow to have an Iron Ducal + grimness. But now, at twenty-six, it was not the structure of his face + that impressed one; it was its expression. That was charming and + vivacious, and his smile was an irradiation. He was forever moving, + restlessly and rapidly, but with an engaging gracefulness. His frail and + slender body seemed to be fed by a spring of inexhaustible energy. + </p> + <p> + “No, you’re not late.” + </p> + <p> + “You’re in time to answer a question,” said Mr. Scogan. “We were arguing + whether Amour were a serious matter or no. What do you think? Is it + serious?” + </p> + <p> + “Serious?” echoed Ivor. “Most certainly.” + </p> + <p> + “I told you so,” cried Mary triumphantly. + </p> + <p> + “But in what sense serious?” Mr. Scogan asked. + </p> + <p> + “I mean as an occupation. One can go on with it without ever getting + bored.” + </p> + <p> + “I see,” said Mr. Scogan. “Perfectly.” + </p> + <p> + “One can occupy oneself with it,” Ivor continued, “always and everywhere. + Women are always wonderfully the same. Shapes vary a little, that’s all. + In Spain”—with his free hand he described a series of ample curves—“one + can’t pass them on the stairs. In England”—he put the tip of his + forefinger against the tip of his thumb and, lowering his hand, drew out + this circle into an imaginary cylinder—“In England they’re tubular. + But their sentiments are always the same. At least, I’ve always found it + so.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m delighted to hear it,” said Mr. Scogan. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVI. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he ladies had left + the room and the port was circulating. Mr. Scogan filled his glass, passed + on the decanter, and, leaning back in his chair, looked about him for a + moment in silence. The conversation rippled idly round him, but he + disregarded it; he was smiling at some private joke. Gombauld noticed his + smile. + </p> + <p> + “What’s amusing you?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “I was just looking at you all, sitting round this table,” said Mr. + Scogan. + </p> + <p> + “Are we as comic as all that?” + </p> + <p> + “Not at all,” Mr. Scogan answered politely. “I was merely amused by my own + speculations.” + </p> + <p> + “And what were they?” + </p> + <p> + “The idlest, the most academic of speculations. I was looking at you one + by one and trying to imagine which of the first six Caesars you would each + resemble, if you were given the opportunity of behaving like a Caesar. The + Caesars are one of my touchstones,” Mr. Scogan explained. “They are + characters functioning, so to speak, in the void. They are human beings + developed to their logical conclusions. Hence their unequalled value as a + touchstone, a standard. When I meet someone for the first time, I ask + myself this question: Given the Caesarean environment, which of the + Caesars would this person resemble—Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, + Caligula, Claudius, Nero? I take each trait of character, each mental and + emotional bias, each little oddity, and magnify them a thousand times. The + resulting image gives me his Caesarean formula.” + </p> + <p> + “And which of the Caesars do you resemble?” asked Gombauld. + </p> + <p> + “I am potentially all of them,” Mr. Scogan replied, “all—with the + possible exception of Claudius, who was much too stupid to be a + development of anything in my character. The seeds of Julius’s courage and + compelling energy, of Augustus’s prudence, of the libidinousness and + cruelty of Tiberius, of Caligula’s folly, of Nero’s artistic genius and + enormous vanity, are all within me. Given the opportunities, I might have + been something fabulous. But circumstances were against me. I was born and + brought up in a country rectory; I passed my youth doing a great deal of + utterly senseless hard work for a very little money. The result is that + now, in middle age, I am the poor thing that I am. But perhaps it is as + well. Perhaps, too, it’s as well that Denis hasn’t been permitted to + flower into a little Nero, and that Ivor remains only potentially a + Caligula. Yes, it’s better so, no doubt. But it would have been more + amusing, as a spectacle, if they had had the chance to develop, + untrammelled, the full horror of their potentialities. It would have been + pleasant and interesting to watch their tics and foibles and little vices + swelling and burgeoning and blossoming into enormous and fantastic flowers + of cruelty and pride and lewdness and avarice. The Caesarean environment + makes the Caesar, as the special food and the queenly cell make the queen + bee. We differ from the bees in so far that, given the proper food, they + can be sure of making a queen every time. With us there is no such + certainty; out of every ten men placed in the Caesarean environment one + will be temperamentally good, or intelligent, or great. The rest will + blossom into Caesars; he will not. Seventy and eighty years ago + simple-minded people, reading of the exploits of the Bourbons in South + Italy, cried out in amazement: To think that such things should be + happening in the nineteenth century! And a few years since we too were + astonished to find that in our still more astonishing twentieth century, + unhappy blackamoors on the Congo and the Amazon were being treated as + English serfs were treated in the time of Stephen. To-day we are no longer + surprised at these things. The Black and Tans harry Ireland, the Poles + maltreat the Silesians, the bold Fascisti slaughter their poorer + countrymen: we take it all for granted. Since the war we wonder at + nothing. We have created a Caesarean environment and a host of little + Caesars has sprung up. What could be more natural?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan drank off what was left of his port and refilled the glass. + </p> + <p> + “At this very moment,” he went on, “the most frightful horrors are taking + place in every corner of the world. People are being crushed, slashed, + disembowelled, mangled; their dead bodies rot and their eyes decay with + the rest. Screams of pain and fear go pulsing through the air at the rate + of eleven hundred feet per second. After travelling for three seconds they + are perfectly inaudible. These are distressing facts; but do we enjoy life + any the less because of them? Most certainly we do not. We feel sympathy, + no doubt; we represent to ourselves imaginatively the sufferings of + nations and individuals and we deplore them. But, after all, what are + sympathy and imagination? Precious little, unless the person for whom we + feel sympathy happens to be closely involved in our affections; and even + then they don’t go very far. And a good thing too; for if one had an + imagination vivid enough and a sympathy sufficiently sensitive really to + comprehend and to feel the sufferings of other people, one would never + have a moment’s peace of mind. A really sympathetic race would not so much + as know the meaning of happiness. But luckily, as I’ve already said, we + aren’t a sympathetic race. At the beginning of the war I used to think I + really suffered, through imagination and sympathy, with those who + physically suffered. But after a month or two I had to admit that, + honestly, I didn’t. And yet I think I have a more vivid imagination than + most. One is always alone in suffering; the fact is depressing when one + happens to be the sufferer, but it makes pleasure possible for the rest of + the world.” + </p> + <p> + There was a pause. Henry Wimbush pushed back his chair. + </p> + <p> + “I think perhaps we ought to go and join the ladies,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “So do I,” said Ivor, jumping up with alacrity. He turned to Mr. Scogan. + “Fortunately,” he said, “we can share our pleasures. We are not always + condemned to be happy alone.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVII. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>vor brought his + hands down with a bang on to the final chord of his rhapsody. There was + just a hint in that triumphant harmony that the seventh had been struck + along with the octave by the thumb of the left hand; but the general + effect of splendid noise emerged clearly enough. Small details matter + little so long as the general effect is good. And, besides, that hint of + the seventh was decidedly modern. He turned round in his seat and tossed + the hair back out of his eyes. + </p> + <p> + “There,” he said. “That’s the best I can do for you, I’m afraid.” + </p> + <p> + Murmurs of applause and gratitude were heard, and Mary, her large china + eyes fixed on the performer, cried out aloud, “Wonderful!” and gasped for + new breath as though she were suffocating. + </p> + <p> + Nature and fortune had vied with one another in heaping on Ivor Lombard + all their choicest gifts. He had wealth and he was perfectly independent. + He was good looking, possessed an irresistible charm of manner, and was + the hero of more amorous successes than he could well remember. His + accomplishments were extraordinary for their number and variety. He had a + beautiful untrained tenor voice; he could improvise, with a startling + brilliance, rapidly and loudly, on the piano. He was a good amateur medium + and telepathist, and had a considerable first-hand knowledge of the next + world. He could write rhymed verses with an extraordinary rapidity. For + painting symbolical pictures he had a dashing style, and if the drawing + was sometimes a little weak, the colour was always pyrotechnical. He + excelled in amateur theatricals and, when occasion offered, he could cook + with genius. He resembled Shakespeare in knowing little Latin and less + Greek. For a mind like his, education seemed supererogatory. Training + would only have destroyed his natural aptitudes. + </p> + <p> + “Let’s go out into the garden,” Ivor suggested. “It’s a wonderful night.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you,” said Mr. Scogan, “but I for one prefer these still more + wonderful arm-chairs.” His pipe had begun to bubble oozily every time he + pulled at it. He was perfectly happy. + </p> + <p> + Henry Wimbush was also happy. He looked for a moment over his pince-nez in + Ivor’s direction and then, without saying anything, returned to the grimy + little sixteenth-century account books which were now his favourite + reading. He knew more about Sir Ferdinando’s household expenses than about + his own. + </p> + <p> + The outdoor party, enrolled under Ivor’s banner, consisted of Anne, Mary, + Denis, and, rather unexpectedly, Jenny. Outside it was warm and dark; + there was no moon. They walked up and down the terrace, and Ivor sang a + Neapolitan song: “Stretti, stretti”—close, close—with + something about the little Spanish girl to follow. The atmosphere began to + palpitate. Ivor put his arm round Anne’s waist, dropped his head sideways + onto her shoulder, and in that position walked on, singing as he walked. + It seemed the easiest, the most natural, thing in the world. Denis + wondered why he had never done it. He hated Ivor. + </p> + <p> + “Let’s go down to the pool,” said Ivor. He disengaged his embrace and + turned round to shepherd his little flock. They made their way along the + side of the house to the entrance of the yew-tree walk that led down to + the lower garden. Between the blank precipitous wall of the house and the + tall yew trees the path was a chasm of impenetrable gloom. Somewhere there + were steps down to the right, a gap in the yew hedge. Denis, who headed + the party, groped his way cautiously; in this darkness, one had an + irrational fear of yawning precipices, of horrible spiked obstructions. + Suddenly from behind him he heard a shrill, startled, “Oh!” and then a + sharp, dry concussion that might have been the sound of a slap. After + that, Jenny’s voice was heard pronouncing, “I am going back to the house.” + Her tone was decided, and even as she pronounced the words she was melting + away into the darkness. The incident, whatever it had been, was closed. + Denis resumed his forward groping. From somewhere behind Ivor began to + sing again, softly: + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “Phillis plus avare que tendre + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Ne gagnant rien à refuser, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Un jour exigea à Silvandre + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Trente moutons pour un baiser.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + The melody drooped and climbed again with a kind of easy languor; the warm + darkness seemed to pulse like blood about them. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “Le lendemain, nouvelle affaire: + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Pour le berger le troc fut bon...” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + “Here are the steps,” cried Denis. He guided his companions over the + danger, and in a moment they had the turf of the yew-tree walk under their + feet. It was lighter here, or at least it was just perceptibly less dark; + for the yew walk was wider than the path that had led them under the lea + of the house. Looking up, they could see between the high black hedges a + strip of sky and a few stars. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “Car il obtint de la bergere...” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + Went on Ivor, and then interrupted himself to shout, “I’m going to run + down,” and he was off, full speed, down the invisible slope, singing + unevenly as he went: + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “Trente baisers pour un mouton.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + The others followed. Denis shambled in the rear, vainly exhorting everyone + to caution: the slope was steep, one might break one’s neck. What was + wrong with these people, he wondered? They had become like young kittens + after a dose of cat-nip. He himself felt a certain kittenishness sporting + within him; but it was, like all his emotions, rather a theoretical + feeling; it did not overmasteringly seek to express itself in a practical + demonstration of kittenishness. + </p> + <p> + “Be careful,” he shouted once more, and hardly were the words out of his + mouth when, thump! there was the sound of a heavy fall in front of him, + followed by the long “F-f-f-f-f” of a breath indrawn with pain and + afterwards by a very sincere, “Oo-ooh!” Denis was almost pleased; he had + told them so, the idiots, and they wouldn’t listen. He trotted down the + slope towards the unseen sufferer. + </p> + <p> + Mary came down the hill like a runaway steam-engine. It was tremendously + exciting, this blind rush through the dark; she felt she would never stop. + But the ground grew level beneath her feet, her speed insensibly + slackened, and suddenly she was caught by an extended arm and brought to + an abrupt halt. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Ivor as he tightened his embrace, “you’re caught now, Anne.” + </p> + <p> + She made an effort to release herself. “It’s not Anne. It’s Mary.” + </p> + <p> + Ivor burst into a peal of amused laughter. “So it is!” he exclaimed. “I + seem to be making nothing but floaters this evening. I’ve already made one + with Jenny.” He laughed again, and there was something so jolly about his + laughter that Mary could not help laughing too. He did not remove his + encircling arm, and somehow it was all so amusing and natural that Mary + made no further attempt to escape from it. They walked along by the side + of the pool, interlaced. Mary was too short for him to be able, with any + comfort, to lay his head on her shoulder. He rubbed his cheek, caressed + and caressing, against the thick, sleek mass of her hair. In a little + while he began to sing again; the night trembled amorously to the sound of + his voice. When he had finished he kissed her. Anne or Mary: Mary or Anne. + It didn’t seem to make much difference which it was. There were + differences in detail, of course; but the general effect was the same; + and, after all, the general effect was the important thing. + </p> + <p> + Denis made his way down the hill. + </p> + <p> + “Any damage done?” he called out. + </p> + <p> + “Is that you, Denis? I’ve hurt my ankle so—and my knee, and my hand. + I’m all in pieces.” + </p> + <p> + “My poor Anne,” he said. “But then,” he couldn’t help adding, “it was + silly to start running downhill in the dark.” + </p> + <p> + “Ass!” she retorted in a tone of tearful irritation; “of course it was.” + </p> + <p> + He sat down beside her on the grass, and found himself breathing the + faint, delicious atmosphere of perfume that she carried always with her. + </p> + <p> + “Light a match,” she commanded. “I want to look at my wounds.” + </p> + <p> + He felt in his pockets for the match-box. The light spurted and then grew + steady. Magically, a little universe had been created, a world of colours + and forms—Anne’s face, the shimmering orange of her dress, her + white, bare arms, a patch of green turf—and round about a darkness + that had become solid and utterly blind. Anne held out her hands; both + were green and earthy with her fall, and the left exhibited two or three + red abrasions. + </p> + <p> + “Not so bad,” she said. But Denis was terribly distressed, and his emotion + was intensified when, looking up at her face, he saw that the trace of + tears, involuntary tears of pain, lingered on her eyelashes. He pulled out + his handkerchief and began to wipe away the dirt from the wounded hand. + The match went out; it was not worth while to light another. Anne allowed + herself to be attended to, meekly and gratefully. “Thank you,” she said, + when he had finished cleaning and bandaging her hand; and there was + something in her tone that made him feel that she had lost her superiority + over him, that she was younger than he, had become, suddenly, almost a + child. He felt tremendously large and protective. The feeling was so + strong that instinctively he put his arm about her. She drew closer, + leaned against him, and so they sat in silence. Then, from below, soft but + wonderfully clear through the still darkness, they heard the sound of + Ivor’s singing. He was going on with his half-finished song: + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “Le lendemain Phillis plus tendre, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Ne voulant deplaire au berger, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Fut trop heureuse de lui rendre + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Trente moutons pour un baiser.” + </p> + <p> + There was a rather prolonged pause. It was as though time were being + allowed for the giving and receiving of a few of those thirty kisses. Then + the voice sang on: + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “Le lendemain Phillis peu sage + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Aurait donne moutons et chien + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Pour un baiser que le volage + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + À Lisette donnait pour rien.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + The last note died away into an uninterrupted silence. + </p> + <p> + “Are you better?” Denis whispered. “Are you comfortable like this?” + </p> + <p> + She nodded a Yes to both questions. + </p> + <p> + “Trente moutons pour un baiser.” The sheep, the woolly mutton—baa, + baa, baa...? Or the shepherd? Yes, decidedly, he felt himself to be the + shepherd now. He was the master, the protector. A wave of courage swelled + through him, warm as wine. He turned his head, and began to kiss her face, + at first rather randomly, then, with more precision, on the mouth. + </p> + <p> + Anne averted her head; he kissed the ear, the smooth nape that this + movement presented him. “No,” she protested; “no, Denis.” + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” + </p> + <p> + “It spoils our friendship, and that was so jolly.” + </p> + <p> + “Bosh!” said Denis. + </p> + <p> + She tried to explain. “Can’t you see,” she said, “it isn’t...it isn’t our + stunt at all.” It was true. Somehow she had never thought of Denis in the + light of a man who might make love; she had never so much as conceived the + possibilities of an amorous relationship with him. He was so absurdly + young, so...so...she couldn’t find the adjective, but she knew what she + meant. + </p> + <p> + “Why isn’t it our stunt?” asked Denis. “And, by the way, that’s a horrible + and inappropriate expression.” + </p> + <p> + “Because it isn’t.” + </p> + <p> + “But if I say it is?” + </p> + <p> + “It makes no difference. I say it isn’t.” + </p> + <p> + “I shall make you say it is.” + </p> + <p> + “All right, Denis. But you must do it another time. I must go in and get + my ankle into hot water. It’s beginning to swell.” + </p> + <p> + Reasons of health could not be gainsaid. Denis got up reluctantly, and + helped his companion to her feet. She took a cautious step. “Ooh!” She + halted and leaned heavily on his arm. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll carry you,” Denis offered. He had never tried to carry a woman, but + on the cinema it always looked an easy piece of heroism. + </p> + <p> + “You couldn’t,” said Anne. + </p> + <p> + “Of course I can.” He felt larger and more protective than ever. “Put your + arms round my neck,” he ordered. She did so and, stooping, he picked her + up under the knees and lifted her from the ground. Good heavens, what a + weight! He took five staggering steps up the slope, then almost lost his + equilibrium, and had to deposit his burden suddenly, with something of a + bump. + </p> + <p> + Anne was shaking with laughter. “I said you couldn’t, my poor Denis.” + </p> + <p> + “I can,” said Denis, without conviction. “I’ll try again.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s perfectly sweet of you to offer, but I’d rather walk, thanks.” She + laid her hand on his shoulder and, thus supported, began to limp slowly up + the hill. + </p> + <p> + “My poor Denis!” she repeated, and laughed again. Humiliated, he was + silent. It seemed incredible that, only two minutes ago, he should have + been holding her in his embrace, kissing her. Incredible. She was helpless + then, a child. Now she had regained all her superiority; she was once more + the far-off being, desired and unassailable. Why had he been such a fool + as to suggest that carrying stunt? He reached the house in a state of the + profoundest depression. + </p> + <p> + He helped Anne upstairs, left her in the hands of a maid, and came down + again to the drawing-room. He was surprised to find them all sitting just + where he had left them. He had expected that, somehow, everything would be + quite different—it seemed such a prodigious time since he went away. + All silent and all damned, he reflected, as he looked at them. Mr. + Scogan’s pipe still wheezed; that was the only sound. Henry Wimbush was + still deep in his account books; he had just made the discovery that Sir + Ferdinando was in the habit of eating oysters the whole summer through, + regardless of the absence of the justifying R. Gombauld, in horn-rimmed + spectacles, was reading. Jenny was mysteriously scribbling in her red + notebook. And, seated in her favourite arm-chair at the corner of the + hearth, Priscilla was looking through a pile of drawings. One by one she + held them out at arm’s length and, throwing back her mountainous orange + head, looked long and attentively through half-closed eyelids. She wore a + pale sea-green dress; on the slope of her mauve-powdered decolletage + diamonds twinkled. An immensely long cigarette-holder projected at an + angle from her face. Diamonds were embedded in her high-piled coiffure; + they glittered every time she moved. It was a batch of Ivor’s drawings—sketches + of Spirit Life, made in the course of tranced tours through the other + world. On the back of each sheet descriptive titles were written: + “Portrait of an Angel, 15th March ‘20;” “Astral Beings at Play, 3rd + December ‘19;” “A Party of Souls on their Way to a Higher Sphere, 21st May + ‘21.” Before examining the drawing on the obverse of each sheet, she + turned it over to read the title. Try as she could—and she tried + hard—Priscilla had never seen a vision or succeeded in establishing + any communication with the Spirit World. She had to be content with the + reported experiences of others. + </p> + <p> + “What have you done with the rest of your party?” she asked, looking up as + Denis entered the room. + </p> + <p> + He explained. Anne had gone to bed, Ivor and Mary were still in the + garden. He selected a book and a comfortable chair, and tried, as far as + the disturbed state of his mind would permit him, to compose himself for + an evening’s reading. The lamplight was utterly serene; there was no + movement save the stir of Priscilla among her papers. All silent and all + damned, Denis repeated to himself, all silent and all damned... + </p> + <p> + It was nearly an hour later when Ivor and Mary made their appearance. + </p> + <p> + “We waited to see the moon rise,” said Ivor. + </p> + <p> + “It was gibbous, you know,” Mary explained, very technical and scientific. + </p> + <p> + “It was so beautiful down in the garden! The trees, the scent of the + flowers, the stars...” Ivor waved his arms. “And when the moon came up, it + was really too much. It made me burst into tears.” He sat down at the + piano and opened the lid. + </p> + <p> + “There were a great many meteorites,” said Mary to anyone who would + listen. “The earth must just be coming into the summer shower of them. In + July and August...” + </p> + <p> + But Ivor had already begun to strike the keys. He played the garden, the + stars, the scent of flowers, the rising moon. He even put in a nightingale + that was not there. Mary looked on and listened with parted lips. The + others pursued their occupations, without appearing to be seriously + disturbed. On this very July day, exactly three hundred and fifty years + ago, Sir Ferdinando had eaten seven dozen oysters. The discovery of this + fact gave Henry Wimbush a peculiar pleasure. He had a natural piety which + made him delight in the celebration of memorial feasts. The three hundred + and fiftieth anniversary of the seven dozen oysters...He wished he had + known before dinner; he would have ordered champagne. + </p> + <p> + On her way to bed Mary paid a call. The light was out in Anne’s room, but + she was not yet asleep. + </p> + <p> + “Why didn’t you come down to the garden with us?” Mary asked. + </p> + <p> + “I fell down and twisted my ankle. Denis helped me home.” + </p> + <p> + Mary was full of sympathy. Inwardly, too, she was relieved to find Anne’s + non-appearance so simply accounted for. She had been vaguely suspicious, + down there in the garden—suspicious of what, she hardly knew; but + there had seemed to be something a little louche in the way she had + suddenly found herself alone with Ivor. Not that she minded, of course; + far from it. But she didn’t like the idea that perhaps she was the victim + of a put-up job. + </p> + <p> + “I do hope you’ll be better to-morrow,” she said, and she commiserated + with Anne on all she had missed—the garden, the stars, the scent of + flowers, the meteorites through whose summer shower the earth was now + passing, the rising moon and its gibbosity. And then they had had such + interesting conversation. What about? About almost everything. Nature, + art, science, poetry, the stars, spiritualism, the relations of the sexes, + music, religion. Ivor, she thought, had an interesting mind. + </p> + <p> + The two young ladies parted affectionately. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVIII. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he nearest Roman + Catholic church was upwards of twenty miles away. Ivor, who was + punctilious in his devotions, came down early to breakfast and had his car + at the door, ready to start, by a quarter to ten. It was a smart, + expensive-looking machine, enamelled a pure lemon yellow and upholstered + in emerald green leather. There were two seats—three if you squeezed + tightly enough—and their occupants were protected from wind, dust, + and weather by a glazed sedan that rose, an elegant eighteenth-century + hump, from the midst of the body of the car. + </p> + <p> + Mary had never been to a Roman Catholic service, thought it would be an + interesting experience, and, when the car moved off through the great + gates of the courtyard, she was occupying the spare seat in the sedan. The + sea-lion horn roared, faintlier, faintlier, and they were gone. + </p> + <p> + In the parish church of Crome Mr. Bodiham preached on 1 Kings vi. 18: “And + the cedar of the house within was carved with knops”—a sermon of + immediately local interest. For the past two years the problem of the War + Memorial had exercised the minds of all those in Crome who had enough + leisure, or mental energy, or party spirit to think of such things. Henry + Wimbush was all for a library—a library of local literature, stocked + with county histories, old maps of the district, monographs on the local + antiquities, dialect dictionaries, handbooks of the local geology and + natural history. He liked to think of the villagers, inspired by such + reading, making up parties of a Sunday afternoon to look for fossils and + flint arrow-heads. The villagers themselves favoured the idea of a + memorial reservoir and water supply. But the busiest and most articulate + party followed Mr. Bodiham in demanding something religious in character—a + second lich-gate, for example, a stained-glass window, a monument of + marble, or, if possible, all three. So far, however, nothing had been + done, partly because the memorial committee had never been able to agree, + partly for the more cogent reason that too little money had been + subscribed to carry out any of the proposed schemes. Every three or four + months Mr. Bodiham preached a sermon on the subject. His last had been + delivered in March; it was high time that his congregation had a fresh + reminder. + </p> + <p> + “And the cedar of the house within was carved with knops.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Bodiham touched lightly on Solomon’s temple. From thence he passed to + temples and churches in general. What were the characteristics of these + buildings dedicated to God? Obviously, the fact of their, from a human + point of view, complete uselessness. They were unpractical buildings + “carved with knops.” Solomon might have built a library—indeed, what + could be more to the taste of the world’s wisest man? He might have dug a + reservoir—what more useful in a parched city like Jerusalem? He did + neither; he built a house all carved with knops, useless and unpractical. + Why? Because he was dedicating the work to God. There had been much talk + in Crome about the proposed War Memorial. A War Memorial was, in its very + nature, a work dedicated to God. It was a token of thankfulness that the + first stage in the culminating world-war had been crowned by the triumph + of righteousness; it was at the same time a visibly embodied supplication + that God might not long delay the Advent which alone could bring the final + peace. A library, a reservoir? Mr. Bodiham scornfully and indignantly + condemned the idea. These were works dedicated to man, not to God. As a + War Memorial they were totally unsuitable. A lich-gate had been suggested. + This was an object which answered perfectly to the definition of a War + Memorial: a useless work dedicated to God and carved with knops. One + lich-gate, it was true, already existed. But nothing would be easier than + to make a second entrance into the churchyard; and a second entrance would + need a second gate. Other suggestions had been made. Stained-glass + windows, a monument of marble. Both these were admirable, especially the + latter. It was high time that the War Memorial was erected. It might soon + be too late. At any moment, like a thief in the night, God might come. + Meanwhile a difficulty stood in the way. Funds were inadequate. All should + subscribe according to their means. Those who had lost relations in the + war might reasonably be expected to subscribe a sum equal to that which + they would have had to pay in funeral expenses if the relative had died + while at home. Further delay was disastrous. The War Memorial must be + built at once. He appealed to the patriotism and the Christian sentiments + of all his hearers. + </p> + <p> + Henry Wimbush walked home thinking of the books he would present to the + War Memorial Library, if ever it came into existence. He took the path + through the fields; it was pleasanter than the road. At the first stile a + group of village boys, loutish young fellows all dressed in the hideous + ill-fitting black which makes a funeral of every English Sunday and + holiday, were assembled, drearily guffawing as they smoked their + cigarettes. They made way for Henry Wimbush, touching their caps as he + passed. He returned their salute; his bowler and face were one in their + unruffled gravity. + </p> + <p> + In Sir Ferdinando’s time, he reflected, in the time of his son, Sir + Julius, these young men would have had their Sunday diversions even at + Crome, remote and rustic Crome. There would have been archery, skittles, + dancing—social amusements in which they would have partaken as + members of a conscious community. Now they had nothing, nothing except Mr. + Bodiham’s forbidding Boys’ Club and the rare dances and concerts organised + by himself. Boredom or the urban pleasures of the county metropolis were + the alternatives that presented themselves to these poor youths. Country + pleasures were no more; they had been stamped out by the Puritans. + </p> + <p> + In Manningham’s Diary for 1600 there was a queer passage, he remembered, a + very queer passage. Certain magistrates in Berkshire, Puritan magistrates, + had had wind of a scandal. One moonlit summer night they had ridden out + with their posse and there, among the hills, they had come upon a company + of men and women, dancing, stark naked, among the sheepcotes. The + magistrates and their men had ridden their horses into the crowd. How + self-conscious the poor people must suddenly have felt, how helpless + without their clothes against armed and booted horsemen! The dancers were + arrested, whipped, gaoled, set in the stocks; the moonlight dance is never + danced again. What old, earthy, Panic rite came to extinction here? he + wondered. Who knows?—perhaps their ancestors had danced like this in + the moonlight ages before Adam and Eve were so much as thought of. He + liked to think so. And now it was no more. These weary young men, if they + wanted to dance, would have to bicycle six miles to the town. The country + was desolate, without life of its own, without indigenous pleasures. The + pious magistrates had snuffed out for ever a little happy flame that had + burned from the beginning of time. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “And as on Tullia’s tomb one lamp burned clear, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Unchanged for fifteen hundred year...” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + He repeated the lines to himself, and was desolated to think of all the + murdered past. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIX. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>enry Wimbush’s + long cigar burned aromatically. The “History of Crome” lay on his knee; + slowly he turned over the pages. + </p> + <p> + “I can’t decide what episode to read you to-night,” he said thoughtfully. + “Sir Ferdinando’s voyages are not without interest. Then, of course, + there’s his son, Sir Julius. It was he who suffered from the delusion that + his perspiration engendered flies; it drove him finally to suicide. Or + there’s Sir Cyprian.” He turned the pages more rapidly. “Or Sir Henry. Or + Sir George...No, I’m inclined to think I won’t read about any of these.” + </p> + <p> + “But you must read something,” insisted Mr. Scogan, taking his pipe out of + his mouth. + </p> + <p> + “I think I shall read about my grandfather,” said Henry Wimbush, “and the + events that led up to his marriage with the eldest daughter of the last + Sir Ferdinando.” + </p> + <p> + “Good,” said Mr. Scogan. “We are listening.” + </p> + <p> + “Before I begin reading,” said Henry Wimbush, looking up from the book and + taking off the pince-nez which he had just fitted to his nose—“before + I begin, I must say a few preliminary words about Sir Ferdinando, the last + of the Lapiths. At the death of the virtuous and unfortunate Sir Hercules, + Ferdinando found himself in possession of the family fortune, not a little + increased by his father’s temperance and thrift; he applied himself + forthwith to the task of spending it, which he did in an ample and jovial + fashion. By the time he was forty he had eaten and, above all, drunk and + loved away about half his capital, and would infallibly have soon got rid + of the rest in the same manner, if he had not had the good fortune to + become so madly enamoured of the Rector’s daughter as to make a proposal + of marriage. The young lady accepted him, and in less than a year had + become the absolute mistress of Crome and her husband. An extraordinary + reformation made itself apparent in Sir Ferdinando’s character. He grew + regular and economical in his habits; he even became temperate, rarely + drinking more than a bottle and a half of port at a sitting. The waning + fortune of the Lapiths began once more to wax, and that in despite of the + hard times (for Sir Ferdinando married in 1809 in the height of the + Napoleonic Wars). A prosperous and dignified old age, cheered by the + spectacle of his children’s growth and happiness—for Lady Lapith had + already borne him three daughters, and there seemed no good reason why she + should not bear many more of them, and sons as well—a patriarchal + decline into the family vault, seemed now to be Sir Ferdinando’s enviable + destiny. But Providence willed otherwise. To Napoleon, cause already of + such infinite mischief, was due, though perhaps indirectly, the untimely + and violent death which put a period to this reformed existence. + </p> + <p> + “Sir Ferdinando, who was above all things a patriot, had adopted, from the + earliest days of the conflict with the French, his own peculiar method of + celebrating our victories. When the happy news reached London, it was his + custom to purchase immediately a large store of liquor and, taking a place + on whichever of the outgoing coaches he happened to light on first, to + drive through the country proclaiming the good news to all he met on the + road and dispensing it, along with the liquor, at every stopping-place to + all who cared to listen or drink. Thus, after the Nile, he had driven as + far as Edinburgh; and later, when the coaches, wreathed with laurel for + triumph, with cypress for mourning, were setting out with the news of + Nelson’s victory and death, he sat through all a chilly October night on + the box of the Norwich ‘Meteor’ with a nautical keg of rum on his knees + and two cases of old brandy under the seat. This genial custom was one of + the many habits which he abandoned on his marriage. The victories in the + Peninsula, the retreat from Moscow, Leipzig, and the abdication of the + tyrant all went uncelebrated. It so happened, however, that in the summer + of 1815 Sir Ferdinando was staying for a few weeks in the capital. There + had been a succession of anxious, doubtful days; then came the glorious + news of Waterloo. It was too much for Sir Ferdinando; his joyous youth + awoke again within him. He hurried to his wine merchant and bought a dozen + bottles of 1760 brandy. The Bath coach was on the point of starting; he + bribed his way on to the box and, seated in glory beside the driver, + proclaimed aloud the downfall of the Corsican bandit and passed about the + warm liquid joy. They clattered through Uxbridge, Slough, Maidenhead. + Sleeping Reading was awakened by the great news. At Didcot one of the + ostlers was so much overcome by patriotic emotions and the 1760 brandy + that he found it impossible to do up the buckles of the harness. The night + began to grow chilly, and Sir Ferdinando found that it was not enough to + take a nip at every stage: to keep up his vital warmth he was compelled to + drink between the stages as well. They were approaching Swindon. The coach + was travelling at a dizzy speed—six miles in the last half-hour—when, + without having manifested the slightest premonitory symptom of + unsteadiness, Sir Ferdinando suddenly toppled sideways off his seat and + fell, head foremost, into the road. An unpleasant jolt awakened the + slumbering passengers. The coach was brought to a standstill; the guard + ran back with a light. He found Sir Ferdinando still alive, but + unconscious; blood was oozing from his mouth. The back wheels of the coach + had passed over his body, breaking most of his ribs and both arms. His + skull was fractured in two places. They picked him up, but he was dead + before they reached the next stage. So perished Sir Ferdinando, a victim + to his own patriotism. Lady Lapith did not marry again, but determined to + devote the rest of her life to the well-being of her three children—Georgiana, + now five years old, and Emmeline and Caroline, twins of two.” + </p> + <p> + Henry Wimbush paused, and once more put on his pince-nez. “So much by way + of introduction,” he said. “Now I can begin to read about my grandfather.” + </p> + <p> + “One moment,” said Mr. Scogan, “till I’ve refilled my pipe.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Wimbush waited. Seated apart in a corner of the room, Ivor was showing + Mary his sketches of Spirit Life. They spoke together in whispers. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan had lighted his pipe again. “Fire away,” he said. + </p> + <p> + Henry Wimbush fired away. + </p> + <p> + “It was in the spring of 1833 that my grandfather, George Wimbush, first + made the acquaintance of the ‘three lovely Lapiths,’ as they were always + called. He was then a young man of twenty-two, with curly yellow hair and + a smooth pink face that was the mirror of his youthful and ingenuous mind. + He had been educated at Harrow and Christ Church, he enjoyed hunting and + all other field sports, and, though his circumstances were comfortable to + the verge of affluence, his pleasures were temperate and innocent. His + father, an East Indian merchant, had destined him for a political career, + and had gone to considerable expense in acquiring a pleasant little + Cornish borough as a twenty-first birthday gift for his son. He was justly + indignant when, on the very eve of George’s majority, the Reform Bill of + 1832 swept the borough out of existence. The inauguration of George’s + political career had to be postponed. At the time he got to know the + lovely Lapiths he was waiting; he was not at all impatient. + </p> + <p> + “The lovely Lapiths did not fail to impress him. Georgiana, the eldest, + with her black ringlets, her flashing eyes, her noble aquiline profile, + her swan-like neck, and sloping shoulders, was orientally dazzling; and + the twins, with their delicately turned-up noses, their blue eyes, and + chestnut hair, were an identical pair of ravishingly English charmers. + </p> + <p> + “Their conversation at this first meeting proved, however, to be so + forbidding that, but for the invincible attraction exercised by their + beauty, George would never have had the courage to follow up the + acquaintance. The twins, looking up their noses at him with an air of + languid superiority, asked him what he thought of the latest French poetry + and whether he liked the ‘Indiana’ of George Sand. But what was almost + worse was the question with which Georgiana opened her conversation with + him. ‘In music,’ she asked, leaning forward and fixing him with her large + dark eyes, ‘are you a classicist or a transcendentalist?’ George did not + lose his presence of mind. He had enough appreciation of music to know + that he hated anything classical, and so, with a promptitude which did him + credit, he replied, ‘I am a transcendentalist.’ Georgiana smiled + bewitchingly. ‘I am glad,’ she said; ‘so am I. You went to hear Paganini + last week, of course. “The prayer of Moses”—ah!’ She closed her + eyes. ‘Do you know anything more transcendental than that?’ ‘No,’ said + George, ‘I don’t.’ He hesitated, was about to go on speaking, and then + decided that after all it would be wiser not to say—what was in fact + true—that he had enjoyed above all Paganini’s Farmyard Imitations. + The man had made his fiddle bray like an ass, cluck like a hen, grunt, + squeal, bark, neigh, quack, bellow, and growl; that last item, in George’s + estimation, had almost compensated for the tediousness of the rest of the + concert. He smiled with pleasure at the thought of it. Yes, decidedly, he + was no classicist in music; he was a thoroughgoing transcendentalist. + </p> + <p> + “George followed up this first introduction by paying a call on the young + ladies and their mother, who occupied, during the season, a small but + elegant house in the neighbourhood of Berkeley Square. Lady Lapith made a + few discreet inquiries, and having found that George’s financial position, + character, and family were all passably good, she asked him to dine. She + hoped and expected that her daughters would all marry into the peerage; + but, being a prudent woman, she knew it was advisable to prepare for all + contingencies. George Wimbush, she thought, would make an excellent second + string for one of the twins. + </p> + <p> + “At this first dinner, George’s partner was Emmeline. They talked of + Nature. Emmeline protested that to her high mountains were a feeling and + the hum of human cities torture. George agreed that the country was very + agreeable, but held that London during the season also had its charms. He + noticed with surprise and a certain solicitous distress that Miss + Emmeline’s appetite was poor, that it didn’t, in fact, exist. Two + spoonfuls of soup, a morsel of fish, no bird, no meat, and three grapes—that + was her whole dinner. He looked from time to time at her two sisters; + Georgiana and Caroline seemed to be quite as abstemious. They waved away + whatever was offered them with an expression of delicate disgust, shutting + their eyes and averting their faces from the proffered dish, as though the + lemon sole, the duck, the loin of veal, the trifle, were objects revolting + to the sight and smell. George, who thought the dinner capital, ventured + to comment on the sisters’ lack of appetite. + </p> + <p> + “‘Pray, don’t talk to me of eating,’ said Emmeline, drooping like a + sensitive plant. ‘We find it so coarse, so unspiritual, my sisters and I. + One can’t think of one’s soul while one is eating.’ + </p> + <p> + “George agreed; one couldn’t. ‘But one must live,’ he said. + </p> + <p> + “‘Alas!’ Emmeline sighed. ‘One must. Death is very beautiful, don’t you + think?’ She broke a corner off a piece of toast and began to nibble at it + languidly. ‘But since, as you say, one must live...’ She made a little + gesture of resignation. ‘Luckily a very little suffices to keep one + alive.’ She put down her corner of toast half eaten. + </p> + <p> + “George regarded her with some surprise. She was pale, but she looked + extraordinarily healthy, he thought; so did her sisters. Perhaps if you + were really spiritual you needed less food. He, clearly, was not + spiritual. + </p> + <p> + “After this he saw them frequently. They all liked him, from Lady Lapith + downwards. True, he was not very romantic or poetical; but he was such a + pleasant, unpretentious, kind-hearted young man, that one couldn’t help + liking him. For his part, he thought them wonderful, wonderful, especially + Georgiana. He enveloped them all in a warm, protective affection. For they + needed protection; they were altogether too frail, too spiritual for this + world. They never ate, they were always pale, they often complained of + fever, they talked much and lovingly of death, they frequently swooned. + Georgiana was the most ethereal of all; of the three she ate least, + swooned most often, talked most of death, and was the palest—with a + pallor that was so startling as to appear positively artificial. At any + moment, it seemed, she might loose her precarious hold on this material + world and become all spirit. To George the thought was a continual agony. + If she were to die... + </p> + <p> + “She contrived, however, to live through the season, and that in spite of + the numerous balls, routs, and other parties of pleasure which, in company + with the rest of the lovely trio, she never failed to attend. In the + middle of July the whole household moved down to the country. George was + invited to spend the month of August at Crome. + </p> + <p> + “The house-party was distinguished; in the list of visitors figured the + names of two marriageable young men of title. George had hoped that + country air, repose, and natural surroundings might have restored to the + three sisters their appetites and the roses of their cheeks. He was + mistaken. For dinner, the first evening, Georgiana ate only an olive, two + or three salted almonds, and half a peach. She was as pale as ever. During + the meal she spoke of love. + </p> + <p> + “‘True love,’ she said, ‘being infinite and eternal, can only be + consummated in eternity. Indiana and Sir Rodolphe celebrated the mystic + wedding of their souls by jumping into Niagara. Love is incompatible with + life. The wish of two people who truly love one another is not to live + together but to die together.’ + </p> + <p> + “‘Come, come, my dear,’ said Lady Lapith, stout and practical. ‘What would + become of the next generation, pray, if all the world acted on your + principles?’ + </p> + <p> + “‘Mamma!...’ Georgiana protested, and dropped her eyes. + </p> + <p> + “‘In my young days,’ Lady Lapith went on, ‘I should have been laughed out + of countenance if I’d said a thing like that. But then in my young days + souls weren’t as fashionable as they are now and we didn’t think death was + at all poetical. It was just unpleasant.’ + </p> + <p> + “‘Mamma!...’ Emmeline and Caroline implored in unison. + </p> + <p> + “‘In my young days—’ Lady Lapith was launched into her subject; + nothing, it seemed, could stop her now. ‘In my young days, if you didn’t + eat, people told you you needed a dose of rhubarb. Nowadays...’ + </p> + <p> + “There was a cry; Georgiana had swooned sideways on to Lord Timpany’s + shoulder. It was a desperate expedient; but it was successful. Lady Lapith + was stopped. + </p> + <p> + “The days passed in an uneventful round of pleasures. Of all the gay party + George alone was unhappy. Lord Timpany was paying his court to Georgiana, + and it was clear that he was not unfavourably received. George looked on, + and his soul was a hell of jealousy and despair. The boisterous company of + the young men became intolerable to him; he shrank from them, seeking + gloom and solitude. One morning, having broken away from them on some + vague pretext, he returned to the house alone. The young men were bathing + in the pool below; their cries and laughter floated up to him, making the + quiet house seem lonelier and more silent. The lovely sisters and their + mamma still kept their chambers; they did not customarily make their + appearance till luncheon, so that the male guests had the morning to + themselves. George sat down in the hall and abandoned himself to thought. + </p> + <p> + “At any moment she might die; at any moment she might become Lady Timpany. + It was terrible, terrible. If she died, then he would die too; he would go + to seek her beyond the grave. If she became Lady Timpany...ah, then! The + solution of the problem would not be so simple. If she became Lady + Timpany: it was a horrible thought. But then suppose she were in love with + Timpany—though it seemed incredible that anyone could be in love + with Timpany—suppose her life depended on Timpany, suppose she + couldn’t live without him? He was fumbling his way along this clueless + labyrinth of suppositions when the clock struck twelve. On the last + stroke, like an automaton released by the turning clockwork, a little + maid, holding a large covered tray, popped out of the door that led from + the kitchen regions into the hall. From his deep arm-chair George watched + her (himself, it was evident, unobserved) with an idle curiosity. She + pattered across the room and came to a halt in front of what seemed a + blank expense of panelling. She reached out her hand and, to George’s + extreme astonishment, a little door swung open, revealing the foot of a + winding staircase. Turning sideways in order to get her tray through the + narrow opening, the little maid darted in with a rapid crab-like motion. + The door closed behind her with a click. A minute later it opened again + and the maid, without her tray, hurried back across the hall and + disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. George tried to recompose his + thoughts, but an invincible curiosity drew his mind towards the hidden + door, the staircase, the little maid. It was in vain he told himself that + the matter was none of his business, that to explore the secrets of that + surprising door, that mysterious staircase within, would be a piece of + unforgivable rudeness and indiscretion. It was in vain; for five minutes + he struggled heroically with his curiosity, but at the end of that time he + found himself standing in front of the innocent sheet of panelling through + which the little maid had disappeared. A glance sufficed to show him the + position of the secret door—secret, he perceived, only to those who + looked with a careless eye. It was just an ordinary door let in flush with + the panelling. No latch nor handle betrayed its position, but an + unobtrusive catch sunk in the wood invited the thumb. George was + astonished that he had not noticed it before; now he had seen it, it was + so obvious, almost as obvious as the cupboard door in the library with its + lines of imitation shelves and its dummy books. He pulled back the catch + and peeped inside. The staircase, of which the degrees were made not of + stone but of blocks of ancient oak, wound up and out of sight. A slit-like + window admitted the daylight; he was at the foot of the central tower, and + the little window looked out over the terrace; they were still shouting + and splashing in the pool below. + </p> + <p> + “George closed the door and went back to his seat. But his curiosity was + not satisfied. Indeed, this partial satisfaction had but whetted its + appetite. Where did the staircase lead? What was the errand of the little + maid? It was no business of his, he kept repeating—no business of + his. He tried to read, but his attention wandered. A quarter-past twelve + sounded on the harmonious clock. Suddenly determined, George rose, crossed + the room, opened the hidden door, and began to ascend the stairs. He + passed the first window, corkscrewed round, and came to another. He paused + for a moment to look out; his heart beat uncomfortably, as though he were + affronting some unknown danger. What he was doing, he told himself, was + extremely ungentlemanly, horribly underbred. He tiptoed onward and upward. + One turn more, then half a turn, and a door confronted him. He halted + before it, listened; he could hear no sound. Putting his eye to the + keyhole, he saw nothing but a stretch of white sunlit wall. Emboldened, he + turned the handle and stepped across the threshold. There he halted, + petrified by what he saw, mutely gaping. + </p> + <p> + “In the middle of a pleasantly sunny little room—‘it is now + Priscilla’s boudoir,’ Mr. Wimbush remarked parenthetically—stood a + small circular table of mahogany. Crystal, porcelain, and silver,—all + the shining apparatus of an elegant meal—were mirrored in its + polished depths. The carcase of a cold chicken, a bowl of fruit, a great + ham, deeply gashed to its heart of tenderest white and pink, the brown + cannon ball of a cold plum-pudding, a slender Hock bottle, and a decanter + of claret jostled one another for a place on this festive board. And round + the table sat the three sisters, the three lovely Lapiths—eating! + </p> + <p> + “At George’s sudden entrance they had all looked towards the door, and now + they sat, petrified by the same astonishment which kept George fixed and + staring. Georgiana, who sat immediately facing the door, gazed at him with + dark, enormous eyes. Between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand + she was holding a drumstick of the dismembered chicken; her little finger, + elegantly crooked, stood apart from the rest of her hand. Her mouth was + open, but the drumstick had never reached its destination; it remained, + suspended, frozen, in mid-air. The other two sisters had turned round to + look at the intruder. Caroline still grasped her knife and fork; + Emmeline’s fingers were round the stem of her claret glass. For what + seemed a very long time, George and the three sisters stared at one + another in silence. They were a group of statues. Then suddenly there was + movement. Georgiana dropped her chicken bone, Caroline’s knife and fork + clattered on her plate. The movement propagated itself, grew more + decisive; Emmeline sprang to her feet, uttering a cry. The wave of panic + reached George; he turned and, mumbling something unintelligible as he + went, rushed out of the room and down the winding stairs. He came to a + standstill in the hall, and there, all by himself in the quiet house, he + began to laugh. + </p> + <p> + “At luncheon it was noticed that the sisters ate a little more than usual. + Georgiana toyed with some French beans and a spoonful of calves’-foot + jelly. ‘I feel a little stronger to-day,’ she said to Lord Timpany, when + he congratulated her on this increase of appetite; ‘a little more + material,’ she added, with a nervous laugh. Looking up, she caught + George’s eye; a blush suffused her cheeks and she looked hastily away. + </p> + <p> + “In the garden that afternoon they found themselves for a moment alone. + </p> + <p> + “You won’t tell anyone, George? Promise you won’t tell anyone,’ she + implored. ‘It would make us look so ridiculous. And besides, eating IS + unspiritual, isn’t it? Say you won’t tell anyone.’ + </p> + <p> + “‘I will,’ said George brutally. ‘I’ll tell everyone, unless...’ + </p> + <p> + “‘It’s blackmail.’ + </p> + <p> + “‘I don’t care, said George. ‘I’ll give you twenty-four hours to decide.’ + </p> + <p> + “Lady Lapith was disappointed, of course; she had hoped for better things—for + Timpany and a coronet. But George, after all, wasn’t so bad. They were + married at the New Year. + </p> + <p> + “My poor grandfather!” Mr. Wimbush added, as he closed his book and put + away his pince-nez. “Whenever I read in the papers about oppressed + nationalities, I think of him.” He relighted his cigar. “It was a maternal + government, highly centralised, and there were no representative + institutions.” + </p> + <p> + Henry Wimbush ceased speaking. In the silence that ensued Ivor’s whispered + commentary on the spirit sketches once more became audible. Priscilla, who + had been dozing, suddenly woke up. + </p> + <p> + “What?” she said in the startled tones of one newly returned to + consciousness; “what?” + </p> + <p> + Jenny caught the words. She looked up, smiled, nodded reassuringly. “It’s + about a ham,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “What’s about a ham?” + </p> + <p> + “What Henry has been reading.” She closed the red notebook lying on her + knees and slipped a rubber band round it. “I’m going to bed,” she + announced, and got up. + </p> + <p> + “So am I,” said Anne, yawning. But she lacked the energy to rise from her + arm-chair. + </p> + <p> + The night was hot and oppressive. Round the open windows the curtains hung + unmoving. Ivor, fanning himself with the portrait of an Astral Being, + looked out into the darkness and drew a breath. + </p> + <p> + “The air’s like wool,” he declared. + </p> + <p> + “It will get cooler after midnight,” said Henry Wimbush, and cautiously + added, “perhaps.” + </p> + <p> + “I shan’t sleep, I know.” + </p> + <p> + Priscilla turned her head in his direction; the monumental coiffure nodded + exorbitantly at her slightest movement. “You must make an effort,” she + said. “When I can’t sleep, I concentrate my will: I say, ‘I will sleep, I + am asleep!’ And pop! off I go. That’s the power of thought.” + </p> + <p> + “But does it work on stuffy nights?” Ivor inquired. “I simply cannot sleep + on a stuffy night.” + </p> + <p> + “Nor can I,” said Mary, “except out of doors.” + </p> + <p> + “Out of doors! What a wonderful idea!” In the end they decided to sleep on + the towers—Mary on the western tower, Ivor on the eastern. There was + a flat expanse of leads on each of the towers, and you could get a + mattress through the trap doors that opened on to them. Under the stars, + under the gibbous moon, assuredly they would sleep. The mattresses were + hauled up, sheets and blankets were spread, and an hour later the two + insomniasts, each on his separate tower, were crying their good-nights + across the dividing gulf. + </p> + <p> + On Mary the sleep-compelling charm of the open air did not work with its + expected magic. Even through the mattress one could not fail to be aware + that the leads were extremely hard. Then there were noises: the owls + screeched tirelessly, and once, roused by some unknown terror, all the + geese of the farmyard burst into a sudden frenzy of cackling. The stars + and the gibbous moon demanded to be looked at, and when one meteorite had + streaked across the sky, you could not help waiting, open-eyed and alert, + for the next. Time passed; the moon climbed higher and higher in the sky. + Mary felt less sleepy than she had when she first came out. She sat up and + looked over the parapet. Had Ivor been able to sleep? she wondered. And as + though in answer to her mental question, from behind the chimney-stack at + the farther end of the roof a white form noiselessly emerged—a form + that, in the moonlight, was recognisably Ivor’s. Spreading his arms to + right and left, like a tight-rope dancer, he began to walk forward along + the roof-tree of the house. He swayed terrifyingly as he advanced. Mary + looked on speechlessly; perhaps he was walking in his sleep! Suppose he + were to wake up suddenly, now! If she spoke or moved it might mean his + death. She dared look no more, but sank back on her pillows. She listened + intently. For what seemed an immensely long time there was no sound. Then + there was a patter of feet on the tiles, followed by a scrabbling noise + and a whispered “Damn!” And suddenly Ivor’s head and shoulders appeared + above the parapet. One leg followed, then the other. He was on the leads. + Mary pretended to wake up with a start. + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” she said. “What are you doing here?” + </p> + <p> + “I couldn’t sleep,” he explained, “so I came along to see if you couldn’t. + One gets bored by oneself on a tower. Don’t you find it so?” + </p> + <p> + It was light before five. Long, narrow clouds barred the east, their edges + bright with orange fire. The sky was pale and watery. With the mournful + scream of a soul in pain, a monstrous peacock, flying heavily up from + below, alighted on the parapet of the tower. Ivor and Mary started broad + awake. + </p> + <p> + “Catch him!” cried Ivor, jumping up. “We’ll have a feather.” The + frightened peacock ran up and down the parapet in an absurd distress, + curtseying and bobbing and clucking; his long tail swung ponderously back + and forth as he turned and turned again. Then with a flap and swish he + launched himself upon the air and sailed magnificently earthward, with a + recovered dignity. But he had left a trophy. Ivor had his feather, a + long-lashed eye of purple and green, of blue and gold. He handed it to his + companion. + </p> + <p> + “An angel’s feather,” he said. + </p> + <p> + Mary looked at it for a moment, gravely and intently. Her purple pyjamas + clothed her with an ampleness that hid the lines of her body; she looked + like some large, comfortable, unjointed toy, a sort of Teddy-bear—but + a Teddy bear with an angel’s head, pink cheeks, and hair like a bell of + gold. An angel’s face, the feather of an angel’s wing...Somehow the whole + atmosphere of this sunrise was rather angelic. + </p> + <p> + “It’s extraordinary to think of sexual selection,” she said at last, + looking up from her contemplation of the miraculous feather. + </p> + <p> + “Extraordinary!” Ivor echoed. “I select you, you select me. What luck!” + </p> + <p> + He put his arm round her shoulders and they stood looking eastward. The + first sunlight had begun to warm and colour the pale light of the dawn. + Mauve pyjamas and white pyjamas; they were a young and charming couple. + The rising sun touched their faces. It was all extremely symbolic; but + then, if you choose to think so, nothing in this world is not symbolical. + Profound and beautiful truth! + </p> + <p> + “I must be getting back to my tower,” said Ivor at last. + </p> + <p> + “Already?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m afraid so. The varletry will soon be up and about.” + </p> + <p> + “Ivor...” There was a prolonged and silent farewell. + </p> + <p> + “And now,” said Ivor, “I repeat my tight-rope stunt.” + </p> + <p> + Mary threw her arms round his neck. “You mustn’t, Ivor. It’s dangerous. + Please.” + </p> + <p> + He had to yield at last to her entreaties. “All right,” he said, “I’ll go + down through the house and up at the other end.” + </p> + <p> + He vanished through the trap door into the darkness that still lurked + within the shuttered house. A minute later he had reappeared on the + farther tower; he waved his hand, and then sank down, out of sight, behind + the parapet. From below, in the house, came the thin wasp-like buzzing of + an alarum-clock. He had gone back just in time. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XX. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>vor was gone. + Lounging behind the wind-screen in his yellow sedan he was whirling across + rural England. Social and amorous engagements of the most urgent character + called him from hall to baronial hall, from castle to castle, from + Elizabethan manor-house to Georgian mansion, over the whole expanse of the + kingdom. To-day in Somerset, to-morrow in Warwickshire, on Saturday in the + West riding, by Tuesday morning in Argyll—Ivor never rested. The + whole summer through, from the beginning of July till the end of + September, he devoted himself to his engagements; he was a martyr to them. + In the autumn he went back to London for a holiday. Crome had been a + little incident, an evanescent bubble on the stream of his life; it + belonged already to the past. By tea-time he would be at Gobley, and there + would be Zenobia’s welcoming smile. And on Thursday morning—but that + was a long, long way ahead. He would think of Thursday morning when + Thursday morning arrived. Meanwhile there was Gobley, meanwhile Zenobia. + </p> + <p> + In the visitor’s book at Crome Ivor had left, according to his invariable + custom in these cases, a poem. He had improvised it magisterially in the + ten minutes preceding his departure. Denis and Mr. Scogan strolled back + together from the gates of the courtyard, whence they had bidden their + last farewells; on the writing-table in the hall they found the visitor’s + book, open, and Ivor’s composition scarcely dry. Mr. Scogan read it aloud: + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “The magic of those immemorial kings, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Who webbed enchantment on the bowls of night. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Sleeps in the soul of all created things; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + In the blue sea, th’ Acroceraunian height, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + In the eyed butterfly’s auricular wings + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And orgied visions of the anchorite; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + In all that singing flies and flying sings, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + In rain, in pain, in delicate delight. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + But much more magic, much more cogent spells + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Weave here their wizardries about my soul. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Crome calls me like the voice of vesperal bells, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Haunts like a ghostly-peopled necropole. + </p> + <p class="indent20"> + Fate tears me hence. Hard fate! since far from Crome + </p> + <p class="indent20"> + My soul must weep, remembering its Home.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + “Very nice and tasteful and tactful,” said Mr. Scogan, when he had + finished. “I am only troubled by the butterfly’s auricular wings. You have + a first-hand knowledge of the workings of a poet’s mind, Denis; perhaps + you can explain.” + </p> + <p> + “What could be simpler,” said Denis. “It’s a beautiful word, and Ivor + wanted to say that the wings were golden.” + </p> + <p> + “You make it luminously clear.” + </p> + <p> + “One suffers so much,” Denis went on, “from the fact that beautiful words + don’t always mean what they ought to mean. Recently, for example, I had a + whole poem ruined, just because the word ‘carminative’ didn’t mean what it + ought to have meant. Carminative—it’s admirable, isn’t it?” + </p> + <p> + “Admirable,” Mr. Scogan agreed. “And what does it mean?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a word I’ve treasured from my earliest infancy,” said Denis, + “treasured and loved. They used to give me cinnamon when I had a cold—quite + useless, but not disagreeable. One poured it drop by drop out of narrow + bottles, a golden liquor, fierce and fiery. On the label was a list of its + virtues, and among other things it was described as being in the highest + degree carminative. I adored the word. ‘Isn’t it carminative?’ I used to + say to myself when I’d taken my dose. It seemed so wonderfully to describe + that sensation of internal warmth, that glow, that—what shall I call + it?—physical self-satisfaction which followed the drinking of + cinnamon. Later, when I discovered alcohol, ‘carminative’ described for me + that similar, but nobler, more spiritual glow which wine evokes not only + in the body but in the soul as well. The carminative virtues of burgundy, + of rum, of old brandy, of Lacryma Christi, of Marsala, of Aleatico, of + stout, of gin, of champagne, of claret, of the raw new wine of this year’s + Tuscan vintage—I compared them, I classified them. Marsala is + rosily, downily carminative; gin pricks and refreshes while it warms. I + had a whole table of carmination values. And now”—Denis spread out + his hands, palms upwards, despairingly—“now I know what carminative + really means.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, what DOES it mean?” asked Mr. Scogan, a little impatiently. + </p> + <p> + “Carminative,” said Denis, lingering lovingly over the syllables, + “carminative. I imagined vaguely that it had something to do with + carmen-carminis, still more vaguely with caro-carnis, and its derivations, + like carnival and carnation. Carminative—there was the idea of + singing and the idea of flesh, rose-coloured and warm, with a suggestion + of the jollities of mi-Careme and the masked holidays of Venice. + Carminative—the warmth, the glow, the interior ripeness were all in + the word. Instead of which...” + </p> + <p> + “Do come to the point, my dear Denis,” protested Mr. Scogan. “Do come to + the point.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I wrote a poem the other day,” said Denis; “I wrote a poem about + the effects of love.” + </p> + <p> + “Others have done the same before you,” said Mr. Scogan. “There is no need + to be ashamed.” + </p> + <p> + “I was putting forward the notion,” Denis went on, “that the effects of + love were often similar to the effects of wine, that Eros could intoxicate + as well as Bacchus. Love, for example, is essentially carminative. It + gives one the sense of warmth, the glow. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + ‘<i>And passion carminative as wine</i>...’ + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + was what I wrote. Not only was the line elegantly sonorous; it was also, I + flattered myself, very aptly compendiously expressive. Everything was in + the word carminative—a detailed, exact foreground, an immense, + indefinite hinterland of suggestion. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + ‘<i>And passion carminative as wine</i>...’ + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + I was not ill-pleased. And then suddenly it occurred to me that I had + never actually looked up the word in a dictionary. Carminative had grown + up with me from the days of the cinnamon bottle. It had always been taken + for granted. Carminative: for me the word was as rich in content as some + tremendous, elaborate work of art; it was a complete landscape with + figures. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + ‘<i>And passion carminative as wine</i>...’ + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + It was the first time I had ever committed the word to writing, and all at + once I felt I would like lexicographical authority for it. A small + English-German dictionary was all I had at hand. I turned up C, ca, car, + carm. There it was: ‘Carminative: windtreibend.’ Windtreibend!” he + repeated. Mr. Scogan laughed. Denis shook his head. “Ah,” he said, “for me + it was no laughing matter. For me it marked the end of a chapter, the + death of something young and precious. There were the years—years of + childhood and innocence—when I had believed that carminative meant—well, + carminative. And now, before me lies the rest of my life—a day, + perhaps, ten years, half a century, when I shall know that carminative + means windtreibend. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent20"> + ‘Plus ne suis ce que j’ai ete + </p> + <p class="indent20"> + Et ne le saurai jamais etre.’ + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + It is a realisation that makes one rather melancholy.” + </p> + <p> + “Carminative,” said Mr. Scogan thoughtfully. + </p> + <p> + “Carminative,” Denis repeated, and they were silent for a time. “Words,” + said Denis at last, “words—I wonder if you can realise how much I + love them. You are too much preoccupied with mere things and ideas and + people to understand the full beauty of words. Your mind is not a literary + mind. The spectacle of Mr. Gladstone finding thirty-four rhymes to the + name ‘Margot’ seems to you rather pathetic than anything else. Mallarmé’s + envelopes with their versified addresses leave you cold, unless they leave + you pitiful; you can’t see that + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent20"> + ‘Apte à ne point te cabrer, hue! + </p> + <p class="indent20"> + Poste et j’ajouterai, dia! + </p> + <p class="indent20"> + Si tu ne fuis onze-bis Rue + </p> + <p class="indent20"> + Balzac, chez cet Hérédia,’ + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + is a little miracle.” + </p> + <p> + “You’re right,” said Mr. Scogan. “I can’t.” + </p> + <p> + “You don’t feel it to be magical?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s the test for the literary mind,” said Denis; “the feeling of + magic, the sense that words have power. The technical, verbal part of + literature is simply a development of magic. Words are man’s first and + most grandiose invention. With language he created a whole new universe; + what wonder if he loved words and attributed power to them! With fitted, + harmonious words the magicians summoned rabbits out of empty hats and + spirits from the elements. Their descendants, the literary men, still go + on with the process, morticing their verbal formulas together, and, before + the power of the finished spell, trembling with delight and awe. Rabbits + out of empty hats? No, their spells are more subtly powerful, for they + evoke emotions out of empty minds. Formulated by their art the most + insipid statements become enormously significant. For example, I proffer + the constatation, ‘Black ladders lack bladders.’ A self-evident truth, one + on which it would not have been worth while to insist, had I chosen to + formulate it in such words as ‘Black fire-escapes have no bladders,’ or, + ‘Les echelles noires manquent de vessie.’ But since I put it as I do, + ‘Black ladders lack bladders,’ it becomes, for all its self-evidence, + significant, unforgettable, moving. The creation by word-power of + something out of nothing—what is that but magic? And, I may add, + what is that but literature? Half the world’s greatest poetry is simply + ‘Les echelles noires manquent de vessie,’ translated into magic + significance as, ‘Black ladders lack bladders.’ And you can’t appreciate + words. I’m sorry for you.” + </p> + <p> + “A mental carminative,” said Mr. Scogan reflectively. “That’s what you + need.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXI. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">P</span>erched on its four + stone mushrooms, the little granary stood two or three feet above the + grass of the green close. Beneath it there was a perpetual shade and a + damp growth of long, luxuriant grasses. Here, in the shadow, in the green + dampness, a family of white ducks had sought shelter from the afternoon + sun. Some stood, preening themselves, some reposed with their long bellies + pressed to the ground, as though the cool grass were water. Little social + noises burst fitfully forth, and from time to time some pointed tail would + execute a brilliant Lisztian tremolo. Suddenly their jovial repose was + shattered. A prodigious thump shook the wooden flooring above their heads; + the whole granary trembled, little fragments of dirt and crumbled wood + rained down among them. With a loud, continuous quacking the ducks rushed + out from beneath this nameless menace, and did not stay their flight till + they were safely in the farmyard. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t lose your temper,” Anne was saying. “Listen! You’ve frightened the + ducks. Poor dears! no wonder.” She was sitting sideways in a low, wooden + chair. Her right elbow rested on the back of the chair and she supported + her cheek on her hand. Her long, slender body drooped into curves of a + lazy grace. She was smiling, and she looked at Gombauld through + half-closed eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Damn you!” Gombauld repeated, and stamped his foot again. He glared at + her round the half-finished portrait on the easel. + </p> + <p> + “Poor ducks!” Anne repeated. The sound of their quacking was faint in the + distance; it was inaudible. + </p> + <p> + “Can’t you see you make me lose my time?” he asked. “I can’t work with you + dangling about distractingly like this.” + </p> + <p> + “You’d lose less time if you stopped talking and stamping your feet and + did a little painting for a change. After all, what am I dangling about + for, except to be painted?” + </p> + <p> + Gombauld made a noise like a growl. “You’re awful,” he said, with + conviction. “Why do you ask me to come and stay here? Why do you tell me + you’d like me to paint your portrait?” + </p> + <p> + “For the simple reasons that I like you—at least, when you’re in a + good temper—and that I think you’re a good painter.” + </p> + <p> + “For the simple reason”—Gombauld mimicked her voice—“that you + want me to make love to you and, when I do, to have the amusement of + running away.” + </p> + <p> + Anne threw back her head and laughed. “So you think it amuses me to have + to evade your advances! So like a man! If you only knew how gross and + awful and boring men are when they try to make love and you don’t want + them to make love! If you could only see yourselves through our eyes!” + </p> + <p> + Gombauld picked up his palette and brushes and attacked his canvas with + the ardour of irritation. “I suppose you’ll be saying next that you didn’t + start the game, that it was I who made the first advances, and that you + were the innocent victim who sat still and never did anything that could + invite or allure me on.” + </p> + <p> + “So like a man again!” said Anne. “It’s always the same old story about + the woman tempting the man. The woman lures, fascinates, invites; and man—noble + man, innocent man—falls a victim. My poor Gombauld! Surely you’re + not going to sing that old song again. It’s so unintelligent, and I always + thought you were a man of sense.” + </p> + <p> + “Thanks,” said Gombauld. + </p> + <p> + “Be a little objective,” Anne went on. “Can’t you see that you’re simply + externalising your own emotions? That’s what you men are always doing; + it’s so barbarously naive. You feel one of your loose desires for some + woman, and because you desire her strongly you immediately accuse her of + luring you on, of deliberately provoking and inviting the desire. You have + the mentality of savages. You might just as well say that a plate of + strawberries and cream deliberately lures you on to feel greedy. In + ninety-nine cases out of a hundred women are as passive and innocent as + the strawberries and cream.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, all I can say is that this must be the hundredth case,” said + Gombauld, without looking up. + </p> + <p> + Anne shrugged her shoulders and gave vent to a sigh. “I’m at a loss to + know whether you’re more silly or more rude.” + </p> + <p> + After painting for a little time in silence Gombauld began to speak again. + “And then there’s Denis,” he said, renewing the conversation as though it + had only just been broken off. “You’re playing the same game with him. Why + can’t you leave that wretched young man in peace?” + </p> + <p> + Anne flushed with a sudden and uncontrollable anger. “It’s perfectly + untrue about Denis,” she said indignantly. “I never dreamt of playing what + you beautifully call the same game with him.” Recovering her calm, she + added in her ordinary cooing voice and with her exacerbating smile, + “You’ve become very protective towards poor Denis all of a sudden.” + </p> + <p> + “I have,” Gombauld replied, with a gravity that was somehow a little too + solemn. “I don’t like to see a young man...” + </p> + <p> + “...being whirled along the road to ruin,” said Anne, continuing his + sentence for him. “I admire your sentiments and, believe me, I share + them.” + </p> + <p> + She was curiously irritated at what Gombauld had said about Denis. It + happened to be so completely untrue. Gombauld might have some slight + ground for his reproaches. But Denis—no, she had never flirted with + Denis. Poor boy! He was very sweet. She became somewhat pensive. + </p> + <p> + Gombauld painted on with fury. The restlessness of an unsatisfied desire, + which, before, had distracted his mind, making work impossible, seemed now + to have converted itself into a kind of feverish energy. When it was + finished, he told himself, the portrait would be diabolic. He was painting + her in the pose she had naturally adopted at the first sitting. Seated + sideways, her elbow on the back of the chair, her head and shoulders + turned at an angle from the rest of her body, towards the front, she had + fallen into an attitude of indolent abandonment. He had emphasised the + lazy curves of her body; the lines sagged as they crossed the canvas, the + grace of the painted figure seemed to be melting into a kind of soft + decay. The hand that lay along the knee was as limp as a glove. He was at + work on the face now; it had begun to emerge on the canvas, doll-like in + its regularity and listlessness. It was Anne’s face—but her face as + it would be, utterly unillumined by the inward lights of thought and + emotion. It was the lazy, expressionless mask which was sometimes her + face. The portrait was terribly like; and at the same time it was the most + malicious of lies. Yes, it would be diabolic when it was finished, + Gombauld decided; he wondered what she would think of it. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXII. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>or the sake of + peace and quiet Denis had retired earlier on this same afternoon to his + bedroom. He wanted to work, but the hour was a drowsy one, and lunch, so + recently eaten, weighed heavily on body and mind. The meridian demon was + upon him; he was possessed by that bored and hopeless post-prandial + melancholy which the coenobites of old knew and feared under the name of + “accidie.” He felt, like Ernest Dowson, “a little weary.” He was in the + mood to write something rather exquisite and gentle and quietist in tone; + something a little droopy and at the same time—how should he put it?—a + little infinite. He thought of Anne, of love hopeless and unattainable. + Perhaps that was the ideal kind of love, the hopeless kind—the + quiet, theoretical kind of love. In this sad mood of repletion he could + well believe it. He began to write. One elegant quatrain had flowed from + beneath his pen: + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “A brooding love which is at most + </p> + <p class="indent20"> + The stealth of moonbeams when they slide, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Evoking colour’s bloodless ghost, + </p> + <p class="indent20"> + O’er some scarce-breathing breast or side...” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + when his attention was attracted by a sound from outside. He looked down + from his window; there they were, Anne and Gombauld, talking, laughing + together. They crossed the courtyard in front, and passed out of sight + through the gate in the right-hand wall. That was the way to the green + close and the granary; she was going to sit for him again. His pleasantly + depressing melancholy was dissipated by a puff of violent emotion; angrily + he threw his quatrain into the waste-paper basket and ran downstairs. “The + stealth of moonbeams,” indeed! + </p> + <p> + In the hall he saw Mr. Scogan; the man seemed to be lying in wait. Denis + tried to escape, but in vain. Mr. Scogan’s eye glittered like the eye of + the Ancient Mariner. + </p> + <p> + “Not so fast,” he said, stretching out a small saurian hand with pointed + nails—“not so fast. I was just going down to the flower garden to + take the sun. We’ll go together.” + </p> + <p> + Denis abandoned himself; Mr. Scogan put on his hat and they went out arm + in arm. On the shaven turf of the terrace Henry Wimbush and Mary were + playing a solemn game of bowls. They descended by the yew-tree walk. It + was here, thought Denis, here that Anne had fallen, here that he had + kissed her, here—and he blushed with retrospective shame at the + memory—here that he had tried to carry her and failed. Life was + awful! + </p> + <p> + “Sanity!” said Mr. Scogan, suddenly breaking a long silence. “Sanity—that’s + what’s wrong with me and that’s what will be wrong with you, my dear + Denis, when you’re old enough to be sane or insane. In a sane world I + should be a great man; as things are, in this curious establishment, I am + nothing at all; to all intents and purposes I don’t exist. I am just Vox + et praeterea nihil.” + </p> + <p> + Denis made no response; he was thinking of other things. “After all,” he + said to himself—“after all, Gombauld is better looking than I, more + entertaining, more confident; and, besides, he’s already somebody and I’m + still only potential...” + </p> + <p> + “Everything that ever gets done in this world is done by madmen,” Mr. + Scogan went on. Denis tried not to listen, but the tireless insistence of + Mr. Scogan’s discourse gradually compelled his attention. “Men such as I + am, such as you may possibly become, have never achieved anything. We’re + too sane; we’re merely reasonable. We lack the human touch, the compelling + enthusiastic mania. People are quite ready to listen to the philosophers + for a little amusement, just as they would listen to a fiddler or a + mountebank. But as to acting on the advice of the men of reason—never. + Wherever the choice has had to be made between the man of reason and the + madman, the world has unhesitatingly followed the madman. For the madman + appeals to what is fundamental, to passion and the instincts; the + philosophers to what is superficial and supererogatory—reason.” + </p> + <p> + They entered the garden; at the head of one of the alleys stood a green + wooden bench, embayed in the midst of a fragrant continent of lavender + bushes. It was here, though the place was shadeless and one breathed hot, + dry perfume instead of air—it was here that Mr. Scogan elected to + sit. He thrived on untempered sunlight. + </p> + <p> + “Consider, for example, the case of Luther and Erasmus.” He took out his + pipe and began to fill it as he talked. “There was Erasmus, a man of + reason if ever there was one. People listened to him at first—a new + virtuoso performing on that elegant and resourceful instrument, the + intellect; they even admired and venerated him. But did he move them to + behave as he wanted them to behave—reasonably, decently, or at least + a little less porkishly than usual? He did not. And then Luther appears, + violent, passionate, a madman insanely convinced about matters in which + there can be no conviction. He shouted, and men rushed to follow him. + Erasmus was no longer listened to; he was reviled for his reasonableness. + Luther was serious, Luther was reality—like the Great War. Erasmus + was only reason and decency; he lacked the power, being a sage, to move + men to action. Europe followed Luther and embarked on a century and a half + of war and bloody persecution. It’s a melancholy story.” Mr. Scogan + lighted a match. In the intense light the flame was all but invisible. The + smell of burning tobacco began to mingle with the sweetly acrid smell of + the lavender. + </p> + <p> + “If you want to get men to act reasonably, you must set about persuading + them in a maniacal manner. The very sane precepts of the founders of + religions are only made infectious by means of enthusiasms which to a sane + man must appear deplorable. It is humiliating to find how impotent + unadulterated sanity is. Sanity, for example, informs us that the only way + in which we can preserve civilisation is by behaving decently and + intelligently. Sanity appeals and argues; our rulers persevere in their + customary porkishness, while we acquiesce and obey. The only hope is a + maniacal crusade; I am ready, when it comes, to beat a tambourine with the + loudest, but at the same time I shall feel a little ashamed of myself. + However”—Mr. Scogan shrugged his shoulders and, pipe in hand, made a + gesture of resignation—“It’s futile to complain that things are as + they are. The fact remains that sanity unassisted is useless. What we + want, then, is a sane and reasonable exploitation of the forces of + insanity. We sane men will have the power yet.” Mr. Scogan’s eyes shone + with a more than ordinary brightness, and, taking his pipe out of his + mouth, he gave vent to his loud, dry, and somehow rather fiendish laugh. + </p> + <p> + “But I don’t want power,” said Denis. He was sitting in limp discomfort at + one end of the bench, shading his eyes from the intolerable light. Mr. + Scogan, bolt upright at the other end, laughed again. + </p> + <p> + “Everybody wants power,” he said. “Power in some form or other. The sort + of power you hanker for is literary power. Some people want power to + persecute other human beings; you expend your lust for power in + persecuting words, twisting them, moulding them, torturing them to obey + you. But I divagate.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you?” asked Denis faintly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” Mr. Scogan continued, unheeding, “the time will come. We men of + intelligence will learn to harness the insanities to the service of + reason. We can’t leave the world any longer to the direction of chance. We + can’t allow dangerous maniacs like Luther, mad about dogma, like Napoleon, + mad about himself, to go on casually appearing and turning everything + upside down. In the past it didn’t so much matter; but our modern machine + is too delicate. A few more knocks like the Great War, another Luther or + two, and the whole concern will go to pieces. In future, the men of reason + must see that the madness of the world’s maniacs is canalised into proper + channels, is made to do useful work, like a mountain torrent driving a + dynamo...” + </p> + <p> + “Making electricity to light a Swiss hotel,” said Denis. “You ought to + complete the simile.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan waved away the interruption. “There’s only one thing to be + done,” he said. “The men of intelligence must combine, must conspire, and + seize power from the imbeciles and maniacs who now direct us. They must + found the Rational State.” + </p> + <p> + The heat that was slowly paralysing all Denis’s mental and bodily + faculties, seemed to bring to Mr. Scogan additional vitality. He talked + with an ever-increasing energy, his hands moved in sharp, quick, precise + gestures, his eyes shone. Hard, dry, and continuous, his voice went on + sounding and sounding in Denis’s ears with the insistence of a mechanical + noise. + </p> + <p> + “In the Rational State,” he heard Mr. Scogan saying, “human beings will be + separated out into distinct species, not according to the colour of their + eyes or the shape of their skulls, but according to the qualities of their + mind and temperament. Examining psychologists, trained to what would now + seem an almost superhuman clairvoyance, will test each child that is born + and assign it to its proper species. Duly labelled and docketed, the child + will be given the education suitable to members of its species, and will + be set, in adult life, to perform those functions which human beings of + his variety are capable of performing.” + </p> + <p> + “How many species will there be?” asked Denis. + </p> + <p> + “A great many, no doubt,” Mr. Scogan answered; “the classification will be + subtle and elaborate. But it is not in the power of a prophet to go into + details, nor is it his business. I will do more than indicate the three + main species into which the subjects of the Rational State will be + divided.” + </p> + <p> + He paused, cleared his throat, and coughed once or twice, evoking in + Denis’s mind the vision of a table with a glass and water-bottle, and, + lying across one corner, a long white pointer for the lantern pictures. + </p> + <p> + “The three main species,” Mr. Scogan went on, “will be these: the + Directing Intelligences, the Men of Faith, and the Herd. Among the + Intelligences will be found all those capable of thought, those who know + how to attain a certain degree of freedom—and, alas, how limited, + even among the most intelligent, that freedom is!—from the mental + bondage of their time. A select body of Intelligences, drawn from among + those who have turned their attention to the problems of practical life, + will be the governors of the Rational State. They will employ as their + instruments of power the second great species of humanity—the men of + Faith, the Madmen, as I have been calling them, who believe in things + unreasonably, with passion, and are ready to die for their beliefs and + their desires. These wild men, with their fearful potentialities for good + or for mischief, will no longer be allowed to react casually to a casual + environment. There will be no more Caesar Borgias, no more Luthers and + Mohammeds, no more Joanna Southcotts, no more Comstocks. The old-fashioned + Man of Faith and Desire, that haphazard creature of brute circumstance, + who might drive men to tears and repentance, or who might equally well set + them on to cutting one another’s throats, will be replaced by a new sort + of madman, still externally the same, still bubbling with a seemingly + spontaneous enthusiasm, but, ah, how very different from the madman of the + past! For the new Man of Faith will be expending his passion, his desire, + and his enthusiasm in the propagation of some reasonable idea. He will be, + all unawares, the tool of some superior intelligence.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan chuckled maliciously; it was as though he were taking a + revenge, in the name of reason, on enthusiasts. “From their earliest + years, as soon, that is, as the examining psychologists have assigned them + their place in the classified scheme, the Men of Faith will have had their + special education under the eye of the Intelligences. Moulded by a long + process of suggestion, they will go out into the world, preaching and + practising with a generous mania the coldly reasonable projects of the + Directors from above. When these projects are accomplished, or when the + ideas that were useful a decade ago have ceased to be useful, the + Intelligences will inspire a new generation of madmen with a new eternal + truth. The principal function of the Men of Faith will be to move and + direct the Multitude, that third great species consisting of those + countless millions who lack intelligence and are without valuable + enthusiasm. When any particular effort is required of the Herd, when it is + thought necessary, for the sake of solidarity, that humanity shall be + kindled and united by some single enthusiastic desire or idea, the Men of + Faith, primed with some simple and satisfying creed, will be sent out on a + mission of evangelisation. At ordinary times, when the high spiritual + temperature of a Crusade would be unhealthy, the Men of Faith will be + quietly and earnestly busy with the great work of education. In the + upbringing of the Herd, humanity’s almost boundless suggestibility will be + scientifically exploited. Systematically, from earliest infancy, its + members will be assured that there is no happiness to be found except in + work and obedience; they will be made to believe that they are happy, that + they are tremendously important beings, and that everything they do is + noble and significant. For the lower species the earth will be restored to + the centre of the universe and man to pre-eminence on the earth. Oh, I + envy the lot of the commonality in the Rational State! Working their eight + hours a day, obeying their betters, convinced of their own grandeur and + significance and immortality, they will be marvellously happy, happier + than any race of men has ever been. They will go through life in a rosy + state of intoxication, from which they will never awake. The Men of Faith + will play the cup-bearers at this lifelong bacchanal, filling and ever + filling again with the warm liquor that the Intelligences, in sad and + sober privacy behind the scenes, will brew for the intoxication of their + subjects.” + </p> + <p> + “And what will be my place in the Rational State?” Denis drowsily inquired + from under his shading hand. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan looked at him for a moment in silence. “It’s difficult to see + where you would fit in,” he said at last. “You couldn’t do manual work; + you’re too independent and unsuggestible to belong to the larger Herd; you + have none of the characteristics required in a Man of Faith. As for the + Directing Intelligences, they will have to be marvellously clear and + merciless and penetrating.” He paused and shook his head. “No, I can see + no place for you; only the lethal chamber.” + </p> + <p> + Deeply hurt, Denis emitted the imitation of a loud Homeric laugh. “I’m + getting sunstroke here,” he said, and got up. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan followed his example, and they walked slowly away down the + narrow path, brushing the blue lavender flowers in their passage. Denis + pulled a sprig of lavender and sniffed at it; then some dark leaves of + rosemary that smelt like incense in a cavernous church. They passed a bed + of opium poppies, dispetaled now; the round, ripe seedheads were brown and + dry—like Polynesian trophies, Denis thought; severed heads stuck on + poles. He liked the fancy enough to impart it to Mr. Scogan. + </p> + <p> + “Like Polynesian trophies...” Uttered aloud, the fancy seemed less + charming and significant than it did when it first occurred to him. + </p> + <p> + There was a silence, and in a growing wave of sound the whir of the + reaping machines swelled up from the fields beyond the garden and then + receded into a remoter hum. + </p> + <p> + “It is satisfactory to think,” said Mr. Scogan, as they strolled slowly + onward, “that a multitude of people are toiling in the harvest fields in + order that we may talk of Polynesia. Like every other good thing in this + world, leisure and culture have to be paid for. Fortunately, however, it + is not the leisured and the cultured who have to pay. Let us be duly + thankful for that, my dear Denis—duly thankful,” he repeated, and + knocked the ashes out of his pipe. + </p> + <p> + Denis was not listening. He had suddenly remembered Anne. She was with + Gombauld—alone with him in his studio. It was an intolerable + thought. + </p> + <p> + “Shall we go and pay a call on Gombauld?” he suggested carelessly. “It + would be amusing to see what he’s doing now.” + </p> + <p> + He laughed inwardly to think how furious Gombauld would be when he saw + them arriving. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIII. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">G</span>ombauld was by no + means so furious at their apparition as Denis had hoped and expected he + would be. Indeed, he was rather pleased than annoyed when the two faces, + one brown and pointed, the other round and pale, appeared in the frame of + the open door. The energy born of his restless irritation was dying within + him, returning to its emotional elements. A moment more and he would have + been losing his temper again—and Anne would be keeping hers, + infuriatingly. Yes, he was positively glad to see them. + </p> + <p> + “Come in, come in,” he called out hospitably. + </p> + <p> + Followed by Mr. Scogan, Denis climbed the little ladder and stepped over + the threshold. He looked suspiciously from Gombauld to his sitter, and + could learn nothing from the expression of their faces except that they + both seemed pleased to see the visitors. Were they really glad, or were + they cunningly simulating gladness? He wondered. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan, meanwhile, was looking at the portrait. + </p> + <p> + “Excellent,” he said approvingly, “excellent. Almost too true to + character, if that is possible; yes, positively too true. But I’m + surprised to find you putting in all this psychology business.” He pointed + to the face, and with his extended finger followed the slack curves of the + painted figure. “I thought you were one of the fellows who went in + exclusively for balanced masses and impinging planes.” + </p> + <p> + Gombauld laughed. “This is a little infidelity,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “I’m sorry,” said Mr. Scogan. “I for one, without ever having had the + slightest appreciation of painting, have always taken particular pleasure + in Cubismus. I like to see pictures from which nature has been completely + banished, pictures which are exclusively the product of the human mind. + They give me the same pleasure as I derive from a good piece of reasoning + or a mathematical problem or an achievement of engineering. Nature, or + anything that reminds me of nature, disturbs me; it is too large, too + complicated, above all too utterly pointless and incomprehensible. I am at + home with the works of man; if I choose to set my mind to it, I can + understand anything that any man has made or thought. That is why I always + travel by Tube, never by bus if I can possibly help it. For, travelling by + bus, one can’t avoid seeing, even in London, a few stray works of God—the + sky, for example, an occasional tree, the flowers in the window-boxes. But + travel by Tube and you see nothing but the works of man—iron riveted + into geometrical forms, straight lines of concrete, patterned expanses of + tiles. All is human and the product of friendly and comprehensible minds. + All philosophies and all religions—what are they but spiritual Tubes + bored through the universe! Through these narrow tunnels, where all is + recognisably human, one travels comfortable and secure, contriving to + forget that all round and below and above them stretches the blind mass of + earth, endless and unexplored. Yes, give me the Tube and Cubismus every + time; give me ideas, so snug and neat and simple and well made. And + preserve me from nature, preserve me from all that’s inhumanly large and + complicated and obscure. I haven’t the courage, and, above all, I haven’t + the time to start wandering in that labyrinth.” + </p> + <p> + While Mr. Scogan was discoursing, Denis had crossed over to the farther + side of the little square chamber, where Anne was sitting, still in her + graceful, lazy pose, on the low chair. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” he demanded, looking at her almost fiercely. What was he asking of + her? He hardly knew himself. + </p> + <p> + Anne looked up at him, and for answer echoed his “Well?” in another, a + laughing key. + </p> + <p> + Denis had nothing more, at the moment, to say. Two or three canvases stood + in the corner behind Anne’s chair, their faces turned to the wall. He + pulled them out and began to look at the paintings. + </p> + <p> + “May I see too?” Anne requested. + </p> + <p> + He stood them in a row against the wall. Anne had to turn round in her + chair to look at them. There was the big canvas of the man fallen from the + horse, there was a painting of flowers, there was a small landscape. His + hands on the back of the chair, Denis leaned over her. From behind the + easel at the other side of the room Mr. Scogan was talking away. For a + long time they looked at the pictures, saying nothing; or, rather, Anne + looked at the pictures, while Denis, for the most part, looked at Anne. + </p> + <p> + “I like the man and the horse; don’t you?” she said at last, looking up + with an inquiring smile. + </p> + <p> + Denis nodded, and then in a queer, strangled voice, as though it had cost + him a great effort to utter the words, he said, “I love you.” + </p> + <p> + It was a remark which Anne had heard a good many times before and mostly + heard with equanimity. But on this occasion—perhaps because they had + come so unexpectedly, perhaps for some other reason—the words + provoked in her a certain surprised commotion. + </p> + <p> + “My poor Denis,” she managed to say, with a laugh; but she was blushing as + she spoke. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIV. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t was noon. Denis, + descending from his chamber, where he had been making an unsuccessful + effort to write something about nothing in particular, found the + drawing-room deserted. He was about to go out into the garden when his eye + fell on a familiar but mysterious object—the large red notebook in + which he had so often seen Jenny quietly and busily scribbling. She had + left it lying on the window-seat. The temptation was great. He picked up + the book and slipped off the elastic band that kept it discreetly closed. + </p> + <p> + “Private. Not to be opened,” was written in capital letters on the cover. + He raised his eyebrows. It was the sort of thing one wrote in one’s Latin + Grammar while one was still at one’s preparatory school. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “Black is the raven, black is the rook, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + But blacker the thief who steals this book!” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + It was curiously childish, he thought, and he smiled to himself. He opened + the book. What he saw made him wince as though he had been struck. + </p> + <p> + Denis was his own severest critic; so, at least, he had always believed. + He liked to think of himself as a merciless vivisector probing into the + palpitating entrails of his own soul; he was Brown Dog to himself. His + weaknesses, his absurdities—no one knew them better than he did. + Indeed, in a vague way he imagined that nobody beside himself was aware of + them at all. It seemed, somehow, inconceivable that he should appear to + other people as they appeared to him; inconceivable that they ever spoke + of him among themselves in that same freely critical and, to be quite + honest, mildly malicious tone in which he was accustomed to talk of them. + In his own eyes he had defects, but to see them was a privilege reserved + to him alone. For the rest of the world he was surely an image of flawless + crystal. It was almost axiomatic. + </p> + <p> + On opening the red notebook that crystal image of himself crashed to the + ground, and was irreparably shattered. He was not his own severest critic + after all. The discovery was a painful one. + </p> + <p> + The fruit of Jenny’s unobtrusive scribbling lay before him. A caricature + of himself, reading (the book was upside-down). In the background a + dancing couple, recognisable as Gombauld and Anne. Beneath, the legend: + “Fable of the Wallflower and the Sour Grapes.” Fascinated and horrified, + Denis pored over the drawing. It was masterful. A mute, inglorious + Rouveyre appeared in every one of those cruelly clear lines. The + expression of the face, an assumed aloofness and superiority tempered by a + feeble envy; the attitude of the body and limbs, an attitude of studious + and scholarly dignity, given away by the fidgety pose of the turned-in + feet—these things were terrible. And, more terrible still, was the + likeness, was the magisterial certainty with which his physical + peculiarities were all recorded and subtly exaggerated. + </p> + <p> + Denis looked deeper into the book. There were caricatures of other people: + of Priscilla and Mr. Barbecue-Smith; of Henry Wimbush, of Anne and + Gombauld; of Mr. Scogan, whom Jenny had represented in a light that was + more than slightly sinister, that was, indeed, diabolic; of Mary and Ivor. + He scarcely glanced at them. A fearful desire to know the worst about + himself possessed him. He turned over the leaves, lingering at nothing + that was not his own image. Seven full pages were devoted to him. + </p> + <p> + “Private. Not to be opened.” He had disobeyed the injunction; he had only + got what he deserved. Thoughtfully he closed the book, and slid the rubber + band once more into its place. Sadder and wiser, he went out on to the + terrace. And so this, he reflected, this was how Jenny employed the + leisure hours in her ivory tower apart. And he had thought her a + simple-minded, uncritical creature! It was he, it seemed, who was the + fool. He felt no resentment towards Jenny. No, the distressing thing + wasn’t Jenny herself; it was what she and the phenomenon of her red book + represented, what they stood for and concretely symbolised. They + represented all the vast conscious world of men outside himself; they + symbolised something that in his studious solitariness he was apt not to + believe in. He could stand at Piccadilly Circus, could watch the crowds + shuffle past, and still imagine himself the one fully conscious, + intelligent, individual being among all those thousands. It seemed, + somehow, impossible that other people should be in their way as elaborate + and complete as he in his. Impossible; and yet, periodically he would make + some painful discovery about the external world and the horrible reality + of its consciousness and its intelligence. The red notebook was one of + these discoveries, a footprint in the sand. It put beyond a doubt the fact + that the outer world really existed. + </p> + <p> + Sitting on the balustrade of the terrace, he ruminated this unpleasant + truth for some time. Still chewing on it, he strolled pensively down + towards the swimming-pool. A peacock and his hen trailed their shabby + finery across the turf of the lower lawn. Odious birds! Their necks, thick + and greedily fleshy at the roots, tapered up to the cruel inanity of their + brainless heads, their flat eyes and piercing beaks. The fabulists were + right, he reflected, when they took beasts to illustrate their tractates + of human morality. Animals resemble men with all the truthfulness of a + caricature. (Oh, the red notebook!) He threw a piece of stick at the + slowly pacing birds. They rushed towards it, thinking it was something to + eat. + </p> + <p> + He walked on. The profound shade of a giant ilex tree engulfed him. Like a + great wooden octopus, it spread its long arms abroad. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “Under the spreading ilex tree...” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + He tried to remember who the poem was by, but couldn’t. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “The smith, a brawny man is he, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + With arms like rubber bands.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + Just like his; he would have to try and do his Muller exercises more + regularly. + </p> + <p> + He emerged once more into the sunshine. The pool lay before him, + reflecting in its bronze mirror the blue and various green of the summer + day. Looking at it, he thought of Anne’s bare arms and seal-sleek + bathing-dress, her moving knees and feet. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “And little Luce with the white legs, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And bouncing Barbary...” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + Oh, these rags and tags of other people’s making! Would he ever be able to + call his brain his own? Was there, indeed, anything in it that was truly + his own, or was it simply an education? + </p> + <p> + He walked slowly round the water’s edge. In an embayed recess among the + surrounding yew trees, leaning her back against the pedestal of a + pleasantly comic version of the Medici Venus, executed by some nameless + mason of the seicento, he saw Mary pensively sitting. + </p> + <p> + “Hullo!” he said, for he was passing so close to her that he had to say + something. + </p> + <p> + Mary looked up. “Hullo!” she answered in a melancholy, uninterested tone. + </p> + <p> + In this alcove hewed out of the dark trees, the atmosphere seemed to Denis + agreeably elegiac. He sat down beside her under the shadow of the pudic + goddess. There was a prolonged silence. + </p> + <p> + At breakfast that morning Mary had found on her plate a picture postcard + of Gobley Great Park. A stately Georgian pile, with a facade sixteen + windows wide; parterres in the foreground; huge, smooth lawns receding out + of the picture to right and left. Ten years more of the hard times and + Gobley, with all its peers, will be deserted and decaying. Fifty years, + and the countryside will know the old landmarks no more. They will have + vanished as the monasteries vanished before them. At the moment, however, + Mary’s mind was not moved by these considerations. + </p> + <p> + On the back of the postcard, next to the address, was written, in Ivor’s + bold, large hand, a single quatrain. + </p> + <p class="indent10"> + “Hail, maid of moonlight! Bride of the sun, farewell! + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Like bright plumes moulted in an angel’s flight, + </p> + <p class="indent10"> + There sleep within my heart’s most mystic cell + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Memories of morning, memories of the night.” + </p> + <p> + There followed a postscript of three lines: “Would you mind asking one of + the housemaids to forward the packet of safety-razor blades I left in the + drawer of my washstand. Thanks.—Ivor.” + </p> + <p> + Seated under the Venus’s immemorial gesture, Mary considered life and + love. The abolition of her repressions, so far from bringing the expected + peace of mind, had brought nothing but disquiet, a new and hitherto + unexperienced misery. Ivor, Ivor...She couldn’t do without him now. It was + evident, on the other hand, from the poem on the back of the picture + postcard, that Ivor could very well do without her. He was at Gobley now, + so was Zenobia. Mary knew Zenobia. She thought of the last verse of the + song he had sung that night in the garden. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “Le lendemain, Phillis peu sage + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Aurait donne moutons et chien + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Pour un baiser que le volage + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + A Lisette donnait pour rien.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + Mary shed tears at the memory; she had never been so unhappy in all her + life before. + </p> + <p> + It was Denis who first broke the silence. “The individual,” he began in a + soft and sadly philosophical tone, “is not a self-supporting universe. + There are times when he comes into contact with other individuals, when he + is forced to take cognisance of the existence of other universes besides + himself.” + </p> + <p> + He had contrived this highly abstract generalisation as a preliminary to a + personal confidence. It was the first gambit in a conversation that was to + lead up to Jenny’s caricatures. + </p> + <p> + “True,” said Mary; and, generalising for herself, she added, “When one + individual comes into intimate contact with another, she—or he, of + course, as the case may be—must almost inevitably receive or inflict + suffering.” + </p> + <p> + “One is apt,” Denis went on, “to be so spellbound by the spectacle of + one’s own personality that one forgets that the spectacle presents itself + to other people as well as to oneself.” + </p> + <p> + Mary was not listening. “The difficulty,” she said, “makes itself acutely + felt in matters of sex. If one individual seeks intimate contact with + another individual in the natural way, she is certain to receive or + inflict suffering. If on the other hand, she avoids contacts, she risks + the equally grave sufferings that follow on unnatural repressions. As you + see, it’s a dilemma.” + </p> + <p> + “When I think of my own case,” said Denis, making a more decided move in + the desired direction, “I am amazed how ignorant I am of other people’s + mentality in general, and above all and in particular, of their opinions + about myself. Our minds are sealed books only occasionally opened to the + outside world.” He made a gesture that was faintly suggestive of the + drawing off of a rubber band. + </p> + <p> + “It’s an awful problem,” said Mary thoughtfully. “One has to have had + personal experience to realise quite how awful it is.” + </p> + <p> + “Exactly.” Denis nodded. “One has to have had first-hand experience.” He + leaned towards her and slightly lowered his voice. “This very morning, for + example...” he began, but his confidences were cut short. The deep voice + of the gong, tempered by distance to a pleasant booming, floated down from + the house. It was lunch-time. Mechanically Mary rose to her feet, and + Denis, a little hurt that she should exhibit such a desperate anxiety for + her food and so slight an interest in his spiritual experiences, followed + her. They made their way up to the house without speaking. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXV. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> hope you all + realise,” said Henry Wimbush during dinner, “that next Monday is Bank + Holiday, and that you will all be expected to help in the Fair.” + </p> + <p> + “Heavens!” cried Anne. “The Fair—I had forgotten all about it. What + a nightmare! Couldn’t you put a stop to it, Uncle Henry?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Wimbush sighed and shook his head. “Alas,” he said, “I fear I cannot. + I should have liked to put an end to it years ago; but the claims of + Charity are strong.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s not charity we want,” Anne murmured rebelliously; “it’s justice.” + </p> + <p> + “Besides,” Mr. Wimbush went on, “the Fair has become an institution. Let + me see, it must be twenty-two years since we started it. It was a modest + affair then. Now...” he made a sweeping movement with his hand and was + silent. + </p> + <p> + It spoke highly for Mr. Wimbush’s public spirit that he still continued to + tolerate the Fair. Beginning as a sort of glorified church bazaar, Crome’s + yearly Charity Fair had grown into a noisy thing of merry-go-rounds, + cocoanut shies, and miscellaneous side shows—a real genuine fair on + the grand scale. It was the local St. Bartholomew, and the people of all + the neighbouring villages, with even a contingent from the county town, + flocked into the park for their Bank Holiday amusement. The local hospital + profited handsomely, and it was this fact alone which prevented Mr. + Wimbush, to whom the Fair was a cause of recurrent and never-diminishing + agony, from putting a stop to the nuisance which yearly desecrated his + park and garden. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve made all the arrangements already,” Henry Wimbush went on. “Some of + the larger marquees will be put up to-morrow. The swings and the + merry-go-round arrive on Sunday.” + </p> + <p> + “So there’s no escape,” said Anne, turning to the rest of the party. + “You’ll all have to do something. As a special favour you’re allowed to + choose your slavery. My job is the tea tent, as usual, Aunt Priscilla...” + </p> + <p> + “My dear,” said Mrs. Wimbush, interrupting her, “I have more important + things to think about than the Fair. But you need have no doubt that I + shall do my best when Monday comes to encourage the villagers.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s splendid,” said Anne. “Aunt Priscilla will encourage the + villagers. What will you do, Mary?” + </p> + <p> + “I won’t do anything where I have to stand by and watch other people eat.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you’ll look after the children’s sports.” + </p> + <p> + “All right,” Mary agreed. “I’ll look after the children’s sports.” + </p> + <p> + “And Mr. Scogan?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan reflected. “May I be allowed to tell fortunes?” he asked at + last. “I think I should be good at telling fortunes.” + </p> + <p> + “But you can’t tell fortunes in that costume!” + </p> + <p> + “Can’t I?” Mr. Scogan surveyed himself. + </p> + <p> + “You’ll have to be dressed up. Do you still persist?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m ready to suffer all indignities.” + </p> + <p> + “Good!” said Anne; and turning to Gombauld, “You must be our lightning + artist,” she said. “‘Your portrait for a shilling in five minutes.’” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a pity I’m not Ivor,” said Gombauld, with a laugh. “I could throw in + a picture of their Auras for an extra sixpence.” + </p> + <p> + Mary flushed. “Nothing is to be gained,” she said severely, “by speaking + with levity of serious subjects. And, after all, whatever your personal + views may be, psychical research is a perfectly serious subject.” + </p> + <p> + “And what about Denis?” + </p> + <p> + Denis made a deprecating gesture. “I have no accomplishments,” he said, + “I’ll just be one of those men who wear a thing in their buttonholes and + go about telling people which is the way to tea and not to walk on the + grass.” + </p> + <p> + “No, no,” said Anne. “That won’t do. You must do something more than + that.” + </p> + <p> + “But what? All the good jobs are taken, and I can do nothing but lisp in + numbers.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, then, you must lisp,” concluded Anne. “You must write a poem for + the occasion—an ‘Ode on Bank Holiday.’ We’ll print it on Uncle + Henry’s press and sell it at twopence a copy.” + </p> + <p> + “Sixpence,” Denis protested. “It’ll be worth sixpence.” + </p> + <p> + Anne shook her head. “Twopence,” she repeated firmly. “Nobody will pay + more than twopence.” + </p> + <p> + “And now there’s Jenny,” said Mr Wimbush. “Jenny,” he said, raising his + voice, “what will you do?” + </p> + <p> + Denis thought of suggesting that she might draw caricatures at sixpence an + execution, but decided it would be wiser to go on feigning ignorance of + her talent. His mind reverted to the red notebook. Could it really be true + that he looked like that? + </p> + <p> + “What will I do,” Jenny echoed, “what will I do?” She frowned thoughtfully + for a moment; then her face brightened and she smiled. “When I was young,” + she said, “I learnt to play the drums.” + </p> + <p> + “The drums?” + </p> + <p> + Jenny nodded, and, in proof of her assertion, agitated her knife and fork, + like a pair of drumsticks, over her plate. “If there’s any opportunity of + playing the drums...” she began. + </p> + <p> + “But of course,” said Anne, “there’s any amount of opportunity. We’ll put + you down definitely for the drums. That’s the lot,” she added. + </p> + <p> + “And a very good lot too,” said Gombauld. “I look forward to my Bank + Holiday. It ought to be gay.” + </p> + <p> + “It ought indeed,” Mr Scogan assented. “But you may rest assured that it + won’t be. No holiday is ever anything but a disappointment.” + </p> + <p> + “Come, come,” protested Gombauld. “My holiday at Crome isn’t being a + disappointment.” + </p> + <p> + “Isn’t it?” Anne turned an ingenuous mask towards him. + </p> + <p> + “No, it isn’t,” he answered. + </p> + <p> + “I’m delighted to hear it.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s in the very nature of things,” Mr. Scogan went on; “our holidays + can’t help being disappointments. Reflect for a moment. What is a holiday? + The ideal, the Platonic Holiday of Holidays is surely a complete and + absolute change. You agree with me in my definition?” Mr. Scogan glanced + from face to face round the table; his sharp nose moved in a series of + rapid jerks through all the points of the compass. There was no sign of + dissent; he continued: “A complete and absolute change; very well. But + isn’t a complete and absolute change precisely the thing we can never have—never, + in the very nature of things?” Mr. Scogan once more looked rapidly about + him. “Of course it is. As ourselves, as specimens of Homo Sapiens, as + members of a society, how can we hope to have anything like an absolute + change? We are tied down by the frightful limitation of our human + faculties, by the notions which society imposes on us through our fatal + suggestibility, by our own personalities. For us, a complete holiday is + out of the question. Some of us struggle manfully to take one, but we + never succeed, if I may be allowed to express myself metaphorically, we + never succeed in getting farther than Southend.” + </p> + <p> + “You’re depressing,” said Anne. + </p> + <p> + “I mean to be,” Mr. Scogan replied, and, expanding the fingers of his + right hand, he went on: “Look at me, for example. What sort of a holiday + can I take? In endowing me with passions and faculties Nature has been + horribly niggardly. The full range of human potentialities is in any case + distressingly limited; my range is a limitation within a limitation. Out + of the ten octaves that make up the human instrument, I can compass + perhaps two. Thus, while I may have a certain amount of intelligence, I + have no aesthetic sense; while I possess the mathematical faculty, I am + wholly without the religious emotions; while I am naturally addicted to + venery, I have little ambition and am not at all avaricious. Education has + further limited my scope. Having been brought up in society, I am + impregnated with its laws; not only should I be afraid of taking a holiday + from them, I should also feel it painful to try to do so. In a word, I + have a conscience as well as a fear of gaol. Yes, I know it by experience. + How often have I tried to take holidays, to get away from myself, my own + boring nature, my insufferable mental surroundings!” Mr. Scogan sighed. + “But always without success,” he added, “always without success. In my + youth I was always striving—how hard!—to feel religiously and + aesthetically. Here, said I to myself, are two tremendously important and + exciting emotions. Life would be richer, warmer, brighter, altogether more + amusing, if I could feel them. I try to feel them. I read the works of the + mystics. They seemed to me nothing but the most deplorable claptrap—as + indeed they always must to anyone who does not feel the same emotion as + the authors felt when they were writing. For it is the emotion that + matters. The written work is simply an attempt to express emotion, which + is in itself inexpressible, in terms of intellect and logic. The mystic + objectifies a rich feeling in the pit of the stomach into a cosmology. For + other mystics that cosmology is a symbol of the rich feeling. For the + unreligious it is a symbol of nothing, and so appears merely grotesque. A + melancholy fact! But I divagate.” Mr. Scogan checked himself. “So much for + the religious emotion. As for the aesthetic—I was at even greater + pains to cultivate that. I have looked at all the right works of art in + every part of Europe. There was a time when, I venture to believe, I knew + more about Taddeo da Poggibonsi, more about the cryptic Amico di Taddeo, + even than Henry does. To-day, I am happy to say, I have forgotten most of + the knowledge I then so laboriously acquired; but without vanity I can + assert that it was prodigious. I don’t pretend, of course, to know + anything about nigger sculpture or the later seventeenth century in Italy; + but about all the periods that were fashionable before 1900 I am, or was, + omniscient. Yes, I repeat it, omniscient. But did that fact make me any + more appreciative of art in general? It did not. Confronted by a picture, + of which I could tell you all the known and presumed history—the + date when it was painted, the character of the painter, the influences + that had gone to make it what it was—I felt none of that strange + excitement and exaltation which is, as I am informed by those who do feel + it, the true aesthetic emotion. I felt nothing but a certain interest in + the subject of the picture; or more often, when the subject was hackneyed + and religious, I felt nothing but a great weariness of spirit. + Nevertheless, I must have gone on looking at pictures for ten years before + I would honestly admit to myself that they merely bored me. Since then I + have given up all attempts to take a holiday. I go on cultivating my old + stale daily self in the resigned spirit with which a bank clerk performs + from ten till six his daily task. A holiday, indeed! I’m sorry for you, + Gombauld, if you still look forward to having a holiday.” + </p> + <p> + Gombauld shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps,” he said, “my standards aren’t + as elevated as yours. But personally I found the war quite as thorough a + holiday from all the ordinary decencies and sanities, all the common + emotions and preoccupations, as I ever want to have.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” Mr. Scogan thoughtfully agreed. “Yes, the war was certainly + something of a holiday. It was a step beyond Southend; it was + Weston-super-Mare; it was almost Ilfracombe.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVI. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span> little canvas + village of tents and booths had sprung up, just beyond the boundaries of + the garden, in the green expanse of the park. A crowd thronged its + streets, the men dressed mostly in black—holiday best, funeral best—the + women in pale muslins. Here and there tricolour bunting hung inert. In the + midst of the canvas town, scarlet and gold and crystal, the merry-go-round + glittered in the sun. The balloon-man walked among the crowd, and above + his head, like a huge, inverted bunch of many-coloured grapes, the + balloons strained upwards. With a scythe-like motion the boat-swings + reaped the air, and from the funnel of the engine which worked the + roundabout rose a thin, scarcely wavering column of black smoke. + </p> + <p> + Denis had climbed to the top of one of Sir Ferdinando’s towers, and there, + standing on the sun-baked leads, his elbows resting on the parapet, he + surveyed the scene. The steam-organ sent up prodigious music. The clashing + of automatic cymbals beat out with inexorable precision the rhythm of + piercingly sounded melodies. The harmonies were like a musical shattering + of glass and brass. Far down in the bass the Last Trump was hugely + blowing, and with such persistence, such resonance, that its alternate + tonic and dominant detached themselves from the rest of the music and made + a tune of their own, a loud, monotonous see-saw. + </p> + <p> + Denis leaned over the gulf of swirling noise. If he threw himself over the + parapet, the noise would surely buoy him up, keep him suspended, bobbing, + as a fountain balances a ball on its breaking crest. Another fancy came to + him, this time in metrical form. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “My soul is a thin white sheet of parchment stretched + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Over a bubbling cauldron.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + Bad, bad. But he liked the idea of something thin and distended being + blown up from underneath. + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “My soul is a thin tent of gut...” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + or better— + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “My soul is a pale, tenuous membrane...” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + That was pleasing: a thin, tenuous membrane. It had the right anatomical + quality. Tight blown, quivering in the blast of noisy life. It was time + for him to descend from the serene empyrean of words into the actual + vortex. He went down slowly. “My soul is a thin, tenuous membrane...” + </p> + <p> + On the terrace stood a knot of distinguished visitors. There was old Lord + Moleyn, like a caricature of an English milord in a French comic paper: a + long man, with a long nose and long, drooping moustaches and long teeth of + old ivory, and lower down, absurdly, a short covert coat, and below that + long, long legs cased in pearl-grey trousers—legs that bent + unsteadily at the knee and gave a kind of sideways wobble as he walked. + Beside him, short and thick-set, stood Mr. Callamay, the venerable + conservative statesman, with a face like a Roman bust, and short white + hair. Young girls didn’t much like going for motor drives alone with Mr. + Callamay; and of old Lord Moleyn one wondered why he wasn’t living in + gilded exile on the island of Capri among the other distinguished persons + who, for one reason or another, find it impossible to live in England. + They were talking to Anne, laughing, the one profoundly, the other + hootingly. + </p> + <p> + A black silk balloon towing a black-and-white striped parachute proved to + be old Mrs. Budge from the big house on the other side of the valley. She + stood low on the ground, and the spikes of her black-and-white sunshade + menaced the eyes of Priscilla Wimbush, who towered over her—a + massive figure dressed in purple and topped with a queenly toque on which + the nodding black plumes recalled the splendours of a first-class Parisian + funeral. + </p> + <p> + Denis peeped at them discreetly from the window of the morning-room. His + eyes were suddenly become innocent, childlike, unprejudiced. They seemed, + these people, inconceivably fantastic. And yet they really existed, they + functioned by themselves, they were conscious, they had minds. Moreover, + he was like them. Could one believe it? But the evidence of the red + notebook was conclusive. + </p> + <p> + It would have been polite to go and say, “How d’you do?” But at the moment + Denis did not want to talk, could not have talked. His soul was a tenuous, + tremulous, pale membrane. He would keep its sensibility intact and virgin + as long as he could. Cautiously he crept out by a side door and made his + way down towards the park. His soul fluttered as he approached the noise + and movement of the fair. He paused for a moment on the brink, then + stepped in and was engulfed. + </p> + <p> + Hundreds of people, each with his own private face and all of them real, + separate, alive: the thought was disquieting. He paid twopence and saw the + Tatooed Woman; twopence more, the Largest Rat in the World. From the home + of the Rat he emerged just in time to see a hydrogen-filled balloon break + loose for home. A child howled up after it; but calmly, a perfect sphere + of flushed opal, it mounted, mounted. Denis followed it with his eyes + until it became lost in the blinding sunlight. If he could but send his + soul to follow it!... + </p> + <p> + He sighed, stuck his steward’s rosette in his buttonhole, and started to + push his way, aimlessly but officially, through the crowd. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVII. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>r. Scogan had been + accommodated in a little canvas hut. Dressed in a black skirt and a red + bodice, with a yellow-and-red bandana handkerchief tied round his black + wig, he looked—sharp-nosed, brown, and wrinkled—like the + Bohemian Hag of Frith’s Derby Day. A placard pinned to the curtain of the + doorway announced the presence within the tent of “Sesostris, the + Sorceress of Ecbatana.” Seated at a table, Mr. Scogan received his clients + in mysterious silence, indicating with a movement of the finger that they + were to sit down opposite him and to extend their hands for his + inspection. He then examined the palm that was presented him, using a + magnifying glass and a pair of horn spectacles. He had a terrifying way of + shaking his head, frowning and clicking with his tongue as he looked at + the lines. Sometimes he would whisper, as though to himself, “Terrible, + terrible!” or “God preserve us!” sketching out the sign of the cross as he + uttered the words. The clients who came in laughing grew suddenly grave; + they began to take the witch seriously. She was a formidable-looking + woman; could it be, was it possible, that there was something in this sort + of thing after all? After all, they thought, as the hag shook her head + over their hands, after all...And they waited, with an uncomfortably + beating heart, for the oracle to speak. After a long and silent + inspection, Mr. Scogan would suddenly look up and ask, in a hoarse + whisper, some horrifying question, such as, “Have you ever been hit on the + head with a hammer by a young man with red hair?” When the answer was in + the negative, which it could hardly fail to be, Mr. Scogan would nod + several times, saying, “I was afraid so. Everything is still to come, + still to come, though it can’t be very far off now.” Sometimes, after a + long examination, he would just whisper, “Where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis + folly to be wise,” and refuse to divulge any details of a future too + appalling to be envisaged without despair. Sesostris had a success of + horror. People stood in a queue outside the witch’s booth waiting for the + privilege of hearing sentence pronounced upon them. + </p> + <p> + Denis, in the course of his round, looked with curiosity at this crowd of + suppliants before the shrine of the oracle. He had a great desire to see + how Mr. Scogan played his part. The canvas booth was a rickety, ill-made + structure. Between its walls and its sagging roof were long gaping chinks + and crannies. Denis went to the tea-tent and borrowed a wooden bench and a + small Union Jack. With these he hurried back to the booth of Sesostris. + Setting down the bench at the back of the booth, he climbed up, and with a + great air of busy efficiency began to tie the Union Jack to the top of one + of the tent-poles. Through the crannies in the canvas he could see almost + the whole of the interior of the tent. Mr. Scogan’s bandana-covered head + was just below him; his terrifying whispers came clearly up. Denis looked + and listened while the witch prophesied financial losses, death by + apoplexy, destruction by air-raids in the next war. + </p> + <p> + “Is there going to be another war?” asked the old lady to whom he had + predicted this end. + </p> + <p> + “Very soon,” said Mr. Scogan, with an air of quiet confidence. + </p> + <p> + The old lady was succeeded by a girl dressed in white muslin, garnished + with pink ribbons. She was wearing a broad hat, so that Denis could not + see her face; but from her figure and the roundness of her bare arms he + judged her young and pleasing. Mr. Scogan looked at her hand, then + whispered, “You are still virtuous.” + </p> + <p> + The young lady giggled and exclaimed, “Oh, lor’!” + </p> + <p> + “But you will not remain so for long,” added Mr. Scogan sepulchrally. The + young lady giggled again. “Destiny, which interests itself in small things + no less than in great, has announced the fact upon your hand.” Mr. Scogan + took up the magnifying-glass and began once more to examine the white + palm. “Very interesting,” he said, as though to himself—“very + interesting. It’s as clear as day.” He was silent. + </p> + <p> + “What’s clear?” asked the girl. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think I ought to tell you.” Mr. Scogan shook his head; the + pendulous brass ear-rings which he had screwed on to his ears tinkled. + </p> + <p> + “Please, please!” she implored. + </p> + <p> + The witch seemed to ignore her remark. “Afterwards, it’s not at all clear. + The fates don’t say whether you will settle down to married life and have + four children or whether you will try to go on the cinema and have none. + They are only specific about this one rather crucial incident.” + </p> + <p> + “What is it? What is it? Oh, do tell me!” + </p> + <p> + The white muslin figure leant eagerly forward. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan sighed. “Very well,” he said, “if you must know, you must know. + But if anything untoward happens you must blame your own curiosity. + Listen. Listen.” He lifted up a sharp, claw-nailed forefinger. “This is + what the fates have written. Next Sunday afternoon at six o’clock you will + be sitting on the second stile on the footpath that leads from the church + to the lower road. At that moment a man will appear walking along the + footpath.” Mr. Scogan looked at her hand again as though to refresh his + memory of the details of the scene. “A man,” he repeated—“a small + man with a sharp nose, not exactly good looking nor precisely young, but + fascinating.” He lingered hissingly over the word. “He will ask you, ‘Can + you tell me the way to Paradise?’ and you will answer, ‘Yes, I’ll show + you,’ and walk with him down towards the little hazel copse. I cannot read + what will happen after that.” There was a silence. + </p> + <p> + “Is it really true?” asked white muslin. + </p> + <p> + The witch gave a shrug of the shoulders. “I merely tell you what I read in + your hand. Good afternoon. That will be sixpence. Yes, I have change. + Thank you. Good afternoon.” + </p> + <p> + Denis stepped down from the bench; tied insecurely and crookedly to the + tentpole, the Union Jack hung limp on the windless air. “If only I could + do things like that!” he thought, as he carried the bench back to the + tea-tent. + </p> + <p> + Anne was sitting behind a long table filling thick white cups from an urn. + A neat pile of printed sheets lay before her on the table. Denis took one + of them and looked at it affectionately. It was his poem. They had printed + five hundred copies, and very nice the quarto broadsheets looked. + </p> + <p> + “Have you sold many?” he asked in a casual tone. + </p> + <p> + Anne put her head on one side deprecatingly. “Only three so far, I’m + afraid. But I’m giving a free copy to everyone who spends more than a + shilling on his tea. So in any case it’s having a circulation.” + </p> + <p> + Denis made no reply, but walked slowly away. He looked at the broadsheet + in his hand and read the lines to himself relishingly as he walked along: + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + “This day of roundabouts and swings, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Struck weights, shied cocoa-nuts, tossed rings, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Switchbacks, Aunt Sallies, and all such small + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + High jinks—you call it ferial? + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + A holiday? But paper noses + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Sniffed the artificial roses + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Of round Venetian cheeks through half + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Each carnival year, and masks might laugh + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + At things the naked face for shame + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Would blush at—laugh and think no blame. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + A holiday? But Galba showed + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Elephants on an airy road; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Jumbo trod the tightrope then, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And in the circus armed men + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Stabbed home for sport and died to break + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Those dull imperatives that make + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + A prison of every working day, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Where all must drudge and all obey. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Sing Holiday! You do not know + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + How to be free. The Russian snow + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Flowered with bright blood whose roses spread + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Petals of fading, fading red + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + That died into the snow again, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Into the virgin snow; and men + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + From all ancient bonds were freed. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Old law, old custom, and old creed, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Old right and wrong there bled to death; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + The frozen air received their breath, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + A little smoke that died away; + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + And round about them where they lay + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + The snow bloomed roses. Blood was there + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + A red gay flower and only fair. + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Sing Holiday! Beneath the Tree + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Of Innocence and Liberty, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Paper Nose and Red Cockade + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Dance within the magic shade + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + That makes them drunken, merry, and strong + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + To laugh and sing their ferial song: + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + ‘Free, free...!’ + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="indent20"> + But Echo answers + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Faintly to the laughing dancers, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + ‘Free’—and faintly laughs, and still, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Within the hollows of the hill, + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Faintlier laughs and whispers, ‘Free,’ + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Fadingly, diminishingly: + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + ‘Free,’ and laughter faints away... + </p> + <p class="indent15"> + Sing Holiday! Sing Holiday!” + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + He folded the sheet carefully and put it in his pocket. The thing had its + merits. Oh, decidedly, decidedly! But how unpleasant the crowd smelt! He + lit a cigarette. The smell of cows was preferable. He passed through the + gate in the park wall into the garden. The swimming-pool was a centre of + noise and activity. + </p> + <p> + “Second Heat in the Young Ladies’ Championship.” It was the polite voice + of Henry Wimbush. A crowd of sleek, seal-like figures in black + bathing-dresses surrounded him. His grey bowler hat, smooth, round, and + motionless in the midst of a moving sea, was an island of aristocratic + calm. + </p> + <p> + Holding his tortoise-shell-rimmed pince-nez an inch or two in front of his + eyes, he read out names from a list. + </p> + <p> + “Miss Dolly Miles, Miss Rebecca Balister, Miss Doris Gabell...” + </p> + <p> + Five young persons ranged themselves on the brink. From their seats of + honour at the other end of the pool, old Lord Moleyn and Mr. Callamay + looked on with eager interest. + </p> + <p> + Henry Wimbush raised his hand. There was an expectant silence. “When I say + ‘Go,’ go. Go!” he said. There was an almost simultaneous splash. + </p> + <p> + Denis pushed his way through the spectators. Somebody plucked him by the + sleeve; he looked down. It was old Mrs. Budge. + </p> + <p> + “Delighted to see you again, Mr. Stone,” she said in her rich, husky + voice. She panted a little as she spoke, like a short-winded lap-dog. It + was Mrs. Budge who, having read in the “Daily Mirror” that the Government + needed peach stones—what they needed them for she never knew—had + made the collection of peach stones her peculiar “bit” of war work. She + had thirty-six peach trees in her walled garden, as well as four + hot-houses in which trees could be forced, so that she was able to eat + peaches practically the whole year round. In 1916 she ate 4200 peaches, + and sent the stones to the Government. In 1917 the military authorities + called up three of her gardeners, and what with this and the fact that it + was a bad year for wall fruit, she only managed to eat 2900 peaches during + that crucial period of the national destinies. In 1918 she did rather + better, for between January 1st and the date of the Armistice she ate 3300 + peaches. Since the Armistice she had relaxed her efforts; now she did not + eat more than two or three peaches a day. Her constitution, she + complained, had suffered; but it had suffered for a good cause. + </p> + <p> + Denis answered her greeting by a vague and polite noise. + </p> + <p> + “So nice to see the young people enjoying themselves,” Mrs. Budge went on. + “And the old people too, for that matter. Look at old Lord Moleyn and dear + Mr. Callamay. Isn’t it delightful to see the way they enjoy themselves?” + </p> + <p> + Denis looked. He wasn’t sure whether it was so very delightful after all. + Why didn’t they go and watch the sack races? The two old gentlemen were + engaged at the moment in congratulating the winner of the race; it seemed + an act of supererogatory graciousness; for, after all, she had only won a + heat. + </p> + <p> + “Pretty little thing, isn’t she?” said Mrs. Budge huskily, and panted two + or three times. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” Denis nodded agreement. Sixteen, slender, but nubile, he said to + himself, and laid up the phrase in his memory as a happy one. Old Mr. + Callamay had put on his spectacles to congratulate the victor, and Lord + Moleyn, leaning forward over his walking-stick, showed his long ivory + teeth, hungrily smiling. + </p> + <p> + “Capital performance, capital,” Mr. Callamay was saying in his deep voice. + </p> + <p> + The victor wriggled with embarrassment. She stood with her hands behind + her back, rubbing one foot nervously on the other. Her wet bathing-dress + shone, a torso of black polished marble. + </p> + <p> + “Very good indeed,” said Lord Moleyn. His voice seemed to come from just + behind his teeth, a toothy voice. It was as though a dog should suddenly + begin to speak. He smiled again, Mr. Callamay readjusted his spectacles. + </p> + <p> + “When I say ‘Go,’ go. Go!” + </p> + <p> + Splash! The third heat had started. + </p> + <p> + “Do you know, I never could learn to swim,” said Mrs. Budge. + </p> + <p> + “Really?” + </p> + <p> + “But I used to be able to float.” + </p> + <p> + Denis imagined her floating—up and down, up and down on a great + green swell. A blown black bladder; no, that wasn’t good, that wasn’t good + at all. A new winner was being congratulated. She was atrociously stubby + and fat. The last one, long and harmoniously, continuously curved from + knee to breast, had been an Eve by Cranach; but this, this one was a bad + Rubens. + </p> + <p> + “...go—go—go!” Henry Wimbush’s polite level voice once more + pronounced the formula. Another batch of young ladies dived in. + </p> + <p> + Grown a little weary of sustaining a conversation with Mrs. Budge, Denis + conveniently remembered that his duties as a steward called him elsewhere. + He pushed out through the lines of spectators and made his way along the + path left clear behind them. He was thinking again that his soul was a + pale, tenuous membrane, when he was startled by hearing a thin, sibilant + voice, speaking apparently from just above his head, pronounce the single + word “Disgusting!” + </p> + <p> + He looked up sharply. The path along which he was walking passed under the + lee of a wall of clipped yew. Behind the hedge the ground sloped steeply + up towards the foot of the terrace and the house; for one standing on the + higher ground it was easy to look over the dark barrier. Looking up, Denis + saw two heads overtopping the hedge immediately above him. He recognised + the iron mask of Mr. Bodiham and the pale, colourless face of his wife. + They were looking over his head, over the heads of the spectators, at the + swimmers in the pond. + </p> + <p> + “Disgusting!” Mrs. Bodiham repeated, hissing softly. + </p> + <p> + The rector turned up his iron mask towards the solid cobalt of the sky. + “How long?” he said, as though to himself; “how long?” He lowered his eyes + again, and they fell on Denis’s upturned curious face. There was an abrupt + movement, and Mr. and Mrs. Bodiham popped out of sight behind the hedge. + </p> + <p> + Denis continued his promenade. He wandered past the merry-go-round, + through the thronged streets of the canvas village; the membrane of his + soul flapped tumultuously in the noise and laughter. In a roped-off space + beyond, Mary was directing the children’s sports. Little creatures seethed + round about her, making a shrill, tinny clamour; others clustered about + the skirts and trousers of their parents. Mary’s face was shining in the + heat; with an immense output of energy she started a three-legged race. + Denis looked on in admiration. + </p> + <p> + “You’re wonderful,” he said, coming up behind her and touching her on the + arm. “I’ve never seen such energy.” + </p> + <p> + She turned towards him a face, round, red, and honest as the setting sun; + the golden bell of her hair swung silently as she moved her head and + quivered to rest. + </p> + <p> + “Do you know, Denis,” she said, in a low, serious voice, gasping a little + as she spoke—“do you know that there’s a woman here who has had + three children in thirty-one months?” + </p> + <p> + “Really,” said Denis, making rapid mental calculations. + </p> + <p> + “It’s appalling. I’ve been telling her about the Malthusian League. One + really ought...” + </p> + <p> + But a sudden violent renewal of the metallic yelling announced the fact + that somebody had won the race. Mary became once more the centre of a + dangerous vortex. It was time, Denis thought, to move on; he might be + asked to do something if he stayed too long. + </p> + <p> + He turned back towards the canvas village. The thought of tea was making + itself insistent in his mind. Tea, tea, tea. But the tea-tent was horribly + thronged. Anne, with an unusual expression of grimness on her flushed + face, was furiously working the handle of the urn; the brown liquid + spurted incessantly into the proffered cups. Portentous, in the farther + corner of the tent, Priscilla, in her royal toque, was encouraging the + villagers. In a momentary lull Denis could hear her deep, jovial laughter + and her manly voice. Clearly, he told himself, this was no place for one + who wanted tea. He stood irresolute at the entrance to the tent. A + beautiful thought suddenly came to him; if he went back to the house, went + unobtrusively, without being observed, if he tiptoed into the dining-room + and noiselessly opened the little doors of the sideboard—ah, then! + In the cool recess within he would find bottles and a siphon; a bottle of + crystal gin and a quart of soda water, and then for the cups that + inebriate as well as cheer... + </p> + <p> + A minute later he was walking briskly up the shady yew-tree walk. Within + the house it was deliciously quiet and cool. Carrying his well-filled + tumbler with care, he went into the library. There, the glass on the + corner of the table beside him, he settled into a chair with a volume of + Sainte-Beuve. There was nothing, he found, like a Causerie du Lundi for + settling and soothing the troubled spirits. That tenuous membrane of his + had been too rudely buffeted by the afternoon’s emotions; it required a + rest. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVIII. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>owards sunset the + fair itself became quiescent. It was the hour for the dancing to begin. At + one side of the village of tents a space had been roped off. Acetylene + lamps, hung round it on posts, cast a piercing white light. In one corner + sat the band, and, obedient to its scraping and blowing, two or three + hundred dancers trampled across the dry ground, wearing away the grass + with their booted feet. Round this patch of all but daylight, alive with + motion and noise, the night seemed preternaturally dark. Bars of light + reached out into it, and every now and then a lonely figure or a couple of + lovers, interlaced, would cross the bright shaft, flashing for a moment + into visible existence, to disappear again as quickly and surprisingly as + they had come. + </p> + <p> + Denis stood by the entrance of the enclosure, watching the swaying, + shuffling crowd. The slow vortex brought the couples round and round again + before him, as though he were passing them in review. There was Priscilla, + still wearing her queenly toque, still encouraging the villagers—this + time by dancing with one of the tenant farmers. There was Lord Moleyn, who + had stayed on to the disorganised, passoverish meal that took the place of + dinner on this festal day; he one-stepped shamblingly, his bent knees more + precariously wobbly than ever, with a terrified village beauty. Mr. Scogan + trotted round with another. Mary was in the embrace of a young farmer of + heroic proportions; she was looking up at him, talking, as Denis could + see, very seriously. What about? he wondered. The Malthusian League, + perhaps. Seated in the corner among the band, Jenny was performing wonders + of virtuosity upon the drums. Her eyes shone, she smiled to herself. A + whole subterranean life seemed to be expressing itself in those loud + rat-tats, those long rolls and flourishes of drumming. Looking at her, + Denis ruefully remembered the red notebook; he wondered what sort of a + figure he was cutting now. But the sight of Anne and Gombauld swimming + past—Anne with her eyes almost shut and sleeping, as it were, on the + sustaining wings of movement and music—dissipated these + preoccupations. Male and female created He them...There they were, Anne + and Gombauld, and a hundred couples more—all stepping harmoniously + together to the old tune of Male and Female created He them. But Denis sat + apart; he alone lacked his complementary opposite. They were all coupled + but he; all but he... + </p> + <p> + Somebody touched him on the shoulder and he looked up. It was Henry + Wimbush. + </p> + <p> + “I never showed you our oaken drainpipes,” he said. “Some of the ones we + dug up are lying quite close to here. Would you like to come and see + them?” + </p> + <p> + Denis got up, and they walked off together into the darkness. The music + grew fainter behind them. Some of the higher notes faded out altogether. + Jenny’s drumming and the steady sawing of the bass throbbed on, tuneless + and meaningless in their ears. Henry Wimbush halted. + </p> + <p> + “Here we are,” he said, and, taking an electric torch out of his pocket, + he cast a dim beam over two or three blackened sections of tree trunk, + scooped out into the semblance of pipes, which were lying forlornly in a + little depression in the ground. + </p> + <p> + “Very interesting,” said Denis, with a rather tepid enthusiasm. + </p> + <p> + They sat down on the grass. A faint white glare, rising from behind a belt + of trees, indicated the position of the dancing-floor. The music was + nothing but a muffled rhythmic pulse. + </p> + <p> + “I shall be glad,” said Henry Wimbush, “when this function comes at last + to an end.” + </p> + <p> + “I can believe it.” + </p> + <p> + “I do not know how it is,” Mr. Wimbush continued, “but the spectacle of + numbers of my fellow-creatures in a state of agitation moves in me a + certain weariness, rather than any gaiety or excitement. The fact is, they + don’t very much interest me. They’re aren’t in my line. You follow me? I + could never take much interest, for example, in a collection of postage + stamps. Primitives or seventeenth-century books—yes. They are my + line. But stamps, no. I don’t know anything about them; they’re not my + line. They don’t interest me, they give me no emotion. It’s rather the + same with people, I’m afraid. I’m more at home with these pipes.” He + jerked his head sideways towards the hollowed logs. “The trouble with the + people and events of the present is that you never know anything about + them. What do I know of contemporary politics? Nothing. What do I know of + the people I see round about me? Nothing. What they think of me or of + anything else in the world, what they will do in five minutes’ time, are + things I can’t guess at. For all I know, you may suddenly jump up and try + to murder me in a moment’s time.” + </p> + <p> + “Come, come,” said Denis. + </p> + <p> + “True,” Mr. Wimbush continued, “the little I know about your past is + certainly reassuring. But I know nothing of your present, and neither you + nor I know anything of your future. It’s appalling; in living people, one + is dealing with unknown and unknowable quantities. One can only hope to + find out anything about them by a long series of the most disagreeable and + boring human contacts, involving a terrible expense of time. It’s the same + with current events; how can I find out anything about them except by + devoting years to the most exhausting first-hand study, involving once + more an endless number of the most unpleasant contacts? No, give me the + past. It doesn’t change; it’s all there in black and white, and you can + get to know about it comfortably and decorously and, above all, privately—by + reading. By reading I know a great deal of Caesar Borgia, of St. Francis, + of Dr. Johnson; a few weeks have made me thoroughly acquainted with these + interesting characters, and I have been spared the tedious and revolting + process of getting to know them by personal contact, which I should have + to do if they were living now. How gay and delightful life would be if one + could get rid of all the human contacts! Perhaps, in the future, when + machines have attained to a state of perfection—for I confess that I + am, like Godwin and Shelley, a believer in perfectibility, the + perfectibility of machinery—then, perhaps, it will be possible for + those who, like myself, desire it, to live in a dignified seclusion, + surrounded by the delicate attentions of silent and graceful machines, and + entirely secure from any human intrusion. It is a beautiful thought.” + </p> + <p> + “Beautiful,” Denis agreed. “But what about the desirable human contacts, + like love and friendship?” + </p> + <p> + The black silhouette against the darkness shook its head. “The pleasures + even of these contacts are much exaggerated,” said the polite level voice. + “It seems to me doubtful whether they are equal to the pleasures of + private reading and contemplation. Human contacts have been so highly + valued in the past only because reading was not a common accomplishment + and because books were scarce and difficult to reproduce. The world, you + must remember, is only just becoming literate. As reading becomes more and + more habitual and widespread, an ever-increasing number of people will + discover that books will give them all the pleasures of social life and + none of its intolerable tedium. At present people in search of pleasure + naturally tend to congregate in large herds and to make a noise; in future + their natural tendency will be to seek solitude and quiet. The proper + study of mankind is books.” + </p> + <p> + “I sometimes think that it may be,” said Denis; he was wondering if Anne + and Gombauld were still dancing together. + </p> + <p> + “Instead of which,” said Mr. Wimbush, with a sigh, “I must go and see if + all is well on the dancing-floor.” They got up and began to walk slowly + towards the white glare. “If all these people were dead,” Henry Wimbush + went on, “this festivity would be extremely agreeable. Nothing would be + pleasanter than to read in a well-written book of an open-air ball that + took place a century ago. How charming! one would say; how pretty and how + amusing! But when the ball takes place to-day, when one finds oneself + involved in it, then one sees the thing in its true light. It turns out to + be merely this.” He waved his hand in the direction of the acetylene + flares. “In my youth,” he went on after a pause, “I found myself, quite + fortuitously, involved in a series of the most phantasmagorical amorous + intrigues. A novelist could have made his fortune out of them, and even if + I were to tell you, in my bald style, the details of these adventures, you + would be amazed at the romantic tale. But I assure you, while they were + happening—these romantic adventures—they seemed to me no more + and no less exciting than any other incident of actual life. To climb by + night up a rope-ladder to a second-floor window in an old house in Toledo + seemed to me, while I was actually performing this rather dangerous feat, + an action as obvious, as much to be taken for granted, as—how shall + I put it?—as quotidian as catching the 8.52 from Surbiton to go to + business on a Monday morning. Adventures and romance only take on their + adventurous and romantic qualities at second-hand. Live them, and they are + just a slice of life like the rest. In literature they become as charming + as this dismal ball would be if we were celebrating its tercentenary.” + They had come to the entrance of the enclosure and stood there, blinking + in the dazzling light. “Ah, if only we were!” Henry Wimbush added. + </p> + <p> + Anne and Gombauld were still dancing together. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIX. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t was after ten + o’clock. The dancers had already dispersed and the last lights were being + put out. To-morrow the tents would be struck, the dismantled + merry-go-round would be packed into waggons and carted away. An expanse of + worn grass, a shabby brown patch in the wide green of the park, would be + all that remained. Crome Fair was over. + </p> + <p> + By the edge of the pool two figures lingered. + </p> + <p> + “No, no, no,” Anne was saying in a breathless whisper, leaning backwards, + turning her head from side to side in an effort to escape Gombauld’s + kisses. “No, please. No.” Her raised voice had become imperative. + </p> + <p> + Gombauld relaxed his embrace a little. “Why not?” he said. “I will.” + </p> + <p> + With a sudden effort Anne freed herself. “You won’t,” she retorted. + “You’ve tried to take the most unfair advantage of me.” + </p> + <p> + “Unfair advantage?” echoed Gombauld in genuine surprise. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, unfair advantage. You attack me after I’ve been dancing for two + hours, while I’m still reeling drunk with the movement, when I’ve lost my + head, when I’ve got no mind left but only a rhythmical body! It’s as bad + as making love to someone you’ve drugged or intoxicated.” + </p> + <p> + Gombauld laughed angrily. “Call me a White Slaver and have done with it.” + </p> + <p> + “Luckily,” said Anne, “I am now completely sobered, and if you try and + kiss me again I shall box your ears. Shall we take a few turns round the + pool?” she added. “The night is delicious.” + </p> + <p> + For answer Gombauld made an irritated noise. They paced off slowly, side + by side. + </p> + <p> + “What I like about the painting of Degas...” Anne began in her most + detached and conversational tone. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, damn Degas!” Gombauld was almost shouting. + </p> + <p> + From where he stood, leaning in an attitude of despair against the parapet + of the terrace, Denis had seen them, the two pale figures in a patch of + moonlight, far down by the pool’s edge. He had seen the beginning of what + promised to be an endless passionate embracement, and at the sight he had + fled. It was too much; he couldn’t stand it. In another moment, he felt, + he would have burst into irrepressible tears. + </p> + <p> + Dashing blindly into the house, he almost ran into Mr. Scogan, who was + walking up and down the hall smoking a final pipe. + </p> + <p> + “Hullo!” said Mr. Scogan, catching him by the arm; dazed and hardly + conscious of what he was doing or where he was, Denis stood there for a + moment like a somnambulist. “What’s the matter?” Mr. Scogan went on. “you + look disturbed, distressed, depressed.” + </p> + <p> + Denis shook his head without replying. + </p> + <p> + “Worried about the cosmos, eh?” Mr. Scogan patted him on the arm. “I know + the feeling,” he said. “It’s a most distressing symptom. ‘What’s the point + of it all? All is vanity. What’s the good of continuing to function if + one’s doomed to be snuffed out at last along with everything else?’ Yes, + yes. I know exactly how you feel. It’s most distressing if one allows + oneself to be distressed. But then why allow oneself to be distressed? + After all, we all know that there’s no ultimate point. But what difference + does that make?” + </p> + <p> + At this point the somnambulist suddenly woke up. “What?” he said, blinking + and frowning at his interlocutor. “What?” Then breaking away he dashed up + the stairs, two steps at a time. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Scogan ran to the foot of the stairs and called up after him. “It + makes no difference, none whatever. Life is gay all the same, always, + under whatever circumstances—under whatever circumstances,” he + added, raising his voice to a shout. But Denis was already far out of + hearing, and even if he had not been, his mind to-night was proof against + all the consolations of philosophy. Mr. Scogan replaced his pipe between + his teeth and resumed his meditative pacing. “Under any circumstances,” he + repeated to himself. It was ungrammatical to begin with; was it true? And + is life really its own reward? He wondered. When his pipe had burned + itself to its stinking conclusion he took a drink of gin and went to bed. + In ten minutes he was deeply, innocently asleep. + </p> + <p> + Denis had mechanically undressed and, clad in those flowered silk pyjamas + of which he was so justly proud, was lying face downwards on his bed. Time + passed. When at last he looked up, the candle which he had left alight at + his bedside had burned down almost to the socket. He looked at his watch; + it was nearly half-past one. His head ached, his dry, sleepless eyes felt + as though they had been bruised from behind, and the blood was beating + within his ears a loud arterial drum. He got up, opened the door, tiptoed + noiselessly along the passage, and began to mount the stairs towards the + higher floors. Arrived at the servants’ quarters under the roof, he + hesitated, then turning to the right he opened a little door at the end of + the corridor. Within was a pitch-dark cupboard-like boxroom, hot, stuffy, + and smelling of dust and old leather. He advanced cautiously into the + blackness, groping with his hands. It was from this den that the ladder + went up to the leads of the western tower. He found the ladder, and set + his feet on the rungs; noiselessly, he lifted the trap-door above his + head; the moonlit sky was over him, he breathed the fresh, cool air of the + night. In a moment he was standing on the leads, gazing out over the dim, + colourless landscape, looking perpendicularly down at the terrace seventy + feet below. + </p> + <p> + Why had he climbed up to this high, desolate place? Was it to look at the + moon? Was it to commit suicide? As yet he hardly knew. Death—the + tears came into his eyes when he thought of it. His misery assumed a + certain solemnity; he was lifted up on the wings of a kind of exaltation. + It was a mood in which he might have done almost anything, however + foolish. He advanced towards the farther parapet; the drop was sheer there + and uninterrupted. A good leap, and perhaps one might clear the narrow + terrace and so crash down yet another thirty feet to the sun-baked ground + below. He paused at the corner of the tower, looking now down into the + shadowy gulf below, now up towards the rare stars and the waning moon. He + made a gesture with his hand, muttered something, he could not afterwards + remember what; but the fact that he had said it aloud gave the utterance a + peculiarly terrible significance. Then he looked down once more into the + depths. + </p> + <p> + “What ARE you doing, Denis?” questioned a voice from somewhere very close + behind him. + </p> + <p> + Denis uttered a cry of frightened surprise, and very nearly went over the + parapet in good earnest. His heart was beating terribly, and he was pale + when, recovering himself, he turned round in the direction from which the + voice had come. + </p> + <p> + “Are you ill?” + </p> + <p> + In the profound shadow that slept under the eastern parapet of the tower, + he saw something he had not previously noticed—an oblong shape. It + was a mattress, and someone was lying on it. Since that first memorable + night on the tower, Mary had slept out every evening; it was a sort of + manifestation of fidelity. + </p> + <p> + “It gave me a fright,” she went on, “to wake up and see you waving your + arms and gibbering there. What on earth were you doing?” + </p> + <p> + Denis laughed melodramatically. “What, indeed!” he said. If she hadn’t + woken up as she did, he would be lying in pieces at the bottom of the + tower; he was certain of that, now. + </p> + <p> + “You hadn’t got designs on me, I hope?” Mary inquired, jumping too rapidly + to conclusions. + </p> + <p> + “I didn’t know you were here,” said Denis, laughing more bitterly and + artificially than before. + </p> + <p> + “What IS the matter, Denis?” + </p> + <p> + He sat down on the edge of the mattress, and for all reply went on + laughing in the same frightful and improbable tone. + </p> + <p> + An hour later he was reposing with his head on Mary’s knees, and she, with + an affectionate solicitude that was wholly maternal, was running her + fingers through his tangled hair. He had told her everything, everything: + his hopeless love, his jealousy, his despair, his suicide—as it were + providentially averted by her interposition. He had solemnly promised + never to think of self-destruction again. And now his soul was floating in + a sad serenity. It was embalmed in the sympathy that Mary so generously + poured. And it was not only in receiving sympathy that Denis found + serenity and even a kind of happiness; it was also in giving it. For if he + had told Mary everything about his miseries, Mary, reacting to these + confidences, had told him in return everything, or very nearly everything, + about her own. + </p> + <p> + “Poor Mary!” He was very sorry for her. Still, she might have guessed that + Ivor wasn’t precisely a monument of constancy. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” she concluded, “one must put a good face on it.” She wanted to + cry, but she wouldn’t allow herself to be weak. There was a silence. + </p> + <p> + “Do you think,” asked Denis hesitatingly—“do you really think that + she...that Gombauld...” + </p> + <p> + “I’m sure of it,” Mary answered decisively. There was another long pause. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know what to do about it,” he said at last, utterly dejected. + </p> + <p> + “You’d better go away,” advised Mary. “It’s the safest thing, and the most + sensible.” + </p> + <p> + “But I’ve arranged to stay here three weeks more.” + </p> + <p> + “You must concoct an excuse.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you’re right.” + </p> + <p> + “I know I am,” said Mary, who was recovering all her firm self-possession. + “You can’t go on like this, can you?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I can’t go on like this,” he echoed. + </p> + <p> + Immensely practical, Mary invented a plan of action. Startlingly, in the + darkness, the church clock struck three. + </p> + <p> + “You must go to bed at once,” she said. “I’d no idea it was so late.” + </p> + <p> + Denis clambered down the ladder, cautiously descended the creaking stairs. + His room was dark; the candle had long ago guttered to extinction. He got + into bed and fell asleep almost at once. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXX. + </h2> + <p class="pfirst"> + <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">D</span>enis had been + called, but in spite of the parted curtains he had dropped off again into + that drowsy, dozy state when sleep becomes a sensual pleasure almost + consciously savoured. In this condition he might have remained for another + hour if he had not been disturbed by a violent rapping at the door. + </p> + <p> + “Come in,” he mumbled, without opening his eyes. The latch clicked, a hand + seized him by the shoulder and he was rudely shaken. + </p> + <p> + “Get up, get up!” + </p> + <p> + His eyelids blinked painfully apart, and he saw Mary standing over him, + bright-faced and earnest. + </p> + <p> + “Get up!” she repeated. “You must go and send the telegram. Don’t you + remember?” + </p> + <p> + “O Lord!” He threw off the bed-clothes; his tormentor retired. + </p> + <p> + Denis dressed as quickly as he could and ran up the road to the village + post office. Satisfaction glowed within him as he returned. He had sent a + long telegram, which would in a few hours evoke an answer ordering him + back to town at once—on urgent business. It was an act performed, a + decisive step taken—and he so rarely took decisive steps; he felt + pleased with himself. It was with a whetted appetite that he came in to + breakfast. + </p> + <p> + “Good-morning,” said Mr. Scogan. “I hope you’re better.” + </p> + <p> + “Better?” + </p> + <p> + “You were rather worried about the cosmos last night.” + </p> + <p> + Denis tried to laugh away the impeachment. “Was I?” he lightly asked. + </p> + <p> + “I wish,” said Mr. Scogan, “that I had nothing worse to prey on my mind. I + should be a happy man.” + </p> + <p> + “One is only happy in action,” Denis enunciated, thinking of the telegram. + </p> + <p> + He looked out of the window. Great florid baroque clouds floated high in + the blue heaven. A wind stirred among the trees, and their shaken foliage + twinkled and glittered like metal in the sun. Everything seemed + marvellously beautiful. At the thought that he would soon be leaving all + this beauty he felt a momentary pang; but he comforted himself by + recollecting how decisively he was acting. + </p> + <p> + “Action,” he repeated aloud, and going over to the sideboard he helped + himself to an agreeable mixture of bacon and fish. + </p> + <p> + Breakfast over, Denis repaired to the terrace, and, sitting there, raised + the enormous bulwark of the “Times” against the possible assaults of Mr. + Scogan, who showed an unappeased desire to go on talking about the + Universe. Secure behind the crackling pages, he meditated. In the light of + this brilliant morning the emotions of last night seemed somehow rather + remote. And what if he had seen them embracing in the moonlight? Perhaps + it didn’t mean much after all. And even if it did, why shouldn’t he stay? + He felt strong enough to stay, strong enough to be aloof, disinterested, a + mere friendly acquaintance. And even if he weren’t strong enough... + </p> + <p> + “What time do you think the telegram will arrive?” asked Mary suddenly, + thrusting in upon him over the top of the paper. + </p> + <p> + Denis started guiltily. “I don’t know at all,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “I was only wondering,” said Mary, “because there’s a very good train at + 3.27, and it would be nice if you could catch it, wouldn’t it?” + </p> + <p> + “Awfully nice,” he agreed weakly. He felt as though he were making + arrangements for his own funeral. Train leaves Waterloo 3.27. No + flowers...Mary was gone. No, he was blowed if he’d let himself be hurried + down to the Necropolis like this. He was blowed. The sight of Mr. Scogan + looking out, with a hungry expression, from the drawing-room window made + him precipitately hoist the “Times” once more. For a long while he kept it + hoisted. Lowering it at last to take another cautious peep at his + surroundings, he found himself, with what astonishment! confronted by + Anne’s faint, amused, malicious smile. She was standing before him,—the + woman who was a tree,—the swaying grace of her movement arrested in + a pose that seemed itself a movement. + </p> + <p> + “How long have you been standing there?” he asked, when he had done gaping + at her. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, about half an hour, I suppose,” she said airily. “You were so very + deep in your paper—head over ears—I didn’t like to disturb + you.” + </p> + <p> + “You look lovely this morning,” Denis exclaimed. It was the first time he + had ever had the courage to utter a personal remark of the kind. + </p> + <p> + Anne held up her hand as though to ward off a blow. “Don’t bludgeon me, + please.” She sat down on the bench beside him. He was a nice boy, she + thought, quite charming; and Gombauld’s violent insistences were really + becoming rather tiresome. “Why don’t you wear white trousers?” she asked. + “I like you so much in white trousers.” + </p> + <p> + “They’re at the wash,” Denis replied rather curtly. This white-trouser + business was all in the wrong spirit. He was just preparing a scheme to + manoeuvre the conversation back to the proper path, when Mr. Scogan + suddenly darted out of the house, crossed the terrace with clockwork + rapidity, and came to a halt in front of the bench on which they were + seated. + </p> + <p> + “To go on with our interesting conversation about the cosmos,” he began, + “I become more and more convinced that the various parts of the concern + are fundamentally discrete...But would you mind, Denis, moving a shade to + your right?” He wedged himself between them on the bench. “And if you + would shift a few inches to the left, my dear Anne...Thank you. Discrete, + I think, was what I was saying.” + </p> + <p> + “You were,” said Anne. Denis was speechless. + </p> + <p> + They were taking their after luncheon coffee in the library when the + telegram arrived. Denis blushed guiltily as he took the orange envelope + from the salver and tore it open. “Return at once. Urgent family + business.” It was too ridiculous. As if he had any family business! + Wouldn’t it be best just to crumple the thing up and put it in his pocket + without saying anything about it? He looked up; Mary’s large blue china + eyes were fixed upon him, seriously, penetratingly. He blushed more deeply + than ever, hesitated in a horrible uncertainty. + </p> + <p> + “What’s your telegram about?” Mary asked significantly. + </p> + <p> + He lost his head, “I’m afraid,” he mumbled, “I’m afraid this means I shall + have to go back to town at once.” He frowned at the telegram ferociously. + </p> + <p> + “But that’s absurd, impossible,” cried Anne. She had been standing by the + window talking to Gombauld; but at Denis’s words she came swaying across + the room towards him. + </p> + <p> + “It’s urgent,” he repeated desperately. + </p> + <p> + “But you’ve only been here such a short time,” Anne protested. + </p> + <p> + “I know,” he said, utterly miserable. Oh, if only she could understand! + Women were supposed to have intuition. + </p> + <p> + “If he must go, he must,” put in Mary firmly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I must.” He looked at the telegram again for inspiration. “You see, + it’s urgent family business,” he explained. + </p> + <p> + Priscilla got up from her chair in some excitement. “I had a distinct + presentiment of this last night,” she said. “A distinct presentiment.” + </p> + <p> + “A mere coincidence, no doubt,” said Mary, brushing Mrs. Wimbush out of + the conversation. “There’s a very good train at 3.27.” She looked at the + clock on the mantelpiece. “You’ll have nice time to pack.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll order the motor at once.” Henry Wimbush rang the bell. The funeral + was well under way. It was awful, awful. + </p> + <p> + “I am wretched you should be going,” said Anne. + </p> + <p> + Denis turned towards her; she really did look wretched. He abandoned + himself hopelessly, fatalistically to his destiny. This was what came of + action, of doing something decisive. If only he’d just let things drift! + If only... + </p> + <p> + “I shall miss your conversation,” said Mr. Scogan. + </p> + <p> + Mary looked at the clock again. “I think perhaps you ought to go and + pack,” she said. + </p> + <p> + Obediently Denis left the room. Never again, he said to himself, never + again would he do anything decisive. Camlet, West Bowlby, Knipswich for + Timpany, Spavin Delawarr; and then all the other stations; and then, + finally, London. The thought of the journey appalled him. And what on + earth was he going to do in London when he got there? He climbed wearily + up the stairs. It was time for him to lay himself in his coffin. + </p> + <p> + The car was at the door—the hearse. The whole party had assembled to + see him go. Good-bye, good-bye. Mechanically he tapped the barometer that + hung in the porch; the needle stirred perceptibly to the left. A sudden + smile lighted up his lugubrious face. + </p> + <p> + “‘It sinks and I am ready to depart,’” he said, quoting Landor with an + exquisite aptness. He looked quickly round from face to face. Nobody had + noticed. He climbed into the hearse. + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Crome Yellow, by Aldous Huxley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CROME YELLOW *** + +***** This file should be named 1999-h.htm or 1999-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/9/1999/ + +Produced by Sue Asscher, and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Denis knew the names of those stations by heart. +Bole, Tritton, Spavin Delawarr, Knipswich for Timpany, West +Bowlby, and, finally, Camlet-on-the-Water. Camlet was where he +always got out, leaving the train to creep indolently onward, +goodness only knew whither, into the green heart of England. + +They were snorting out of West Bowlby now. It was the next +station, thank Heaven. Denis took his chattels off the rack and +piled them neatly in the corner opposite his own. A futile +proceeding. But one must have something to do. When he had +finished, he sank back into his seat and closed his eyes. It was +extremely hot. + +Oh, this journey! It was two hours cut clean out of his life; +two hours in which he might have done so much, so much--written +the perfect poem, for example, or read the one illuminating book. +Instead of which--his gorge rose at the smell of the dusty +cushions against which he was leaning. + +Two hours. One hundred and twenty minutes. Anything might be +done in that time. Anything. Nothing. Oh, he had had hundreds +of hours, and what had he done with them? Wasted them, spilt the +precious minutes as though his reservoir were inexhaustible. +Denis groaned in the spirit, condemned himself utterly with all +his works. What right had he to sit in the sunshine, to occupy +corner seats in third-class carriages, to be alive? None, none, +none. + +Misery and a nameless nostalgic distress possessed him. He was +twenty-three, and oh! so agonizingly conscious of the fact. + +The train came bumpingly to a halt. Here was Camlet at last. +Denis jumped up, crammed his hat over his eyes, deranged his pile +of baggage, leaned out of the window and shouted for a porter, +seized a bag in either hand, and had to put them down again in +order to open the door. When at last he had safely bundled +himself and his baggage on to the platform, he ran up the train +towards the van. + +"A bicycle, a bicycle!" he said breathlessly to the guard. He +felt himself a man of action. The guard paid no attention, but +continued methodically to hand out, one by one, the packages +labelled to Camlet. "A bicycle!" Denis repeated. "A green +machine, cross-framed, name of Stone. S-T-O-N-E." + +"All in good time, sir," said the guard soothingly. He was a +large, stately man with a naval beard. One pictured him at home, +drinking tea, surrounded by a numerous family. It was in that +tone that he must have spoken to his children when they were +tiresome. "All in good time, sir." Denis's man of action +collapsed, punctured. + +He left his luggage to be called for later, and pushed off on his +bicycle. He always took his bicycle when he went into the +country. It was part of the theory of exercise. One day one +would get up at six o'clock and pedal away to Kenilworth, or +Stratford-on-Avon--anywhere. And within a radius of twenty miles +there were always Norman churches and Tudor mansions to be seen +in the course of an afternoon's excursion. Somehow they never +did get seen, but all the same it was nice to feel that the +bicycle was there, and that one fine morning one really might get +up at six. + +Once at the top of the long hill which led up from Camlet +station, he felt his spirits mounting. The world, he found, was +good. The far-away blue hills, the harvests whitening on the +slopes of the ridge along which his road led him, the treeless +sky-lines that changed as he moved--yes, they were all good. He +was overcome by the beauty of those deeply embayed combes, +scooped in the flanks of the ridge beneath him. Curves, curves: +he repeated the word slowly, trying as he did so to find some +term in which to give expression to his appreciation. Curves-- +no, that was inadequate. He made a gesture with his hand, as +though to scoop the achieved expression out of the air, and +almost fell off his bicycle. What was the word to describe the +curves of those little valleys? They were as fine as the lines +of a human body, they were informed with the subtlety of art... + +Galbe. That was a good word; but it was French. Le galbe evase +de ses hanches: had one ever read a French novel in which that +phrase didn't occur? Some day he would compile a dictionary for +the use of novelists. Galbe, gonfle, goulu: parfum, peau, +pervers, potele, pudeur: vertu, volupte. + +But he really must find that word. Curves curves...Those little +valleys had the lines of a cup moulded round a woman's breast; +they seemed the dinted imprints of some huge divine body that had +rested on these hills. Cumbrous locutions, these; but through +them he seemed to be getting nearer to what he wanted. Dinted, +dimpled, wimpled--his mind wandered down echoing corridors of +assonance and alliteration ever further and further from the +point. He was enamoured with the beauty of words. + +Becoming once more aware of the outer world, he found himself on +the crest of a descent. The road plunged down, steep and +straight, into a considerable valley. There, on the opposite +slope, a little higher up the valley, stood Crome, his +destination. He put on his brakes; this view of Crome was +pleasant to linger over. The facade with its three projecting +towers rose precipitously from among the dark trees of the +garden. The house basked in full sunlight; the old brick rosily +glowed. How ripe and rich it was, how superbly mellow! And at +the same time, how austere! The hill was becoming steeper and +steeper; he was gaining speed in spite of his brakes. He loosed +his grip of the levers, and in a moment was rushing headlong +down. Five minutes later he was passing through the gate of the +great courtyard. The front door stood hospitably open. He left +his bicycle leaning against the wall and walked in. He would +take them by surprise. + + +CHAPTER II. + +He took nobody by surprise; there was nobody to take. All was +quiet; Denis wandered from room to empty room, looking with +pleasure at the familiar pictures and furniture, at all the +little untidy signs of life that lay scattered here and there. +He was rather glad that they were all out; it was amusing to +wander through the house as though one were exploring a dead, +deserted Pompeii. What sort of life would the excavator +reconstruct from these remains; how would he people these empty +chambers? There was the long gallery, with its rows of +respectable and (though, of course, one couldn't publicly admit +it) rather boring Italian primitives, its Chinese sculptures, its +unobtrusive, dateless furniture. There was the panelled drawing- +room, where the huge chintz-covered arm-chairs stood, oases of +comfort among the austere flesh-mortifying antiques. There was +the morning-room, with its pale lemon walls, its painted Venetian +chairs and rococo tables, its mirrors, its modern pictures. +There was the library, cool, spacious, and dark, book-lined from +floor to ceiling, rich in portentous folios. There was the +dining-room, solidly, portwinily English, with its great mahogany +table, its eighteenth-century chairs and sideboard, its +eighteenth-century pictures--family portraits, meticulous animal +paintings. What could one reconstruct from such data? There was +much of Henry Wimbush in the long gallery and the library, +something of Anne, perhaps, in the morning-room. That was all. +Among the accumulations of ten generations the living had left +but few traces. + +Lying on the table in the morning-room he saw his own book of +poems. What tact! He picked it up and opened it. It was what +the reviewers call "a slim volume." He read at hazard: + +"...But silence and the topless dark +Vault in the lights of Luna Park; +And Blackpool from the nightly gloom +Hollows a bright tumultuous tomb." + +He put it down again, shook his head, and sighed. "What genius I +had then!" he reflected, echoing the aged Swift. It was nearly +six months since the book had been published; he was glad to +think he would never write anything of the same sort again. Who +could have been reading it, he wondered? Anne, perhaps; he liked +to think so. Perhaps, too, she had at last recognised herself in +the Hamadryad of the poplar sapling; the slim Hamadryad whose +movements were like the swaying of a young tree in the wind. +"The Woman who was a Tree" was what he had called the poem. He +had given her the book when it came out, hoping that the poem +would tell her what he hadn't dared to say. She had never +referred to it. + +He shut his eyes and saw a vision of her in a red velvet cloak, +swaying into the little restaurant where they sometimes dined +together in London--three quarters of an hour late, and he at his +table, haggard with anxiety, irritation, hunger. Oh, she was +damnable! + +It occurred to him that perhaps his hostess might be in her +boudoir. It was a possibility; he would go and see. Mrs. +Wimbush's boudoir was in the central tower on the garden front. +A little staircase cork-screwed up to it from the hall. Denis +mounted, tapped at the door. "Come in." Ah, she was there; he +had rather hoped she wouldn't be. He opened the door. + +Priscilla Wimbush was lying on the sofa. A blotting-pad rested +on her knees and she was thoughtfully sucking the end of a silver +pencil. + +"Hullo," she said, looking up. "I'd forgotten you were coming." + +"Well, here I am, I'm afraid," said Denis deprecatingly. "I'm +awfully sorry." + +Mrs. Wimbush laughed. Her voice, her laughter, were deep and +masculine. Everything about her was manly. She had a large, +square, middle-aged face, with a massive projecting nose and +little greenish eyes, the whole surmounted by a lofty and +elaborate coiffure of a curiously improbable shade of orange. +Looking at her, Denis always thought of Wilkie Bard as the +cantatrice. + +"That's why I'm going to +Sing in op'ra, sing in op'ra, +Sing in op-pop-pop-pop-pop-popera." + +Today she was wearing a purple silk dress with a high collar and +a row of pearls. The costume, so richly dowagerish, so +suggestive of the Royal Family, made her look more than ever like +something on the Halls. + +"What have you been doing all this time?" she asked. + +"Well," said Denis, and he hesitated, almost voluptuously. He +had a tremendously amusing account of London and its doings all +ripe and ready in his mind. It would be a pleasure to give it +utterance. "To begin with," he said... + +But he was too late. Mrs. Wimbush's question had been what the +grammarians call rhetorical; it asked for no answer. It was a +little conversational flourish, a gambit in the polite game. + +"You find me busy at my horoscopes," she said, without even being +aware that she had interrupted him. + +A little pained, Denis decided to reserve his story for more +receptive ears. He contented himself, by way of revenge, with +saying "Oh?" rather icily. + +"Did I tell you how I won four hundred on the Grand National this +year?" + +"Yes," he replied, still frigid and mono-syllabic. She must have +told him at least six times. + +"Wonderful, isn't it? Everything is in the Stars. In the Old +Days, before I had the Stars to help me, I used to lose +thousands. Now"--she paused an instant--"well, look at that four +hundred on the Grand National. That's the Stars." + +Denis would have liked to hear more about the Old Days. But he +was too discreet and, still more, too shy to ask. There had been +something of a bust up; that was all he knew. Old Priscilla--not +so old then, of course, and sprightlier--had lost a great deal of +money, dropped it in handfuls and hatfuls on every race-course in +the country. She had gambled too. The number of thousands +varied in the different legends, but all put it high. Henry +Wimbush was forced to sell some of his Primitives--a Taddeo da +Poggibonsi, an Amico di Taddeo, and four or five nameless +Sienese--to the Americans. There was a crisis. For the first +time in his life Henry asserted himself, and with good effect, it +seemed. + +Priscilla's gay and gadding existence had come to an abrupt end. +Nowadays she spent almost all her time at Crome, cultivating a +rather ill-defined malady. For consolation she dallied with New +Thought and the Occult. Her passion for racing still possessed +her, and Henry, who was a kind-hearted fellow at bottom, allowed +her forty pounds a month betting money. Most of Priscilla's days +were spent in casting the horoscopes of horses, and she invested +her money scientifically, as the stars dictated. She betted on +football too, and had a large notebook in which she registered +the horoscopes of all the players in all the teams of the League. +The process of balancing the horoscopes of two elevens one +against the other was a very delicate and difficult one. A match +between the Spurs and the Villa entailed a conflict in the +heavens so vast and so complicated that it was not to be wondered +at if she sometimes made a mistake about the outcome. + +"Such a pity you don't believe in these things, Denis, such a +pity," said Mrs. Wimbush in her deep, distinct voice. + +"I can't say I feel it so." + +"Ah, that's because you don't know what it's like to have faith. +You've no idea how amusing and exciting life becomes when you do +believe. All that happens means something; nothing you do is +ever insignificant. It makes life so jolly, you know. Here am I +at Crome. Dull as ditchwater, you'd think; but no, I don't find +it so. I don't regret the Old Days a bit. I have the Stars..." +She picked up the sheet of paper that was lying on the blotting- +pad. "Inman's horoscope," she explained. "(I thought I'd like +to have a little fling on the billiards championship this +autumn.) I have the Infinite to keep in tune with," she waved +her hand. "And then there's the next world and all the spirits, +and one's Aura, and Mrs. Eddy and saying you're not ill, and the +Christian Mysteries and Mrs. Besant. It's all splendid. One's +never dull for a moment. I can't think how I used to get on +before--in the Old Days. Pleasure--running about, that's all it +was; just running about. Lunch, tea, dinner, theatre, supper +every day. It was fun, of course, while it lasted. But there +wasn't much left of it afterwards. There's rather a good thing +about that in Barbecue-Smith's new book. Where is it?" + +She sat up and reached for a book that was lying on the little +table by the head of the sofa. + +"Do you know him, by the way?" she asked. + +"Who?" + +"Mr. Barbecue-Smith." + +Denis knew of him vaguely. Barbecue-Smith was a name in the +Sunday papers. He wrote about the Conduct of Life. He might +even be the author of "What a Young Girl Ought to Know". + +"No, not personally," he said. + +"I've invited him for next week-end." She turned over the pages +of the book. "Here's the passage I was thinking of. I marked +it. I always mark the things I like." + +Holding the book almost at arm's length, for she was somewhat +long-sighted, and making suitable gestures with her free hand, +she began to read, slowly, dramatically. + +"'What are thousand pound fur coats, what are quarter million +incomes?'" She looked up from the page with a histrionic +movement of the head; her orange coiffure nodded portentously. +Denis looked at it, fascinated. Was it the Real Thing and henna, +he wondered, or was it one of those Complete Transformations one +sees in the advertisements? + +"'What are Thrones and Sceptres?'" + +The orange Transformation--yes, it must be a Transformation-- +bobbed up again. + +"'What are the gaieties of the Rich, the splendours of the +Powerful, what is the pride of the Great, what are the gaudy +pleasures of High Society?'" + +The voice, which had risen in tone, questioningly, from sentence +to sentence, dropped suddenly and boomed reply. + +"'They are nothing. Vanity, fluff, dandelion seed in the wind, +thin vapours of fever. The things that matter happen in the +heart. Seen things are sweet, but those unseen are a thousand +times more significant. It is the unseen that counts in Life.'" + +Mrs. Wimbush lowered the book. "Beautiful, isn't it?" she said. + +Denis preferred not to hazard an opinion, but uttered a non- +committal "H'm." + +"Ah, it's a fine book this, a beautiful book," said Priscilla, as +she let the pages flick back, one by one, from under her thumb. +"And here's the passage about the Lotus Pool. He compares the +Soul to a Lotus Pool, you know." She held up the book again and +read. "'A Friend of mine has a Lotus Pool in his garden. It +lies in a little dell embowered with wild roses and eglantine, +among which the nightingale pours forth its amorous descant all +the summer long. Within the pool the Lotuses blossom, and the +birds of the air come to drink and bathe themselves in its +crystal waters...' Ah, and that reminds me," Priscilla +exclaimed, shutting the book with a clap and uttering her big +profound laugh--"that reminds me of the things that have been +going on in our bathing-pool since you were here last. We gave +the village people leave to come and bathe here in the evenings. +You've no idea of the things that happened." + +She leaned forward, speaking in a confidential whisper; every now +and then she uttered a deep gurgle of laughter. "...mixed +bathing...saw them out of my window...sent for a pair of field- +glasses to make sure...no doubt of it..." The laughter broke out +again. Denis laughed too. Barbecue-Smith was tossed on the +floor. + +It's time we went to see if tea's ready," said Priscilla. She +hoisted herself up from the sofa and went swishing off across the +room, striding beneath the trailing silk. Denis followed her, +faintly humming to himself: + +"That's why I'm going to +Sing in op'ra, sing in op'ra, +Sing in op-pop-pop-pop-popera." + +And then the little twiddly bit of accompaniment at the end: +"ra-ra." + + +CHAPTER III. + +The terrace in front of the house was a long narrow strip of +turf, bounded along its outer edge by a graceful stone +balustrade. Two little summer-houses of brick stood at either +end. Below the house the ground sloped very steeply away, and +the terrace was a remarkably high one; from the balusters to the +sloping lawn beneath was a drop of thirty feet. Seen from below, +the high unbroken terrace wall, built like the house itself of +brick, had the almost menacing aspect of a fortification--a +castle bastion, from whose parapet one looked out across airy +depths to distances level with the eye. Below, in the +foreground, hedged in by solid masses of sculptured yew trees, +lay the stone-brimmed swimming-pool. Beyond it stretched the +park, with its massive elms, its green expanses of grass, and, at +the bottom of the valley, the gleam of the narrow river. On the +farther side of the stream the land rose again in a long slope, +chequered with cultivation. Looking up the valley, to the right, +one saw a line of blue, far-off hills. + +The tea-table had been planted in the shade of one of the little +summer-houses, and the rest of the party was already assembled +about it when Denis and Priscilla made their appearance. Henry +Wimbush had begun to pour out the tea. He was one of those +ageless, unchanging men on the farther side of fifty, who might +be thirty, who might be anything. Denis had known him almost as +long as he could remember. In all those years his pale, rather +handsome face had never grown any older; it was like the pale +grey bowler hat which he always wore, winter and summer-- +unageing, calm, serenely without expression. + +Next him, but separated from him and from the rest of the world +by the almost impenetrable barriers of her deafness, sat Jenny +Mullion. She was perhaps thirty, had a tilted nose and a pink- +and-white complexion, and wore her brown hair plaited and coiled +in two lateral buns over her ears. In the secret tower of her +deafness she sat apart, looking down at the world through sharply +piercing eyes. What did she think of men and women and things? +That was something that Denis had never been able to discover. +In her enigmatic remoteness Jenny was a little disquieting. Even +now some interior joke seemed to be amusing her, for she was +smiling to herself, and her brown eyes were like very bright +round marbles. + +On his other side the serious, moonlike innocence of Mary +Bracegirdle's face shone pink and childish. She was nearly +twenty-three, but one wouldn't have guessed it. Her short hair, +clipped like a page's, hung in a bell of elastic gold about her +cheeks. She had large blue china eyes, whose expression was one +of ingenuous and often puzzled earnestness. + +Next to Mary a small gaunt man was sitting, rigid and erect in +his chair. In appearance Mr. Scogan was like one of those +extinct bird-lizards of the Tertiary. His nose was beaked, his +dark eye had the shining quickness of a robin's. But there was +nothing soft or gracious or feathery about him. The skin of his +wrinkled brown face had a dry and scaly look; his hands were the +hands of a crocodile. His movements were marked by the lizard's +disconcertingly abrupt clockwork speed; his speech was thin, +fluty, and dry. Henry Wimbush's school-fellow and exact +contemporary, Mr. Scogan looked far older and, at the same time, +far more youthfully alive than did that gentle aristocrat with +the face like a grey bowler. + +Mr. Scogan might look like an extinct saurian, but Gombauld was +altogether and essentially human. In the old-fashioned natural +histories of the 'thirties he might have figured in a steel +engraving as a type of Homo Sapiens--an honour which at that time +commonly fell to Lord Byron. Indeed, with more hair and less +collar, Gombauld would have been completely Byronic--more than +Byronic, even, for Gombauld was of Provencal descent, a black- +haired young corsair of thirty, with flashing teeth and luminous +large dark eyes. Denis looked at him enviously. He was jealous +of his talent: if only he wrote verse as well as Gombauld +painted pictures! Still more, at the moment, he envied Gombauld +his looks, his vitality, his easy confidence of manner. Was it +surprising that Anne should like him? Like him?--it might even +be something worse, Denis reflected bitterly, as he walked at +Priscilla's side down the long grass terrace. + +Between Gombauld and Mr. Scogan a very much lowered deck-chair +presented its back to the new arrivals as they advanced towards +the tea-table. Gombauld was leaning over it; his face moved +vivaciously; he smiled, he laughed, he made quick gestures with +his hands. From the depths of the chair came up a sound of soft, +lazy laughter. Denis started as he heard it. That laughter--how +well he knew it! What emotions it evoked in him! He quickened +his pace. + +In her low deck-chair Anne was nearer to lying than to sitting. +Her long, slender body reposed in an attitude of listless and +indolent grace. Within its setting of light brown hair her face +had a pretty regularity that was almost doll-like. And indeed +there were moments when she seemed nothing more than a doll; when +the oval face, with its long-lashed, pale blue eyes, expressed +nothing; when it was no more than a lazy mask of wax. She was +Henry Wimbush's own niece; that bowler-like countenance was one +of the Wimbush heirlooms; it ran in the family, appearing in its +female members as a blank doll-face. But across this dollish +mask, like a gay melody dancing over an unchanging fundamental +bass, passed Anne's other inheritance--quick laughter, light +ironic amusement, and the changing expressions of many moods. +She was smiling now as Denis looked down at her: her cat's +smile, he called it, for no very good reason. The mouth was +compressed, and on either side of it two tiny wrinkles had formed +themselves in her cheeks. An infinity of slightly malicious +amusement lurked in those little folds, in the puckers about the +half-closed eyes, in the eyes themselves, bright and laughing +between the narrowed lids. + +The preliminary greetings spoken, Denis found an empty chair +between Gombauld and Jenny and sat down. + +"How are you, Jenny?" he shouted to her. + +Jenny nodded and smiled in mysterious silence, as though the +subject of her health were a secret that could not be publicly +divulged. + +"How's London been since I went away?" Anne inquired from the +depth of her chair. + +The moment had come; the tremendously amusing narrative was +waiting for utterance. "Well," said Denis, smiling happily, "to +begin with..." + +"Has Priscilla told you of our great antiquarian find?" Henry +Wimbush leaned forward; the most promising of buds was nipped. + +"To begin with," said Denis desperately, "there was the +Ballet..." + +"Last week," Mr. Wimbush went on softly and implacably, "we dug +up fifty yards of oaken drain-pipes; just tree trunks with a hole +bored through the middle. Very interesting indeed. Whether they +were laid down by the monks in the fifteenth century, or +whether..." + +Denis listened gloomily. "Extraordinary!" he said, when Mr. +Wimbush had finished; "quite extraordinary!" He helped himself +to another slice of cake. He didn't even want to tell his tale +about London now; he was damped. + +For some time past Mary's grave blue eyes had been fixed upon +him. "What have you been writing lately?" she asked. It would +be nice to have a little literary conversation. + +"Oh, verse and prose," said Denis--"just verse and prose." + +"Prose?" Mr. Scogan pounced alarmingly on the word. "You've been +writing prose?" + +"Yes." + +"Not a novel?" + +"Yes." + +"My poor Denis!" exclaimed Mr. Scogan. "What about?" + +Denis felt rather uncomfortable. "Oh, about the usual things, +you know." + +"Of course," Mr. Scogan groaned. "I'll describe the plot for +you. Little Percy, the hero, was never good at games, but he was +always clever. He passes through the usual public school and the +usual university and comes to London, where he lives among the +artists. He is bowed down with melancholy thought; he carries +the whole weight of the universe upon his shoulders. He writes a +novel of dazzling brilliance; he dabbles delicately in Amour and +disappears, at the end of the book, into the luminous Future." + +Denis blushed scarlet. Mr. Scogan had described the plan of his +novel with an accuracy that was appalling. He made an effort to +laugh. "You're entirely wrong," he said. "My novel is not in +the least like that." It was a heroic lie. Luckily, he +reflected, only two chapters were written. He would tear them up +that very evening when he unpacked. + +Mr. Scogan paid no attention to his denial, but went on: "Why +will you young men continue to write about things that are so +entirely uninteresting as the mentality of adolescents and +artists? Professional anthropologists might find it interesting +to turn sometimes from the beliefs of the Blackfellow to the +philosophical preoccupations of the undergraduate. But you can't +expect an ordinary adult man, like myself, to be much moved by +the story of his spiritual troubles. And after all, even in +England, even in Germany and Russia, there are more adults than +adolescents. As for the artist, he is preoccupied with problems +that are so utterly unlike those of the ordinary adult man-- +problems of pure aesthetics which don't so much as present +themselves to people like myself--that a description of his +mental processes is as boring to the ordinary reader as a piece +of pure mathematics. A serious book about artists regarded as +artists is unreadable; and a book about artists regarded as +lovers, husbands, dipsomaniacs, heroes, and the like is really +not worth writing again. Jean-Christophe is the stock artist of +literature, just as Professor Radium of "Comic Cuts" is its stock +man of science." + +'I'm sorry to hear I'm as uninteresting as all that," said +Gombauld. + +"Not at all, my dear Gombauld," Mr. Scogan hastened to explain. +"As a lover or a dipsomaniac, I've no doubt of your being a most +fascinating specimen. But as a combiner of forms, you must +honestly admit it, you're a bore." + +"I entirely disagree with you," exclaimed Mary. She was somehow +always out of breath when she talked. And her speech was +punctuated by little gasps. "I've known a great many artists, +and I've always found their mentality very interesting. +Especially in Paris. Tschuplitski, for example--I saw a great +deal of Tschuplitski in Paris this spring..." + +"Ah, but then you're an exception, Mary, you're an exception," +said Mr. Scogan. "You are a femme superieure." + +A flush of pleasure turned Mary's face into a harvest moon. + + +CHAPTER IV. + +Denis woke up next morning to find the sun shining, the sky +serene. He decided to wear white flannel trousers--white flannel +trousers and a black jacket, with a silk shirt and his new peach- +coloured tie. And what shoes? White was the obvious choice, but +there was something rather pleasing about the notion of black +patent leather. He lay in bed for several minutes considering +the problem. + +Before he went down--patent leather was his final choice--he +looked at himself critically in the glass. His hair might have +been more golden, he reflected. As it was, its yellowness had +the hint of a greenish tinge in it. But his forehead was good. +His forehead made up in height what his chin lacked in +prominence. His nose might have been longer, but it would pass. +His eyes might have been blue and not green. But his coat was +very well cut and, discreetly padded, made him seem robuster than +he actually was. His legs, in their white casing, were long and +elegant. Satisfied, he descended the stairs. Most of the party +had already finished their breakfast. He found himself alone +with Jenny. + +"I hope you slept well," he said. + +"Yes, isn't it lovely?" Jenny replied, giving two rapid little +nods. "But we had such awful thunderstorms last week." + +Parallel straight lines, Denis reflected, meet only at infinity. +He might talk for ever of care-charmer sleep and she of +meteorology till the end of time. Did one ever establish contact +with anyone? We are all parallel straight lines. Jenny was only +a little more parallel than most. + +"They are very alarming, these thunderstorms," he said, helping +himself to porridge. "Don't you think so? Or are you above +being frightened?" + +"No. I always go to bed in a storm. One is so much safer lying +down." + +"Why?" + +"Because," said Jenny, making a descriptive gesture, "because +lightning goes downwards and not flat ways. When you're lying +down you're out of the current." + +"That's very ingenious." + +"It's true." + +There was a silence. Denis finished his porridge and helped +himself to bacon. For lack of anything better to say, and +because Mr. Scogan's absurd phrase was for some reason running in +his head, he turned to Jenny and asked: + +"Do you consider yourself a femme superieure?" He had to repeat +the question several times before Jenny got the hang of it. + +"No," she said, rather indignantly, when at last she heard what +Denis was saying. "Certainly not. Has anyone been suggesting +that I am?" + +"No," said Denis. "Mr. Scogan told Mary she was one." + +"Did he?" Jenny lowered her voice. "Shall I tell you what I +think of that man? I think he's slightly sinister." + +Having made this pronouncement, she entered the ivory tower of +her deafness and closed the door. Denis could not induce her to +say anything more, could not induce her even to listen. She just +smiled at him, smiled and occasionally nodded. + +Denis went out on to the terrace to smoke his after-breakfast +pipe and to read his morning paper. An hour later, when Anne +came down, she found him still reading. By this time he had got +to the Court Circular and the Forthcoming Weddings. He got up to +meet her as she approached, a Hamadryad in white muslin, across +the grass. + +"Why, Denis," she exclaimed, "you look perfectly sweet in your +white trousers." + +Denis was dreadfully taken aback. There was no possible retort. +"You speak as though I were a child in a new frock," he said, +with a show of irritation. + +"But that's how I feel about you, Denis dear." + +"Then you oughtn't to." + +"But I can't help it. I'm so much older than you." + +"I like that," he said. "Four years older." + +"And if you do look perfectly sweet in your white trousers, why +shouldn't I say so? And why did you put them on, if you didn't +think you were going to look sweet in them?" + +"Let's go into the garden," said Denis. He was put out; the +conversation had taken such a preposterous and unexpected turn. +He had planned a very different opening, in which he was to lead +off with, "You look adorable this morning," or something of the +kind, and she was to answer, "Do I?" and then there was to be a +pregnant silence. And now she had got in first with the +trousers. It was provoking; his pride was hurt. + +That part of the garden that sloped down from the foot of the +terrace to the pool had a beauty which did not depend on colour +so much as on forms. It was as beautiful by moonlight as in the +sun. The silver of water, the dark shapes of yew and ilex trees +remained, at all hours and seasons, the dominant features of the +scene. It was a landscape in black and white. For colour there +was the flower-garden; it lay to one side of the pool, separated +from it by a huge Babylonian wall of yews. You passed through a +tunnel in the hedge, you opened a wicket in a wall, and you found +yourself, startlingly and suddenly, in the world of colour. The +July borders blazed and flared under the sun. Within its high +brick walls the garden was like a great tank of warmth and +perfume and colour. + +Denis held open the little iron gate for his companion. "It's +like passing from a cloister into an Oriental palace," he said, +and took a deep breath of the warm, flower-scented air. "'In +fragrant volleys they let fly...' How does it go? + +"'Well shot, ye firemen! Oh how sweet +And round your equal fires do meet; +Whose shrill report no ear can tell, +But echoes to the eye and smell...'" + +"You have a bad habit of quoting," said Anne. "As I never know +the context or author, I find it humiliating." + +Denis apologized. "It's the fault of one's education. Things +somehow seem more real and vivid when one can apply somebody +else's ready-made phrase about them. And then there are lots of +lovely names and words--Monophysite, Iamblichus, Pomponazzi; you +bring them out triumphantly, and feel you've clinched the +argument with the mere magical sound of them. That's what comes +of the higher education." + +"You may regret your education," said Anne; "I'm ashamed of my +lack of it. Look at those sunflowers! Aren't they magnificent?" + +"Dark faces and golden crowns--they're kings of Ethiopia. And I +like the way the tits cling to the flowers and pick out the +seeds, while the other loutish birds, grubbing dirtily for their +food, look up in envy from the ground. Do they look up in envy? +That's the literary touch, I'm afraid. Education again. It +always comes back to that." He was silent. + +Anne had sat down on a bench that stood in the shade of an old +apple tree. "I'm listening," she said. + +He did not sit down, but walked backwards and forwards in front +of the bench, gesticulating a little as he talked. "Books," he +said--"books. One reads so many, and one sees so few people and +so little of the world. Great thick books about the universe and +the mind and ethics. You've no idea how many there are. I must +have read twenty or thirty tons of them in the last five years. +Twenty tons of ratiocination. Weighted with that, one's pushed +out into the world." + +He went on walking up and down. His voice rose, fell, was silent +a moment, and then talked on. He moved his hands, sometimes he +waved his arms. Anne looked and listened quietly, as though she +were at a lecture. He was a nice boy, and to-day he looked +charming--charming! + +One entered the world, Denis pursued, having ready-made ideas +about everything. One had a philosophy and tried to make life +fit into it. One should have lived first and then made one's +philosophy to fit life...Life, facts, things were horribly +complicated; ideas, even the most difficult of them, deceptively +simple. In the world of ideas everything was clear; in life all +was obscure, embroiled. Was it surprising that one was +miserable, horribly unhappy? Denis came to a halt in front of +the bench, and as he asked this last question he stretched out +his arms and stood for an instant in an attitude of crucifixion, +then let them fall again to his sides. + +"My poor Denis!" Anne was touched. He was really too pathetic +as he stood there in front of her in his white flannel trousers. +"But does one suffer about these things? It seems very +extraordinary." + +"You're like Scogan," cried Denis bitterly. "You regard me as a +specimen for an anthropologist. Well, I suppose I am." + +"No, no," she protested, and drew in her skirt with a gesture +that indicated that he was to sit down beside her. He sat down. +"Why can't you just take things for granted and as they come?" +she asked. "It's so much simpler." + +"Of course it is," said Denis. "But it's a lesson to be learnt +gradually. There are the twenty tons of ratiocination to be got +rid of first." + +"I've always taken things as they come," said Anne. "It seems so +obvious. One enjoys the pleasant things, avoids the nasty ones. +There's nothing more to be said." + +"Nothing--for you. But, then, you were born a pagan; I am trying +laboriously to make myself one. I can take nothing for granted, +I can enjoy nothing as it comes along. Beauty, pleasure, art, +women--I have to invent an excuse, a justification for everything +that's delightful. Otherwise I can't enjoy it with an easy +conscience. I make up a little story about beauty and pretend +that it has something to do with truth and goodness. I have to +say that art is the process by which one reconstructs the divine +reality out of chaos. Pleasure is one of the mystical roads to +union with the infinite--the ecstasies of drinking, dancing, +love-making. As for women, I am perpetually assuring myself that +they're the broad highway to divinity. And to think that I'm +only just beginning to see through the silliness of the whole +thing! It's incredible to me that anyone should have escaped +these horrors." + +"It's still more incredible to me," said Anne, "that anyone +should have been a victim to them. I should like to see myself +believing that men are the highway to divinity." The amused +malice of her smile planted two little folds on either side of +her mouth, and through their half-closed lids her eyes shone with +laughter. "What you need, Denis, is a nice plump young wife, a +fixed income, and a little congenial but regular work." + +"What I need is you." That was what he ought to have retorted, +that was what he wanted passionately to say. He could not say +it. His desire fought against his shyness. "What I need is +you." Mentally he shouted the words, but not a sound issued from +his lips. He looked at her despairingly. Couldn't she see what +was going on inside him? Couldn't she understand? "What I need +is you." He would say it, he would--he would. + +"I think I shall go and bathe," said Anne. "It's so hot." The +opportunity had passed. + + +CHAPTER V. + +Mr. Wimbush had taken them to see the sights of the Home Farm, +and now they were standing, all six of them--Henry Wimbush, Mr. +Scogan, Denis, Gombauld, Anne, and Mary--by the low wall of the +piggery, looking into one of the styes. + +"This is a good sow," said Henry Wimbush. "She had a litter of +fourteen. + +"Fourteen?" Mary echoed incredulously. She turned astonished +blue eyes towards Mr. Wimbush, then let them fall onto the +seething mass of elan vital that fermented in the sty. + +An immense sow reposed on her side in the middle of the pen. Her +round, black belly, fringed with a double line of dugs, presented +itself to the assault of an army of small, brownish-black swine. +With a frantic greed they tugged at their mother's flank. The +old sow stirred sometimes uneasily or uttered a little grunt of +pain. One small pig, the runt, the weakling of the litter, had +been unable to secure a place at the banquet. Squealing shrilly, +he ran backwards and forwards, trying to push in among his +stronger brothers or even to climb over their tight little black +backs towards the maternal reservoir. + +"There ARE fourteen," said Mary. "You're quite right. I +counted. It's extraordinary." + +"The sow next door," Mr. Wimbush went on, "has done very badly. +She only had five in her litter. I shall give her another +chance. If she does no better next time, I shall fat her up and +kill her. There's the boar," he pointed towards a farther sty. +"Fine old beast, isn't he? But he's getting past his prime. +He'll have to go too." + +"How cruel!" Anne exclaimed. + +"But how practical, how eminently realistic!" said Mr. Scogan. +"In this farm we have a model of sound paternal government. Make +them breed, make them work, and when they're past working or +breeding or begetting, slaughter them." + +"Farming seems to be mostly indecency and cruelty," said Anne. + +With the ferrule of his walking-stick Denis began to scratch the +boar's long bristly back. The animal moved a little so as to +bring himself within easier range of the instrument that evoked +in him such delicious sensations; then he stood stock still, +softly grunting his contentment. The mud of years flaked off his +sides in a grey powdery scurf. + +"What a pleasure it is," said Denis, "to do somebody a kindness. +I believe I enjoy scratching this pig quite as much as he enjoys +being scratched. If only one could always be kind with so little +expense or trouble..." + +A gate slammed; there was a sound of heavy footsteps. + +"Morning, Rowley!" said Henry Wimbush. + +"Morning, sir," old Rowley answered. He was the most venerable +of the labourers on the farm--a tall, solid man, still unbent, +with grey side-whiskers and a steep, dignified profile. Grave, +weighty in his manner, splendidly respectable, Rowley had the air +of a great English statesman of the mid-nineteenth century. He +halted on the outskirts of the group, and for a moment they all +looked at the pigs in a silence that was only broken by the sound +of grunting or the squelch of a sharp hoof in the mire. Rowley +turned at last, slowly and ponderously and nobly, as he did +everything, and addressed himself to Henry Wimbush. + +"Look at them, sir," he said, with a motion of his hand towards +the wallowing swine. "Rightly is they called pigs." + +"Rightly indeed," Mr. Wimbush agreed. + +"I am abashed by that man," said Mr. Scogan, as old Rowley +plodded off slowly and with dignity. "What wisdom, what +judgment, what a sense of values! 'Rightly are they called +swine.' Yes. And I wish I could, with as much justice, say, +'Rightly are we called men.'" + +They walked on towards the cowsheds and the stables of the cart- +horses. Five white geese, taking the air this fine morning, even +as they were doing, met them in the way. They hesitated, +cackled; then, converting their lifted necks into rigid, +horizontal snakes, they rushed off in disorder, hissing horribly +as they went. Red calves paddled in the dung and mud of a +spacious yard. In another enclosure stood the bull, massive as a +locomotive. He was a very calm bull, and his face wore an +expression of melancholy stupidity. He gazed with reddish-brown +eyes at his visitors, chewed thoughtfully at the tangible +memories of an earlier meal, swallowed and regurgitated, chewed +again. His tail lashed savagely from side to side; it seemed to +have nothing to do with his impassive bulk. Between his short +horns was a triangle of red curls, short and dense. + +"Splendid animal," said Henry Wimbush. "Pedigree stock. But +he's getting a little old, like the boar." + +"Fat him up and slaughter him," Mr. Scogan pronounced, with a +delicate old-maidish precision of utterance. + +"Couldn't you give the animals a little holiday from producing +children?" asked Anne. "I'm so sorry for the poor things." + +Mr. Wimbush shook his head. "Personally," he said, "I rather +like seeing fourteen pigs grow where only one grew before. The +spectacle of so much crude life is refreshing." + +"I'm glad to hear you say so," Gombauld broke in warmly. "Lots +of life: that's what we want. I like pullulation; everything +ought to increase and multiply as hard as it can." + +Gombauld grew lyrical. Everybody ought to have children--Anne +ought to have them, Mary ought to have them--dozens and dozens. +He emphasised his point by thumping with his walking-stick on the +bull's leather flanks. Mr. Scogan ought to pass on his +intelligence to little Scogans, and Denis to little Denises. The +bull turned his head to see what was happening, regarded the +drumming stick for several seconds, then turned back again +satisfied, it seemed, that nothing was happening. Sterility was +odious, unnatural, a sin against life. Life, life, and still +more life. The ribs of the placid bull resounded. + +Standing with his back against the farmyard pump, a little apart, +Denis examined the group. Gombauld, passionate and vivacious, +was its centre. The others stood round, listening--Henry +Wimbush, calm and polite beneath his grey bowler; Mary, with +parted lips and eyes that shone with the indignation of a +convinced birth-controller. Anne looked on through half-shut +eyes, smiling; and beside her stood Mr. Scogan, bolt upright in +an attitude of metallic rigidity that contrasted strangely with +that fluid grace of hers which even in stillness suggested a soft +movement. + +Gombauld ceased talking, and Mary, flushed and outraged, opened +her mouth to refute him. But she was too slow. Before she could +utter a word Mr. Scogan's fluty voice had pronounced the opening +phrases of a discourse. There was no hope of getting so much as +a word in edgeways; Mary had perforce to resign herself. + +"Even your eloquence, my dear Gombauld," he was saying--"even +your eloquence must prove inadequate to reconvert the world to a +belief in the delights of mere multiplication. With the +gramophone, the cinema, and the automatic pistol, the goddess of +Applied Science has presented the world with another gift, more +precious even than these--the means of dissociating love from +propagation. Eros, for those who wish it, is now an entirely +free god; his deplorable associations with Lucina may be broken +at will. In the course of the next few centuries, who knows? the +world may see a more complete severance. I look forward to it +optimistically. Where the great Erasmus Darwin and Miss Anna +Seward, Swan of Lichfield, experimented--and, for all their +scientific ardour, failed--our descendants will experiment and +succeed. An impersonal generation will take the place of +Nature's hideous system. In vast state incubators, rows upon +rows of gravid bottles will supply the world with the population +it requires. The family system will disappear; society, sapped +at its very base, will have to find new foundations; and Eros, +beautifully and irresponsibly free, will flit like a gay +butterfly from flower to flower through a sunlit world." + +"It sounds lovely," said Anne. + +"The distant future always does." + +Mary's china blue eyes, more serious and more astonished than +ever, were fixed on Mr. Scogan. "Bottles?" she said. "Do you +really think so? Bottles..." + + +CHAPTER VI. + +Mr. Barbecue-Smith arrived in time for tea on Saturday afternoon. +He was a short and corpulent man, with a very large head and no +neck. In his earlier middle age he had been distressed by this +absence of neck, but was comforted by reading in Balzac's "Louis +Lambert" that all the world's great men have been marked by the +same peculiarity, and for a simple and obvious reason: Greatness +is nothing more nor less than the harmonious functioning of the +faculties of the head and heart; the shorter the neck, the more +closely these two organs approach one another; argal...It was +convincing. + +Mr. Barbecue-Smith belonged to the old school of journalists. He +sported a leonine head with a greyish-black mane of oddly +unappetising hair brushed back from a broad but low forehead. +And somehow he always seemed slightly, ever so slightly, soiled. +In younger days he had gaily called himself a Bohemian. He did +so no longer. He was a teacher now, a kind of prophet. Some of +his books of comfort and spiritual teaching were in their hundred +and twentieth thousand. + +Priscilla received him with every mark of esteem. He had never +been to Crome before; she showed him round the house. Mr. +Barbecue-Smith was full of admiration. + +"So quaint, so old-world," he kept repeating. He had a rich, +rather unctuous voice. + +Priscilla praised his latest book. "Splendid, I thought it was," +she said in her large, jolly way. + +"I'm happy to think you found it a comfort," said Mr. Barbecue- +Smith. + +"Oh, tremendously! And the bit about the Lotus Pool--I thought +that so beautiful." + +"I knew you would like that. It came to me, you know, from +without." He waved his hand to indicate the astral world. + +They went out into the garden for tea. Mr. Barbecue-Smith was +duly introduced. + +"Mr. Stone is a writer too," said Priscilla, as she introduced +Denis. + +"Indeed!" Mr. Barbecue-Smith smiled benignly, and, looking up at +Denis with an expression of Olympian condescension, "And what +sort of things do you write?" + +Denis was furious, and, to make matters worse, he felt himself +blushing hotly. Had Priscilla no sense of proportion? She was +putting them in the same category--Barbecue-Smith and himself. +They were both writers, they both used pen and ink. To Mr. +Barbecue-Smith's question he answered, "Oh, nothing much, +nothing," and looked away. + +"Mr. Stone is one of our younger poets." It was Anne's voice. +He scowled at her, and she smiled back exasperatingly. + +"Excellent, excellent," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith, and he squeezed +Denis's arm encouragingly. "The Bard's is a noble calling." + +As soon as tea was over Mr. Barbecue-Smith excused himself; he +had to do some writing before dinner. Priscilla quite +understood. The prophet retired to his chamber. + +Mr. Barbecue-Smith came down to the drawing-room at ten to eight. +He was in a good humour, and, as he descended the stairs, he +smiled to himself and rubbed his large white hands together. In +the drawing-room someone was playing softly and ramblingly on the +piano. He wondered who it could be. One of the young ladies, +perhaps. But no, it was only Denis, who got up hurriedly and +with some embarrassment as he came into the room. + +"Do go on, do go on," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. "I am very fond +of music." + +"Then I couldn't possibly go on," Denis replied. "I only make +noises." + +There was a silence. Mr. Barbecue-Smith stood with his back to +the hearth, warming himself at the memory of last winter's fires. +He could not control his interior satisfaction, but still went on +smiling to himself. At last he turned to Denis. + +"You write," he asked, "don't you?" + +"Well, yes--a little, you know." + +"How many words do you find you can write in an hour?" + +"I don't think I've ever counted." + +"Oh, you ought to, you ought to. It's most important." + +Denis exercised his memory. "When I'm in good form," he said, "I +fancy I do a twelve-hundred-word review in about four hours. But +sometimes it takes me much longer." + +Mr. Barbecue-Smith nodded. "Yes, three hundred words an hour at +your best." He walked out into the middle of the room, turned +round on his heels, and confronted Denis again. "Guess how many +words I wrote this evening between five and half-past seven." + +"I can't imagine." + +"No, but you must guess. Between five and half-past seven-- +that's two and a half hours." + +"Twelve hundred words," Denis hazarded. + +"No, no, no." Mr. Barbecue-Smith's expanded face shone with +gaiety. "Try again." + +"Fifteen hundred." + +"No." + +"I give it up," said Denis. He found he couldn't summon up much +interest in Mr. Barbecue-Smith's writing. + +"Well, I'll tell you. Three thousand eight hundred." + +Denis opened his eyes. "You must get a lot done in a day," he +said. + +Mr. Barbecue-Smith suddenly became extremely confidential. He +pulled up a stool to the side of Denis's arm-chair, sat down in +it, and began to talk softly and rapidly. + +"Listen to me," he said, laying his hand on Denis's sleeve. "You +want to make your living by writing; you're young, you're +inexperienced. Let me give you a little sound advice." + +What was the fellow going to do? Denis wondered: give him an +introduction to the editor of "John o' London's Weekly", or tell +him where he could sell a light middle for seven guineas? Mr. +Barbecue-Smith patted his arm several times and went on. + +"The secret of writing," he said, breathing it into the young +man's ear--"the secret of writing is Inspiration." + +Denis looked at him in astonishment. + +"Inspiration..." Mr. Barbecue-Smith repeated. + +"You mean the native wood-note business?" + +Mr. Barbecue-Smith nodded. + +"Oh, then I entirely agree with you," said Denis. "But what if +one hasn't got Inspiration?" + +"That was precisely the question I was waiting for," said Mr. +Barbecue-Smith. "You ask me what one should do if one hasn't got +Inspiration. I answer: you have Inspiration; everyone has +Inspiration. It's simply a question of getting it to function." + +The clock struck eight. There was no sign of any of the other +guests; everybody was always late at Crome. Mr. Barbecue-Smith +went on. + +"That's my secret," he said. "I give it you freely." (Denis +made a suitably grateful murmur and grimace.) "I'll help you to +find your Inspiration, because I don't like to see a nice, steady +young man like you exhausting his vitality and wasting the best +years of his life in a grinding intellectual labour that could be +completely obviated by Inspiration. I did it myself, so I know +what it's like. Up till the time I was thirty-eight I was a +writer like you--a writer without Inspiration. All I wrote I +squeezed out of myself by sheer hard work. Why, in those days I +was never able to do more than six-fifty words an hour, and +what's more, I often didn't sell what I wrote." He sighed. "We +artists," he said parenthetically, "we intellectuals aren't much +appreciated here in England." Denis wondered if there was any +method, consistent, of course, with politeness, by which he could +dissociate himself from Mr. Barbecue-Smith's "we." There was +none; and besides, it was too late now, for Mr. Barbecue-Smith +was once more pursuing the tenor of his discourse. + +"At thirty-eight I was a poor, struggling, tired, overworked, +unknown journalist. Now, at fifty..." He paused modestly and +made a little gesture, moving his fat hands outwards, away from +one another, and expanding his fingers as though in +demonstration. He was exhibiting himself. Denis thought of that +advertisement of Nestle's milk--the two cats on the wall, under +the moon, one black and thin, the other white, sleek, and fat. +Before Inspiration and after. + +"Inspiration has made the difference," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith +solemnly. "It came quite suddenly--like a gentle dew from +heaven." He lifted his hand and let it fall back on to his knee +to indicate the descent of the dew. "It was one evening. I was +writing my first little book about the Conduct of Life--'Humble +Heroisms'. You may have read it; it has been a comfort--at least +I hope and think so--a comfort to many thousands. I was in the +middle of the second chapter, and I was stuck. Fatigue, +overwork--I had only written a hundred words in the last hour, +and I could get no further. I sat biting the end of my pen and +looking at the electric light, which hung above my table, a +little above and in front of me." He indicated the position of +the lamp with elaborate care. "Have you ever looked at a bright +light intently for a long time?" he asked, turning to Denis. +Denis didn't think he had. "You can hypnotise yourself that +way," Mr. Barbecue-Smith went on. + +The gong sounded in a terrific crescendo from the hall. Still no +sign of the others. Denis was horribly hungry. + +"That's what happened to me," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. "I was +hypnotised. I lost consciousness like that." He snapped his +fingers. "When I came to, I found that it was past midnight, and +I had written four thousand words. Four thousand," he repeated, +opening his mouth very wide on the "ou" of thousand. +"Inspiration had come to me." + +"What a very extraordinary thing," said Denis. + +"I was afraid of it at first. It didn't seem to me natural. I +didn't feel, somehow, that it was quite right, quite fair, I +might almost say, to produce a literary composition +unconsciously. Besides, I was afraid I might have written +nonsense." + +"And had you written nonsense?" Denis asked. + +"Certainly not," Mr. Barbecue-Smith replied, with a trace of +annoyance. "Certainly not. It was admirable. Just a few +spelling mistakes and slips, such as there generally are in +automatic writing. But the style, the thought--all the +essentials were admirable. After that, Inspiration came to me +regularly. I wrote the whole of 'Humble Heroisms' like that. It +was a great success, and so has everything been that I have +written since." He leaned forward and jabbed at Denis with his +finger. "That's my secret," he said, "and that's how you could +write too, if you tried--without effort, fluently, well." + +"But how?" asked Denis, trying not to show how deeply he had been +insulted by that final "well." + +"By cultivating your Inspiration, by getting into touch with your +Subconscious. Have you ever read my little book, 'Pipe-Lines to +the Infinite'?" + +Denis had to confess that that was, precisely, one of the few, +perhaps the only one, of Mr. Barbecue-Smith's works he had not +read. + +"Never mind, never mind," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. "It's just a +little book about the connection of the Subconscious with the +Infinite. Get into touch with the Subconscious and you are in +touch with the Universe. Inspiration, in fact. You follow me?" + +"Perfectly, perfectly," said Denis. "But don't you find that the +Universe sometimes sends you very irrelevant messages?" + +"I don't allow it to," Mr. Barbecue-Smith replied. "I canalise +it. I bring it down through pipes to work the turbines of my +conscious mind." + +"Like Niagara," Denis suggested. Some of Mr. Barbecue-Smith's +remarks sounded strangely like quotations--quotations from his +own works, no doubt. + +"Precisely. Like Niagara. And this is how I do it." He leaned +forward, and with a raised forefinger marked his points as he +made them, beating time, as it were, to his discourse. "Before I +go off into my trance, I concentrate on the subject I wish to be +inspired about. Let us say I am writing about the humble +heroisms; for ten minutes before I go into the trance I think of +nothing but orphans supporting their little brothers and sisters, +of dull work well and patiently done, and I focus my mind on such +great philosophical truths as the purification and uplifting of +the soul by suffering, and the alchemical transformation of +leaden evil into golden good." (Denis again hung up his little +festoon of quotation marks.) "Then I pop off. Two or three +hours later I wake up again, and find that inspiration has done +its work. Thousands of words, comforting, uplifting words, lie +before me. I type them out neatly on my machine and they are +ready for the printer." + +"It all sounds wonderfully simple," said Denis. + +"It is. All the great and splendid and divine things of life are +wonderfully simple." (Quotation marks again.) "When I have to +do my aphorisms," Mr. Barbecue-Smith continued, "I prelude my +trance by turning over the pages of any Dictionary of Quotations +or Shakespeare Calendar that comes to hand. That sets the key, +so to speak; that ensures that the Universe shall come flowing +in, not in a continuous rush, but in aphorismic drops. You see +the idea?" + +Denis nodded. Mr. Barbecue-Smith put his hand in his pocket and +pulled out a notebook. "I did a few in the train to-day," he +said, turning over the pages. "Just dropped off into a trance in +the corner of my carriage. I find the train very conducive to +good work. Here they are." He cleared his throat and read: + +"The Mountain Road may be steep, but the air is pure up there, +and it is from the Summit that one gets the view." + +"The Things that Really Matter happen in the Heart." + +It was curious, Denis reflected, the way the Infinite sometimes +repeated itself. + +"Seeing is Believing. Yes, but Believing is also Seeing. If I +believe in God, I see God, even in the things that seem to be +evil." + +Mr. Barbecue-Smith looked up from his notebook. "That last one," +he said, "is particularly subtle and beautiful, don't you think? +Without Inspiration I could never have hit on that." He re-read +the apophthegm with a slower and more solemn utterance. +"Straight from the Infinite," he commented reflectively, then +addressed himself to the next aphorism. + +"The flame of a candle gives Light, but it also Burns." + +Puzzled wrinkles appeared on Mr. Barbecue-Smith's forehead. "I +don't exactly know what that means," he said. "It's very gnomic. +One could apply it, of course to the Higher Education-- +illuminating, but provoking the Lower Classes to discontent and +revolution. Yes, I suppose that's what it is. But it's gnomic, +it's gnomic." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. The gong sounded +again, clamorously, it seemed imploringly: dinner was growing +cold. It roused Mr. Barbecue-Smith from meditation. He turned +to Denis. + +"You understand me now when I advise you to cultivate your +Inspiration. Let your Subconscious work for you; turn on the +Niagara of the Infinite." + +There was the sound of feet on the stairs. Mr. Barbecue-Smith +got up, laid his hand for an instant on Denis's shoulder, and +said: + +"No more now. Another time. And remember, I rely absolutely on +your discretion in this matter. There are intimate, sacred +things that one doesn't wish to be generally known." + +"Of course," said Denis. "I quite understand." + + +CHAPTER VII. + +At Crome all the beds were ancient hereditary pieces of +furniture. Huge beds, like four-masted ships, with furled sails +of shining coloured stuff. Beds carved and inlaid, beds painted +and gilded. Beds of walnut and oak, of rare exotic woods. Beds +of every date and fashion from the time of Sir Ferdinando, who +built the house, to the time of his namesake in the late +eighteenth century, the last of the family, but all of them +grandiose, magnificent. + +The finest of all was now Anne's bed. Sir Julius, son to Sir +Ferdinando, had had it made in Venice against his wife's first +lying-in. Early seicento Venice had expended all its extravagant +art in the making of it. The body of the bed was like a great +square sarcophagus. Clustering roses were carved in high relief +on its wooden panels, and luscious putti wallowed among the +roses. On the black ground-work of the panels the carved reliefs +were gilded and burnished. The golden roses twined in spirals up +the four pillar-like posts, and cherubs, seated at the top of +each column, supported a wooden canopy fretted with the same +carved flowers. + +Anne was reading in bed. Two candles stood on the little table +beside her, in their rich light her face, her bare arm and +shoulder took on warm hues and a sort of peach-like quality of +surface. Here and there in the canopy above her carved golden +petals shone brightly among profound shadows, and the soft light, +falling on the sculptured panel of the bed, broke restlessly +among the intricate roses, lingered in a broad caress on the +blown cheeks, the dimpled bellies, the tight, absurd little +posteriors of the sprawling putti. + +There was a discreet tap at the door. She looked up. "Come in, +come in." A face, round and childish, within its sleek bell of +golden hair, peered round the opening door. More childish- +looking still, a suit of mauve pyjamas made its entrance. + +It was Mary. "I thought I'd just look in for a moment to say +good-night," she said, and sat down on the edge of the bed. + +Anne closed her book. "That was very sweet of you." + +"What are you reading?" She looked at the book. "Rather second- +rate, isn't it?" The tone in which Mary pronounced the word +"second-rate" implied an almost infinite denigration. She was +accustomed in London to associate only with first-rate people who +liked first-rate things, and she knew that there were very, very +few first-rate things in the world, and that those were mostly +French. + +"Well, I'm afraid I like it," said Anne. There was nothing more +to be said. The silence that followed was a rather uncomfortable +one. Mary fiddled uneasily with the bottom button of her pyjama +jacket. Leaning back on her mound of heaped-up pillows, Anne +waited and wondered what was coming. + +"I'm so awfully afraid of repressions," said Mary at last, +bursting suddenly and surprisingly into speech. She pronounced +the words on the tail-end of an expiring breath, and had to gasp +for new air almost before the phrase was finished. + +"What's there to be depressed about?" + +"I said repressions, not depressions." + +"Oh, repressions; I see," said Anne. "But repressions of what?" + +Mary had to explain. "The natural instincts of sex..." she began +didactically. But Anne cut her short. + +"Yes, yes. Perfectly. I understand. Repressions! old maids and +all the rest. But what about them?" + +"That's just it," said Mary. "I'm afraid of them. It's always +dangerous to repress one's instincts. I'm beginning to detect in +myself symptoms like the ones you read of in the books. I +constantly dream that I'm falling down wells; and sometimes I +even dream that I'm climbing up ladders. It's most disquieting. +The symptoms are only too clear." + +"Are they?" + +"One may become a nymphomaniac of one's not careful. You've no +idea how serious these repressions are if you don't get rid of +them in time." + +"It sounds too awful," said Anne. "But I don't see that I can do +anything to help you." + +"I thought I'd just like to talk it over with you." + +"Why, of course; I'm only too happy, Mary darling." + +Mary coughed and drew a deep breath. "I presume," she began +sententiously, "I presume we may take for granted that an +intelligent young woman of twenty-three who has lived in +civilised society in the twentieth century has no prejudices." + +"Well, I confess I still have a few." + +"But not about repressions." + +"No, not many about repressions; that's true." + +"Or, rather, about getting rid of repressions." + +"Exactly." + +"So much for our fundamental postulate," said Mary. Solemnity +was expressed in every feature of her round young face, radiated +from her large blue eyes. "We come next to the desirability of +possessing experience. I hope we are agreed that knowledge is +desirable and that ignorance is undesirable." + +Obedient as one of those complaisant disciples from whom Socrates +could get whatever answer he chose, Anne gave her assent to this +proposition. + +"And we are equally agreed, I hope, that marriage is what it is." + +"It is." + +"Good!" said Mary. "And repressions being what they are..." + +"Exactly." + +"There would therefore seem to be only one conclusion." + +"But I knew that," Anne exclaimed, "before you began." + +"Yes, but now it's been proved," said Mary. "One must do things +logically. The question is now..." + +"But where does the question come in? You've reached your only +possible conclusion--logically, which is more than I could have +done. All that remains is to impart the information to someone +you like--someone you like really rather a lot, someone you're in +love with, if I may express myself so baldly." + +"But that's just where the question comes in," Mary exclaimed. +"I'm not in love with anybody." + +"Then, if I were you, I should wait till you are." + +"But I can't go on dreaming night after night that I'm falling +down a well. It's too dangerous." + +"Well, if it really is TOO dangerous, then of course you must do +something about it; you must find somebody else." + +"But who?" A thoughtful frown puckered Mary's brow. "It must be +somebody intelligent, somebody with intellectual interests that I +can share. And it must be somebody with a proper respect for +women, somebody who's prepared to talk seriously about his work +and his ideas and about my work and my ideas. It isn't, as you +see, at all easy to find the right person." + +"Well" said Anne, "there are three unattached and intelligent men +in the house at the present time. There's Mr. Scogan, to begin +with; but perhaps he's rather too much of a genuine antique. And +there are Gombauld and Denis. Shall we say that the choice is +limited to the last two?" + +Mary nodded. "I think we had better," she said, and then +hesitated, with a certain air of embarrassment. + +"What is it?" + +"I was wondering," said Mary, with a gasp, "whether they really +were unattached. I thought that perhaps you might...you +might..." + +"It was very nice of you to think of me, Mary darling," said +Anne, smiling the tight cat's smile. "But as far as I'm +concerned, they are both entirely unattached." + +"I'm very glad of that," said Mary, looking relieved. "We are +now confronted with the question: Which of the two?" + +"I can give no advice. It's a matter for your taste." + +"It's not a matter of my taste," Mary pronounced, "but of their +merits. We must weigh them and consider them carefully and +dispassionately." + +"You must do the weighing yourself," said Anne; there was still +the trace of a smile at the corners of her mouth and round the +half-closed eyes. "I won't run the risk of advising you +wrongly." + +"Gombauld has more talent," Mary began, "but he is less civilised +than Denis." Mary's pronunciation of "civilised" gave the word a +special and additional significance. She uttered it +meticulously, in the very front of her mouth, hissing delicately +on the opening sibilant. So few people were civilised, and they, +like the first-rate works of art, were mostly French. +"Civilisation is most important, don't you think?" + +Anne held up her hand. "I won't advise," she said. "You must +make the decision." + +"Gombauld's family," Mary went on reflectively, "comes from +Marseilles. Rather a dangerous heredity, when one thinks of the +Latin attitude towards women. But then, I sometimes wonder +whether Denis is altogether serious-minded, whether he isn't +rather a dilettante. It's very difficult. What do you think?" + +"I'm not listening," said Anne. "I refuse to take any +responsibility." + +Mary sighed. "Well," she said, "I think I had better go to bed +and think about it." + +"Carefully and dispassionately," said Anne. + +At the door Mary turned round. "Good-night," she said, and +wondered as she said the words why Anne was smiling in that +curious way. It was probably nothing, she reflected. Anne often +smiled for no apparent reason; it was probably just a habit. "I +hope I shan't dream of falling down wells again to-night," she +added. + +"Ladders are worse," said Anne. + +Mary nodded. "Yes, ladders are much graver." + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +Breakfast on Sunday morning was an hour later than on week-days, +and Priscilla, who usually made no public appearance before +luncheon, honoured it by her presence. Dressed in black silk, +with a ruby cross as well as her customary string of pearls round +her neck, she presided. An enormous Sunday paper concealed all +but the extreme pinnacle of her coiffure from the outer world. + +"I see Surrey has won," she said, with her mouth full, "by four +wickets. The sun is in Leo: that would account for it!" + +"Splendid game, cricket," remarked Mr. Barbecue-Smith heartily to +no one in particular; "so thoroughly English." + +Jenny, who was sitting next to him, woke up suddenly with a +start. "What?" she said. "What?" + +"So English," repeated Mr. Barbecue-Smith. + +Jenny looked at him, surprised. "English? Of course I am." + +He was beginning to explain, when Mrs. Wimbush vailed her Sunday +paper, and appeared, a square, mauve-powdered face in the midst +of orange splendours. "I see there's a new series of articles on +the next world just beginning," she said to Mr. Barbecue-Smith. +"This one's called 'Summer Land and Gehenna.'" + +"Summer Land," echoed Mr. Barbecue-Smith, closing his eyes. +"Summer Land. A beautiful name. Beautiful--beautiful." + +Mary had taken the seat next to Denis's. After a night of +careful consideration she had decided on Denis. He might have +less talent than Gombauld, he might be a little lacking in +seriousness, but somehow he was safer. + +"Are you writing much poetry here in the country?" she asked, +with a bright gravity. + +"None," said Denis curtly. "I haven't brought my typewriter." + +"But do you mean to say you can't write without a typewriter?" + +Denis shook his head. He hated talking at breakfast, and, +besides, he wanted to hear what Mr. Scogan was saying at the +other end of the table. + +"...My scheme for dealing with the Church," Mr. Scogan was +saying, "is beautifully simple. At the present time the Anglican +clergy wear their collars the wrong way round. I would compel +them to wear, not only their collars, but all their clothes, +turned back to frantic--coat, waistcoat, trousers, boots--so that +every clergyman should present to the world a smooth facade, +unbroken by stud, button, or lace. The enforcement of such a +livery would act as a wholesome deterrent to those intending to +enter the Church. At the same time it would enormously enhance, +what Archbishop Laud so rightly insisted on, the 'beauty of +holiness' in the few incorrigibles who could not be deterred." + +"In hell, it seems," said Priscilla, reading in her Sunday paper, +"the children amuse themselves by flaying lambs alive." + +"Ah, but, dear lady, that's only a symbol," exclaimed Mr. +Barbecue-Smith, "a material symbol of a h-piritual truth. Lambs +signify..." + +"Then there are military uniforms," Mr. Scogan went on. "When +scarlet and pipe-clay were abandoned for khaki, there were some +who trembled for the future of war. But then, finding how +elegant the new tunic was, how closely it clipped the waist, how +voluptuously, with the lateral bustles of the pockets, it +exaggerated the hips; when they realized the brilliant +potentialities of breeches and top-boots, they were reassured. +Abolish these military elegances, standardise a uniform of sack- +cloth and mackintosh, you will very soon find that..." + +"Is anyone coming to church with me this morning?" asked Henry +Wimbush. No one responded. He baited his bare invitation. "I +read the lessons, you know. And there's Mr. Bodiham. His +sermons are sometimes worth hearing." + +"Thank you, thank you," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. "I for one +prefer to worship in the infinite church of Nature. How does our +Shakespeare put it? 'Sermons in books, stones in the running +brooks.'" He waved his arm in a fine gesture towards the window, +and even as he did so he became vaguely, but none the less +insistently, none the less uncomfortably aware that something had +gone wrong with the quotation. Something--what could it be? +Sermons? Stones? Books? + + +CHAPTER IX. + +Mr. Bodiham was sitting in his study at the Rectory. The +nineteenth-century Gothic windows, narrow and pointed, admitted +the light grudgingly; in spite of the brilliant July weather, the +room was sombre. Brown varnished bookshelves lined the walls, +filled with row upon row of those thick, heavy theological works +which the second-hand booksellers generally sell by weight. The +mantelpiece, the over-mantel, a towering structure of spindly +pillars and little shelves, were brown and varnished. The +writing-desk was brown and varnished. So were the chairs, so was +the door. A dark red-brown carpet with patterns covered the +floor. Everything was brown in the room, and there was a curious +brownish smell. + +In the midst of this brown gloom Mr. Bodiham sat at his desk. He +was the man in the Iron Mask. A grey metallic face with iron +cheek-bones and a narrow iron brow; iron folds, hard and +unchanging, ran perpendicularly down his cheeks; his nose was the +iron beak of some thin, delicate bird of rapine. He had brown +eyes, set in sockets rimmed with iron; round them the skin was +dark, as though it had been charred. Dense wiry hair covered his +skull; it had been black, it was turning grey. His ears were +very small and fine. His jaws, his chin, his upper lip were +dark, iron-dark, where he had shaved. His voice, when he spoke +and especially when he raised it in preaching, was harsh, like +the grating of iron hinges when a seldom-used door is opened. + +It was nearly half-past twelve. He had just come back from +church, hoarse and weary with preaching. He preached with fury, +with passion, an iron man beating with a flail upon the souls of +his congregation. But the souls of the faithful at Crome were +made of india-rubber, solid rubber; the flail rebounded. They +were used to Mr. Bodiham at Crome. The flail thumped on india- +rubber, and as often as not the rubber slept. + +That morning he had preached, as he had often preached before, on +the nature of God. He had tried to make them understand about +God, what a fearful thing it was to fall into His hands. God-- +they thought of something soft and merciful. They blinded +themselves to facts; still more, they blinded themselves to the +Bible. The passengers on the "Titanic" sang "Nearer my God to +Thee" as the ship was going down. Did they realise what they +were asking to be brought nearer to? A white fire of +righteousness, an angry fire... + +When Savonarola preached, men sobbed and groaned aloud. Nothing +broke the polite silence with which Crome listened to Mr. +Bodiham--only an occasional cough and sometimes the sound of +heavy breathing. In the front pew sat Henry Wimbush, calm, well- +bred, beautifully dressed. There were times when Mr. Bodiham +wanted to jump down from the pulpit and shake him into life,-- +times when he would have liked to beat and kill his whole +congregation. + +He sat at his desk dejectedly. Outside the Gothic windows the +earth was warm and marvellously calm. Everything was as it had +always been. And yet, and yet...It was nearly four years now +since he had preached that sermon on Matthew xxiv. 7: "For +nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: +and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in +divers places." It was nearly four years. He had had the sermon +printed; it was so terribly, so vitally important that all the +world should know what he had to say. A copy of the little +pamphlet lay on his desk--eight small grey pages, printed by a +fount of type that had grown blunt, like an old dog's teeth, by +the endless champing and champing of the press. He opened it and +began to read it yet once again. + +"'For nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom against +kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and +earthquakes, in divers places.' + +"Nineteen centuries have elapsed since Our Lord gave utterance to +those words, and not a single one of them has been without wars, +plagues, famines, and earthquakes. Mighty empires have crashed +in ruin to the ground, diseases have unpeopled half the globe, +there have been vast natural cataclysms in which thousands have +been overwhelmed by flood and fire and whirlwind. Time and +again, in the course of these nineteen centuries, such things +have happened, but they have not brought Christ back to earth. +They were 'signs of the times' inasmuch as they were signs of +God's wrath against the chronic wickedness of mankind, but they +were not signs of the times in connection with the Second Coming. + +"If earnest Christians have regarded the present war as a true +sign of the Lord's approaching return, it is not merely because +it happens to be a great war involving the lives of millions of +people, not merely because famine is tightening its grip on every +country in Europe, not merely because disease of every kind, from +syphilis to spotted fever, is rife among the warring nations; no, +it is not for these reasons that we regard this war as a true +Sign of the Times, but because in its origin and its progress it +is marked by certain characteristics which seem to connect it +almost beyond a doubt with the predictions in Christian Prophecy +relating to the Second Coming of the Lord. + +"Let me enumerate the features of the present war which most +clearly suggest that it is a Sign foretelling the near approach +of the Second Advent. Our Lord said that 'this Gospel of the +Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all +nations; and then shall the end come.' Although it would be +presumptuous for us to say what degree of evangelisation will be +regarded by God as sufficient, we may at least confidently hope +that a century of unflagging missionary work has brought the +fulfilment of this condition at any rate near. True, the larger +number of the world's inhabitants have remained deaf to the +preaching of the true religion; but that does not vitiate the +fact that the Gospel HAS been preached 'for a witness' to all +unbelievers from the Papist to the Zulu. The responsibility for +the continued prevalence of unbelief lies, not with the +preachers, but with those preached to. + +"Again, it has been generally recognised that 'the drying up of +the waters of the great river Euphrates,' mentioned in the +sixteenth chapter of Revelation, refers to the decay and +extinction of Turkish power, and is a sign of the near +approaching end of the world as we know it. The capture of +Jerusalem and the successes in Mesopotamia are great strides +forward in the destruction of the Ottoman Empire; though it must +be admitted that the Gallipoli episode proved that the Turk still +possesses a 'notable horn' of strength. Historically speaking, +this drying up of Ottoman power has been going on for the past +century; the last two years have witnessed a great acceleration +of the process, and there can be no doubt that complete +desiccation is within sight. + +"Closely following on the words concerning the drying up of +Euphrates comes the prophecy of Armageddon, that world war with +which the Second Coming is to be so closely associated. Once +begun, the world war can end only with the return of Christ, and +His coming will be sudden and unexpected, like that of a thief in +the night. + +"Let us examine the facts. In history, exactly as in St. John's +Gospel, the world war is immediately preceded by the drying up of +Euphrates, or the decay of Turkish power. This fact alone would +be enough to connect the present conflict with the Armageddon of +Revelation and therefore to point to the near approach of the +Second Advent. But further evidence of an even more solid and +convincing nature can be adduced. + +"Armageddon is brought about by the activities of three unclean +spirits, as it were toads, which come out of the mouths of the +Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet. If we can identify +these three powers of evil much light will clearly be thrown on +the whole question. + +"The Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet can all be +identified in history. Satan, who can only work through human +agency, has used these three powers in the long war against +Christ which has filled the last nineteen centuries with +religious strife. The Dragon, it has been sufficiently +established, is pagan Rome, and the spirit issuing from its mouth +is the spirit of Infidelity. The Beast, alternatively symbolised +as a Woman, is undoubtedly the Papal power, and Popery is the +spirit which it spews forth. There is only one power which +answers to the description of the False Prophet, the wolf in +sheep's clothing, the agent of the devil working in the guise of +the Lamb, and that power is the so-called 'Society of Jesus.' +The spirit that issues from the mouth of the False Prophet is the +spirit of False Morality. + +"We may assume, then, that the three evil spirits are Infidelity, +Popery, and False Morality. Have these three influences been the +real cause of the present conflict? The answer is clear. + +"The spirit of Infidelity is the very spirit of German criticism. +The Higher Criticism, as it is mockingly called, denies the +possibility of miracles, prediction, and real inspiration, and +attempts to account for the Bible as a natural development. +Slowly but surely, during the last eighty years, the spirit of +Infidelity has been robbing the Germans of their Bible and their +faith, so that Germany is to-day a nation of unbelievers. Higher +Criticism has thus made the war possible; for it would be +absolutely impossible for any Christian nation to wage war as +Germany is waging it. + +"We come next to the spirit of Popery, whose influence in causing +the war was quite as great as that of Infidelity, though not, +perhaps, so immediately obvious. Since the Franco-Prussian War +the Papal power has steadily declined in France, while in Germany +it has steadily increased. To-day France is an anti-papal state, +while Germany possesses a powerful Roman Catholic minority. Two +papally controlled states, Germany and Austria, are at war with +six anti-papal states--England, France, Italy, Russia, Serbia, +and Portugal. Belgium is, of course, a thoroughly papal state, +and there can be little doubt that the presence on the Allies' +side of an element so essentially hostile has done much to hamper +the righteous cause and is responsible for our comparative ill- +success. That the spirit of Popery is behind the war is thus +seen clearly enough in the grouping of the opposed powers, while +the rebellion in the Roman Catholic parts of Ireland has merely +confirmed a conclusion already obvious to any unbiased mind. + +"The spirit of False Morality has played as great a part in this +war as the two other evil spirits. The Scrap of Paper incident +is the nearest and most obvious example of Germany's adherence to +this essentially unchristian or Jesuitical morality. The end is +German world-power, and in the attainment of this end, any means +are justifiable. It is the true principle of Jesuitry applied to +international politics. + +"The identification is now complete. As was predicted in +Revelation, the three evil spirits have gone forth just as the +decay of the Ottoman power was nearing completion, and have +joined together to make the world war. The warning, 'Behold, I +come as a thief,' is therefore meant for the present period--for +you and me and all the world. This war will lead on inevitably +to the war of Armageddon, and will only be brought to an end by +the Lord's personal return. + +"And when He returns, what will happen? Those who are in Christ, +St. John tells us, will be called to the Supper of the Lamb. +Those who are found fighting against Him will be called to the +Supper of the Great God--that grim banquet where they shall not +feast, but be feasted on. 'For,' as St. John says, 'I saw an +angel standing in the sun; and he cried in a loud voice, saying +to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather +yourselves together unto the supper of the Great God; that ye may +eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh +of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on +them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small +and great.' All the enemies of Christ will be slain with the +sword of him that sits upon the horse, 'and all the fowls will be +filled with their flesh.' That is the Supper of the Great God. + +"It may be soon or it may, as men reckon time, be long; but +sooner or later, inevitably, the Lord will come and deliver the +world from its present troubles. And woe unto them who are +called, not to the Supper of the Lamb, but to the Supper of the +Great God. They will realise then, but too late, that God is a +God of Wrath as well as a God of Forgiveness. The God who sent +bears to devour the mockers of Elisha, the God who smote the +Egyptians for their stubborn wickedness, will assuredly smite +them too, unless they make haste to repent. But perhaps it is +already too late. Who knows but that to-morrow, in a moment +even, Christ may be upon us unawares, like a thief? In a little +while, who knows? The angel standing in the sun may be summoning +the ravens and vultures from their crannies in the rocks to feed +upon the putrefying flesh of the millions of unrighteous whom +God's wrath has destroyed. Be ready, then; the coming of the +Lord is at hand. May it be for all of you an object of hope, not +a moment to look forward to with terror and trembling." + +Mr. Bodiham closed the little pamphlet and leaned back in his +chair. The argument was sound, absolutely compelling; and yet-- +it was four years since he had preached that sermon; four years, +and England was at peace, the sun shone, the people of Crome were +as wicked and indifferent as ever--more so, indeed, if that were +possible. If only he could understand, if the heavens would but +make a sign! But his questionings remained unanswered. Seated +there in his brown varnished chair under the Ruskinian window, he +could have screamed aloud. He gripped the arms of his chair-- +gripping, gripping for control. The knuckles of his hands +whitened; he bit his lip. In a few seconds he was able to relax +the tension; he began to rebuke himself for his rebellious +impatience. + +Four years, he reflected; what were four years, after all? It +must inevitably take a long time for Armageddon to ripen to yeast +itself up. The episode of 1914 had been a preliminary skirmish. +And as for the war having come to an end--why, that, of course, +was illusory. It was still going on, smouldering away in +Silesia, in Ireland, in Anatolia; the discontent in Egypt and +India was preparing the way, perhaps, for a great extension of +the slaughter among the heathen peoples. The Chinese boycott of +Japan, and the rivalries of that country and America in the +Pacific, might be breeding a great new war in the East. The +prospect, Mr. Bodiham tried to assure himself, was hopeful; the +real, the genuine Armageddon might soon begin, and then, like a +thief in the night...But, in spite of all his comfortable +reasoning, he remained unhappy, dissatisfied. Four years ago he +had been so confident; God's intention seemed then so plain. And +now? Now, he did well to be angry. And now he suffered too. + +Sudden and silent as a phantom Mrs. Bodiham appeared, gliding +noiselessly across the room. Above her black dress her face was +pale with an opaque whiteness, her eyes were pale as water in a +glass, and her strawy hair was almost colourless. She held a +large envelope in her hand. + +"This came for you by the post," she said softly. + +The envelope was unsealed. Mechanically Mr. Bodiham tore it +open. It contained a pamphlet, larger than his own and more +elegant in appearance. "The House of Sheeny, Clerical +Outfitters, Birmingham." He turned over the pages. The +catalogue was tastefully and ecclesiastically printed in antique +characters with illuminated Gothic initials. Red marginal lines, +crossed at the corners after the manner of an Oxford picture +frame, enclosed each page of type, little red crosses took the +place of full stops. Mr. Bodiham turned the pages. + +"Soutane in best black merino. Ready to wear; in all sizes. + +Clerical frock coats. From nine guineas. A dressy garment, +tailored by our own experienced ecclesiastical cutters." + +Half-tone illustrations represented young curates, some dapper, +some Rugbeian and muscular, some with ascetic faces and large +ecstatic eyes, dressed in jackets, in frock-coats, in surplices, +in clerical evening dress, in black Norfolk suitings. + +"A large assortment of chasubles. + +Rope girdles. + +Sheeny's Special Skirt Cassocks. Tied by a string about the +waist...When worn under a surplice presents an appearance +indistinguishable from that of a complete cassock...Recommended +for summer wear and hot climates." + +With a gesture of horror and disgust Mr. Bodiham threw the +catalogue into the waste-paper basket. Mrs. Bodiham looked at +him; her pale, glaucous eyes reflected his action without +comment. + +"The village," she said in her quiet voice, "the village grows +worse and worse every day." + +"What has happened now?" asked Mr. Bodiham, feeling suddenly very +weary. + +"I'll tell you." She pulled up a brown varnished chair and sat +down. In the village of Crome, it seemed, Sodom and Gomorrah had +come to a second birth. + + +CHAPTER X. + +Denis did not dance, but when ragtime came squirting out of the +pianola in gushes of treacle and hot perfume, in jets of Bengal +light, then things began to dance inside him. Little black +nigger corpuscles jigged and drummed in his arteries. He became +a cage of movement, a walking palais de danse. It was very +uncomfortable, like the preliminary symptoms of a disease. He +sat in one of the window-seats, glumly pretending to read. + +At the pianola, Henry Wimbush, smoking a long cigar through a +tunnelled pillar of amber, trod out the shattering dance music +with serene patience. Locked together, Gombauld and Anne moved +with a harmoniousness that made them seem a single creature, two- +headed and four-legged. Mr. Scogan, solemnly buffoonish, +shuffled round the room with Mary. Jenny sat in the shadow +behind the piano, scribbling, so it seemed, in a big red +notebook. In arm-chairs by the fireplace, Priscilla and Mr. +Barbecue-Smith discussed higher things, without, apparently, +being disturbed by the noise on the Lower Plane. + +"Optimism," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith with a tone of finality, +speaking through strains of the "Wild, Wild Women"--"optimism is +the opening out of the soul towards the light; it is an expansion +towards and into God, it is a h-piritual self-unification with +the Infinite." + +"How true!" sighed Priscilla, nodding the baleful splendours of +her coiffure. + +"Pessimism, on the other hand, is the contraction of the soul +towards darkness; it is a focusing of the self upon a point in +the Lower Plane; it is a h-piritual slavery to mere facts; to +gross physical phenomena." + +"They're making a wild man of me." The refrain sang itself over +in Denis's mind. Yes, they were; damn them! A wild man, but not +wild enough; that was the trouble. Wild inside; raging, +writhing--yes, "writhing" was the word, writhing with desire. +But outwardly he was hopelessly tame; outwardly--baa, baa, baa. + +There they were, Anne and Gombauld, moving together as though +they were a single supple creature. The beast with two backs. +And he sat in a corner, pretending to read, pretending he didn't +want to dance, pretending he rather despised dancing. Why? It +was the baa-baa business again. + +Why was he born with a different face? Why WAS he? Gombauld had +a face of brass--one of those old, brazen rams that thumped +against the walls of cities till they fell. He was born with a +different face--a woolly face. + +The music stopped. The single harmonious creature broke in two. +Flushed, a little breathless, Anne swayed across the room to the +pianola, laid her hand on Mr. Wimbush's shoulder. + +"A waltz this time, please, Uncle Henry," she said. + +"A waltz," he repeated, and turned to the cabinet where the rolls +were kept. He trod off the old roll and trod on the new, a slave +at the mill, uncomplaining and beautifully well bred. "Rum; Tum; +Rum-ti-ti; Tum-ti-ti..." The melody wallowed oozily along, like +a ship moving forward over a sleek and oily swell. The four- +legged creature, more graceful, more harmonious in its movements +than ever, slid across the floor. Oh, why was he born with a +different face? + +"What are you reading?" + +He looked up, startled. It was Mary. She had broken from the +uncomfortable embrace of Mr. Scogan, who had now seized on Jenny +for his victim. + +"What are you reading?" + +"I don't know," said Denis truthfully. He looked at the title +page; the book was called "The Stock Breeder's Vade Mecum." + +"I think you are so sensible to sit and read quietly," said Mary, +fixing him with her china eyes. "I don't know why one dances. +It's so boring." + +Denis made no reply; she exacerbated him. From the arm-chair by +the fireplace he heard Priscilla's deep voice. + +"Tell me, Mr Barbecue-Smith--you know all about science, I +know--" A deprecating noise came from Mr. Barbecue-Smith's +chair. "This Einstein theory. It seems to upset the whole +starry universe. It makes me so worried about my horoscopes. +You see..." + +Mary renewed her attack. "Which of the contemporary poets do you +like best?" she asked. Denis was filled with fury. Why couldn't +this pest of a girl leave him alone? He wanted to listen to the +horrible music, to watch them dancing--oh, with what grace, as +though they had been made for one another!--to savour his misery +in peace. And she came and put him through this absurd +catechism! She was like "Mangold's Questions": "What are the +three diseases of wheat?"--"Which of the contemporary poets do +you like best?" + +"Blight, Mildew, and Smut," he replied, with the laconism of one +who is absolutely certain of his own mind. + +It was several hours before Denis managed to go to sleep that +night. Vague but agonising miseries possessed his mind. It was +not only Anne who made him miserable; he was wretched about +himself, the future, life in general, the universe. "This +adolescence business," he repeated to himself every now and then, +"is horribly boring. But the fact that he knew his disease did +not help him to cure it. + +After kicking all the clothes off the bed, he got up and sought +relief in composition. He wanted to imprison his nameless misery +in words. At the end of an hour, nine more or less complete +lines emerged from among the blots and scratchings. + +"I do not know what I desire +When summer nights are dark and still, +When the wind's many-voiced quire +Sleeps among the muffled branches. +I long and know not what I will: +And not a sound of life or laughter stanches +Time's black and silent flow. +I do not know what I desire, +I do not know." + +He read it through aloud; then threw the scribbled sheet into the +waste-paper basket and got into bed again. In a very few minutes +he was asleep. + + +CHAPTER XI. + +Mr. Barbecue-Smith was gone. The motor had whirled him away to +the station; a faint smell of burning oil commemorated his recent +departure. A considerable detachment had come into the courtyard +to speed him on his way; and now they were walking back, round +the side of the house, towards the terrace and the garden. They +walked in silence; nobody had yet ventured to comment on the +departed guest. + +"Well?" said Anne at last, turning with raised inquiring eyebrows +to Denis. + +"Well?" It was time for someone to begin. + +Denis declined the invitation; he passed it on to Mr Scogan. +"Well?" he said. + +Mr. Scogan did not respond; he only repeated the question, +"Well?" + +It was left for Henry Wimbush to make a pronouncement. "A very +agreeable adjunct to the week-end," he said. His tone was +obituary. + +They had descended, without paying much attention where they were +going, the steep yew-walk that went down, under the flank of the +terrace, to the pool. The house towered above them, immensely +tall, with the whole height of the built-up terrace added to its +own seventy feet of brick facade. The perpendicular lines of the +three towers soared up, uninterrupted, enhancing the impression +of height until it became overwhelming. They paused at the edge +of the pool to look back. + +"The man who built this house knew his business," said Denis. +"He was an architect." + +"Was he?" said Henry Wimbush reflectively. "I doubt it. The +builder of this house was Sir Ferdinando Lapith, who flourished +during the reign of Elizabeth. He inherited the estate from his +father, to whom it had been granted at the time of the +dissolution of the monasteries; for Crome was originally a +cloister of monks and this swimming-pool their fish-pond. Sir +Ferdinando was not content merely to adapt the old monastic +buildings to his own purposes; but using them as a stone quarry +for his barns and byres and outhouses, he built for himself a +grand new house of brick--the house you see now." + +He waved his hand in the direction of the house and was silent. +severe, imposing, almost menacing, Crome loomed down on them. + +"The great thing about Crome," said Mr. Scogan, seizing the +opportunity to speak, "is the fact that it's so unmistakably and +aggressively a work of art. It makes no compromise with nature, +but affronts it and rebels against it. It has no likeness to +Shelley's tower, in the 'Epipsychidion,' which, if I remember +rightly-- + +"'Seems not now a work of human art, +But as it were titanic, in the heart +Of earth having assumed its form and grown +Out of the mountain, from the living stone, +Lifting itself in caverns light and high.' + +No, no, there isn't any nonsense of that sort about Crome. That +the hovels of the peasantry should look as though they had grown +out of the earth, to which their inmates are attached, is right, +no doubt, and suitable. But the house of an intelligent, +civilised, and sophisticated man should never seem to have +sprouted from the clods. It should rather be an expression of +his grand unnatural remoteness from the cloddish life. Since the +days of William Morris that's a fact which we in England have +been unable to comprehend. Civilised and sophisticated men have +solemnly played at being peasants. Hence quaintness, arts and +crafts, cottage architecture, and all the rest of it. In the +suburbs of our cities you may see, reduplicated in endless rows, +studiedly quaint imitations and adaptations of the village hovel. +Poverty, ignorance, and a limited range of materials produced the +hovel, which possesses undoubtedly, in suitable surroundings, its +own 'as it were titanic' charm. We now employ our wealth, our +technical knowledge, our rich variety of materials for the +purpose of building millions of imitation hovels in totally +unsuitable surroundings. Could imbecility go further?" + +Henry Wimbush took up the thread of his interrupted discourse. +"All that you say, my dear Scogan," he began, "is certainly very +just, very true. But whether Sir Ferdinando shared your views +about architecture or if, indeed, he had any views about +architecture at all, I very much doubt. In building this house, +Sir Ferdinando was, as a matter of fact, preoccupied by only one +thought--the proper placing of his privies. Sanitation was the +one great interest of his life. In 1573 he even published, on +this subject, a little book--now extremely scarce--called, +'Certaine Priuy Counsels' by 'One of Her Maiestie's Most +Honourable Priuy Counsels, F.L. Knight', in which the whole +matter is treated with great learning and elegance. His guiding +principle in arranging the sanitation of a house was to secure +that the greatest possible distance should separate the privy +from the sewage arrangements. Hence it followed inevitably that +the privies were to be placed at the top of the house, being +connected by vertical shafts with pits or channels in the ground. +It must not be thought that Sir Ferdinando was moved only by +material and merely sanitary considerations; for the placing of +his privies in an exalted position he had also certain excellent +spiritual reasons. For, he argues in the third chapter of his +'Priuy Counsels', the necessities of nature are so base and +brutish that in obeying them we are apt to forget that we are the +noblest creatures of the universe. To counteract these degrading +effects he advised that the privy should be in every house the +room nearest to heaven, that it should be well provided with +windows commanding an extensive and noble prospect, and that the +walls of the chamber should be lined with bookshelves containing +all the ripest products of human wisdom, such as the Proverbs of +Solomon, Boethius's 'Consolations of Philosophy', the apophthegms +of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, the 'Enchiridion' of Erasmus, +and all other works, ancient or modern, which testify to the +nobility of the human soul. In Crome he was able to put his +theories into practice. At the top of each of the three +projecting towers he placed a privy. From these a shaft went +down the whole height of the house, that is to say, more than +seventy feet, through the cellars, and into a series of conduits +provided with flowing water tunnelled in the ground on a level +with the base of the raised terrace. These conduits emptied +themselves into the stream several hundred yards below the fish- +pond. The total depth of the shafts from the top of the towers +to their subterranean conduits was a hundred and two feet. The +eighteenth century, with its passion for modernisation, swept +away these monuments of sanitary ingenuity. Were it not for +tradition and the explicit account of them left by Sir +Ferdinando, we should be unaware that these noble privies had +ever existed. We should even suppose that Sir Ferdinando built +his house after this strange and splendid model for merely +aesthetic reasons." + +The contemplation of the glories of the past always evoked in +Henry Wimbush a certain enthusiasm. Under the grey bowler his +face worked and glowed as he spoke. The thought of these +vanished privies moved him profoundly. He ceased to speak; the +light gradually died out of his face, and it became once more the +replica of the grave, polite hat which shaded it. There was a +long silence; the same gently melancholy thoughts seemed to +possess the mind of each of them. Permanence, transience--Sir +Ferdinando and his privies were gone, Crome still stood. How +brightly the sun shone and how inevitable was death! The ways of +God were strange; the ways of man were stranger still... + +"It does one's heart good," exclaimed Mr. Scogan at last, "to +hear of these fantastic English aristocrats. To have a theory +about privies and to build an immense and splendid house in order +to put it into practise--it's magnificent, beautiful! I like to +think of them all: the eccentric milords rolling across Europe +in ponderous carriages, bound on extraordinary errands. One is +going to Venice to buy La Bianchi's larynx; he won't get it till +she's dead, of course, but no matter; he's prepared to wait; he +has a collection, pickled in glass bottles, of the throats of +famous opera singers. And the instruments of renowned virtuosi-- +he goes in for them too; he will try to bribe Paganini to part +with his little Guarnerio, but he has small hope of success. +Paganini won't sell his fiddle; but perhaps he might sacrifice +one of his guitars. Others are bound on crusades--one to die +miserably among the savage Greeks, another, in his white top hat, +to lead Italians against their oppressors. Others have no +business at all; they are just giving their oddity a continental +airing. At home they cultivate themselves at leisure and with +greater elaboration. Beckford builds towers, Portland digs holes +in the ground, Cavendish, the millionaire, lives in a stable, +eats nothing but mutton, and amuses himself--oh, solely for his +private delectation--by anticipating the electrical discoveries +of half a century. Glorious eccentrics! Every age is enlivened +by their presence. Some day, my dear Denis," said Mr Scogan, +turning a beady bright regard in his direction--"some day you +must become their biographer--'The Lives of Queer Men.' What a +subject! I should like to undertake it myself." + +Mr. Scogan paused, looked up once more at the towering house, +then murmured the word "Eccentricity," two or three times. + +"Eccentricity...It's the justification of all aristocracies. It +justifies leisured classes and inherited wealth and privilege and +endowments and all the other injustices of that sort. If you're +to do anything reasonable in this world, you must have a class of +people who are secure, safe from public opinion, safe from +poverty, leisured, not compelled to waste their time in the +imbecile routines that go by the name of Honest Work. You must +have a class of which the members can think and, within the +obvious limits, do what they please. You must have a class in +which people who have eccentricities can indulge them and in +which eccentricity in general will be tolerated and understood. +That's the important thing about an aristocracy. Not only is it +eccentric itself--often grandiosely so; it also tolerates and +even encourages eccentricity in others. The eccentricities of +the artist and the new-fangled thinker don't inspire it with that +fear, loathing, and disgust which the burgesses instinctively +feel towards them. It is a sort of Red Indian Reservation +planted in the midst of a vast horde of Poor Whites--colonials at +that. Within its boundaries wild men disport themselves--often, +it must be admitted, a little grossly, a little too flamboyantly; +and when kindred spirits are born outside the pale it offers them +some sort of refuge from the hatred which the Poor Whites, en +bons bourgeois, lavish on anything that is wild or out of the +ordinary. After the social revolution there will be no +Reservations; the Redskins will be drowned in the great sea of +Poor Whites. What then? Will they suffer you to go on writing +villanelles, my good Denis? Will you, unhappy Henry, be allowed +to live in this house of the splendid privies, to continue your +quiet delving in the mines of futile knowledge? Will Anne..." + +"And you," said Anne, interrupting him, "will you be allowed to +go on talking?" + +"You may rest assured," Mr. Scogan replied, "that I shall not. I +shall have some Honest Work to do." + + +CHAPTER XII. + +Blight, Mildew, and Smut..." Mary was puzzled and distressed. +Perhaps her ears had played her false. Perhaps what he had +really said was, "Squire, Binyon, and Shanks," or "Childe, +Blunden, and Earp," or even "Abercrombie, Drinkwater, and +Rabindranath Tagore." Perhaps. But then her ears never did play +her false. "Blight, Mildew, and Smut." The impression was +distinct and ineffaceable. "Blight, Mildew..." she was forced to +the conclusion, reluctantly, that Denis had indeed pronounced +those improbable words. He had deliberately repelled her +attempts to open a serious discussion. That was horrible. A man +who would not talk seriously to a woman just because she was a +woman--oh, impossible! Egeria or nothing. Perhaps Gombauld +would be more satisfactory. True, his meridional heredity was a +little disquieting; but at least he was a serious worker, and it +was with his work that she would associate herself. And Denis? +After all, what WAS Denis? A dilettante, an amateur... + +Gombauld had annexed for his painting-room a little disused +granary that stood by itself in a green close beyond the farm- +yard. It was a square brick building with a peaked roof and +little windows set high up in each of its walls. A ladder of +four rungs led up to the door; for the granary was perched above +the ground, and out of reach of the rats, on four massive +toadstools of grey stone. Within, there lingered a faint smell +of dust and cobwebs; and the narrow shaft of sunlight that came +slanting in at every hour of the day through one of the little +windows was always alive with silvery motes. Here Gombauld +worked, with a kind of concentrated ferocity, during six or seven +hours of each day. He was pursuing something new, something +terrific, if only he could catch it. + +During the last eight years, nearly half of which had been spent +in the process of winning the war, he had worked his way +industriously through cubism. Now he had come out on the other +side. He had begun by painting a formalised nature; then, little +by little, he had risen from nature into the world of pure form, +till in the end he was painting nothing but his own thoughts, +externalised in the abstract geometrical forms of the mind's +devising. He found the process arduous and exhilarating. And +then, quite suddenly, he grew dissatisfied; he felt himself +cramped and confined within intolerably narrow limitations. He +was humiliated to find how few and crude and uninteresting were +the forms he could invent; the inventions of nature were without +number, inconceivably subtle and elaborate. He had done with +cubism. He was out on the other side. But the cubist discipline +preserved him from falling into excesses of nature worship. He +took from nature its rich, subtle, elaborate forms, but his aim +was always to work them into a whole that should have the +thrilling simplicity and formality of an idea; to combine +prodigious realism with prodigious simplification. Memories of +Caravaggio's portentous achievements haunted him. Forms of a +breathing, living reality emerged from darkness, built themselves +up into compositions as luminously simple and single as a +mathematical idea. He thought of the "Call of Matthew," of +"Peter Crucified," of the "Lute players," of "Magdalen." He had +the secret, that astonishing ruffian, he had the secret! And now +Gombauld was after it, in hot pursuit. Yes, it would be +something terrific, if only he could catch it. + +For a long time an idea had been stirring and spreading, +yeastily, in his mind. He had made a portfolio full of studies, +he had drawn a cartoon; and now the idea was taking shape on +canvas. A man fallen from a horse. The huge animal, a gaunt +white cart-horse, filled the upper half of the picture with its +great body. Its head, lowered towards the ground, was in shadow; +the immense bony body was what arrested the eye, the body and the +legs, which came down on either side of the picture like the +pillars of an arch. On the ground, between the legs of the +towering beast, lay the foreshortened figure of a man, the head +in the extreme foreground, the arms flung wide to right and left. +A white, relentless light poured down from a point in the right +foreground. The beast, the fallen man, were sharply illuminated; +round them, beyond and behind them, was the night. They were +alone in the darkness, a universe in themselves. The horse's +body filled the upper part of the picture; the legs, the great +hoofs, frozen to stillness in the midst of their trampling, +limited it on either side. And beneath lay the man, his +foreshortened face at the focal point in the centre, his arms +outstretched towards the sides of the picture. Under the arch of +the horse's belly, between his legs, the eye looked through into +an intense darkness; below, the space was closed in by the figure +of the prostrate man. A central gulf of darkness surrounded by +luminous forms... + +The picture was more than half finished. Gombauld had been at +work all the morning on the figure of the man, and now he was +taking a rest--the time to smoke a cigarette. Tilting back his +chair till it touched the wall, he looked thoughtfully at his +canvas. He was pleased, and at the same time he was desolated. +In itself, the thing was good; he knew it. But that something he +was after, that something that would be so terrific if only he +could catch it--had he caught it? Would he ever catch it? + +Three little taps--rat, tat, tat! Surprised, Gombauld turned his +eyes towards the door. Nobody ever disturbed him while he was at +work; it was one of the unwritten laws. "Come in!" he called. +The door, which was ajar, swung open, revealing, from the waist +upwards, the form of Mary. She had only dared to mount half-way +up the ladder. If he didn't want her, retreat would be easier +and more dignified than if she climbed to the top. + +"May I come in?" she asked. + +"Certainly." + +She skipped up the remaining two rungs and was over the threshold +in an instant. "A letter came for you by the second post," she +said. "I thought it might be important, so I brought it out to +you." Her eyes, her childish face were luminously candid as she +handed him the letter. There had never been a flimsier pretext. + +Gombauld looked at the envelope and put it in his pocket +unopened. "Luckily," he said, "it isn't at all important. +Thanks very much all the same." + +There was a silence; Mary felt a little uncomfortable. "May I +have a look at what you've been painting?" she had the courage to +say at last. + +Gombauld had only half smoked his cigarette; in any case he +wouldn't begin work again till he had finished. He would give +her the five minutes that separated him from the bitter end. +"This is the best place to see it from," he said. + +Mary looked at the picture for some time without saying anything. +Indeed, she didn't know what to say; she was taken aback, she was +at a loss. She had expected a cubist masterpiece, and here was a +picture of a man and a horse, not only recognisable as such, but +even aggressively in drawing. Trompe-l'oeil--there was no other +word to describe the delineation of that foreshortened figure +under the trampling feet of the horse. What was she to think, +what was she to say? Her orientations were gone. One could +admire representationalism in the Old Masters. Obviously. But +in a modern...? At eighteen she might have done so. But now, +after five years of schooling among the best judges, her +instinctive reaction to a contemporary piece of representation +was contempt--an outburst of laughing disparagement. What could +Gombauld be up to? She had felt so safe in admiring his work +before. But now--she didn't know what to think. It was very +difficult, very difficult. + +"There's rather a lot of chiaroscuro, isn't there?" she ventured +at last, and inwardly congratulated herself on having found a +critical formula so gentle and at the same time so penetrating. + +"There is," Gombauld agreed. + +Mary was pleased; he accepted her criticism; it was a serious +discussion. She put her head on one side and screwed up her +eyes. "I think it's awfully fine," she said. "But of course +it's a little too...too...trompe-l'oeil for my taste." She +looked at Gombauld, who made no response, but continued to smoke, +gazing meditatively all the time at his picture. Mary went on +gaspingly. "When I was in Paris this spring I saw a lot of +Tschuplitski. I admire his work so tremendously. Of course, +it's frightfully abstract now--frightfully abstract and +frightfully intellectual. He just throws a few oblongs on to his +canvas--quite flat, you know, and painted in pure primary +colours. But his design is wonderful. He's getting more and +more abstract every day. He'd given up the third dimension when +I was there and was just thinking of giving up the second. Soon, +he says, there'll be just the blank canvas. That's the logical +conclusion. Complete abstraction. Painting's finished; he's +finishing it. When he's reached pure abstraction he's going to +take up architecture. He says it's more intellectual than +painting. Do you agree?" she asked, with a final gasp. + +Gombauld dropped his cigarette end and trod on it. +"Tschuplitski's finished painting," he said. "I've finished my +cigarette. But I'm going on painting." And, advancing towards +her, he put his arm round her shoulders and turned her round, +away from the picture. + +Mary looked up at him; her hair swung back, a soundless bell of +gold. Her eyes were serene; she smiled. So the moment had come. +His arm was round her. He moved slowly, almost imperceptibly, +and she moved with him. It was a peripatetic embracement. "Do +you agree with him?" she repeated. The moment might have come, +but she would not cease to be intellectual, serious. + +"I don't know. I shall have to think about it." Gombauld +loosened his embrace, his hand dropped from her shoulder. "Be +careful going down the ladder," he added solicitously. + +Mary looked round, startled. They were in front of the open +door. She remained standing there for a moment in bewilderment. +The hand that had rested on her shoulder made itself felt lower +down her back; it administered three or four kindly little +smacks. Replying automatically to its stimulus, she moved +forward. + +"Be careful going down the ladder," said Gombauld once more. + +She was careful. The door closed behind her and she was alone in +the little green close. She walked slowly back through the +farmyard; she was pensive. + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +Henry Wimbush brought down with him to dinner a budget of printed +sheets loosely bound together in a cardboard portfolio. + +"To-day," he said, exhibiting it with a certain solemnity, "to- +day I have finished the printing of my 'History of Crome'. I +helped to set up the type of the last page this evening." + +"The famous History?" cried Anne. The writing and the printing +of this Magnum Opus had been going on as long as she could +remember. All her childhood long Uncle Henry's History had been +a vague and fabulous thing, often heard of and never seen. + +"It has taken me nearly thirty years," said Mr. Wimbush. +"Twenty-five years of writing and nearly four of printing. And +now it's finished--the whole chronicle, from Sir Ferdinando +Lapith's birth to the death of my father William Wimbush--more +than three centuries and a half: a history of Crome, written at +Crome, and printed at Crome by my own press." + +"Shall we be allowed to read it now it's finished?" asked Denis. + +Mr. Wimbush nodded. "Certainly," he said. "And I hope you will +not find it uninteresting," he added modestly. "Our muniment +room is particularly rich in ancient records, and I have some +genuinely new light to throw on the introduction of the three- +pronged fork." + +"And the people?" asked Gombauld. "Sir Ferdinando and the rest +of them--were they amusing? Were there any crimes or tragedies +in the family?" + +"Let me see," Henry Wimbush rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I can +only think of two suicides, one violent death, four or perhaps +five broken hearts, and half a dozen little blots on the +scutcheon in the way of misalliances, seductions, natural +children, and the like. No, on the whole, it's a placid and +uneventful record." + +"The Wimbushes and the Lapiths were always an unadventurous, +respectable crew," said Priscilla, with a note of scorn in her +voice. "If I were to write my family history now! Why, it would +be one long continuous blot from beginning to end." She laughed +jovially, and helped herself to another glass of wine. + +"If I were to write mine," Mr. Scogan remarked, "it wouldn't +exist. After the second generation we Scogans are lost in the +mists of antiquity." + +"After dinner," said Henry Wimbush, a little piqued by his wife's +disparaging comment on the masters of Crome, "I'll read you an +episode from my History that will make you admit that even the +Lapiths, in their own respectable way, had their tragedies and +strange adventures." + +"I'm glad to hear it," said Priscilla. + +"Glad to hear what?" asked Jenny, emerging suddenly from her +private interior world like a cuckoo from a clock. She received +an explanation, smiled, nodded, cuckooed at last "I see," and +popped back, clapping shut the door behind her. + +Dinner was eaten; the party had adjourned to the drawing-room. + +"Now," said Henry Wimbush, pulling up a chair to the lamp. He +put on his round pince-nez, rimmed with tortoise-shell, and began +cautiously to turn over the pages of his loose and still +fragmentary book. He found his place at last. "Shall I begin?" +he asked, looking up. + +"Do," said Priscilla, yawning. + +In the midst of an attentive silence Mr. Wimbush gave a little +preliminary cough and started to read. + +"The infant who was destined to become the fourth baronet of the +name of Lapith was born in the year 1740. He was a very small +baby, weighing not more than three pounds at birth, but from the +first he was sturdy and healthy. In honour of his maternal +grandfather, Sir Hercules Occam of Bishop's Occam, he was +christened Hercules. His mother, like many other mothers, kept a +notebook, in which his progress from month to month was recorded. +He walked at ten months, and before his second year was out he +had learnt to speak a number of words. At three years he weighed +but twenty-four pounds, and at six, though he could read and +write perfectly and showed a remarkable aptitude for music, he +was no larger and heavier than a well-grown child of two. +Meanwhile, his mother had borne two other children, a boy and a +girl, one of whom died of croup during infancy, while the other +was carried off by smallpox before it reached the age of five. +Hercules remained the only surviving child. + +"On his twelfth birthday Hercules was still only three feet and +two inches in height. His head, which was very handsome and +nobly shaped, was too big for his body, but otherwise he was +exquisitely proportioned, and, for his size, of great strength +and agility. His parents, in the hope of making him grow, +consulted all the most eminent physicians of the time. Their +various prescriptions were followed to the letter, but in vain. +One ordered a very plentiful meat diet; another exercise; a third +constructed a little rack, modelled on those employed by the Holy +Inquisition, on which young Hercules was stretched, with +excruciating torments, for half an hour every morning and +evening. In the course of the next three years Hercules gained +perhaps two inches. After that his growth stopped completely, +and he remained for the rest of his life a pigmy of three feet +and four inches. His father, who had built the most extravagant +hopes upon his son, planning for him in his imagination a +military career equal to that of Marlborough, found himself a +disappointed man. 'I have brought an abortion into the world,' +he would say, and he took so violent a dislike to his son that +the boy dared scarcely come into his presence. His temper, which +had been serene, was turned by disappointment to moroseness and +savagery. He avoided all company (being, as he said, ashamed to +show himself, the father of a lusus naturae, among normal, +healthy human beings), and took to solitary drinking, which +carried him very rapidly to his grave; for the year before +Hercules came of age his father was taken off by an apoplexy. +His mother, whose love for him had increased with the growth of +his father's unkindness, did not long survive, but little more +than a year after her husband's death succumbed, after eating two +dozen of oysters, to an attack of typhoid fever. + +"Hercules thus found himself at the age of twenty-one alone in +the world, and master of a considerable fortune, including the +estate and mansion of Crome. The beauty and intelligence of his +childhood had survived into his manly age, and, but for his +dwarfish stature, he would have taken his place among the +handsomest and most accomplished young men of his time. He was +well read in the Greek and Latin authors, as well as in all the +moderns of any merit who had written in English, French, or +Italian. He had a good ear for music, and was no indifferent +performer on the violin, which he used to play like a bass viol, +seated on a chair with the instrument between his legs. To the +music of the harpsichord and clavichord he was extremely partial, +but the smallness of his hands made it impossible for him ever to +perform upon these instruments. He had a small ivory flute made +for him, on which, whenever he was melancholy, he used to play a +simple country air or jig, affirming that this rustic music had +more power to clear and raise the spirits than the most +artificial productions of the masters. From an early age he +practised the composition of poetry, but, though conscious of his +great powers in this art, he would never publish any specimen of +his writing. 'My stature,' he would say, 'is reflected in my +verses; if the public were to read them it would not be because I +am a poet, but because I am a dwarf.' Several MS. books of Sir +Hercules's poems survive. A single specimen will suffice to +illustrate his qualities as a poet. + +"'In ancient days, while yet the world was young, +Ere Abram fed his flocks or Homer sung; +When blacksmith Tubal tamed creative fire, +And Jabal dwelt in tents and Jubal struck the lyre; +Flesh grown corrupt brought forth a monstrous birth +And obscene giants trod the shrinking earth, +Till God, impatient of their sinful brood, +Gave rein to wrath and drown'd them in the Flood. +Teeming again, repeopled Tellus bore +The lubber Hero and the Man of War; +Huge towers of Brawn, topp'd with an empty Skull, +Witlessly bold, heroically dull. +Long ages pass'd and Man grown more refin'd, +Slighter in muscle but of vaster Mind, +Smiled at his grandsire's broadsword, bow and bill, +And learn'd to wield the Pencil and the Quill. +The glowing canvas and the written page +Immortaliz'd his name from age to age, +His name emblazon'd on Fame's temple wall; +For Art grew great as Humankind grew small. +Thus man's long progress step by step we trace; +The Giant dies, the hero takes his place; +The Giant vile, the dull heroic Block: +At one we shudder and at one we mock. +Man last appears. In him the Soul's pure flame +Burns brightlier in a not inord'nate frame. +Of old when Heroes fought and Giants swarmed, +Men were huge mounds of matter scarce inform'd; +Wearied by leavening so vast a mass, +The spirit slept and all the mind was crass. +The smaller carcase of these later days +Is soon inform'd; the Soul unwearied plays +And like a Pharos darts abroad her mental rays. +But can we think that Providence will stay +Man's footsteps here upon the upward way? +Mankind in understanding and in grace +Advanc'd so far beyond the Giants' race? +Hence impious thought! Still led by GOD'S own Hand, +Mankind proceeds towards the Promised Land. +A time will come (prophetic, I descry +Remoter dawns along the gloomy sky), +When happy mortals of a Golden Age +Will backward turn the dark historic page, +And in our vaunted race of Men behold +A form as gross, a Mind as dead and cold, +As we in Giants see, in warriors of old. +A time will come, wherein the soul shall be +From all superfluous matter wholly free; +When the light body, agile as a fawn's, +Shall sport with grace along the velvet lawns. +Nature's most delicate and final birth, +Mankind perfected shall possess the earth. +But ah, not yet! For still the Giants' race, +Huge, though diminish'd, tramps the Earth's fair face; +Gross and repulsive, yet perversely proud, +Men of their imperfections boast aloud. +Vain of their bulk, of all they still retain +Of giant ugliness absurdly vain; +At all that's small they point their stupid scorn +And, monsters, think themselves divinely born. +Sad is the Fate of those, ah, sad indeed, +The rare precursors of the nobler breed! +Who come man's golden glory to foretell, +But pointing Heav'nwards live themselves in Hell.' + +"As soon as he came into the estate, Sir Hercules set about +remodelling his household. For though by no means ashamed of his +deformity--indeed, if we may judge from the poem quoted above, he +regarded himself as being in many ways superior to the ordinary +race of man--he found the presence of full-grown men and women +embarrassing. Realising, too, that he must abandon all ambitions +in the great world, he determined to retire absolutely from it +and to create, as it were, at Crome a private world of his own, +in which all should be proportionable to himself. Accordingly, +he discharged all the old servants of the house and replaced them +gradually, as he was able to find suitable successors, by others +of dwarfish stature. In the course of a few years he had +assembled about himself a numerous household, no member of which +was above four feet high and the smallest among them scarcely two +feet and six inches. His father's dogs, such as setters, +mastiffs, greyhounds, and a pack of beagles, he sold or gave away +as too large and too boisterous for his house, replacing them by +pugs and King Charles spaniels and whatever other breeds of dog +were the smallest. His father's stable was also sold. For his +own use, whether riding or driving, he had six black Shetland +ponies, with four very choice piebald animals of New Forest +breed. + +"Having thus settled his household entirely to his own +satisfaction, it only remained for him to find some suitable +companion with whom to share his paradise. Sir Hercules had a +susceptible heart, and had more than once, between the ages of +sixteen and twenty, felt what it was to love. But here his +deformity had been a source of the most bitter humiliation, for, +having once dared to declare himself to a young lady of his +choice, he had been received with laughter. On his persisting, +she had picked him up and shaken him like an importunate child, +telling him to run away and plague her no more. The story soon +got about--indeed, the young lady herself used to tell it as a +particularly pleasant anecdote--and the taunts and mockery it +occasioned were a source of the most acute distress to Hercules. +From the poems written at this period we gather that he meditated +taking his own life. In course of time, however, he lived down +this humiliation; but never again, though he often fell in love, +and that very passionately, did he dare to make any advances to +those in whom he was interested. After coming to the estate and +finding that he was in a position to create his own world as he +desired it, he saw that, if he was to have a wife--which he very +much desired, being of an affectionate and, indeed, amorous +temper--he must choose her as he had chosen his servants--from +among the race of dwarfs. But to find a suitable wife was, he +found, a matter of some difficulty; for he would marry none who +was not distinguished by beauty and gentle birth. The dwarfish +daughter of Lord Bemboro he refused on the ground that besides +being a pigmy she was hunchbacked; while another young lady, an +orphan belonging to a very good family in Hampshire, was rejected +by him because her face, like that of so many dwarfs, was wizened +and repulsive. Finally, when he was almost despairing of +success, he heard from a reliable source that Count Titimalo, a +Venetian nobleman, possessed a daughter of exquisite beauty and +great accomplishments, who was by three feet in height. Setting +out at once for Venice, he went immediately on his arrival to pay +his respects to the count, whom he found living with his wife and +five children in a very mean apartment in one of the poorer +quarters of the town. Indeed, the count was so far reduced in +his circumstances that he was even then negotiating (so it was +rumoured) with a travelling company of clowns and acrobats, who +had had the misfortune to lose their performing dwarf, for the +sale of his diminutive daughter Filomena. Sir Hercules arrived +in time to save her from this untoward fate, for he was so much +charmed by Filomena's grace and beauty, that at the end of three +days' courtship he made her a formal offer of marriage, which was +accepted by her no less joyfully than by her father, who +perceived in an English son-in-law a rich and unfailing source of +revenue. After an unostentatious marriage, at which the English +ambassador acted as one of the witnesses, Sir Hercules and his +bride returned by sea to England, where they settled down, as it +proved, to a life of uneventful happiness. + +"Crome and its household of dwarfs delighted Filomena, who felt +herself now for the first time to be a free woman living among +her equals in a friendly world. She had many tastes in common +with her husband, especially that of music. She had a beautiful +voice, of a power surprising in one so small, and could touch A +in alt without effort. Accompanied by her husband on his fine +Cremona fiddle, which he played, as we have noted before, as one +plays a bass viol, she would sing all the liveliest and tenderest +airs from the operas and cantatas of her native country. Seated +together at the harpsichord, they found that they could with +their four hands play all the music written for two hands of +ordinary size, a circumstance which gave Sir Hercules unfailing +pleasure. + +"When they were not making music or reading together, which they +often did, both in English and Italian, they spent their time in +healthful outdoor exercises, sometimes rowing in a little boat on +the lake, but more often riding or driving, occupations in which, +because they were entirely new to her, Filomena especially +delighted. When she had become a perfectly proficient rider, +Filomena and her husband used often to go hunting in the park, at +that time very much more extensive than it is now. They hunted +not foxes nor hares, but rabbits, using a pack of about thirty +black and fawn-coloured pugs, a kind of dog which, when not +overfed, can course a rabbit as well as any of the smaller +breeds. Four dwarf grooms, dressed in scarlet liveries and +mounted on white Exmoor ponies, hunted the pack, while their +master and mistress, in green habits, followed either on the +black Shetlands or on the piebald New Forest ponies. A picture +of the whole hunt--dogs, horses, grooms, and masters--was painted +by William Stubbs, whose work Sir Hercules admired so much that +he invited him, though a man of ordinary stature, to come and +stay at the mansion for the purpose of executing this picture. +Stubbs likewise painted a portrait of Sir Hercules and his lady +driving in their green enamelled calash drawn by four black +Shetlands. Sir Hercules wears a plum-coloured velvet coat and +white breeches; Filomena is dressed in flowered muslin and a very +large hat with pink feathers. The two figures in their gay +carriage stand out sharply against a dark background of trees; +but to the left of the picture the trees fall away and disappear, +so that the four black ponies are seen against a pale and +strangely lurid sky that has the golden-brown colour of thunder- +clouds lighted up by the sun. + +"In this way four years passed happily by. At the end of that +time Filomena found herself great with child. Sir Hercules was +overjoyed. 'If God is good,' he wrote in his day-book, 'the name +of Lapith will be preserved and our rarer and more delicate race +transmitted through the generations until in the fullness of time +the world shall recognise the superiority of those beings whom +now it uses to make mock of.' On his wife's being brought to bed +of a son he wrote a poem to the same effect. The child was +christened Ferdinando in memory of the builder of the house. + +"With the passage of the months a certain sense of disquiet began +to invade the minds of Sir Hercules and his lady. For the child +was growing with an extraordinary rapidity. At a year he weighed +as much as Hercules had weighed when he was three. 'Ferdinando +goes crescendo,' wrote Filomena in her diary. 'It seems not +natural.' At eighteen months the baby was almost as tall as +their smallest jockey, who was a man of thirty-six. Could it be +that Ferdinando was destined to become a man of the normal, +gigantic dimensions? It was a thought to which neither of his +parents dared yet give open utterance, but in the secrecy of +their respective diaries they brooded over it in terror and +dismay. + +"On his third birthday Ferdinando was taller than his mother and +not more than a couple of inches short of his father's height. +'To-day for the first time' wrote Sir Hercules, 'we discussed the +situation. The hideous truth can be concealed no longer: +Ferdinando is not one of us. On this, his third birthday, a day +when we should have been rejoicing at the health, the strength, +and beauty of our child, we wept together over the ruin of our +happiness. God give us strength to bear this cross.' + +"At the age of eight Ferdinando was so large and so exuberantly +healthy that his parents decided, though reluctantly, to send him +to school. He was packed off to Eton at the beginning of the +next half. A profound peace settled upon the house. Ferdinando +returned for the summer holidays larger and stronger than ever. +One day he knocked down the butler and broke his arm. 'He is +rough, inconsiderate, unamenable to persuasion,' wrote his +father. 'The only thing that will teach him manners is corporal +chastisement.' Ferdinando, who at this age was already seventeen +inches taller than his father, received no corporal chastisement. + +"One summer holidays about three years later Ferdinando returned +to Crome accompanied by a very large mastiff dog. He had bought +it from an old man at Windsor who had found the beast too +expensive to feed. It was a savage, unreliable animal; hardly +had it entered the house when it attacked one of Sir Hercules's +favourite pugs, seizing the creature in its jaws and shaking it +till it was nearly dead. Extremely put out by this occurrence, +Sir Hercules ordered that the beast should be chained up in the +stable-yard. Ferdinando sullenly answered that the dog was his, +and he would keep it where he pleased. His father, growing +angry, bade him take the animal out of the house at once, on pain +of his utmost displeasure. Ferdinando refused to move. His +mother at this moment coming into the room, the dog flew at her, +knocked her down, and in a twinkling had very severely mauled her +arm and shoulder; in another instant it must infallibly have had +her by the throat, had not Sir Hercules drawn his sword and +stabbed the animal to the heart. Turning on his son, he ordered +him to leave the room immediately, as being unfit to remain in +the same place with the mother whom he had nearly murdered. So +awe-inspiring was the spectacle of Sir Hercules standing with one +foot on the carcase of the gigantic dog, his sword drawn and +still bloody, so commanding were his voice, his gestures, and the +expression of his face that Ferdinando slunk out of the room in +terror and behaved himself for all the rest of the vacation in an +entirely exemplary fashion. His mother soon recovered from the +bites of the mastiff, but the effect on her mind of this +adventure was ineradicable; from that time forth she lived always +among imaginary terrors. + +"The two years which Ferdinando spent on the Continent, making +the Grand Tour, were a period of happy repose for his parents. +But even now the thought of the future haunted them; nor were +they able to solace themselves with all the diversions of their +younger days. The Lady Filomena had lost her voice and Sir +Hercules was grown too rheumatical to play the violin. He, it is +true, still rode after his pugs, but his wife felt herself too +old and, since the episode of the mastiff, too nervous for such +sports. At most, to please her husband, she would follow the +hunt at a distance in a little gig drawn by the safest and oldest +of the Shetlands. + +"The day fixed for Ferdinando's return came round. Filomena, +sick with vague dreads and presentiments, retired to her chamber +and her bed. Sir Hercules received his son alone. A giant in a +brown travelling-suit entered the room. 'Welcome home, my son,' +said Sir Hercules in a voice that trembled a little. + +"'I hope I see you well, sir.' Ferdinando bent down to shake +hands, then straightened himself up again. The top of his +father's head reached to the level of his hip. + +"Ferdinando had not come alone. Two friends of his own age +accompanied him, and each of the young men had brought a servant. +Not for thirty years had Crome been desecrated by the presence of +so many members of the common race of men. Sir Hercules was +appalled and indignant, but the laws of hospitality had to be +obeyed. He received the young gentlemen with grave politeness +and sent the servants to the kitchen, with orders that they +should be well cared for. + +"The old family dining-table was dragged out into the light and +dusted (Sir Hercules and his lady were accustomed to dine at a +small table twenty inches high). Simon, the aged butler, who +could only just look over the edge of the big table, was helped +at supper by the three servants brought by Ferdinando and his +guests. + +"Sir Hercules presided, and with his usual grace supported a +conversation on the pleasures of foreign travel, the beauties of +art and nature to be met with abroad, the opera at Venice, the +singing of the orphans in the churches of the same city, and on +other topics of a similar nature. The young men were not +particularly attentive to his discourses; they were occupied in +watching the efforts of the butler to change the plates and +replenish the glasses. They covered their laughter by violent +and repeated fits of coughing or choking. Sir Hercules affected +not to notice, but changed the subject of the conversation to +sport. Upon this one of the young men asked whether it was true, +as he had heard, that he used to hunt the rabbit with a pack of +pug dogs. Sir Hercules replied that it was, and proceeded to +describe the chase in some detail. The young men roared with +laughter. + +"When supper was over, Sir Hercules climbed down from his chair +and, giving as his excuse that he must see how his lady did, bade +them good-night. The sound of laughter followed him up the +stairs. Filomena was not asleep; she had been lying on her bed +listening to the sound of enormous laughter and the tread of +strangely heavy feet on the stairs and along the corridors. Sir +Hercules drew a chair to her bedside and sat there for a long +time in silence, holding his wife's hand and sometimes gently +squeezing it. At about ten o'clock they were startled by a +violent noise. There was a breaking of glass, a stamping of +feet, with an outburst of shouts and laughter. The uproar +continuing for several minutes, Sir Hercules rose to his feet +and, in spite of his wife's entreaties, prepared to go and see +what was happening. There was no light on the staircase, and Sir +Hercules groped his way down cautiously, lowering himself from +stair to stair and standing for a moment on each tread before +adventuring on a new step. The noise was louder here; the +shouting articulated itself into recognisable words and phrases. +A line of light was visible under the dining-room door. Sir +Hercules tiptoed across the hall towards it. Just as he +approached the door there was another terrific crash of breaking +glass and jangled metal. What could they be doing? Standing on +tiptoe he managed to look through the keyhole. In the middle of +the ravaged table old Simon, the butler, so primed with drink +that he could scarcely keep his balance, was dancing a jig. His +feet crunched and tinkled among the broken glass, and his shoes +were wet with spilt wine. The three young men sat round, +thumping the table with their hands or with the empty wine +bottles, shouting and laughing encouragement. The three servants +leaning against the wall laughed too. Ferdinando suddenly threw +a handful of walnuts at the dancer's head, which so dazed and +surprised the little man that he staggered and fell down on his +back, upsetting a decanter and several glasses. They raised him +up, gave him some brandy to drink, thumped him on the back. The +old man smiled and hiccoughed. 'To-morrow,' said Ferdinando, +'we'll have a concerted ballet of the whole household.' 'With +father Hercules wearing his club and lion-skin,' added one of his +companions, and all three roared with laughter. + +"Sir Hercules would look and listen no further. He crossed the +hall once more and began to climb the stairs, lifting his knees +painfully high at each degree. This was the end; there was no +place for him now in the world, no place for him and Ferdinando +together. + +"His wife was still awake; to her questioning glance he answered, +'They are making mock of old Simon. To-morrow it will be our +turn.' They were silent for a time. + +"At last Filomena said, 'I do not want to see to-morrow.' + +"'It is better not,' said Sir Hercules. Going into his closet he +wrote in his day-book a full and particular account of all the +events of the evening. While he was still engaged in this task +he rang for a servant and ordered hot water and a bath to be made +ready for him at eleven o'clock. When he had finished writing he +went into his wife's room, and preparing a dose of opium twenty +times as strong as that which she was accustomed to take when she +could not sleep, he brought it to her, saying, 'Here is your +sleeping-draught.' + +"Filomena took the glass and lay for a little time, but did not +drink immediately. The tears came into her eyes. 'Do you +remember the songs we used to sing, sitting out there sulla +terrazza in the summer-time?' She began singing softly in her +ghost of a cracked voice a few bars from Stradella's 'Amor amor, +non dormir piu.' 'And you playing on the violin, it seems such a +short time ago, and yet so long, long, long. Addio, amore, a +rivederti.' She drank off the draught and, lying back on the +pillow, closed her eyes. Sir Hercules kissed her hand and +tiptoed away, as though he were afraid of waking her. He +returned to his closet, and having recorded his wife's last words +to him, he poured into his bath the water that had been brought +up in accordance with his orders. The water being too hot for +him to get into the bath at once, he took down from the shelf his +copy of Suetonius. He wished to read how Seneca had died. He +opened the book at random. 'But dwarfs,' he read, 'he held in +abhorrence as being lusus naturae and of evil omen.' He winced +as though he had been struck. This same Augustus, he remembered, +had exhibited in the amphitheatre a young man called Lucius, of +good family, who was not quite two feet in height and weighed +seventeen pounds, but had a stentorian voice. He turned over the +pages. Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero: it was a tale of +growing horror. 'Seneca his preceptor, he forced to kill +himself.' And there was Petronius, who had called his friends +about him at the last, bidding them talk to him, not of the +consolations of philosophy, but of love and gallantry, while the +life was ebbing away through his opened veins. Dipping his pen +once more in the ink he wrote on the last page of his diary: 'He +died a Roman death.' Then, putting the toes of one foot into the +water and finding that it was not too hot, he threw off his +dressing-gown and, taking a razor in his hand, sat down in the +bath. With one deep cut he severed the artery in his left wrist, +then lay back and composed his mind to meditation. The blood +oozed out, floating through the water in dissolving wreaths and +spirals. In a little while the whole bath was tinged with pink. +The colour deepened; Sir Hercules felt himself mastered by an +invincible drowsiness; he was sinking from vague dream to dream. +Soon he was sound asleep. There was not much blood in his small +body." + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +For their after-luncheon coffee the party generally adjourned to +the library. Its windows looked east, and at this hour of the +day it was the coolest place in the whole house. It was a large +room, fitted, during the eighteenth century, with white painted +shelves of an elegant design. In the middle of one wall a door, +ingeniously upholstered with rows of dummy books, gave access to +a deep cupboard, where, among a pile of letter-files and old +newspapers, the mummy-case of an Egyptian lady, brought back by +the second Sir Ferdinando on his return from the Grand Tour, +mouldered in the darkness. From ten yards away and at a first +glance, one might almost have mistaken this secret door for a +section of shelving filled with genuine books. Coffee-cup in +hand, Mr. Scogan was standing in front of the dummy book-shelf. +Between the sips he discoursed. + +"The bottom shelf," he was saying, "is taken up by an +Encyclopaedia in fourteen volumes. Useful, but a little dull, as +is also Caprimulge's 'Dictionary of the Finnish Language'. The +'Biographical Dictionary' looks more promising. 'Biography of +Men who were Born Great', 'Biography of Men who Achieved +Greatness', 'Biography of Men who had Greatness Thrust upon +Them', and 'Biography of Men who were Never Great at All'. Then +there are ten volumes of 'Thom's Works and Wanderings', while the +'Wild Goose Chase, a Novel', by an anonymous author, fills no +less than six. But what's this, what's this?" Mr. Scogan stood +on tiptoe and peered up. "Seven volumes of the 'Tales of +Knockespotch'. The 'Tales of Knockespotch'," he repeated. "Ah, +my dear Henry," he said, turning round, "these are your best +books. I would willingly give all the rest of your library for +them." + +The happy possessor of a multitude of first editions, Mr. Wimbush +could afford to smile indulgently. + +"Is it possible," Mr. Scogan went on, "that they possess nothing +more than a back and a title?" He opened the cupboard door and +peeped inside, as though he hoped to find the rest of the books +behind it. "Phooh!" he said, and shut the door again. "It +smells of dust and mildew. How symbolical! One comes to the +great masterpieces of the past, expecting some miraculous +illumination, and one finds, on opening them, only darkness and +dust and a faint smell of decay. After all, what is reading but +a vice, like drink or venery or any other form of excessive self- +indulgence? One reads to tickle and amuse one's mind; one reads, +above all, to prevent oneself thinking. Still--the 'Tales of +Knockespotch'..." + +He paused, and thoughtfully drummed with his fingers on the backs +of the non-existent, unattainable books. + +"But I disagree with you about reading," said Mary. "About +serious reading, I mean." + +"Quite right, Mary, quite right," Mr. Scogan answered. "I had +forgotten there were any serious people in the room." + +"I like the idea of the Biographies," said Denis. "There's room +for us all within the scheme; it's comprehensive." + +"Yes, the Biographies are good, the Biographies are excellent," +Mr Scogan agreed. "I imagine them written in a very elegant +Regency style--Brighton Pavilion in words--perhaps by the great +Dr. Lempriere himself. You know his classical dictionary? Ah!" +Mr. Scogan raised his hand and let it limply fall again in a +gesture which implied that words failed him. "Read his biography +of Helen; read how Jupiter, disguised as a swan, was 'enabled to +avail himself of his situation' vis-a-vis to Leda. And to think +that he may have, must have written these biographies of the +Great! What a work, Henry! And, owing to the idiotic +arrangement of your library, it can't be read." + +"I prefer the 'Wild Goose Chase'," said Anne. "A novel in six +volumes--it must be restful." + +"Restful," Mr. Scogan repeated. "You've hit on the right word. +A 'Wild Goose Chase' is sound, but a bit old-fashioned--pictures +of clerical life in the fifties, you know; specimens of the +landed gentry; peasants for pathos and comedy; and in the +background, always the picturesque beauties of nature soberly +described. All very good and solid, but, like certain puddings, +just a little dull. Personally, I like much better the notion of +'Thom's Works and Wanderings'. The eccentric Mr. Thom of Thom's +Hill. Old Tom Thom, as his intimates used to call him. He spent +ten years in Thibet organising the clarified butter industry on +modern European lines, and was able to retire at thirty-six with +a handsome fortune. The rest of his life he devoted to travel +and ratiocination; here is the result." Mr. Scogan tapped the +dummy books. "And now we come to the 'Tales of Knockespotch'. +What a masterpiece and what a great man! Knockespotch knew how +to write fiction. Ah, Denis, if you could only read Knockespotch +you wouldn't be writing a novel about the wearisome development +of a young man's character, you wouldn't be describing in +endless, fastidious detail, cultured life in Chelsea and +Bloomsbury and Hampstead. You would be trying to write a +readable book. But then, alas! owing to the peculiar arrangement +of our host's library, you never will read Knockespotch." + +"Nobody could regret the fact more than I do," said Denis. + +"It was Knockespotch," Mr. Scogan continued, "the great +Knockespotch, who delivered us from the dreary tyranny of the +realistic novel. My life, Knockespotch said, is not so long that +I can afford to spend precious hours writing or reading +descriptions of middle-class interiors. He said again, 'I am +tired of seeing the human mind bogged in a social plenum; I +prefer to paint it in a vacuum, freely and sportively +bombinating.'" + +"I say," said Gombauld, "Knockespotch was a little obscure +sometimes, wasn't he?" + +"He was," Mr. Scogan replied, "and with intention. It made him +seem even profounder than he actually was. But it was only in +his aphorisms that he was so dark and oracular. In his Tales he +was always luminous. Oh, those Tales--those Tales! How shall I +describe them? Fabulous characters shoot across his pages like +gaily dressed performers on the trapeze. There are extraordinary +adventures and still more extraordinary speculations. +Intelligences and emotions, relieved of all the imbecile +preoccupations of civilised life, move in intricate and subtle +dances, crossing and recrossing, advancing, retreating, +impinging. An immense erudition and an immense fancy go hand in +hand. All the ideas of the present and of the past, on every +possible subject, bob up among the Tales, smile gravely or +grimace a caricature of themselves, then disappear to make place +for something new. The verbal surface of his writing is rich and +fantastically diversified. The wit is incessant. The..." + +"But couldn't you give us a specimen," Denis broke in--"a +concrete example?" + +"Alas!" Mr. Scogan replied, "Knockespotch's great book is like +the sword Excalibur. It remains struck fast in this door, +awaiting the coming of a writer with genius enough to draw it +forth. I am not even a writer, I am not so much as qualified to +attempt the task. The extraction of Knockespotch from his wooden +prison I leave, my dear Denis, to you." + +"Thank you," said Denis. + + +CHAPTER XV. + +"In the time of the amiable Brantome," Mr. Scogan was saying, +"every debutante at the French Court was invited to dine at the +King's table, where she was served with wine in a handsome silver +cup of Italian workmanship. It was no ordinary cup, this goblet +of the debutantes; for, inside, it had been most curiously and +ingeniously engraved with a series of very lively amorous scenes. +With each draught that the young lady swallowed these engravings +became increasingly visible, and the Court looked on with +interest, every time she put her nose in the cup, to see whether +she blushed at what the ebbing wine revealed. If the debutante +blushed, they laughed at her for her innocence; if she did not, +she was laughed at for being too knowing." + +"Do you propose," asked Anne, "that the custom should be revived +at Buckingham Palace?" + +"I do not," said Mr. Scogan. "I merely quoted the anecdote as an +illustration of the customs, so genially frank, of the sixteenth +century. I might have quoted other anecdotes to show that the +customs of the seventeenth and eighteenth, of the fifteenth and +fourteenth centuries, and indeed of every other century, from the +time of Hammurabi onward, were equally genial and equally frank. +The only century in which customs were not characterised by the +same cheerful openness was the nineteenth, of blessed memory. It +was the astonishing exception. And yet, with what one must +suppose was a deliberate disregard of history, it looked upon its +horribly pregnant silences as normal and natural and right; the +frankness of the previous fifteen or twenty thousand years was +considered abnormal and perverse. It was a curious phenomenon." + +"I entirely agree." Mary panted with excitement in her effort to +bring out what she had to say. "Havelock Ellis says..." + +Mr. Scogan, like a policeman arresting the flow of traffic, held +up his hand. "He does; I know. And that brings me to my next +point: the nature of the reaction." + +"Havelock Ellis..." + +"The reaction, when it came--and we may say roughly that it set +in a little before the beginning of this century--the reaction +was to openness, but not to the same openness as had reigned in +the earlier ages. It was to a scientific openness, not to the +jovial frankness of the past, that we returned. The whole +question of Amour became a terribly serious one. Earnest young +men wrote in the public prints that from this time forth it would +be impossible ever again to make a joke of any sexual matter. +Professors wrote thick books in which sex was sterilised and +dissected. It has become customary for serious young women, like +Mary, to discuss, with philosophic calm, matters of which the +merest hint would have sufficed to throw the youth of the sixties +into a delirium of amorous excitement. It is all very estimable, +no doubt. But still"--Mr. Scogan sighed.--"I for one should like +to see, mingled with this scientific ardour, a little more of the +jovial spirit of Rabelais and Chaucer." + +"I entirely disagree with you," said Mary. "Sex isn't a laughing +matter; it's serious." + +"Perhaps," answered Mr. Scogan, "perhaps I'm an obscene old man. +For I must confess that I cannot always regard it as wholly +serious." + +"But I tell you..." began Mary furiously. Her face had flushed +with excitement. Her cheeks were the cheeks of a great ripe +peach. + +"Indeed," Mr. Scogan continued, "it seems to me one of few +permanently and everlastingly amusing subjects that exist. Amour +is the one human activity of any importance in which laughter and +pleasure preponderate, if ever so slightly, over misery and +pain." + +"I entirely disagree," said Mary. There was a silence. + +Anne looked at her watch. "Nearly a quarter to eight," she said. +"I wonder when Ivor will turn up." She got up from her deck- +chair and, leaning her elbows on the balustrade of the terrace, +looked out over the valley and towards the farther hills. Under +the level evening light the architecture of the land revealed +itself. The deep shadows, the bright contrasting lights gave the +hills a new solidity. Irregularities of the surface, unsuspected +before, were picked out with light and shade. The grass, the +corn, the foliage of trees were stippled with intricate shadows. +The surface of things had taken on a marvellous enrichment. + +"Look!" said Anne suddenly, and pointed. On the opposite side of +the valley, at the crest of the ridge, a cloud of dust flushed by +the sunlight to rosy gold was moving rapidly along the sky-line. +"It's Ivor. One can tell by the speed." + +The dust cloud descended into the valley and was lost. A horn +with the voice of a sea-lion made itself heard, approaching. A +minute later Ivor came leaping round the corner of the house. +His hair waved in the wind of his own speed; he laughed as he saw +them. + +"Anne, darling," he cried, and embraced her, embraced Mary, very +nearly embraced Mr. Scogan. "Well, here I am. I've come with +incredulous speed." Ivor's vocabulary was rich, but a little +erratic. "I'm not late for dinner, am I?" He hoisted himself up +on to the balustrade, and sat there, kicking his heels. With one +arm he embraced a large stone flower-pot, leaning his head +sideways against its hard and lichenous flanks in an attitude of +trustful affection. He had brown, wavy hair, and his eyes were +of a very brilliant, pale, improbable blue. His head was narrow, +his face thin and rather long, his nose aquiline. In old age-- +though it was difficult to imagine Ivor old--he might grow to +have an Iron Ducal grimness. But now, at twenty-six, it was not +the structure of his face that impressed one; it was its +expression. That was charming and vivacious, and his smile was +an irradiation. He was forever moving, restlessly and rapidly, +but with an engaging gracefulness. His frail and slender body +seemed to be fed by a spring of inexhaustible energy. + +"No, you're not late." + +"You're in time to answer a question," said Mr. Scogan. "We were +arguing whether Amour were a serious matter or no. What do you +think? Is it serious?" + +"Serious?" echoed Ivor. "Most certainly." + +"I told you so," cried Mary triumphantly. + +"But in what sense serious?" Mr. Scogan asked. + +"I mean as an occupation. One can go on with it without ever +getting bored." + +"I see," said Mr. Scogan. "Perfectly." + +"One can occupy oneself with it," Ivor continued, "always and +everywhere. Women are always wonderfully the same. Shapes vary +a little, that's all. In Spain"--with his free hand he described +a series of ample curves--"one can't pass them on the stairs. In +England"--he put the tip of his forefinger against the tip of his +thumb and, lowering his hand, drew out this circle into an +imaginary cylinder--"In England they're tubular. But their +sentiments are always the same. At least, I've always found it +so." + +"I'm delighted to hear it," said Mr. Scogan. + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +The ladies had left the room and the port was circulating. Mr. +Scogan filled his glass, passed on the decanter, and, leaning +back in his chair, looked about him for a moment in silence. The +conversation rippled idly round him, but he disregarded it; he +was smiling at some private joke. Gombauld noticed his smile. + +"What's amusing you?" he asked. + +"I was just looking at you all, sitting round this table," said +Mr. Scogan. + +"Are we as comic as all that?" + +"Not at all," Mr. Scogan answered politely. "I was merely amused +by my own speculations." + +"And what were they?" + +"The idlest, the most academic of speculations. I was looking at +you one by one and trying to imagine which of the first six +Caesars you would each resemble, if you were given the +opportunity of behaving like a Caesar. The Caesars are one of my +touchstones," Mr. Scogan explained. "They are characters +functioning, so to speak, in the void. They are human beings +developed to their logical conclusions. Hence their unequalled +value as a touchstone, a standard. When I meet someone for the +first time, I ask myself this question: Given the Caesarean +environment, which of the Caesars would this person resemble-- +Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero? I take +each trait of character, each mental and emotional bias, each +little oddity, and magnify them a thousand times. The resulting +image gives me his Caesarean formula." + +"And which of the Caesars do you resemble?" asked Gombauld. + +"I am potentially all of them," Mr. Scogan replied, "all--with +the possible exception of Claudius, who was much too stupid to be +a development of anything in my character. The seeds of Julius's +courage and compelling energy, of Augustus's prudence, of the +libidinousness and cruelty of Tiberius, of Caligula's folly, of +Nero's artistic genius and enormous vanity, are all within me. +Given the opportunities, I might have been something fabulous. +But circumstances were against me. I was born and brought up in +a country rectory; I passed my youth doing a great deal of +utterly senseless hard work for a very little money. The result +is that now, in middle age, I am the poor thing that I am. But +perhaps it is as well. Perhaps, too, it's as well that Denis +hasn't been permitted to flower into a little Nero, and that Ivor +remains only potentially a Caligula. Yes, it's better so, no +doubt. But it would have been more amusing, as a spectacle, if +they had had the chance to develop, untrammelled, the full horror +of their potentialities. It would have been pleasant and +interesting to watch their tics and foibles and little vices +swelling and burgeoning and blossoming into enormous and +fantastic flowers of cruelty and pride and lewdness and avarice. +The Caesarean environment makes the Caesar, as the special food +and the queenly cell make the queen bee. We differ from the bees +in so far that, given the proper food, they can be sure of making +a queen every time. With us there is no such certainty; out of +every ten men placed in the Caesarean environment one will be +temperamentally good, or intelligent, or great. The rest will +blossom into Caesars; he will not. Seventy and eighty years ago +simple-minded people, reading of the exploits of the Bourbons in +South Italy, cried out in amazement: To think that such things +should be happening in the nineteenth century! And a few years +since we too were astonished to find that in our still more +astonishing twentieth century, unhappy blackamoors on the Congo +and the Amazon were being treated as English serfs were treated +in the time of Stephen. To-day we are no longer surprised at +these things. The Black and Tans harry Ireland, the Poles +maltreat the Silesians, the bold Fascisti slaughter their poorer +countrymen: we take it all for granted. Since the war we wonder +at nothing. We have created a Caesarean environment and a host +of little Caesars has sprung up. What could be more natural?" + +Mr. Scogan drank off what was left of his port and refilled the +glass. + +At this very moment," he went on, "the most frightful horrors are +taking place in every corner of the world. People are being +crushed, slashed, disembowelled, mangled; their dead bodies rot +and their eyes decay with the rest. Screams of pain and fear go +pulsing through the air at the rate of eleven hundred feet per +second. After travelling for three seconds they are perfectly +inaudible. These are distressing facts; but do we enjoy life any +the less because of them? Most certainly we do not. We feel +sympathy, no doubt; we represent to ourselves imaginatively the +sufferings of nations and individuals and we deplore them. But, +after all, what are sympathy and imagination? Precious little, +unless the person for whom we feel sympathy happens to be closely +involved in our affections; and even then they don't go very far. +And a good thing too; for if one had an imagination vivid enough +and a sympathy sufficiently sensitive really to comprehend and to +feel the sufferings of other people, one would never have a +moment's peace of mind. A really sympathetic race would not so +much as know the meaning of happiness. But luckily, as I've +already said, we aren't a sympathetic race. At the beginning of +the war I used to think I really suffered, through imagination +and sympathy, with those who physically suffered. But after a +month or two I had to admit that, honestly, I didn't. And yet I +think I have a more vivid imagination than most. One is always +alone in suffering; the fact is depressing when one happens to be +the sufferer, but it makes pleasure possible for the rest of the +world." + +There was a pause. Henry Wimbush pushed back his chair. + +"I think perhaps we ought to go and join the ladies," he said. + +"So do I," said Ivor, jumping up with alacrity. He turned to Mr. +Scogan. "Fortunately," he said, "we can share our pleasures. We +are not always condemned to be happy alone." + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +Ivor brought his hands down with a bang on to the final chord of +his rhapsody. There was just a hint in that triumphant harmony +that the seventh had been struck along with the octave by the +thumb of the left hand; but the general effect of splendid noise +emerged clearly enough. Small details matter little so long as +the general effect is good. And, besides, that hint of the +seventh was decidedly modern. He turned round in his seat and +tossed the hair back out of his eyes. + +"There," he said. "That's the best I can do for you, I'm +afraid." + +Murmurs of applause and gratitude were heard, and Mary, her large +china eyes fixed on the performer, cried out aloud, "Wonderful!" +and gasped for new breath as though she were suffocating. + +Nature and fortune had vied with one another in heaping on Ivor +Lombard all their choicest gifts. He had wealth and he was +perfectly independent. He was good looking, possessed an +irresistible charm of manner, and was the hero of more amorous +successes than he could well remember. His accomplishments were +extraordinary for their number and variety. He had a beautiful +untrained tenor voice; he could improvise, with a startling +brilliance, rapidly and loudly, on the piano. He was a good +amateur medium and telepathist, and had a considerable first-hand +knowledge of the next world. He could write rhymed verses with +an extraordinary rapidity. For painting symbolical pictures he +had a dashing style, and if the drawing was sometimes a little +weak, the colour was always pyrotechnical. He excelled in +amateur theatricals and, when occasion offered, he could cook +with genius. He resembled Shakespeare in knowing little Latin +and less Greek. For a mind like his, education seemed +supererogatory. Training would only have destroyed his natural +aptitudes. + +"Let's go out into the garden," Ivor suggested. "It's a +wonderful night." + +"Thank you," said Mr. Scogan, "but I for one prefer these still +more wonderful arm-chairs." His pipe had begun to bubble oozily +every time he pulled at it. He was perfectly happy. + +Henry Wimbush was also happy. He looked for a moment over his +pince-nez in Ivor's direction and then, without saying anything, +returned to the grimy little sixteenth-century account books +which were now his favourite reading. He knew more about Sir +Ferdinando's household expenses than about his own. + +The outdoor party, enrolled under Ivor's banner, consisted of +Anne, Mary, Denis, and, rather unexpectedly, Jenny. Outside it +was warm and dark; there was no moon. They walked up and down +the terrace, and Ivor sang a Neapolitan song: "Stretti, +stretti"--close, close--with something about the little Spanish +girl to follow. The atmosphere began to palpitate. Ivor put his +arm round Anne's waist, dropped his head sideways onto her +shoulder, and in that position walked on, singing as he walked. +It seemed the easiest, the most natural, thing in the world. +Denis wondered why he had never done it. He hated Ivor. + +"Let's go down to the pool," said Ivor. He disengaged his +embrace and turned round to shepherd his little flock. They made +their way along the side of the house to the entrance of the yew- +tree walk that led down to the lower garden. Between the blank +precipitous wall of the house and the tall yew trees the path was +a chasm of impenetrable gloom. Somewhere there were steps down +to the right, a gap in the yew hedge. Denis, who headed the +party, groped his way cautiously; in this darkness, one had an +irrational fear of yawning precipices, of horrible spiked +obstructions. Suddenly from behind him he heard a shrill, +startled, "Oh!" and then a sharp, dry concussion that might have +been the sound of a slap. After that, Jenny's voice was heard +pronouncing, "I am going back to the house." Her tone was +decided, and even as she pronounced the words she was melting +away into the darkness. The incident, whatever it had been, was +closed. Denis resumed his forward groping. From somewhere +behind Ivor began to sing again, softly: + +"Phillis plus avare que tendre +Ne gagnant rien a refuser, +Un jour exigea a Silvandre +Trente moutons pour un baiser." + +The melody drooped and climbed again with a kind of easy languor; +the warm darkness seemed to pulse like blood about them. + +"Le lendemain, nouvelle affaire: +Pour le berger le troc fut bon..." + +"Here are the steps," cried Denis. He guided his companions over +the danger, and in a moment they had the turf of the yew-tree +walk under their feet. It was lighter here, or at least it was +just perceptibly less dark; for the yew walk was wider than the +path that had led them under the lea of the house. Looking up, +they could see between the high black hedges a strip of sky and a +few stars. + +"Car il obtint de la bergere..." + +Went on Ivor, and then interrupted himself to shout, "I'm going +to run down," and he was off, full speed, down the invisible +slope, singing unevenly as he went: + +"Trente baisers pour un mouton." + +The others followed. Denis shambled in the rear, vainly +exhorting everyone to caution: the slope was steep, one might +break one's neck. What was wrong with these people, he wondered? +They had become like young kittens after a dose of cat-nip. He +himself felt a certain kittenishness sporting within him; but it +was, like all his emotions, rather a theoretical feeling; it did +not overmasteringly seek to express itself in a practical +demonstration of kittenishness. + +"Be careful," he shouted once more, and hardly were the words out +of his mouth when, thump! there was the sound of a heavy fall in +front of him, followed by the long "F-f-f-f-f" of a breath +indrawn with pain and afterwards by a very sincere, "Oo-ooh!" +Denis was almost pleased; he had told them so, the idiots, and +they wouldn't listen. He trotted down the slope towards the +unseen sufferer. + +Mary came down the hill like a runaway steam-engine. It was +tremendously exciting, this blind rush through the dark; she felt +she would never stop. But the ground grew level beneath her feet, +her speed insensibly slackened, and suddenly she was caught by an +extended arm and brought to an abrupt halt. + +"Well," said Ivor as he tightened his embrace, "you're caught +now, Anne." + +She made an effort to release herself. "It's not Anne. It's +Mary." + +Ivor burst into a peal of amused laughter. "So it is!" he +exclaimed. "I seem to be making nothing but floaters this +evening. I've already made one with Jenny." He laughed again, +and there was something so jolly about his laughter that Mary +could not help laughing too. He did not remove his encircling +arm, and somehow it was all so amusing and natural that Mary made +no further attempt to escape from it. They walked along by the +side of the pool, interlaced. Mary was too short for him to be +able, with any comfort, to lay his head on her shoulder. He +rubbed his cheek, caressed and caressing, against the thick, +sleek mass of her hair. In a little while he began to sing +again; the night trembled amorously to the sound of his voice. +When he had finished he kissed her. Anne or Mary: Mary or Anne. +It didn't seem to make much difference which it was. There were +differences in detail, of course; but the general effect was the +same; and, after all, the general effect was the important thing. + +Denis made his way down the hill. + +"Any damage done?" he called out. + +"Is that you, Denis? I've hurt my ankle so--and my knee, and my +hand. I'm all in pieces." + +"My poor Anne," he said. "But then," he couldn't help adding, +"it was silly to start running downhill in the dark." + +"Ass!" she retorted in a tone of tearful irritation; "of course +it was." + +He sat down beside on the grass, and found himself breathing the +faint, delicious atmosphere of perfume that she carried always +with her. + +"Light a match," she commanded. "I want to look at my wounds." + +He felt in his pockets for the match-box. The light spurted and +then grew steady. Magically, a little universe had been created, +a world of colours and forms--Anne's face, the shimmering orange +of her dress, her white, bare arms, a patch of green turf--and +round about a darkness that had become solid and utterly blind. +Anne held out her hands; both were green and earthy with her +fall, and the left exhibited two or three red abrasions. + +"Not so bad," she said. But Denis was terribly distressed, and +his emotion was intensified when, looking up at her face, he saw +that the trace of tears, involuntary tears of pain, lingered on +her eyelashes. He pulled out his handkerchief and began to wipe +away the dirt from the wounded hand. The match went out; it was +not worth while to light another. Anne allowed herself to be +attended to, meekly and gratefully. "Thank you," she said, when +he had finished cleaning and bandaging her hand; and there was +something in her tone that made him feel that she had lost her +superiority over him, that she was younger than he, had become, +suddenly, almost a child. He felt tremendously large and +protective. The feeling was so strong that instinctively he put +his arm about her. She drew closer, leaned against him, and so +they sat in silence. Then, from below, soft but wonderfully +clear through the still darkness, they heard the sound of Ivor's +singing. He was going on with his half-finished song: + +"Le lendemain Phillis plus tendre, +Ne voulant deplaire au berger, +Fut trop heureuse de lui rendre +Trente moutons pour un baiser." + +There was a rather prolonged pause. It was as though time were +being allowed for the giving and receiving of a few of those +thirty kisses. Then the voice sang on: + +"Le lendemain Phillis peu sage +Aurait donne moutons et chien +Pour un baiser que le volage +A Lisette donnait pour rien." + +The last note died away into an uninterrupted silence. + +"Are you better?" Denis whispered. "Are you comfortable like +this?" + +She nodded a Yes to both questions. + +"Trente moutons pour un baiser." The sheep, the woolly mutton-- +baa, baa, baa...? Or the shepherd? Yes, decidedly, he felt +himself to be the shepherd now. He was the master, the +protector. A wave of courage swelled through him, warm as wine. +He turned his head, and began to kiss her face, at first rather +randomly, then, with more precision, on the mouth. + +Anne averted her head; he kissed the ear, the smooth nape that +this movement presented him. "No," she protested; "no, Denis." + +"Why not?" + +"It spoils our friendship, and that was so jolly." + +"Bosh!" said Denis. + +She tried to explain. "Can't you see," she said, "it isn't...it +isn't our stunt at all." It was true. Somehow she had never +thought of Denis in the light of a man who might make love; she +had never so much as conceived the possibilities of an amorous +relationship with him. He was so absurdly young, so...so...she +couldn't find the adjective, but she knew what she meant. + +"Why isn't it our stunt?" asked Denis. "And, by the way, that's +a horrible and inappropriate expression." + +"Because it isn't." + +"But if I say it is?" + +"It makes no difference. I say it isn't." + +"I shall make you say it is." + +"All right, Denis. But you must do it another time. I must go +in and get my ankle into hot water. It's beginning to swell." + +Reasons of health could not be gainsaid. Denis got up +reluctantly, and helped his companion to her feet. She took a +cautious step. "Ooh!" She halted and leaned heavily on his arm. + +"I'll carry you," Denis offered. He had never tried to carry a +woman, but on the cinema it always looked an easy piece of +heroism. + +"You couldn't," said Anne. + +"Of course I can." He felt larger and more protective than ever. +"Put your arms round my neck," he ordered. She did so and, +stooping, he picked her up under the knees and lifted her from +the ground. Good heavens, what a weight! He took five +staggering steps up the slope, then almost lost his equilibrium, +and had to deposit his burden suddenly, with something of a bump. + +Anne was shaking with laughter. "I said You couldn't, my poor +Denis." + +"I can," said Denis, without conviction. "I'll try again." + +"It's perfectly sweet of you to offer, but I'd rather walk, +thanks." She laid her hand on his shoulder and, thus supported, +began to limp slowly up the hill. + +"My poor Denis!" she repeated, and laughed again. Humiliated, he +was silent. It seemed incredible that, only two minutes ago, he +should have been holding her in his embrace, kissing her. +Incredible. She was helpless then, a child. Now she had +regained all her superiority; she was once more the far-off +being, desired and unassailable. Why had he been such a fool as +to suggest that carrying stunt? He reached the house in a state +of the profoundest depression. + +He helped Anne upstairs, left her in the hands of a maid, and +came down again to the drawing-room. He was surprised to find +them all sitting just where he had left them. He had expected +that, somehow, everything would be quite different--it seemed +such a prodigious time since he went away. All silent and all +damned, he reflected, as he looked at them. Mr. Scogan's pipe +still wheezed; that was the only sound. Henry Wimbush was still +deep in his account books; he had just made the discovery that +Sir Ferdinando was in the habit of eating oysters the whole +summer through, regardless of the absence of the justifying R. +Gombauld, in horn-rimmed spectacles, was reading. Jenny was +mysteriously scribbling in her red notebook. And, seated in her +favourite arm-chair at the corner of the hearth, Priscilla was +looking through a pile of drawings. One by one she held them out +at arm's length and, throwing back her mountainous orange head, +looked long and attentively through half-closed eyelids. She +wore a pale sea-green dress; on the slope of her mauve-powdered +decolletage diamonds twinkled. An immensely long cigarette- +holder projected at an angle from her face. Diamonds were +embedded in her high-piled coiffure; they glittered every time +she moved. It was a batch of Ivor's drawings--sketches of Spirit +Life, made in the course of tranced tours through the other +world. On the back of each sheet descriptive titles were +written: "Portrait of an Angel, 15th March '20;" "Astral Beings +at Play, 3rd December '19;" "A Party of Souls on their Way to a +Higher Sphere, 21st May '21." Before examining the drawing on +the obverse of each sheet, she turned it over to read the title. +Try as she could--and she tried hard--Priscilla had never seen a +vision or succeeded in establishing any communication with the +Spirit World. She had to be content with the reported +experiences of others. + +"What have you done with the rest of your party?" she asked, +looking up as Denis entered the room. + +He explained. Anne had gone to bed, Ivor and Mary were still in +the garden. He selected a book and a comfortable chair, and +tried, as far as the disturbed state of his mind would permit +him, to compose himself for an evening's reading. The lamplight +was utterly serene; there was no movement save the stir of +Priscilla among her papers. All silent and all damned, Denis +repeated to himself, all silent and all damned... + +It was nearly an hour later when Ivor and Mary made their +appearance. + +"We waited to see the moon rise," said Ivor. + +"It was gibbous, you know," Mary explained, very technical and +scientific. + +"It was so beautiful down in the garden! The trees, the scent of +the flowers, the stars..." Ivor waved his arms. "And when the +moon came up, it was really too much. It made me burst into +tears." He sat down at the piano and opened the lid. + +"There were a great many meteorites," said Mary to anyone who +would listen. "The earth must just be coming into the summer +shower of them. In July and August..." + +But Ivor had already begun to strike the keys. He played the +garden, the stars, the scent of flowers, the rising moon. He +even put in a nightingale that was not there. Mary looked on and +listened with parted lips. The others pursued their occupations, +without appearing to be seriously disturbed. On this very July +day, exactly three hundred and fifty years ago, Sir Ferdinando +had eaten seven dozen oysters. The discovery of this fact gave +Henry Wimbush a peculiar pleasure. He had a natural piety which +made him delight in the celebration of memorial feasts. The +three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the seven dozen +oysters...He wished he had known before dinner; he would have +ordered champagne. + +On her way to bed Mary paid a call. The light was out in Anne's +room, but she was not yet asleep. + +"Why didn't you come down to the garden with us?" Mary asked. + +"I fell down and twisted my ankle. Denis helped me home." + +Mary was full of sympathy. Inwardly, too, she was relieved to +find Anne's non-appearance so simply accounted for. She had been +vaguely suspicious, down there in the garden--suspicious of what, +she hardly knew; but there had seemed to be something a little +louche in the way she had suddenly found herself alone with Ivor. +Not that she minded, of course; far from it. But she didn't like +the idea that perhaps she was the victim of a put-up job. + +"I do hope you'll be better to-morrow," she said, and she +commiserated with Anne on all she had missed--the garden, the +stars, the scent of flowers, the meteorites through whose summer +shower the earth was now passing, the rising moon and its +gibbosity. And then they had had such interesting conversation. +What about? About almost everything. Nature, art, science, +poetry, the stars, spiritualism, the relations of the sexes, +music, religion. Ivor, she thought, had an interesting mind. + +The two young ladies parted affectionately. + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +The nearest Roman Catholic church was upwards of twenty miles +away. Ivor, who was punctilious in his devotions, came down +early to breakfast and had his car at the door, ready to start, +by a quarter to ten. It was a smart, expensive-looking machine, +enamelled a pure lemon yellow and upholstered in emerald green +leather. There were two seats--three if you squeezed tightly +enough--and their occupants were protected from wind, dust, and +weather by a glazed sedan that rose, an elegant eighteenth- +century hump, from the midst of the body of the car. + +Mary had never been to a Roman Catholic service, thought it would +be an interesting experience, and, when the car moved off through +the great gates of the courtyard, she was occupying the spare +seat in the sedan. The sea-lion horn roared, faintlier, +faintlier, and they were gone. + +In the parish church of Crome Mr. Bodiham preached on 1 Kings vi. +18: "And the cedar of the house within was carved with knops"--a +sermon of immediately local interest. For the past two years the +problem of the War Memorial had exercised the minds of all those +in Crome who had enough leisure, or mental energy, or party +spirit to think of such things. Henry Wimbush was all for a +library--a library of local literature, stocked with county +histories, old maps of the district, monographs on the local +antiquities, dialect dictionaries, handbooks of the local geology +and natural history. He liked to think of the villagers, +inspired by such reading, making up parties of a Sunday afternoon +to look for fossils and flint arrow-heads. The villagers +themselves favoured the idea of a memorial reservoir and water +supply. But the busiest and most articulate party followed Mr. +Bodiham in demanding something religious in character--a second +lich-gate, for example, a stained-glass window, a monument of +marble, or, if possible, all three. So far, however, nothing had +been done, partly because the memorial committee had never been +able to agree, partly for the more cogent reason that too little +money had been subscribed to carry out any of the proposed +schemes. Every three or four months Mr. Bodiham preached a +sermon on the subject. His last had been delivered in March; it +was high time that his congregation had a fresh reminder. + +"And the cedar of the house within was carved with knops." + +Mr. Bodiham touched lightly on Solomon's temple. From thence he +passed to temples and churches in general. What were the +characteristics of these buildings dedicated to God? Obviously, +the fact of their, from a human point of view, complete +uselessness. They were unpractical buildings "carved with +knops." Solomon might have built a library--indeed, what could +be more to the taste of the world's wisest man? He might have +dug a reservoir--what more useful in a parched city like +Jerusalem? He did neither; he built a house all carved with +knops, useless and unpractical. Why? Because he was dedicating +the work to God. There had been much talk in Crome about the +proposed War Memorial. A War Memorial was, in its very nature, a +work dedicated to God. It was a token of thankfulness that the +first stage in the culminating world-war had been crowned by the +triumph of righteousness; it was at the same time a visibly +embodied supplication that God might not long delay the Advent +which alone could bring the final peace. A library, a reservoir? +Mr. Bodiham scornfully and indignantly condemned the idea. These +were works dedicated to man, not to God. As a War Memorial they +were totally unsuitable. A lich-gate had been suggested. This +was an object which answered perfectly to the definition of a War +Memorial: a useless work dedicated to God and carved with knops. +One lich-gate, it was true, already existed. But nothing would +be easier than to make a second entrance into the churchyard; and +a second entrance would need a second gate. Other suggestions +had been made. Stained-glass windows, a monument of marble. +Both these were admirable, especially the latter. It was high +time that the War Memorial was erected. It might soon be too +late. At any moment, like a thief in the night, God might come. +Meanwhile a difficulty stood in the way. Funds were inadequate. +All should subscribe according to their means. Those who had +lost relations in the war might reasonably be expected to +subscribe a sum equal to that which they would have had to pay in +funeral expenses if the relative had died while at home. Further +delay was disastrous. The War Memorial must be built at once. +He appealed to the patriotism and the Christian sentiments of all +his hearers. + +Henry Wimbush walked home thinking of the books he would present +to the War Memorial Library, if ever it came into existence. He +took the path through the fields; it was pleasanter than the +road. At the first stile a group of village boys, loutish young +fellows all dressed in the hideous ill-fitting black which makes +a funeral of every English Sunday and holiday, were assembled, +drearily guffawing as they smoked their cigarettes. They made +way for Henry Wimbush, touching their caps as he passed. He +returned their salute; his bowler and face were one in their +unruffled gravity. + +In Sir Ferdinando's time, he reflected, in the time of his son, +Sir Julius, these young men would have had their Sunday +diversions even at Crome, remote and rustic Crome. There would +have been archery, skittles, dancing--social amusements in which +they would have partaken as members of a conscious community. +Now they had nothing, nothing except Mr. Bodiham's forbidding +Boys' Club and the rare dances and concerts organised by himself. +Boredom or the urban pleasures of the county metropolis were the +alternatives that presented themselves to these poor youths. +Country pleasures were no more; they had been stamped out by the +Puritans. + +In Manningham's Diary for 1600 there was a queer passage, he +remembered, a very queer passage. Certain magistrates in +Berkshire, Puritan magistrates, had had wind of a scandal. One +moonlit summer night they had ridden out with their posse and +there, among the hills, they had come upon a company of men and +women, dancing, stark naked, among the sheepcotes. The +magistrates and their men had ridden their horses into the crowd. +How self-conscious the poor people must suddenly have felt, how +helpless without their clothes against armed and booted horsemen! +The dancers were arrested, whipped, gaoled, set in the stocks; +the moonlight dance is never danced again. What old, earthy, +Panic rite came to extinction here? he wondered. Who knows?-- +perhaps their ancestors had danced like this in the moonlight +ages before Adam and Eve were so much as thought of. He liked to +think so. And now it was no more. These weary young men, if +they wanted to dance, would have to bicycle six miles to the +town. The country was desolate, without life of its own, without +indigenous pleasures. The pious magistrates had snuffed out for +ever a little happy flame that had burned from the beginning of +time. + +"And as on Tullia's tomb one lamp burned clear, +Unchanged for fifteen hundred year..." + +He repeated the lines to himself, and was desolated to think of +all the murdered past. + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +Henry Wimbush's long cigar burned aromatically. The "History of +Crome" lay on his knee; slowly he turned over the pages. + +"I can't decide what episode to read you to-night," he said +thoughtfully. "Sir Ferdinando's voyages are not without +interest. Then, of course, there's his son, Sir Julius. It was +he who suffered from the delusion that his perspiration +engendered flies; it drove him finally to suicide. Or there's +Sir Cyprian." He turned the pages more rapidly. "Or Sir Henry. +Or Sir George...No, I'm inclined to think I won't read about any +of these." + +"But you must read something," insisted Mr. Scogan, taking his +pipe out of his mouth. + +"I think I shall read about my grandfather," said Henry Wimbush, +"and the events that led up to his marriage with the eldest +daughter of the last Sir Ferdinando." + +"Good," said Mr. Scogan. "We are listening." + +"Before I begin reading," said Henry Wimbush, looking up from the +book and taking off the pince-nez which he had just fitted to his +nose--"before their begin, I must say a few preliminary words +about Sir Ferdinando, the last of the Lapiths. At the death of +the virtuous and unfortunate Sir Hercules, Ferdinando found +himself in possession of the family fortune, not a little +increased by his father's temperance and thrift; he applied +himself forthwith to the task of spending it, which he did in an +ample and jovial fashion. By the time he was forty he had eaten +and, above all, drunk and loved away about half his capital, and +would infallibly have soon got rid of the rest in the same +manner, if he had not had the good fortune to become so madly +enamoured of the Rector's daughter as to make a proposal of +marriage. The young lady accepted him, and in less than a year +had become the absolute mistress of Crome and her husband. An +extraordinary reformation made itself apparent in Sir +Ferdinando's character. He grew regular and economical in his +habits; he even became temperate, rarely drinking more than a +bottle and a half of port at a sitting. The waning fortune of +the Lapiths began once more to wax, and that in despite of the +hard times (for Sir Ferdinando married in 1809 in the height of +the Napoleonic Wars). A prosperous and dignified old age, +cheered by the spectacle of his children's growth and happiness-- +for Lady Lapith had already borne him three daughters, and there +seemed no good reason why she should not bear many more of them, +and sons as well--a patriarchal decline into the family vault, +seemed now to be Sir Ferdinando's enviable destiny. But +Providence willed otherwise. To Napoleon, cause already of such +infinite mischief, was due, though perhaps indirectly, the +untimely and violent death which put a period to this reformed +existence. + +"Sir Ferdinando, who was above all things a patriot, had adopted, +from the earliest days of the conflict with the French, his own +peculiar method of celebrating our victories. When the happy +news reached London, it was his custom to purchase immediately a +large store of liquor and, taking a place on whichever of the +outgoing coaches he happened to light on first, to drive through +the country proclaiming the good news to all he met on the road +and dispensing it, along with the liquor, at every stopping-place +to all who cared to listen or drink. Thus, after the Nile, he +had driven as far as Edinburgh; and later, when the coaches, +wreathed with laurel for triumph, with cypress for mourning, were +setting out with the news of Nelson's victory and death, he sat +through all a chilly October night on the box of the Norwich +"Meteor" with a nautical keg of rum on his knees and two cases of +old brandy under the seat. This genial custom was one of the +many habits which he abandoned on his marriage. The victories in +the Peninsula, the retreat from Moscow, Leipzig, and the +abdication of the tyrant all went uncelebrated. It so happened, +however, that in the summer of 1815 Sir Ferdinando was staying +for a few weeks in the capital. There had been a succession of +anxious, doubtful days; then came the glorious news of Waterloo. +It was too much for Sir Ferdinando; his joyous youth awoke again +within him. He hurried to his wine merchant and bought a dozen +bottles of 1760 brandy. The Bath coach was on the point of +starting; he bribed his way on to the box and, seated in glory +beside the driver, proclaimed aloud the downfall of the Corsican +bandit and passed about the warm liquid joy. They clattered +through Uxbridge, Slough, Maidenhead. Sleeping Reading was +awakened by the great news. At Didcot one of the ostlers was so +much overcome by patriotic emotions and the 1760 brandy that he +found it impossible to do up the buckles of the harness. The +night began to grow chilly, and Sir Ferdinando found that it was +not enough to take a nip at every stage: to keep up his vital +warmth he was compelled to drink between the stages as well. +They were approaching Swindon. The coach was travelling at a +dizzy speed--six miles in the last half-hour--when, without +having manifested the slightest premonitory symptom of +unsteadiness, Sir Ferdinando suddenly toppled sideways off his +seat and fell, head foremost, into the road. An unpleasant jolt +awakened the slumbering passengers. The coach was brought to a +standstill; the guard ran back with a light. He found Sir +Ferdinando still alive, but unconscious; blood was oozing from +his mouth. The back wheels of the coach had passed over his +body, breaking most of his ribs and both arms. His skull was +fractured in two places. They picked him up, but he was dead +before they reached the next stage. So perished Sir Ferdinando, +a victim to his own patriotism. Lady Lapith did not marry again, +but determined to devote the rest of her life to the well-being +of her three children--Georgiana, now five years old, and +Emmeline and Caroline, twins of two." + +Henry Wimbush paused, and once more put on his pince-nez. "So +much by way of introduction," he said. "Now I can begin to read +about my grandfather." + +"One moment," said Mr. Scogan, "till I've refilled my pipe." + +Mr. Wimbush waited. Seated apart in a corner of the room, Ivor +was showing Mary his sketches of Spirit Life. They spoke +together in whispers. + +Mr. Scogan had lighted his pipe again. "Fire away," he said. + +Henry Wimbush fired away. + +"It was in the spring of 1833 that my grandfather, George +Wimbush, first made the acquaintance of the 'three lovely +Lapiths,' as they were always called. He was then a young man of +twenty-two, with curly yellow hair and a smooth pink face that +was the mirror of his youthful and ingenuous mind. He had been +educated at Harrow and Christ Church, he enjoyed hunting and all +other field sports, and, though his circumstances were +comfortable to the verge of affluence, his pleasures were +temperate and innocent. His father, an East Indian merchant, had +destined him for a political career, and had gone to considerable +expense in acquiring a pleasant little Cornish borough as a +twenty-first birthday gift for his son. He was justly indignant +when, on the very eve of George's majority, the Reform Bill of +1832 swept the borough out of existence. The inauguration of +George's political career had to be postponed. At the time he +got to know the lovely Lapiths he was waiting; he was not at all +impatient. + +"The lovely Lapiths did not fail to impress him. Georgiana, the +eldest, with her black ringlets, her flashing eyes, her noble +aquiline profile, her swan-like neck, and sloping shoulders, was +orientally dazzling; and the twins, with their delicately turned- +up noses, their blue eyes, and chestnut hair, were an identical +pair of ravishingly English charmers. + +"Their conversation at this first meeting proved, however, to be +so forbidding that, but for the invincible attraction exercised +by their beauty, George would never have had the courage to +follow up the acquaintance. The twins, looking up their noses at +him with an air of languid superiority, asked him what he thought +of the latest French poetry and whether he liked the "Indiana" of +George Sand. But what was almost worse was the question with +which Georgiana opened her conversation with him. 'In music,' +she asked, leaning forward and fixing him with her large dark +eyes, 'are you a classicist or a transcendentalist?' George did +not lose his presence of mind. He had enough appreciation of +music to know that he hated anything classical, and so, with a +promptitude which did him credit, he replied, 'I am a +transcendentalist.' Georgiana smiled bewitchingly. 'I am glad,' +she said; 'so am I. You went to hear Paganini last week, of +course. "The prayer of Moses"--ah!' She closed her eyes. 'Do +you know anything more transcendental than that?' 'No,' said +George, 'I don't.' He hesitated, was about to go on speaking, +and then decided that after all it would be wiser not to say-- +what was in fact true--that he had enjoyed above all Paganini's +Farmyard Imitations. The man had made his fiddle bray like an +ass, cluck like a hen, grunt, squeal, bark, neigh, quack, bellow, +and growl; that last item, in George's estimation, had almost +compensated for the tediousness of the rest of the concert. He +smiled with pleasure at the thought of it. Yes, decidedly, he +was no classicist in music; he was a thoroughgoing +transcendentalist. + +"George followed up this first introduction by paying a call on +the young ladies and their mother, who occupied, during the +season, a small but elegant house in the neighbourhood of +Berkeley Square. Lady Lapith made a few discreet inquiries, and +having found that George's financial position, character, and +family were all passably good, she asked him to dine. She hoped +and expected that her daughters would all marry into the peerage; +but, being a prudent woman, she knew it was advisable to prepare +for all contingencies. George Wimbush, she thought, would make +an excellent second string for one of the twins. + +"At this first dinner, George's partner was Emmeline. They +talked of Nature. Emmeline protested that to her high mountains +were a feeling and the hum of human cities torture. George +agreed that the country was very agreeable, but held that London +during the season also had its charms. He noticed with surprise +and a certain solicitous distress that Miss Emmeline's appetite +was poor, that it didn't, in fact, exist. Two spoonfuls of soup, +a morsel of fish, no bird, no meat, and three grapes--that was +her whole dinner. He looked from time to time at her two +sisters; Georgiana and Caroline seemed to be quite as abstemious. +They waved away whatever was offered them with an expression of +delicate disgust, shutting their eyes and averting their faces +from the proffered dish, as though the lemon sole, the duck, the +loin of veal, the trifle, were objects revolting to the sight and +smell. George, who thought the dinner capital, ventured to +comment on the sisters' lack of appetite. + +"'Pray, don't talk to me of eating,' said Emmeline, drooping like +a sensitive plant. 'We find it so coarse, so unspiritual, my +sisters and I. One can't think of one's soul while one is +eating.' + +"George agreed; one couldn't. 'But one must live,' he said. + +"'Alas!' Emmeline sighed. 'One must. Death is very beautiful, +don't you think?' She broke a corner off a piece of toast and +began to nibble at it languidly. 'But since, as you say, one +must live...' She made a little gesture of resignation. +'Luckily a very little suffices to keep one alive.' She put down +her corner of toast half eaten. + +"George regarded her with some surprise. She was pale, but she +looked extraordinarily healthy, he thought; so did her sisters. +Perhaps if you were really spiritual you needed less food. He, +clearly, was not spiritual. + +"After this he saw them frequently. They all liked him, from +Lady Lapith downwards. True, he was not very romantic or +poetical; but he was such a pleasant, unpretentious, kind-hearted +young man, that one couldn't help liking him. For his part, he +thought them wonderful, wonderful, especially Georgiana. He +enveloped them all in a warm, protective affection. For they +needed protection; they were altogether too frail, too spiritual +for this world. They never ate, they were always pale, they +often complained of fever, they talked much and lovingly of +death, they frequently swooned. Georgiana was the most ethereal +of all; of the three she ate least, swooned most often, talked +most of death, and was the palest--with a pallor that was so +startling as to appear positively artificial. At any moment, it +seemed, she might loose her precarious hold on this material +world and become all spirit. To George the thought was a +continual agony. If she were to die... + +"She contrived, however, to live through the season, and that in +spite of the numerous balls, routs, and other parties of pleasure +which, in company with the rest of the lovely trio, she never +failed to attend. In the middle of July the whole household +moved down to the country. George was invited to spend the month +of August at Crome. + +"The house-party was distinguished; in the list of visitors +figured the names of two marriageable young men of title. George +had hoped that country air, repose, and natural surroundings +might have restored to the three sisters their appetites and the +roses of their cheeks. He was mistaken. For dinner, the first +evening, Georgiana ate only an olive, two or three salted +almonds, and half a peach. She was as pale as ever. During the +meal she spoke of love. + +"'True love,' she said, 'being infinite and eternal, can only be +consummated in eternity. Indiana and Sir Rodolphe celebrated the +mystic wedding of their souls by jumping into Niagara. Love is +incompatible with life. The wish of two people who truly love +one another is not to live together but to die together.' + +"'Come, come, my dear,' said Lady Lapith, stout and practical. +'What would become of the next generation, pray, if all the world +acted on your principles?' + +"'Mamma!...' Georgiana protested, and dropped her eyes. + +"'In my young days,' Lady Lapith went on, 'I should have been +laughed out of countenance if I'd said a thing like that. But +then in my young days souls weren't as fashionable as they are +now and we didn't think death was at all poetical. It was just +unpleasant.' + +"'Mamma!...' Emmeline and Caroline implored in unison. + +"'In my young days--' Lady Lapith was launched into her subject; +nothing, it seemed, could stop her now. 'In my young days, if +you didn't eat, people told you you needed a dose of rhubarb. +Nowadays...' + +"There was a cry; Georgiana had swooned sideways on to Lord +Timpany's shoulder. It was a desperate expedient; but it was +successful. Lady Lapith was stopped. + +"The days passed in an uneventful round of pleasures. Of all the +gay party George alone was unhappy. Lord Timpany was paying his +court to Georgiana, and it was clear that he was not unfavourably +received. George looked on, and his soul was a hell of jealousy +and despair. The boisterous company of the young men became +intolerable to him; he shrank from them, seeking gloom and +solitude. One morning, having broken away from them on some +vague pretext, he returned to the house alone. The young men +were bathing in the pool below; their cries and laughter floated +up to him, making the quiet house seem lonelier and more silent. +The lovely sisters and their mamma still kept their chambers; +they did not customarily make their appearance till luncheon, so +that the male guests had the morning to themselves. George sat +down in the hall and abandoned himself to thought. + +"At any moment she might die; at any moment she might become Lady +Timpany. It was terrible, terrible. If she died, then he would +die too; he would go to seek her beyond the grave. If she became +Lady Timpany...ah, then! The solution of the problem would not +be so simple. If she became Lady Timpany: it was a horrible +thought. But then suppose she were in love with Timpany--though +it seemed incredible that anyone could be in love with Timpany-- +suppose her life depended on Timpany, suppose she couldn't live +without him? He was fumbling his way along this clueless +labyrinth of suppositions when the clock struck twelve. On the +last stroke, like an automaton released by the turning clockwork, +a little maid, holding a large covered tray, popped out of the +door that led from the kitchen regions into the hall. From his +deep arm-chair George watched her (himself, it was evident, +unobserved) with an idle curiosity. She pattered across the room +and came to a halt in front of what seemed a blank expense of +panelling. She reached out her hand and, to George's extreme +astonishment, a little door swung open, revealing the foot of a +winding staircase. Turning sideways in order to get her tray +through the narrow opening, the little maid darted in with a +rapid crab-like motion. The door closed behind her with a click. +A minute later it opened again and the maid, without her tray, +hurried back across the hall and disappeared in the direction of +the kitchen. George tried to recompose his thoughts, but an +invincible curiosity drew his mind towards the hidden door, the +staircase, the little maid. It was in vain he told himself that +the matter was none of his business, that to explore the secrets +of that surprising door, that mysterious staircase within, would +be a piece of unforgivable rudeness and indiscretion. It was in +vain; for five minutes he struggled heroically with his +curiosity, but at the end of that time he found himself standing +in front of the innocent sheet of panelling through which the +little maid had disappeared. A glance sufficed to show him the +position of the secret door--secret, he perceived, only to those +who looked with a careless eye. It was just an ordinary door let +in flush with the panelling. No latch nor handle betrayed its +position, but an unobtrusive catch sunk in the wood invited the +thumb. George was astonished that he had not noticed it before; +now he had seen it, it was so obvious, almost as obvious as the +cupboard door in the library with its lines of imitation shelves +and its dummy books. He pulled back the catch and peeped inside. +The staircase, of which the degrees were made not of stone but of +blocks of ancient oak, wound up and out of sight. A slit-like +window admitted the daylight; he was at the foot of the central +tower, and the little window looked out over the terrace; they +were still shouting and splashing in the pool below. + +"George closed the door and went back to his seat. But his +curiosity was not satisfied. Indeed, this partial satisfaction +had but whetted its appetite. Where did the staircase lead? +What was the errand of the little maid? It was no business of +his, he kept repeating--no business of his. He tried to read, +but his attention wandered. A quarter-past twelve sounded on the +harmonious clock. Suddenly determined, George rose, crossed the +room, opened the hidden door, and began to ascend the stairs. He +passed the first window, corkscrewed round, and came to another. +He paused for a moment to look out; his heart beat uncomfortably, +as though he were affronting some unknown danger. What he was +doing, he told himself, was extremely ungentlemanly, horribly +underbred. He tiptoed onward and upward. One turn more, then +half a turn, and a door confronted him. He halted before it, +listened; he could hear no sound. Putting his eye to the +keyhole, he saw nothing but a stretch of white sunlit wall. +Emboldened, he turned the handle and stepped across the +threshold. There he halted, petrified by what he saw, mutely +gaping. + +"In the middle of a pleasantly sunny little room--'it is now +Priscilla's boudoir,' Mr. Wimbush remarked parenthetically--stood +a small circular table of mahogany. Crystal, porcelain, and +silver,--all the shining apparatus of an elegant meal--were +mirrored in its polished depths. The carcase of a cold chicken, +a bowl of fruit, a great ham, deeply gashed to its heart of +tenderest white and pink, the brown cannon ball of a cold plum- +pudding, a slender Hock bottle, and a decanter of claret jostled +one another for a place on this festive board. And round the +table sat the three sisters, the three lovely Lapiths--eating! + +"At George's sudden entrance they had all looked towards the +door, and now they sat, petrified by the same astonishment which +kept George fixed and staring. Georgiana, who sat immediately +facing the door, gazed at him with dark, enormous eyes. Between +the thumb and forefinger of her right hand she was holding a +drumstick of the dismembered chicken; her little finger, +elegantly crooked, stood apart from the rest of her hand. Her +mouth was open, but the drumstick had never reached its +destination; it remained, suspended, frozen, in mid-air. The +other two sisters had turned round to look at the intruder. +Caroline still grasped her knife and fork; Emmeline's fingers +were round the stem of her claret glass. For what seemed a very +long time, George and the three sisters stared at one another in +silence. They were a group of statues. Then suddenly there was +movement. Georgiana dropped her chicken bone, Caroline's knife +and fork clattered on her plate. The movement propagated itself, +grew more decisive; Emmeline sprang to her feet, uttering a cry. +The wave of panic reached George; he turned and, mumbling +something unintelligible as he went, rushed out of the room and +down the winding stairs. He came to a standstill in the hall, +and there, all by himself in the quiet house, he began to laugh. + +"At luncheon it was noticed that the sisters ate a little more +than usual. Georgiana toyed with some French beans and a +spoonful of calves'-foot jelly. 'I feel a little stronger to- +day,' she said to Lord Timpany, when he congratulated her on this +increase of appetite; 'a little more material,' she added, with a +nervous laugh. Looking up, she caught George's eye; a blush +suffused her cheeks and she looked hastily away. + +"In the garden that afternoon they found themselves for a moment +alone. + +"You won't tell anyone, George? Promise you won't tell anyone,' +she implored. 'It would make us look so ridiculous. And +besides, eating IS unspiritual, isn't it? Say you won't tell +anyone.' + +"'I will,' said George brutally. 'I'll tell everyone, unless...' + +"'It's blackmail.' + +"'I don't care, said George. 'I'll give you twenty-four hours to +decide.' + +"Lady Lapith was disappointed, of course; she had hoped for +better things--for Timpany and a coronet. But George, after all, +wasn't so bad. They were married at the New Year. + +"My poor grandfather!" Mr. Wimbush added, as he closed his book +and put away his pince-nez. "Whenever I read in the papers about +oppressed nationalities, I think of him." He relighted his +cigar. "It was a maternal government, highly centralised, and +there were no representative institutions." + +Henry Wimbush ceased speaking. In the silence that ensued Ivor's +whispered commentary on the spirit sketches once more became +audible. Priscilla, who had been dozing, suddenly woke up. + +"What?" she said in the startled tones of one newly returned to +consciousness; "what?" + +Jenny caught the words. She looked up, smiled, nodded +reassuringly. "It's about a ham," she said. + +"What's about a ham?" + +"What Henry has been reading." She closed the red notebook lying +on her knees and slipped a rubber band round it. "I'm going to +bed," she announced, and got up. + +"So am I," said Anne, yawning. But she lacked the energy to rise +from her arm-chair. + +The night was hot and oppressive. Round the open windows the +curtains hung unmoving. Ivor, fanning himself with the portrait +of an Astral Being, looked out into the darkness and drew a +breath. + +"The air's like wool," he declared. + +"It will get cooler after midnight," said Henry Wimbush, and +cautiously added, "perhaps." + +"I shan't sleep, I know." + +Priscilla turned her head in his direction; the monumental +coiffure nodded exorbitantly at her slightest movement. "You +must make an effort," she said. "When I can't sleep, I +concentrate my will: I say, 'I will sleep, I am asleep!' And +pop! off I go. That's the power of thought." + +"But does it work on stuffy nights?" Ivor inquired. "I simply +cannot sleep on a stuffy night." + +"Nor can I," said Mary, "except out of doors." + +"Out of doors! What a wonderful idea!" In the end they decided +to sleep on the towers--Mary on the western tower, Ivor on the +eastern. There was a flat expanse of leads on each of the +towers, and you could get a mattress through the trap doors that +opened on to them. Under the stars, under the gibbous moon, +assuredly they would sleep. The mattresses were hauled up, +sheets and blankets were spread, and an hour later the two +insomniasts, each on his separate tower, were crying their good- +nights across the dividing gulf. + +On Mary the sleep-compelling charm of the open air did not work +with its expected magic. Even through the mattress one could not +fail to be aware that the leads were extremely hard. Then there +were noises: the owls screeched tirelessly, and once, roused by +some unknown terror, all the geese of the farmyard burst into a +sudden frenzy of cackling. The stars and the gibbous moon +demanded to be looked at, and when one meteorite had streaked +across the sky, you could not help waiting, open-eyed and alert, +for the next. Time passed; the moon climbed higher and higher in +the sky. Mary felt less sleepy than she had when she first came +out. She sat up and looked over the parapet. Had Ivor been able +to sleep? she wondered. And as though in answer to her mental +question, from behind the chimney-stack at the farther end of the +roof a white form noiselessly emerged--a form that, in the +moonlight, was recognisably Ivor's. Spreading his arms to right +and left, like a tight-rope dancer, he began to walk forward +along the roof-tree of the house. He swayed terrifyingly as he +advanced. Mary looked on speechlessly; perhaps he was walking in +his sleep! Suppose he were to wake up suddenly, now! If she +spoke or moved it might mean his death. She dared look no more, +but sank back on her pillows. She listened intently. For what +seemed an immensely long time there was no sound. Then there was +a patter of feet on the tiles, followed by a scrabbling noise and +a whispered "Damn!" And suddenly Ivor's head and shoulders +appeared above the parapet. One leg followed, then the other. +He was on the leads. Mary pretended to wake up with a start. + +"Oh!" she said. "What are you doing here?" + +"I couldn't sleep," he explained, "so I came along to see if you +couldn't. One gets bored by oneself on a tower. Don't you find +it so?" + +It was light before five. Long, narrow clouds barred the east, +their edges bright with orange fire. The sky was pale and +watery. With the mournful scream of a soul in pain, a monstrous +peacock, flying heavily up from below, alighted on the parapet of +the tower. Ivor and Mary started broad awake. + +"Catch him!" cried Ivor, jumping up. "We'll have a feather." +The frightened peacock ran up and down the parapet in an absurd +distress, curtseying and bobbing and clucking; his long tail +swung ponderously back and forth as he turned and turned again. +Then with a flap and swish he launched himself upon the air and +sailed magnificently earthward, with a recovered dignity. But he +had left a trophy. Ivor had his feather, a long-lashed eye of +purple and green, of blue and gold. He handed it to his +companion. + +"An angel's feather," he said. + +Mary looked at it for a moment, gravely and intently. Her purple +pyjamas clothed her with an ampleness that hid the lines of her +body; she looked like some large, comfortable, unjointed toy, a +sort of Teddy-bear--but a Teddy bear with an angel's head, pink +cheeks, and hair like a bell of gold. An angel's face, the +feather of an angel's wing...Somehow the whole atmosphere of this +sunrise was rather angelic. + +"It's extraordinary to think of sexual selection," she said at +last, looking up from her contemplation of the miraculous +feather. + +"Extraordinary!" Ivor echoed. "I select you, you select me. +What luck!" + +He put his arm round her shoulders and they stood looking +eastward. The first sunlight had begun to warm and colour the +pale light of the dawn. Mauve pyjamas and white pyjamas; they +were a young and charming couple. The rising sun touched their +faces. It was all extremely symbolic; but then, if you choose to +think so, nothing in this world is not symbolical. Profound and +beautiful truth! + +"I must be getting back to my tower," said Ivor at last. + +"Already?" + +"I'm afraid so. The varletry will soon be up and about." + +"Ivor..." There was a prolonged and silent farewell. + +"And now," said Ivor, "I repeat my tight-rope stunt." + +Mary threw her arms round his neck. "You mustn't, Ivor. It's +dangerous. Please." + +He had to yield at last to her entreaties. "All right," he said, +"I'll go down through the house and up at the other end." + +He vanished through the trap door into the darkness that still +lurked within the shuttered house. A minute later he had +reappeared on the farther tower; he waved his hand, and then sank +down, out of sight, behind the parapet. From below, in the +house, came the thin wasp-like buzzing of an alarum-clock. He +had gone back just in time. + + +CHAPTER XX. + +Ivor was gone. Lounging behind the wind-screen in his yellow +sedan he was whirling across rural England. Social and amorous +engagements of the most urgent character called him from hall to +baronial hall, from castle to castle, from Elizabethan manor- +house to Georgian mansion, over the whole expanse of the kingdom. +To-day in Somerset, to-morrow in Warwickshire, on Saturday in the +West riding, by Tuesday morning in Argyll--Ivor never rested. +The whole summer through, from the beginning of July till the end +of September, he devoted himself to his engagements; he was a +martyr to them. In the autumn he went back to London for a +holiday. Crome had been a little incident, an evanescent bubble +on the stream of his life; it belonged already to the past. By +tea-time he would be at Gobley, and there would be Zenobia's +welcoming smile. And on Thursday morning--but that was a long, +long way ahead. He would think of Thursday morning when Thursday +morning arrived. Meanwhile there was Gobley, meanwhile Zenobia. + +In the visitor's book at Crome Ivor had left, according to his +invariable custom in these cases, a poem. He had improvised it +magisterially in the ten minutes preceding his departure. Denis +and Mr. Scogan strolled back together from the gates of the +courtyard, whence they had bidden their last farewells; on the +writing-table in the hall they found the visitor's book, open, +and Ivor's composition scarcely dry. Mr. Scogan read it aloud: + +"The magic of those immemorial kings, +Who webbed enchantment on the bowls of night. +Sleeps in the soul of all created things; +In the blue sea, th' Acroceraunian height, +In the eyed butterfly's auricular wings +And orgied visions of the anchorite; +In all that singing flies and flying sings, +In rain, in pain, in delicate delight. +But much more magic, much more cogent spells +Weave here their wizardries about my soul. +Crome calls me like the voice of vesperal bells, +Haunts like a ghostly-peopled necropole. +Fate tears me hence. Hard fate! since far from Crome +My soul must weep, remembering its Home." + +"Very nice and tasteful and tactful," said Mr. Scogan, when he +had finished. "I am only troubled by the butterfly's auricular +wings. You have a first-hand knowledge of the workings of a +poet's mind, Denis; perhaps you can explain." + +"What could be simpler," said Denis. "It's a beautiful word, and +Ivor wanted to say that the wings were golden." + +"You make it luminously clear." + +"One suffers so much," Denis went on, "from the fact that +beautiful words don't always mean what they ought to mean. +Recently, for example, I had a whole poem ruined, just because +the word 'carminative' didn't mean what it ought to have meant. +Carminative--it's admirable, isn't it?" + +"Admirable," Mr. Scogan agreed. "And what does it mean?" + +"It's a word I've treasured from my earliest infancy," said +Denis, "treasured and loved. They used to give me cinnamon when +I had a cold--quite useless, but not disagreeable. One poured it +drop by drop out of narrow bottles, a golden liquor, fierce and +fiery. On the label was a list of its virtues, and among other +things it was described as being in the highest degree +carminative. I adored the word. 'Isn't it carminative?' I used +to say to myself when I'd taken my dose. It seemed so +wonderfully to describe that sensation of internal warmth, that +glow, that--what shall I call it?--physical self-satisfaction +which followed the drinking of cinnamon. Later, when I +discovered alcohol, 'carminative' described for me that similar, +but nobler, more spiritual glow which wine evokes not only in the +body but in the soul as well. The carminative virtues of +burgundy, of rum, of old brandy, of Lacryma Christi, of Marsala, +of Aleatico, of stout, of gin, of champagne, of claret, of the +raw new wine of this year's Tuscan vintage--I compared them, I +classified them. Marsala is rosily, downily carminative; gin +pricks and refreshes while it warms. I had a whole table of +carmination values. And now"--Denis spread out his hands, palms +upwards, despairingly--"now I know what carminative really +means." + +"Well, what DOES it mean?" asked Mr. Scogan, a little +impatiently. + +"Carminative," said Denis, lingering lovingly over the syllables, +"carminative. I imagined vaguely that it had something to do +with carmen-carminis, still more vaguely with caro-carnis, and +its derivations, like carnival and carnation. Carminative--there +was the idea of singing and the idea of flesh, rose-coloured and +warm, with a suggestion of the jollities of mi-Careme and the +masked holidays of Venice. Carminative--the warmth, the glow, +the interior ripeness were all in the word. Instead of which..." + +"Do come to the point, my dear Denis," protested Mr. Scogan. "Do +come to the point." + +"Well, I wrote a poem the other day," said Denis; "I wrote a poem +about the effects of love." + +"Others have done the same before you," said Mr. Scogan. "There +is no need to be ashamed." + +"I was putting forward the notion," Denis went on, "that the +effects of love were often similar to the effects of wine, that +Eros could intoxicate as well as Bacchus. Love, for example, is +essentially carminative. It gives one the sense of warmth, the +glow. + +'And passion carminative as wine...' + +was what I wrote. Not only was the line elegantly sonorous; it +was also, I flattered myself, very aptly compendiously +expressive. Everything was in the word carminative--a detailed, +exact foreground, an immense, indefinite hinterland of +suggestion. + +'And passion carminative as wine...' + +I was not ill-pleased. And then suddenly it occurred to me that +I had never actually looked up the word in a dictionary. +Carminative had grown up with me from the days of the cinnamon +bottle. It had always been taken for granted. Carminative: for +me the word was as rich in content as some tremendous, elaborate +work of art; it was a complete landscape with figures. + +'And passion carminative as wine...' + +It was the first time I had ever committed the word to writing, +and all at once I felt I would like lexicographical authority for +it. A small English-German dictionary was all I had at hand. I +turned up C, ca, car, carm. There it was: 'Carminative: +windtreibend.' Windtreibend!" he repeated. Mr. Scogan laughed. +Denis shook his head. "Ah," he said, "for me it was no laughing +matter. For me it marked the end of a chapter, the death of +something young and precious. There were the years--years of +childhood and innocence--when I had believed that carminative +meant--well, carminative. And now, before me lies the rest of my +life--a day, perhaps, ten years, half a century, when I shall +know that carminative means windtreibend. + +'Plus ne suis ce que j'ai ete +Et ne le saurai jamais etre.' + +It is a realisation that makes one rather melancholy." + +"Carminative," said Mr. Scogan thoughtfully. + +"Carminative," Denis repeated, and they were silent for a time. +"Words," said Denis at last, "words--I wonder if you can realise +how much I love them. You are too much preoccupied with mere +things and ideas and people to understand the full beauty of +words. Your mind is not a literary mind. The spectacle of Mr. +Gladstone finding thirty-four rhymes to the name 'Margot' seems +to you rather pathetic than anything else. Mallarme's envelopes +with their versified addresses leave you cold, unless they leave +you pitiful; you can't see that + +'Apte a ne point te cabrer, hue! +Poste et j'ajouterai, dia! +Si tu ne fuis onze-bis Rue +Balzac, chez cet Heredia,' + +is a little miracle." + +"You're right," said Mr. Scogan. "I can't." + +"You don't feel it to be magical?" + +"No." + +"That's the test for the literary mind," said Denis; "the feeling +of magic, the sense that words have power. The technical, verbal +part of literature is simply a development of magic. Words are +man's first and most grandiose invention. With language he +created a whole new universe; what wonder if he loved words and +attributed power to them! With fitted, harmonious words the +magicians summoned rabbits out of empty hats and spirits from the +elements. Their descendants, the literary men, still go on with +the process, morticing their verbal formulas together, and, +before the power of the finished spell, trembling with delight +and awe. Rabbits out of empty hats? No, their spells are more +subtly powerful, for they evoke emotions out of empty minds. +Formulated by their art the most insipid statements become +enormously significant. For example, I proffer the constatation, +'Black ladders lack bladders.' A self-evident truth, one on +which it would not have been worth while to insist, had I chosen +to formulate it in such words as 'Black fire-escapes have no +bladders,' or, 'Les echelles noires manquent de vessie.' But +since I put it as I do, 'Black ladders lack bladders,' it +becomes, for all its self-evidence, significant, unforgettable, +moving. The creation by word-power of something out of nothing-- +what is that but magic? And, I may add, what is that but +literature? Half the world's greatest poetry is simply 'Les +echelles noires manquent de vessie,' translated into magic +significance as, 'Black ladders lack bladders.' And you can't +appreciate words. I'm sorry for you." + +"A mental carminative," said Mr. Scogan reflectively. "That's +what you need." + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +Perched on its four stone mushrooms, the little granary stood two +or three feet above the grass of the green close. Beneath it +there was a perpetual shade and a damp growth of long, luxuriant +grasses. Here, in the shadow, in the green dampness, a family of +white ducks had sought shelter from the afternoon sun. Some +stood, preening themselves, some reposed with their long bellies +pressed to the ground, as though the cool grass were water. +Little social noises burst fitfully forth, and from time to time +some pointed tail would execute a brilliant Lisztian tremolo. +Suddenly their jovial repose was shattered. A prodigious thump +shook the wooden flooring above their heads; the whole granary +trembled, little fragments of dirt and crumbled wood rained down +among them. With a loud, continuous quacking the ducks rushed +out from beneath this nameless menace, and did not stay their +flight till they were safely in the farmyard. + +"Don't lose your temper," Anne was saying. "Listen! You've +frightened the ducks. Poor dears! no wonder." She was sitting +sideways in a low, wooden chair. Her right elbow rested on the +back of the chair and she supported her cheek on her hand. Her +long, slender body drooped into curves of a lazy grace. She was +smiling, and she looked at Gombauld through half-closed eyes. + +"Damn you!" Gombauld repeated, and stamped his foot again. He +glared at her round the half-finished portrait on the easel. + +"Poor ducks!" Anne repeated. The sound of their quacking was +faint in the distance; it was inaudible. + +"Can't you see you make me lose my time?" he asked. "I can't +work with you dangling about distractingly like this." + +"You'd lose less time if you stopped talking and stamping your +feet and did a little painting for a change. After all, what am +I dangling about for, except to be painted?" + +Gombauld made a noise like a growl. "You're awful," he said, +with conviction. "Why do you ask me to come and stay here? Why +do you tell me you'd like me to paint your portrait?" + +"For the simple reasons that I like you--at least, when you're in +a good temper--and that I think you're a good painter." + +"For the simple reason"--Gombauld mimicked her voice--"that you +want me to make love to you and, when I do, to have the amusement +of running away." + +Anne threw back her head and laughed. "So you think it amuses me +to have to evade your advances! So like a man! If you only knew +how gross and awful and boring men are when they try to make love +and you don't want them to make love! If you could only see +yourselves through our eyes!" + +Gombauld picked up his palette and brushes and attacked his +canvas with the ardour of irritation. "I suppose you'll be +saying next that you didn't start the game, that it was I who +made the first advances, and that you were the innocent victim +who sat still and never did anything that could invite or allure +me on." + +"So like a man again!" said Anne. "It's always the same old +story about the woman tempting the man. The woman lures, +fascinates, invites; and man--noble man, innocent man--falls a +victim. My poor Gombauld! Surely you're not going to sing that +old song again. It's so unintelligent, and I always thought you +were a man of sense." + +"Thanks," said Gombauld. + +"Be a little objective," Anne went on. "Can't you see that +you're simply externalising your own emotions? That's what you +men are always doing; it's so barbarously naive. You feel one of +your loose desires for some woman, and because you desire her +strongly you immediately accuse her of luring you on, of +deliberately provoking and inviting the desire. You have the +mentality of savages. You might just as well say that a plate of +strawberries and cream deliberately lures you on to feel greedy. +In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred women are as passive and +innocent as the strawberries and cream." + +"Well, all I can say is that this must be the hundredth case," +said Gombauld, without looking up. + +Anne shrugged her shoulders and gave vent to a sigh. "I'm at a +loss to know whether you're more silly or more rude." + +After painting for a little time in silence Gombauld began to +speak again. "And then there's Denis," he said, renewing the +conversation as though it had only just been broken off. "You're +playing the same game with him. Why can't you leave that +wretched young man in peace?" + +Anne flushed with a sudden and uncontrollable anger. "It's +perfectly untrue about Denis," she said indignantly. "I never +dreamt of playing what you beautifully call the same game with +him." Recovering her calm, she added in her ordinary cooing +voice and with her exacerbating smile, "You've become very +protective towards poor Denis all of a sudden." + +"I have," Gombauld replied, with a gravity that was somehow a +little too solemn. "I don't like to see a young man..." + +"...being whirled along the road to ruin," said Anne, continuing +his sentence for him. I admire your sentiments and, believe me, +I share them." + +She was curiously irritated at what Gombauld had said about +Denis. It happened to be so completely untrue. Gombauld might +have some slight ground for his reproaches. But Denis--no, she +had never flirted with Denis. Poor boy! He was very sweet. She +became somewhat pensive. + +Gombauld painted on with fury. The restlessness of an +unsatisfied desire, which, before, had distracted his mind, +making work impossible, seemed now to have converted itself into +a kind of feverish energy. When it was finished, he told +himself, the portrait would be diabolic. He was painting her in +the pose she had naturally adopted at the first sitting. Seated +sideways, her elbow on the back of the chair, her head and +shoulders turned at an angle from the rest of her body, towards +the front, she had fallen into an attitude of indolent +abandonment. He had emphasised the lazy curves of her body; the +lines sagged as they crossed the canvas, the grace of the painted +figure seemed to be melting into a kind of soft decay. The hand +that lay along the knee was as limp as a glove. He was at work +on the face now; it had begun to emerge on the canvas, doll-like +in its regularity and listlessness. It was Anne's face--but her +face as it would be, utterly unillumined by the inward lights of +thought and emotion. It was the lazy, expressionless mask which +was sometimes her face. The portrait was terribly like; and at +the same time it was the most malicious of lies. Yes, it would +be diabolic when it was finished, Gombauld decided; he wondered +what she would think of it. + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +For the sake of peace and quiet Denis had retired earlier on this +same afternoon to his bedroom. He wanted to work, but the hour +was a drowsy one, and lunch, so recently eaten, weighed heavily +on body and mind. The meridian demon was upon him; he was +possessed by that bored and hopeless post-prandial melancholy +which the coenobites of old knew and feared under the name of +"accidie." He felt, like Ernest Dowson, "a little weary." He +was in the mood to write something rather exquisite and gentle +and quietist in tone; something a little droopy and at the same +time--how should he put it?--a little infinite. He thought of +Anne, of love hopeless and unattainable. Perhaps that was the +ideal kind of love, the hopeless kind--the quiet, theoretical +kind of love. In this sad mood of repletion he could well +believe it. He began to write. One elegant quatrain had flowed +from beneath his pen: + +"A brooding love which is at most +The stealth of moonbeams when they slide, +Evoking colour's bloodless ghost, +O'er some scarce-breathing breast or side..." + +when his attention was attracted by a sound from outside. He +looked down from his window; there they were, Anne and Gombauld, +talking, laughing together. They crossed the courtyard in front, +and passed out of sight through the gate in the right-hand wall. +That was the way to the green close and the granary; she was +going to sit for him again. His pleasantly depressing melancholy +was dissipated by a puff of violent emotion; angrily he threw his +quatrain into the waste-paper basket and ran downstairs. "The +stealth of moonbeams," indeed! + +In the hall he saw Mr. Scogan; the man seemed to be lying in +wait. Denis tried to escape, but in vain. Mr. Scogan's eye +glittered like the eye of the Ancient Mariner. + +"Not so fast," he said, stretching out a small saurian hand with +pointed nails--"not so fast. I was just going down to the flower +garden to take the sun. We'll go together." + +Denis abandoned himself; Mr. Scogan put on his hat and they went +out arm in arm. On the shaven turf of the terrace Henry Wimbush +and Mary were playing a solemn game of bowls. They descended by +the yew-tree walk. It was here, thought Denis, here that Anne +had fallen, here that he had kissed her, here--and he blushed +with retrospective shame at the memory--here that he had tried to +carry her and failed. Life was awful! + +"Sanity!" said Mr. Scogan, suddenly breaking a long silence. +"Sanity--that's what's wrong with me and that's what will be +wrong with you, my dear Denis, when you're old enough to be sane +or insane. In a sane world I should be a great man; as things +are, in this curious establishment, I am nothing at all; to all +intents and purposes I don't exist. I am just Vox et praeterea +nihil." + +Denis made no response; he was thinking of other things. "After +all," he said to himself--"after all, Gombauld is better looking +than I, more entertaining, more confident; and, besides, he's +already somebody and I'm still only potential..." + +"Everything that ever gets done in this world is done by madmen," +Mr. Scogan went on. Denis tried not to listen, but the tireless +insistence of Mr. Scogan's discourse gradually compelled his +attention. "Men such as I am, such as you may possibly become, +have never achieved anything. We're too sane; we're merely +reasonable. We lack the human touch, the compelling enthusiastic +mania. People are quite ready to listen to the philosophers for +a little amusement, just as they would listen to a fiddler or a +mountebank. But as to acting on the advice of the men of reason +--never. Wherever the choice has had to be made between the man +of reason and the madman, the world has unhesitatingly followed +the madman. For the madman appeals to what is fundamental, to +passion and the instincts; the philosophers to what is +superficial and supererogatory--reason." + +They entered the garden; at the head of one of the alleys stood a +green wooden bench, embayed in the midst of a fragrant continent +of lavender bushes. It was here, though the place was shadeless +and one breathed hot, dry perfume instead of air--it was here +that Mr. Scogan elected to sit. He thrived on untempered +sunlight. + +"Consider, for example, the case of Luther and Erasmus." He took +out his pipe and began to fill it as he talked. "There was +Erasmus, a man of reason if ever there was one. People listened +to him at first--a new virtuoso performing on that elegant and +resourceful instrument, the intellect; they even admired and +venerated him. But did he move them to behave as he wanted them +to behave--reasonably, decently, or at least a little less +porkishly than usual? He did not. And then Luther appears, +violent, passionate, a madman insanely convinced about matters in +which there can be no conviction. He shouted, and men rushed to +follow him. Erasmus was no longer listened to; he was reviled +for his reasonableness. Luther was serious, Luther was reality-- +like the Great War. Erasmus was only reason and decency; he +lacked the power, being a sage, to move men to action. Europe +followed Luther and embarked on a century and a half of war and +bloody persecution. It's a melancholy story." Mr. Scogan +lighted a match. In the intense light the flame was all but +invisible. The smell of burning tobacco began to mingle with the +sweetly acrid smell of the lavender. + +"If you want to get men to act reasonably, you must set about +persuading them in a maniacal manner. The very sane precepts of +the founders of religions are only made infectious by means of +enthusiasms which to a sane man must appear deplorable. It is +humiliating to find how impotent unadulterated sanity is. +Sanity, for example, informs us that the only way in which we can +preserve civilisation is by behaving decently and intelligently. +Sanity appeals and argues; our rulers persevere in their +customary porkishness, while we acquiesce and obey. The only +hope is a maniacal crusade; I am ready, when it comes, to beat a +tambourine with the loudest, but at the same time I shall feel a +little ashamed of myself. However"--Mr. Scogan shrugged his +shoulders and, pipe in hand, made a gesture of resignation--"It's +futile to complain that things are as they are. The fact remains +that sanity unassisted is useless. What we want, then, is a sane +and reasonable exploitation of the forces of insanity. We sane +men will have the power yet." Mr. Scogan's eyes shone with a +more than ordinary brightness, and, taking his pipe out of his +mouth, he gave vent to his loud, dry, and somehow rather fiendish +laugh. + +"But I don't want power," said Denis. He was sitting in limp +discomfort at one end of the bench, shading his eyes from the +intolerable light. Mr. Scogan, bolt upright at the other end, +laughed again. + +"Everybody wants power," he said. "Power in some form or other. +The sort of power you hanker for is literary power. Some people +want power to persecute other human beings; you expend your lust +for power in persecuting words, twisting them, moulding them, +torturing them to obey you. But I divagate." + +"Do you?" asked Denis faintly. + +"Yes," Mr. Scogan continued, unheeding, "the time will come. We +men of intelligence will learn to harness the insanities to the +service of reason. We can't leave the world any longer to the +direction of chance. We can't allow dangerous maniacs like +Luther, mad about dogma, like Napoleon, mad about himself, to go +on casually appearing and turning everything upside down. In the +past it didn't so much matter; but our modern machine is too +delicate. A few more knocks like the Great War, another Luther +or two, and the whole concern will go to pieces. In future, the +men of reason must see that the madness of the world's maniacs is +canalised into proper channels, is made to do useful work, like a +mountain torrent driving a dynamo..." + +"Making electricity to light a Swiss hotel," said Denis. "You +ought to complete the simile." + +Mr. Scogan waved away the interruption. "There's only one thing +to be done," he said. "The men of intelligence must combine, +must conspire, and seize power from the imbeciles and maniacs who +now direct us. They must found the Rational State." + +The heat that was slowly paralysing all Denis's mental and bodily +faculties, seemed to bring to Mr. Scogan additional vitality. He +talked with an ever-increasing energy, his hands moved in sharp, +quick, precise gestures, his eyes shone. Hard, dry, and +continuous, his voice went on sounding and sounding in Denis's +ears with the insistence of a mechanical noise. + +"In the Rational State," he heard Mr. Scogan saying, "human +beings will be separated out into distinct species, not according +to the colour of their eyes or the shape of their skulls, but +according to the qualities of their mind and temperament. +Examining psychologists, trained to what would now seem an almost +superhuman clairvoyance, will test each child that is born and +assign it to its proper species. Duly labelled and docketed, the +child will be given the education suitable to members of its +species, and will be set, in adult life, to perform those +functions which human beings of his variety are capable of +performing." + +"How many species will there be?" asked Denis. + +"A great many, no doubt," Mr. Scogan answered; "the +classification will be subtle and elaborate. But it is not in +the power of a prophet to go into details, nor is it his +business. I will do more than indicate the three main species +into which the subjects of the Rational State will be divided." + +He paused, cleared his throat, and coughed once or twice, evoking +in Denis's mind the vision of a table with a glass and water- +bottle, and, lying across one corner, a long white pointer for +the lantern pictures. + +"The three main species," Mr. Scogan went on, "will be these: +the Directing Intelligences, the Men of Faith, and the Herd. +Among the Intelligences will be found all those capable of +thought, those who know how to attain a certain degree of +freedom--and, alas, how limited, even among the most intelligent, +that freedom is!--from the mental bondage of their time. A +select body of Intelligences, drawn from among those who have +turned their attention to the problems of practical life, will be +the governors of the Rational State. They will employ as their +instruments of power the second great species of humanity--the +men of Faith, the Madmen, as I have been calling them, who +believe in things unreasonably, with passion, and are ready to +die for their beliefs and their desires. These wild men, with +their fearful potentialities for good or for mischief, will no +longer be allowed to react casually to a casual environment. +There will be no more Caesar Borgias, no more Luthers and +Mohammeds, no more Joanna Southcotts, no more Comstocks. The +old-fashioned Man of Faith and Desire, that haphazard creature of +brute circumstance, who might drive men to tears and repentance, +or who might equally well set them on to cutting one another's +throats, will be replaced by a new sort of madman, still +externally the same, still bubbling with a seemingly spontaneous +enthusiasm, but, ah, how very different from the madman of the +past! For the new Man of Faith will be expending his passion, +his desire, and his enthusiasm in the propagation of some +reasonable idea. He will be, all unawares, the tool of some +superior intelligence." + +Mr. Scogan chuckled maliciously; it was as though he were taking +a revenge, in the name of reason, on enthusiasts. "From their +earliest years, as soon, that is, as the examining psychologists +have assigned them their place in the classified scheme, the Men +of Faith will have had their special education under the eye of +the Intelligences. Moulded by a long process of suggestion, they +will go out into the world, preaching and practising with a +generous mania the coldly reasonable projects of the Directors +from above. When these projects are accomplished, or when the +ideas that were useful a decade ago have ceased to be useful, the +Intelligences will inspire a new generation of madmen with a new +eternal truth. The principal function of the Men of Faith will +be to move and direct the Multitude, that third great species +consisting of those countless millions who lack intelligence and +are without valuable enthusiasm. When any particular effort is +required of the Herd, when it is thought necessary, for the sake +of solidarity, that humanity shall be kindled and united by some +single enthusiastic desire or idea, the Men of Faith, primed with +some simple and satisfying creed, will be sent out on a mission +of evangelisation. At ordinary times, when the high spiritual +temperature of a Crusade would be unhealthy, the Men of Faith +will be quietly and earnestly busy with the great work of +education. In the upbringing of the Herd, humanity's almost +boundless suggestibility will be scientifically exploited. +Systematically, from earliest infancy, its members will be +assured that there is no happiness to be found except in work and +obedience; they will be made to believe that they are happy, that +they are tremendously important beings, and that everything they +do is noble and significant. For the lower species the earth +will be restored to the centre of the universe and man to pre- +eminence on the earth. Oh, I envy the lot of the commonality in +the Rational State! Working their eight hours a day, obeying +their betters, convinced of their own grandeur and significance +and immortality, they will be marvellously happy, happier than +any race of men has ever been. They will go through life in a +rosy state of intoxication, from which they will never awake. +The Men of Faith will play the cup-bearers at this lifelong +bacchanal, filling and ever filling again with the warm liquor +that the Intelligences, in sad and sober privacy behind the +scenes, will brew for the intoxication of their subjects." + +"And what will be my place in the Rational State?" Denis drowsily +inquired from under his shading hand. + +Mr. Scogan looked at him for a moment in silence. "It's +difficult to see where you would fit in," he said at last. "You +couldn't do manual work; you're too independent and unsuggestible +to belong to the larger Herd; you have none of the +characteristics required in a Man of Faith. As for the Directing +Intelligences, they will have to be marvellously clear and +merciless and penetrating." He paused and shook his head. "No, +I can see no place for you; only the lethal chamber." + +Deeply hurt, Denis emitted the imitation of a loud Homeric laugh. +"I'm getting sunstroke here," he said, and got up. + +Mr. Scogan followed his example, and they walked slowly away down +the narrow path, brushing the blue lavender flowers in their +passage. Denis pulled a sprig of lavender and sniffed at it; +then some dark leaves of rosemary that smelt like incense in a +cavernous church. They passed a bed of opium poppies, dispetaled +now; the round, ripe seedheads were brown and dry--like +Polynesian trophies, Denis thought; severed heads stuck on poles. +He liked the fancy enough to impart it to Mr. Scogan. + +"Like Polynesian trophies..." Uttered aloud, the fancy seemed +less charming and significant than it did when it first occurred +to him. + +There was a silence, and in a growing wave of sound the whir of +the reaping machines swelled up from the fields beyond the garden +and then receded into a remoter hum. + +"It is satisfactory to think," said Mr. Scogan, as they strolled +slowly onward, "that a multitude of people are toiling in the +harvest fields in order that we may talk of Polynesia. Like +every other good thing in this world, leisure and culture have to +be paid for. Fortunately, however, it is not the leisured and +the cultured who have to pay. Let us be duly thankful for that, +my dear Denis--duly thankful," he repeated, and knocked the ashes +out of his pipe. + +Denis was not listening. He had suddenly remembered Anne. She +was with Gombauld--alone with him in his studio. It was an +intolerable thought. + +"Shall we go and pay a call on Gombauld?" he suggested +carelessly. It would be amusing to see what he's doing now." + +He laughed inwardly to think how furious Gombauld would be when +he saw them arriving. + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +Gombauld was by no means so furious at their apparition as Denis +had hoped and expected he would be. Indeed, he was rather +pleased than annoyed when the two faces, one brown and pointed, +the other round and pale, appeared in the frame of the open door. +The energy born of his restless irritation was dying within him, +returning to its emotional elements. A moment more and he would +have been losing his temper again--and Anne would be keeping +hers, infuriatingly. Yes, he was positively glad to see them. + +"Come in, come in," he called out hospitably. + +Followed by Mr. Scogan, Denis climbed the little ladder and +stepped over the threshold. He looked suspiciously from Gombauld +to his sitter, and could learn nothing from the expression of +their faces except that they both seemed pleased to see the +visitors. Were they really glad, or were they cunningly +simulating gladness? He wondered. + +Mr. Scogan, meanwhile, was looking at the portrait. + +"Excellent," he said approvingly, "excellent. Almost too true to +character, if that is possible; yes, positively too true. But +I'm surprised to find you putting in all this psychology +business." He pointed to the face, and with his extended finger +followed the slack curves of the painted figure. "I thought you +were one of the fellows who went in exclusively for balanced +masses and impinging planes." + +Gombauld laughed. "This is a little infidelity," he said. + +"I'm sorry," said Mr. Scogan. "I for one, without ever having +had the slightest appreciation of painting, have always taken +particular pleasure in Cubismus. I like to see pictures from +which nature has been completely banished, pictures which are +exclusively the product of the human mind. They give me the same +pleasure as I derive from a good piece of reasoning or a +mathematical problem or an achievement of engineering. Nature, +or anything that reminds me of nature, disturbs me; it is too +large, too complicated, above all too utterly pointless and +incomprehensible. I am at home with the works of man; if I +choose to set my mind to it, I can understand anything that any +man has made or thought. That is why I always travel by Tube, +never by bus if I can possibly help it. For, travelling by bus, +one can't avoid seeing, even in London, a few stray works of God +--the sky, for example, an occasional tree, the flowers in the +window-boxes. But travel by Tube and you see nothing but the +works of man--iron riveted into geometrical forms, straight lines +of concrete, patterned expanses of tiles. All is human and the +product of friendly and comprehensible minds. All philosophies +and all religions--what are they but spiritual Tubes bored +through the universe! Through these narrow tunnels, where all is +recognisably human, one travels comfortable and secure, +contriving to forget that all round and below and above them +stretches the blind mass of earth, endless and unexplored. Yes, +give me the Tube and Cubismus every time; give me ideas, so snug +and neat and simple and well made. And preserve me from nature, +preserve me from all that's inhumanly large and complicated and +obscure. I haven't the courage, and, above all, I haven't the +time to start wandering in that labyrinth." + +While Mr. Scogan was discoursing, Denis had crossed over to the +farther side of the little square chamber, where Anne was +sitting, still in her graceful, lazy pose, on the low chair. + +"Well?" he demanded, looking at her almost fiercely. What was he +asking of her? He hardly knew himself. + +Anne looked up at him, and for answer echoed his "Well?" in +another, a laughing key. + +Denis had nothing more, at the moment, to say. Two or three +canvases stood in the corner behind Anne's chair, their faces +turned to the wall. He pulled them out and began to look at the +paintings. + +"May I see too?" Anne requested. + +He stood them in a row against the wall. Anne had to turn round +in her chair to look at them. There was the big canvas of the +man fallen from the horse, there was a painting of flowers, there +was a small landscape. His hands on the back of the chair, Denis +leaned over her. From behind the easel at the other side of the +room Mr. Scogan was talking away. For a long time they looked at +the pictures, saying nothing; or, rather, Anne looked at the +pictures, while Denis, for the most part, looked at Anne. + +"I like the man and the horse; don't you?" she said at last, +looking up with an inquiring smile. + +Denis nodded, and then in a queer, strangled voice, as though it +had cost him a great effort to utter the words, he said, "I love +you." + +It was a remark which Anne had heard a good many times before and +mostly heard with equanimity. But on this occasion--perhaps +because they had come so unexpectedly , perhaps for some other +reason--the words provoked in her a certain surprised commotion. + +"My poor Denis," she managed to say, with a laugh; but she was +blushing as she spoke. + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +It was noon. Denis, descending from his chamber, where he had +been making an unsuccessful effort to write something about +nothing in particular, found the drawing-room deserted. He was +about to go out into the garden when his eye fell on a familiar +but mysterious object--the large red notebook in which he had so +often seen Jenny quietly and busily scribbling. She had left it +lying on the window-seat. The temptation was great. He picked +up the book and slipped off the elastic band that kept it +discreetly closed. + +"Private. Not to be opened," was written in capital letters on +the cover. He raised his eyebrows. It was the sort of thing one +wrote in one's Latin Grammar while one was still at one's +preparatory school. + +"Black is the raven, black is the rook, +But blacker the theif who steals this book!" + +It was curiously childish, he thought, and he smiled to himself. +He opened the book. What he saw made him wince as though he had +been struck. + +Denis was his own severest critic; so, at least, he had always +believed. He liked to think of himself as a merciless vivisector +probing into the palpitating entrails of his own soul; he was +Brown Dog to himself. His weaknesses, his absurdities--no one +knew them better than he did. Indeed, in a vague way he imagined +that nobody beside himself was aware of them at all. It seemed, +somehow, inconceivable that he should appear to other people as +they appeared to him; inconceivable that they ever spoke of him +among themselves in that same freely critical and, to be quite +honest, mildly malicious tone in which he was accustomed to talk +of them. In his own eyes he had defects, but to see them was a +privilege reserved to him alone. For the rest of the world he +was surely an image of flawless crystal. It was almost +axiomatic. + +On opening the red notebook that crystal image of himself crashed +to the ground, and was irreparably shattered. He was not his own +severest critic after all. The discovery was a painful one. + +The fruit of Jenny's unobtrusive scribbling lay before him. A +caricature of himself, reading (the book was upside-down). In +the background a dancing couple, recognisable as Gombauld and +Anne. Beneath, the legend: "Fable of the Wallflower and the +Sour Grapes." Fascinated and horrified, Denis pored over the +drawing. It was masterful. A mute, inglorious Rouveyre appeared +in every one of those cruelly clear lines. The expression of the +face, an assumed aloofness and superiority tempered by a feeble +envy; the attitude of the body and limbs, an attitude of studious +and scholarly dignity, given away by the fidgety pose of the +turned-in feet--these things were terrible. And, more terrible +still, was the likeness, was the magisterial certainty with which +his physical peculiarities were all recorded and subtly +exaggerated. + +Denis looked deeper into the book. There were caricatures of +other people: of Priscilla and Mr. Barbecue-Smith; of Henry +Wimbush, of Anne and Gombauld; of Mr. Scogan, whom Jenny had +represented in a light that was more than slightly sinister, that +was, indeed, diabolic; of Mary and Ivor. He scarcely glanced at +them. A fearful desire to know the worst about himself possessed +him. He turned over the leaves, lingering at nothing that was +not his own image. Seven full pages were devoted to him. + +"Private. Not to be opened." He had disobeyed the injunction; +he had only got what he deserved. Thoughtfully he closed the +book, and slid the rubber band once more into its place. Sadder +and wiser, he went out on to the terrace. And so this, he +reflected, this was how Jenny employed the leisure hours in her +ivory tower apart. And he had thought her a simple-minded, +uncritical creature! It was he, it seemed, who was the fool. He +felt no resentment towards Jenny. No, the distressing thing +wasn't Jenny herself; it was what she and the phenomenon of her +red book represented, what they stood for and concretely +symbolised. They represented all the vast conscious world of men +outside himself; they symbolised something that in his studious +solitariness he was apt not to believe in. He could stand at +Piccadilly Circus, could watch the crowds shuffle past, and still +imagine himself the one fully conscious, intelligent, individual +being among all those thousands. It seemed, somehow, impossible +that other people should be in their way as elaborate and +complete as he in his. Impossible; and yet, periodically he +would make some painful discovery about the external world and +the horrible reality of its consciousness and its intelligence. +The red notebook was one of these discoveries, a footprint in the +sand. It put beyond a doubt the fact that the outer world really +existed. + +Sitting on the balustrade of the terrace, he ruminated this +unpleasant truth for some time. Still chewing on it, he strolled +pensively down towards the swimming-pool. A peacock and his hen +trailed their shabby finery across the turf of the lower lawn. +Odious birds! Their necks, thick and greedily fleshy at the +roots, tapered up to the cruel inanity of their brainless heads, +their flat eyes and piercing beaks. The fabulists were right, he +reflected, when they took beasts to illustrate their tractates of +human morality. Animals resemble men with all the truthfulness +of a caricature. (Oh, the red notebook!) He threw a piece of +stick at the slowly pacing birds. They rushed towards it, +thinking it was something to eat. + +He walked on. The profound shade of a giant ilex tree engulfed +him. Like a great wooden octopus, it spread its long arms +abroad. + +"Under the spreading ilex tree..." + +He tried to remember who the poem was by, but couldn't. + +"The smith, a brawny man is he, +With arms like rubber bands." + +Just like his; he would have to try and do his Muller exercises +more regularly. + +He emerged once more into the sunshine. The pool lay before him, +reflecting in its bronze mirror the blue and various green of the +summer day. Looking at it, he thought of Anne's bare arms and +seal-sleek bathing-dress, her moving knees and feet. + +"And little Luce with the white legs, +And bouncing Barbary..." + +Oh, these rags and tags of other people's making! Would he ever +be able to call his brain his own? Was there, indeed, anything +in it that was truly his own, or was it simply an education? + +He walked slowly round the water's edge. In an embayed recess +among the surrounding yew trees, leaning her back against the +pedestal of a pleasantly comic version of the Medici Venus, +executed by some nameless mason of the seicento, he saw Mary +pensively sitting. + +"Hullo!" he said, for he was passing so close to her that he had +to say something. + +Mary looked up. "Hullo!" she answered in a melancholy, +uninterested tone. + +In this alcove hewed out of the dark trees, the atmosphere seemed +to Denis agreeably elegiac. He sat down beside her under the +shadow of the pudic goddess. There was a prolonged silence. + +At breakfast that morning Mary had found on her plate a picture +postcard of Gobley Great Park. A stately Georgian pile, with a +facade sixteen windows wide; parterres in the foreground; huge, +smooth lawns receding out of the picture to right and left. Ten +years more of the hard times and Gobley, with all its peers, will +be deserted and decaying. Fifty years, and the countryside will +know the old landmarks no more. They will have vanished as the +monasteries vanished before them. At the moment, however, Mary's +mind was not moved by these considerations. + +On the back of the postcard, next to the address, was written, in +Ivor's bold, large hand, a single quatrain. + +"Hail, maid of moonlight! Bride of the sun, farewell! +Like bright plumes moulted in an angel's flight, +There sleep within my heart's most mystic cell +Memories of morning, memories of the night." + +There followed a postscript of three lines: "Would you mind +asking one of the housemaids to forward the packet of safety- +razor blades I left in the drawer of my washstand. Thanks.-- +Ivor. + +Seated under the Venus's immemorial gesture, Mary considered life +and love. The abolition of her repressions, so far from bringing +the expected peace of mind, had brought nothing but disquiet, a +new and hitherto unexperienced misery. Ivor, Ivor...She couldn't +do without him now. It was evident, on the other hand, from the +poem on the back of the picture postcard, that Ivor could very +well do without her. He was at Gobley now, so was Zenobia. Mary +knew Zenobia. She thought of the last verse of the song he had +sung that night in the garden. + +"Le lendemain, Phillis peu sage +Aurait donne moutons et chien +Pour un baiser que le volage +A Lisette donnait pour rien." + +Mary shed tears at the memory; she had never been so unhappy in +all her life before. + +It was Denis who first broke the silence. "The individual," he +began in a soft and sadly philosophical tone, "is not a self- +supporting universe. There are times when he comes into contact +with other individuals, when he is forced to take cognisance of +the existence of other universes besides himself." + +He had contrived this highly abstract generalisation as a +preliminary to a personal confidence. It was the first gambit in +a conversation that was to lead up to Jenny's caricatures. + +"True," said Mary; and, generalising for herself, she added, +"When one individual comes into intimate contact with another, +she--or he, of course, as the case may be--must almost inevitably +receive or inflict suffering." + +"One is apt, Denis went on, "to be so spellbound by the spectacle +of one's own personality that one forgets that the spectacle +presents itself to other people as well as to oneself." + +Mary was not listening. "The difficulty," she said, "makes +itself acutely felt in matters of sex. If one individual seeks +intimate contact with another individual in the natural way, she +is certain to receive or inflict suffering. If on the other +hand, she avoids contacts, she risks the equally grave sufferings +that follow on unnatural repressions. As you see, it's a +dilemma." + +"When I think of my own case," said Denis, making a more decided +move in the desired direction, "I am amazed how ignorant I am of +other people's mentality in general, and above all and in +particular, of their opinions about myself. Our minds are sealed +books only occasionally opened to the outside world." He made a +gesture that was faintly suggestive of the drawing off of a +rubber band. + +"It's an awful problem," said Mary thoughtfully. "One has to +have had personal experience to realise quite how awful it is." + +"Exactly." Denis nodded. "One has to have had first-hand +experience." He leaned towards her and slightly lowered his +voice. "This very morning, for example..." he began, but his +confidences were cut short. The deep voice of the gong, tempered +by distance to a pleasant booming, floated down from the house. +It was lunch-time. Mechanically Mary rose to her feet, and +Denis, a little hurt that she should exhibit such a desperate +anxiety for her food and so slight an interest in his spiritual +experiences, followed her. They made their way up to the house +without speaking. + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +"I hope you all realise," said Henry Wimbush during dinner, "that +next Monday is Bank Holiday, and that you will all be expected to +help in the Fair." + +"Heavens!" cried Anne. "The Fair--I had forgotten all about it. +What a nightmare! Couldn't you put a stop to it, Uncle Henry?" + +Mr. Wimbush sighed and shook his head. "Alas," he said, "I fear +I cannot. I should have liked to put an end to it years ago; but +the claims of Charity are strong." + +"It's not charity we want," Anne murmured rebelliously; "it's +justice." + +"Besides," Mr. Wimbush went on, "the Fair has become an +institution. Let me see, it must be twenty-two years since we +started it. It was a modest affair then. Now..." he made a +sweeping movement with his hand and was silent. + +It spoke highly for Mr. Wimbush's public spirit that he still +continued to tolerate the Fair. Beginning as a sort of glorified +church bazaar, Crome's yearly Charity Fair had grown into a noisy +thing of merry-go-rounds, cocoanut shies, and miscellaneous side +shows--a real genuine fair on the grand scale. It was the local +St. Bartholomew, and the people of all the neighbouring villages, +with even a contingent from the county town, flocked into the +park for their Bank Holiday amusement. The local hospital +profited handsomely, and it was this fact alone which prevented +Mr. Wimbush, to whom the Fair was a cause of recurrent and never- +diminishing agony, from putting a stop to the nuisance which +yearly desecrated his park and garden. + +"I've made all the arrangements already," Henry Wimbush went on. +"Some of the larger marquees will be put up to-morrow. The +swings and the merry-go-round arrive on Sunday." + +"So there's no escape," said Anne, turning to the rest of the +party. "You'll all have to do something. As a special favour +you're allowed to choose your slavery. My job is the tea tent, +as usual, Aunt Priscilla..." + +"My dear," said Mrs. Wimbush, interrupting her, "I have more +important things to think about than the Fair. But you need have +no doubt that I shall do my best when Monday comes to encourage +the villagers." + +"That's splendid," said Anne. "Aunt Priscilla will encourage the +villagers. What will you do, Mary?" + +"I won't do anything where I have to stand by and watch other +people eat." + +"Then you'll look after the children's sports." + +"All right," Mary agreed. "I'll look after the children's +sports." + +"And Mr. Scogan?" + +Mr. Scogan reflected. "May I be allowed to tell fortunes?" he +asked at last. "I think I should be good at telling fortunes." + +"But you can't tell fortunes in that costume!" + +"Can't I?" Mr. Scogan surveyed himself. + +"You'll have to be dressed up. Do you still persist?" + +"I'm ready to suffer all indignities." + +"Good!" said Anne; and turning to Gombauld, "You must be our +lightning artist," she said. "'Your portrait for a shilling in +five minutes.'" + +"It's a pity I'm not Ivor," said Gombauld, with a laugh. "I +could throw in a picture of their Auras for an extra sixpence." + +Mary flushed. "Nothing is to be gained," she said severely, "by +speaking with levity of serious subjects. And, after all, +whatever your personal views may be, psychical research is a +perfectly serious subject." + +"And what about Denis?" + +Denis made a deprecating gesture. "I have no accomplishments," +he said, "I'll just be one of those men who wear a thing in their +buttonholes and go about telling people which is the way to tea +and not to walk on the grass." + +"No, no," said Anne. "That won't do. You must do something more +than that." + +"But what? All the good jobs are taken, and I can do nothing but +lisp in numbers." + +"Well, then, you must lisp," concluded Anne. "You must write a +poem for the occasion--an 'Ode on Bank Holiday.' We'll print it +on Uncle Henry's press and sell it at twopence a copy." + +"Sixpence," Denis protested. "It'll be worth sixpence." + +Anne shook her head. "Twopence," she repeated firmly. "Nobody +will pay more than twopence." + +"And now there's Jenny," said Mr Wimbush. "Jenny," he said, +raising his voice, "what will you do?" + +Denis thought of suggesting that she might draw caricatures at +sixpence an execution, but decided it would be wiser to go on +feigning ignorance of her talent. His mind reverted to the red +notebook. Could it really be true that he looked like that? + +"What will I do," Jenny echoed, "what will I do?" She frowned +thoughtfully for a moment; then her face brightened and she +smiled. "When I was young," she said, "I learnt to play the +drums." + +"The drums?" + +Jenny nodded, and, in proof of her assertion, agitated her knife +and fork, like a pair of drumsticks, over her plate. "If there's +any opportunity of playing the drums..." she began. + +"But of course," said Anne, "there's any amount of opportunity. +We'll put you down definitely for the drums. That's the lot," +she added. + +"And a very good lot too," said Gombauld. "I look forward to my +Bank Holiday. It ought to be gay." + +"It ought indeed," Mr Scogan assented. "But you may rest assured +that it won't be. No holiday is ever anything but a +disappointment." + +"Come, come," protested Gombauld. "My holiday at Crome isn't +being a disappointment." + +"Isn't it?" Anne turned an ingenuous mask towards him. + +"No, it isn't," he answered. + +"I'm delighted to hear it." + +"It's in the very nature of things," Mr. Scogan went on; "our +holidays can't help being disappointments. Reflect for a moment. +What is a holiday? The ideal, the Platonic Holiday of Holidays +is surely a complete and absolute change. You agree with me in +my definition?" Mr. Scogan glanced from face to face round the +table; his sharp nose moved in a series of rapid jerks through +all the points of the compass. There was no sign of dissent; he +continued: "A complete and absolute change; very well. But +isn't a complete and absolute change precisely the thing we can +never have--never, in the very nature of things?" Mr. Scogan +once more looked rapidly about him. "Of course it is. As +ourselves, as specimens of Homo Sapiens, as members of a society, +how can we hope to have anything like an absolute change? We are +tied down by the frightful limitation of our human faculties, by +the notions which society imposes on us through our fatal +suggestibility, by our own personalities. For us, a complete +holiday is out of the question. Some of us struggle manfully to +take one, but we never succeed, if I may be allowed to express +myself metaphorically, we never succeed in getting farther than +Southend." + +"You're depressing," said Anne. + +"I mean to be," Mr. Scogan replied, and, expanding the fingers of +his right hand, he went on: "Look at me, for example. What sort +of a holiday can I take? In endowing me with passions and +faculties Nature has been horribly niggardly. The full range of +human potentialities is in any case distressingly limited; my +range is a limitation within a limitation. Out of the ten +octaves that make up the human instrument, I can compass perhaps +two. Thus, while I may have a certain amount of intelligence, I +have no aesthetic sense; while I possess the mathematical +faculty, I am wholly without the religious emotions; while I am +naturally addicted to venery, I have little ambition and am not +at all avaricious. Education has further limited my scope. +Having been brought up in society, I am impregnated with its +laws; not only should I be afraid of taking a holiday from them, +I should also feel it painful to try to do so. In a word, I have +a conscience as well as a fear of gaol. Yes, I know it by +experience. How often have I tried to take holidays, to get away +from myself, my own boring nature, my insufferable mental +surroundings!" Mr. Scogan sighed. "But always without success," +he added, "always without success. In my youth I was always +striving--how hard!--to feel religiously and aesthetically. +Here, said I to myself, are two tremendously important and +exciting emotions. Life would be richer, warmer, brighter, +altogether more amusing, if I could feel them. I try to feel +them. I read the works of the mystics. They seemed to me +nothing but the most deplorable claptrap--as indeed they always +must to anyone who does not feel the same emotion as the authors +felt when they were writing. For it is the emotion that matters. +The written work is simply an attempt to express emotion, which +is in itself inexpressible, in terms of intellect and logic. The +mystic objectifies a rich feeling in the pit of the stomach into +a cosmology. For other mystics that cosmology is a symbol of the +rich feeling. For the unreligious it is a symbol of nothing, and +so appears merely grotesque. A melancholy fact! But I +divagate." Mr. Scogan checked himself. "So much for the +religious emotion. As for the aesthetic--I was at even greater +pains to cultivate that. I have looked at all the right works of +art in every part of Europe. There was a time when, I venture to +believe, I knew more about Taddeo da Poggibonsi, more about the +cryptic Amico di Taddeo, even than Henry does. To-day, I am +happy to say, I have forgotten most of the knowledge I then so +laboriously acquired; but without vanity I can assert that it was +prodigious. I don't pretend, of course, to know anything about +nigger sculpture or the later seventeenth century in Italy; but +about all the periods that were fashionable before 1900 I am, or +was, omniscient. Yes, I repeat it, omniscient. But did that +fact make me any more appreciative of art in general? It did +not. Confronted by a picture, of which I could tell you all the +known and presumed history--the date when it was painted, the +character of the painter, the influences that had gone to make it +what it was--I felt none of that strange excitement and +exaltation which is, as I am informed by those who do feel it, +the true aesthetic emotion. I felt nothing but a certain +interest in the subject of the picture; or more often, when the +subject was hackneyed and religious, I felt nothing but a great +weariness of spirit. Nevertheless, I must have gone on looking +at pictures for ten years before I would honestly admit to myself +that they merely bored me. Since then I have given up all +attempts to take a holiday. I go on cultivating my old stale +daily self in the resigned spirit with which a bank clerk +performs from ten till six his daily task. A holiday, indeed! +I'm sorry for you, Gombauld, if you still look forward to having +a holiday." + +Gombauld shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps," he said, "my +standards aren't as elevated as yours. But personally I found +the war quite as thorough a holiday from all the ordinary +decencies and sanities, all the common emotions and +preoccupations, as I ever want to have." + +"Yes," Mr. Scogan thoughtfully agreed. "Yes, the war was +certainly something of a holiday. It was a step beyond Southend; +it was Weston-super-Mare; it was almost Ilfracombe." + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +A little canvas village of tents and booths had sprung up, just +beyond the boundaries of the garden, in the green expanse of the +park. A crowd thronged its streets, the men dressed mostly in +black--holiday best, funeral best--the women in pale muslins. +Here and there tricolour bunting hung inert. In the midst of the +canvas town, scarlet and gold and crystal, the merry-go-round +glittered in the sun. The balloon-man walked among the crowd, +and above his head, like a huge, inverted bunch of many-coloured +grapes, the balloons strained upwards. With a scythe-like motion +the boat-swings reaped the air, and from the funnel of the engine +which worked the roundabout rose a thin, scarcely wavering column +of black smoke. + +Denis had climbed to the top of one of Sir Ferdinando's towers, +and there, standing on the sun-baked leads, his elbows resting on +the parapet, he surveyed the scene. The steam-organ sent up +prodigious music. The clashing of automatic cymbals beat out +with inexorable precision the rhythm of piercingly sounded +melodies. The harmonies were like a musical shattering of glass +and brass. Far down in the bass the Last Trump was hugely +blowing, and with such persistence, such resonance, that its +alternate tonic and dominant detached themselves from the rest of +the music and made a tune of their own, a loud, monotonous see- +saw. + +Denis leaned over the gulf of swirling noise. If he threw +himself over the parapet, the noise would surely buoy him up, +keep him suspended, bobbing, as a fountain balances a ball on its +breaking crest. Another fancy came to him, this time in metrical +form. + +"My soul is a thin white sheet of parchment stretched +Over a bubbling cauldron." + +Bad, bad. But he liked the idea of something thin and distended +being blown up from underneath. + +"My soul is a thin tent of gut..." + +or better-- + +"My soul is a pale, tenuous membrane..." + +That was pleasing: a thin, tenuous membrane. It had the right +anatomical quality. Tight blown, quivering in the blast of noisy +life. It was time for him to descend from the serene empyrean of +words into the actual vortex. He went down slowly. "My soul is +a thin, tenuous membrane..." + +On the terrace stood a knot of distinguished visitors. There was +old Lord Moleyn, like a caricature of an English milord in a +French comic paper: a long man, with a long nose and long, +drooping moustaches and long teeth of old ivory, and lower down, +absurdly, a short covert coat, and below that long, long legs +cased in pearl-grey trousers--legs that bent unsteadily at the +knee and gave a kind of sideways wobble as he walked. Beside +him, short and thick-set, stood Mr. Callamay, the venerable +conservative statesman, with a face like a Roman bust, and short +white hair. Young girls didn't much like going for motor drives +alone with Mr. Callamay; and of old Lord Moleyn one wondered why +he wasn't living in gilded exile on the island of Capri among the +other distinguished persons who, for one reason or another, find +it impossible to live in England. They were talking to Anne, +laughing, the one profoundly, the other hootingly. + +A black silk balloon towing a black-and-white striped parachute +proved to be old Mrs. Budge from the big house on the other side +of the valley. She stood low on the ground, and the spikes of +her black-and-white sunshade menaced the eyes of Priscilla +Wimbush, who towered over her--a massive figure dressed in purple +and topped with a queenly toque on which the nodding black plumes +recalled the splendours of a first-class Parisian funeral. + +Denis peeped at them discreetly from the window of the morning- +room. His eyes were suddenly become innocent, childlike, +unprejudiced. They seemed, these people, inconceivably +fantastic. And yet they really existed, they functioned by +themselves, they were conscious, they had minds. Moreover, he +was like them. Could one believe it? But the evidence of the +red notebook was conclusive. + +It would have been polite to go and say, "How d'you do?" But at +the moment Denis did not want to talk, could not have talked. +His soul was a tenuous, tremulous, pale membrane. He would keep +its sensibility intact and virgin as long as he could. +Cautiously he crept out by a side door and made his way down +towards the park. His soul fluttered as he approached the noise +and movement of the fair. He paused for a moment on the brink, +then stepped in and was engulfed. + +Hundreds of people, each with his own private face and all of +them real, separate, alive: the thought was disquieting. He +paid twopence and saw the Tatooed Woman; twopence more, the +Largest Rat in the World. From the home of the Rat he emerged +just in time to see a hydrogen-filled balloon break loose for +home. A child howled up after it; but calmly, a perfect sphere +of flushed opal, it mounted, mounted. Denis followed it with his +eyes until it became lost in the blinding sunlight. If he could +but send his soul to follow it!... + +He sighed, stuck his steward's rosette in his buttonhole, and +started to push his way, aimlessly but officially, through the +crowd. + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +Mr. Scogan had been accommodated in a little canvas hut. Dressed +in a black skirt and a red bodice, with a yellow-and-red bandana +handkerchief tied round his black wig, he looked--sharp-nosed, +brown, and wrinkled--like the Bohemian Hag of Frith's Derby Day. +A placard pinned to the curtain of the doorway announced the +presence within the tent of "Sesostris, the Sorceress of +Ecbatana." Seated at a table, Mr. Scogan received his clients in +mysterious silence, indicating with a movement of the finger that +they were to sit down opposite him and to extend their hands for +his inspection. He then examined the palm that was presented +him, using a magnifying glass and a pair of horn spectacles. He +had a terrifying way of shaking his head, frowning and clicking +with his tongue as he looked at the lines. Sometimes he would +whisper, as though to himself, "Terrible, terrible!" or "God +preserve us!" sketching out the sign of the cross as he uttered +the words. The clients who came in laughing grew suddenly grave; +they began to take the witch seriously. She was a formidable- +looking woman; could it be, was it possible, that there was +something in this sort of thing after all? After all, they +thought, as the hag shook her head over their hands, after +all...And they waited, with an uncomfortably beating heart, for +the oracle to speak. After a long and silent inspection, Mr. +Scogan would suddenly look up and ask, in a hoarse whisper, some +horrifying question, such as, "Have you ever been hit on the head +with a hammer by a young man with red hair?" When the answer was +in the negative, which it could hardly fail to be, Mr. Scogan +would nod several times, saying, "I was afraid so. Everything is +still to come, still to come, though it can't be very far off +now." Sometimes, after a long examination, he would just +whisper, "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," and +refuse to divulge any details of a future too appalling to be +envisaged without despair. Sesostris had a success of horror. +People stood in a queue outside the witch's booth waiting for the +privilege of hearing sentence pronounced upon them. + +Denis, in the course of his round, looked with curiosity at this +crowd of suppliants before the shrine of the oracle. He had a +great desire to see how Mr. Scogan played his part. The canvas +booth was a rickety, ill-made structure. Between its walls and +its sagging roof were long gaping chinks and crannies. Denis +went to the tea-tent and borrowed a wooden bench and a small +Union Jack. With these he hurried back to the booth of +Sesostris. Setting down the bench at the back of the booth, he +climbed up, and with a great air of busy efficiency began to tie +the Union Jack to the top of one of the tent-poles. Through the +crannies in the canvas he could see almost the whole of the +interior of the tent. Mr. Scogan's bandana-covered head was just +below him; his terrifying whispers came clearly up. Denis looked +and listened while the witch prophesied financial losses, death +by apoplexy, destruction by air-raids in the next war. + +"Is there going to be another war?" asked the old lady to whom he +had predicted this end. + +"Very soon," said Mr. Scogan, with an air of quiet confidence. + +The old lady was succeeded by a girl dressed in white muslin, +garnished with pink ribbons. She was wearing a broad hat, so +that Denis could not see her face; but from her figure and the +roundness of her bare arms he judged her young and pleasing. Mr. +Scogan looked at her hand, then whispered, "You are still +virtuous." + +The young lady giggled and exclaimed, "Oh, lor'!" + +"But you will not remain so for long," added Mr. Scogan +sepulchrally. The young lady giggled again. "Destiny, which +interests itself in small things no less than in great, has +announced the fact upon your hand." Mr. Scogan took up the +magnifying-glass and began once more to examine the white palm. +"Very interesting," he said, as though to himself--"very +interesting. It's as clear as day." He was silent. + +"What's clear?" asked the girl. + +"I don't think I ought to tell you." Mr. Scogan shook his head; +the pendulous brass ear-rings which he had screwed on to his ears +tinkled. + +"Please, please!," she implored. + +The witch seemed to ignore her remark. "Afterwards, it's not at +all clear. The fates don't say whether you will settle down to +married life and have four children or whether you will try to go +on the cinema and have none. They are only specific about this +one rather crucial incident." + +"What is it? What is it? Oh, do tell me!" + +The white muslin figure leant eagerly forward. + +Mr. Scogan sighed. "Very well," he said, "if you must know, you +must know. But if anything untoward happens you must blame your +own curiosity. Listen. Listen." He lifted up a sharp, claw- +nailed forefinger. "This is what the fates have written. Next +Sunday afternoon at six o'clock you will be sitting on the second +stile on the footpath that leads from the church to the lower +road. At that moment a man will appear walking along the +footpath." Mr. Scogan looked at her hand again as though to +refresh his memory of the details of the scene. "A man," he +repeated--"a small man with a sharp nose, not exactly good +looking nor precisely young, but fascinating." He lingered +hissingly over the word. "He will ask you, 'Can you tell me the +way to Paradise?' and you will answer, 'Yes, I'll show you,' and +walk with him down towards the little hazel copse. I cannot read +what will happen after that." There was a silence. + +"Is it really true?" asked white muslin. + +The witch gave a shrug of the shoulders. "I merely tell you what +I read in your hand. Good afternoon. That will be sixpence. +Yes, I have change. Thank you. Good afternoon." + +Denis stepped down from the bench; tied insecurely and crookedly +to the tentpole, the Union Jack hung limp on the windless air. +"If only I could do things like that!" he thought, as he carried +the bench back to the tea-tent. + +Anne was sitting behind a long table filling thick white cups +from an urn. A neat pile of printed sheets lay before her on the +table. Denis took one of them and looked at it affectionately. +It was his poem. They had printed five hundred copies, and very +nice the quarto broadsheets looked. + +"Have you sold many?" he asked in a casual tone. + +Anne put her head on one side deprecatingly. "Only three so far, +I'm afraid. But I'm giving a free copy to everyone who spends +more than a shilling on his tea. So in any case it's having a +circulation." + +Denis made no reply, but walked slowly away. He looked at the +broadsheet in his hand and read the lines to himself relishingly +as he walked along: + +"This day of roundabouts and swings, +Struck weights, shied cocoa-nuts, tossed rings, +Switchbacks, Aunt Sallies, and all such small +High jinks--you call it ferial? +A holiday? But paper noses +Sniffed the artificial roses +Of round Venetian cheeks through half +Each carnival year, and masks might laugh +At things the naked face for shame +Would blush at--laugh and think no blame. +A holiday? But Galba showed +Elephants on an airy road; +Jumbo trod the tightrope then, +And in the circus armed men +Stabbed home for sport and died to break +Those dull imperatives that make +A prison of every working day, +Where all must drudge and all obey. +Sing Holiday! You do not know +How to be free. The Russian snow +flowered with bright blood whose roses spread +Petals of fading, fading red +That died into the snow again, +Into the virgin snow; and men +From all ancient bonds were freed. +Old law, old custom, and old creed, +Old right and wrong there bled to death; +The frozen air received their breath, +A little smoke that died away; +And round about them where they lay +The snow bloomed roses. Blood was there +A red gay flower and only fair. +Sing Holiday! Beneath the Tree +Of Innocence and Liberty, +Paper Nose and Red Cockade +Dance within the magic shade +That makes them drunken, merry, and strong +To laugh and sing their ferial song: +'Free, free...!' +But Echo answers +Faintly to the laughing dancers, +'Free'--and faintly laughs, and still, +Within the hollows of the hill, +Faintlier laughs and whispers, 'Free,' +Fadingly, diminishingly: +'Free,' and laughter faints away... +Sing Holiday! Sing Holiday!" + +He folded the sheet carefully and put it in his pocket. The +thing had its merits. Oh, decidedly, decidedly! But how +unpleasant the crowd smelt! He lit a cigarette. The smell of +cows was preferable. He passed through the gate in the park wall +into the garden. The swimming-pool was a centre of noise and +activity. + +"Second Heat in the Young Ladies' Championship." It was the +polite voice of Henry Wimbush. A crowd of sleek, seal-like +figures in black bathing-dresses surrounded him. His grey bowler +hat, smooth, round, and motionless in the midst of a moving sea, +was an island of aristocratic calm. + +Holding his tortoise-shell-rimmed pince-nez an inch or two in +front of his eyes, he read out names from a list. + +"Miss Dolly Miles, Miss Rebecca Balister, Miss Doris Gabell..." + +Five young persons ranged themselves on the brink. From their +seats of honour at the other end of the pool, old Lord Moleyn and +Mr. Callamay looked on with eager interest. + +Henry Wimbush raised his hand. There was an expectant silence. +"When I say 'Go,' go. Go!" he said. There was an almost +simultaneous splash. + +Denis pushed his way through the spectators. Somebody plucked +him by the sleeve; he looked down. It was old Mrs. Budge. + +"Delighted to see you again, Mr. Stone," she said in her rich, +husky voice. She panted a little as she spoke, like a short- +winded lap-dog. It was Mrs. Budge who, having read in the "Daily +Mirror" that the Government needed peach stones--what they needed +them for she never knew--had made the collection of peach stones +her peculiar "bit" of war work. She had thirty-six peach trees +in her walled garden, as well as four hot-houses in which trees +could be forced, so that she was able to eat peaches practically +the whole year round. In 1916 she ate 4200 peaches, and sent the +stones to the Government. In 1917 the military authorities +called up three of her gardeners, and what with this and the fact +that it was a bad year for wall fruit, she only managed to eat +2900 peaches during that crucial period of the national +destinies. In 1918 she did rather better, for between January +1st and the date of the Armistice she ate 3300 peaches. Since +the Armistice she had relaxed her efforts; now she did not eat +more than two or three peaches a day. Her constitution, she +complained, had suffered; but it had suffered for a good cause. + +Denis answered her greeting by a vague and polite noise. + +"So nice to see the young people enjoying themselves," Mrs. Budge +went on. "And the old people too, for that matter. Look at old +Lord Moleyn and dear Mr. Callamay. Isn't it delightful to see +the way they enjoy themselves?" + +Denis looked. He wasn't sure whether it was so very delightful +after all. Why didn't they go and watch the sack races? The two +old gentlemen were engaged at the moment in congratulating the +winner of the race; it seemed an act of supererogatory +graciousness; for, after all, she had only won a heat. + +"Pretty little thing, isn't she?" said Mrs. Budge huskily, and +panted two or three times. + +"Yes," Denis nodded agreement. Sixteen, slender, but nubile, he +said to himself, and laid up the phrase in his memory as a happy +one. Old Mr. Callamay had put on his spectacles to congratulate +the victor, and Lord Moleyn, leaning forward over his walking- +stick, showed his long ivory teeth, hungrily smiling. + +"Capital performance, capital," Mr. Callamay was saying in his +deep voice. + +The victor wriggled with embarrassment. She stood with her hands +behind her back, rubbing one foot nervously on the other. Her +wet bathing-dress shone, a torso of black polished marble. + +"Very good indeed," said Lord Moleyn. His voice seemed to come +from just behind his teeth, a toothy voice. It was as though a +dog should suddenly begin to speak. He smiled again, Mr. +Callamay readjusted his spectacles. + +"When I say 'Go,' go. Go!" + +Splash! The third heat had started. + +"Do you know, I never could learn to swim," said Mrs. Budge. + +"Really?" + +"But I used to be able to float." + +Denis imagined her floating--up and down, up and down on a great +green swell. A blown black bladder; no, that wasn't good, that +wasn't good at all. A new winner was being congratulated. She +was atrociously stubby and fat. The last one, long and +harmoniously, continuously curved from knee to breast, had been +an Eve by Cranach; but this, this one was a bad Rubens. + +"...go--go--go!" Henry Wimbush's polite level voice once more +pronounced the formula. Another batch of young ladies dived in. + +Grown a little weary of sustaining a conversation with Mrs. +Budge, Denis conveniently remembered that his duties as a steward +called him elsewhere. He pushed out through the lines of +spectators and made his way along the path left clear behind +them. He was thinking again that his soul was a pale, tenuous +membrane, when he was startled by hearing a thin, sibilant voice, +speaking apparently from just above his head, pronounce the +single word "Disgusting!" + +He looked up sharply. The path along which he was walking passed +under the lee of a wall of clipped yew. Behind the hedge the +ground sloped steeply up towards the foot of the terrace and the +house; for one standing on the higher ground it was easy to look +over the dark barrier. Looking up, Denis saw two heads +overtopping the hedge immediately above him. He recognised the +iron mask of Mr. Bodiham and the pale, colourless face of his +wife. They were looking over his head, over the heads of the +spectators, at the swimmers in the pond. + +"Disgusting!" Mrs. Bodiham repeated, hissing softly. + +The rector turned up his iron mask towards the solid cobalt of +the sky. "How long?" he said, as though to himself; "how long?" +He lowered his eyes again, and they fell on Denis's upturned +curious face. There was an abrupt movement, and Mr. and Mrs. +Bodiham popped out of sight behind the hedge. + +Denis continued his promenade. He wandered past the merry-go- +round, through the thronged streets of the canvas village; the +membrane of his soul flapped tumultuously in the noise and +laughter. In a roped-off space beyond, Mary was directing the +children's sports. Little creatures seethed round about her, +making a shrill, tinny clamour; others clustered about the skirts +and trousers of their parents. Mary's face was shining in the +heat; with an immense output of energy she started a three-legged +race. Denis looked on in admiration. + +"You're wonderful," he said, coming up behind her and touching +her on the arm. "I've never seen such energy." + +She turned towards him a face, round, red, and honest as the +setting sun; the golden bell of her hair swung silently as she +moved her head and quivered to rest. + +"Do you know, Denis," she said, in a low, serious voice, gasping +a little as she spoke--"do you know that there's a woman here who +has had three children in thirty-one months?" + +"Really," said Denis, making rapid mental calculations. + +"It's appalling. I've been telling her about the Malthusian +League. One really ought..." + +But a sudden violent renewal of the metallic yelling announced +the fact that somebody had won the race. Mary became once more +the centre of a dangerous vortex. It was time, Denis thought, to +move on; he might be asked to do something if he stayed too long. + +He turned back towards the canvas village. The thought of tea +was making itself insistent in his mind. Tea, tea, tea. But the +tea-tent was horribly thronged. Anne, with an unusual expression +of grimness on her flushed face, was furiously working the handle +of the urn; the brown liquid spurted incessantly into the +proffered cups. Portentous, in the farther corner of the tent, +Priscilla, in her royal toque, was encouraging the villagers. In +a momentary lull Denis could hear her deep, jovial laughter and +her manly voice. Clearly, he told himself, this was no place for +one who wanted tea. He stood irresolute at the entrance to the +tent. A beautiful thought suddenly came to him; if he went back +to the house, went unobtrusively, without being observed, if he +tiptoed into the dining-room and noiselessly opened the little +doors of the sideboard--ah, then! In the cool recess within he +would find bottles and a siphon; a bottle of crystal gin and a +quart of soda water, and then for the cups that inebriate as well +as cheer... + +A minute later he was walking briskly up the shady yew-tree walk. +Within the house it was deliciously quiet and cool. Carrying his +well-filled tumbler with care, he went into the library. There, +the glass on the corner of the table beside him, he settled into +a chair with a volume of Sainte-Beuve. There was nothing, he +found, like a Causerie du Lundi for settling and soothing the +troubled spirits. That tenuous membrane of his had been too +rudely buffeted by the afternoon's emotions; it required a rest. + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +Towards sunset the fair itself became quiescent. It was the hour +for the dancing to begin. At one side of the village of tents a +space had been roped off. Acetylene lamps, hung round it on +posts, cast a piercing white light. In one corner sat the band, +and, obedient to its scraping and blowing, two or three hundred +dancers trampled across the dry ground, wearing away the grass +with their booted feet. Round this patch of all but daylight, +alive with motion and noise, the night seemed preternaturally +dark. Bars of light reached out into it, and every now and then +a lonely figure or a couple of lovers, interlaced, would cross +the bright shaft, flashing for a moment into visible existence, +to disappear again as quickly and surprisingly as they had come. + +Denis stood by the entrance of the enclosure, watching the +swaying, shuffling crowd. The slow vortex brought the couples +round and round again before him, as though he were passing them +in review. There was Priscilla, still wearing her queenly toque, +still encouraging the villagers--this time by dancing with one of +the tenant farmers. There was Lord Moleyn, who had stayed on to +the disorganised, passoverish meal that took the place of dinner +on this festal day; he one-stepped shamblingly, his bent knees +more precariously wobbly than ever, with a terrified village +beauty. Mr. Scogan trotted round with another. Mary was in the +embrace of a young farmer of heroic proportions; she was looking +up at him, talking, as Denis could see, very seriously. What +about? he wondered. The Malthusian League, perhaps. Seated in +the corner among the band, Jenny was performing wonders of +virtuosity upon the drums. Her eyes shone, she smiled to +herself. A whole subterranean life seemed to be expressing +itself in those loud rat-tats, those long rolls and flourishes of +drumming. Looking at her, Denis ruefully remembered the red +notebook; he wondered what sort of a figure he was cutting now. +But the sight of Anne and Gombauld swimming past--Anne with her +eyes almost shut and sleeping, as it were, on the sustaining +wings of movement and music--dissipated these preoccupations. +Male and female created He them...There they were, Anne and +Gombauld, and a hundred couples more--all stepping harmoniously +together to the old tune of Male and Female created He them. But +Denis sat apart; he alone lacked his complementary opposite. +They were all coupled but he; all but he... + +Somebody touched him on the shoulder and he looked up. It was +Henry Wimbush. + +"I never showed you our oaken drainpipes," he said. "Some of the +ones we dug up are lying quite close to here. Would you like to +come and see them?" + +Denis got up, and they walked off together into the darkness. +The music grew fainter behind them. Some of the higher notes +faded out altogether. Jenny's drumming and the steady sawing of +the bass throbbed on, tuneless and meaningless in their ears. +Henry Wimbush halted. + +"Here we are," he said, and, taking an electric torch out of his +pocket, he cast a dim beam over two or three blackened sections +of tree trunk, scooped out into the semblance of pipes, which +were lying forlornly in a little depression in the ground. + +"Very interesting," said Denis, with a rather tepid enthusiasm. + +They sat down on the grass. A faint white glare, rising from +behind a belt of trees, indicated the position of the dancing- +floor. The music was nothing but a muffled rhythmic pulse. + +"I shall be glad," said Henry Wimbush, "when this function comes +at last to an end." + +"I can believe it." + +"I do not know how it is," Mr. Wimbush continued, "but the +spectacle of numbers of my fellow-creatures in a state of +agitation moves in me a certain weariness, rather than any gaiety +or excitement. The fact is, they don't very much interest me. +They're aren't in my line. You follow me? I could never take +much interest, for example, in a collection of postage stamps. +Primitives or seventeenth-century books--yes. They are my line. +But stamps, no. I don't know anything about them; they're not my +line. They don't interest me, they give me no emotion. It's +rather the same with people, I'm afraid. I'm more at home with +these pipes." He jerked his head sideways towards the hollowed +logs. "The trouble with the people and events of the present is +that you never know anything about them. What do I know of +contemporary politics? Nothing. What do I know of the people I +see round about me? Nothing. What they think of me or of +anything else in the world, what they will do in five minutes' +time, are things I can't guess at. For all I know, you may +suddenly jump up and try to murder me in a moment's time." + +"Come, come," said Denis. + +"True," Mr. Wimbush continued, "the little I know about your past +is certainly reassuring. But I know nothing of your present, and +neither you nor I know anything of your future. It's appalling; +in living people, one is dealing with unknown and unknowable +quantities. One can only hope to find out anything about them by +a long series of the most disagreeable and boring human contacts, +involving a terrible expense of time. It's the same with current +events; how can I find out anything about them except by devoting +years to the most exhausting first-hand study, involving once +more an endless number of the most unpleasant contacts? No, give +me the past. It doesn't change; it's all there in black and +white, and you can get to know about it comfortably and +decorously and, above all, privately--by reading. By reading I +know a great deal of Caesar Borgia, of St. Francis, of Dr. +Johnson; a few weeks have made me thoroughly acquainted with +these interesting characters, and I have been spared the tedious +and revolting process of getting to know them by personal +contact, which I should have to do if they were living now. How +gay and delightful life would be if one could get rid of all the +human contacts! Perhaps, in the future, when machines have +attained to a state of perfection--for I confess that I am, like +Godwin and Shelley, a believer in perfectibility, the +perfectibility of machinery--then, perhaps, it will be possible +for those who, like myself, desire it, to live in a dignified +seclusion, surrounded by the delicate attentions of silent and +graceful machines, and entirely secure from any human intrusion. +It is a beautiful thought." + +"Beautiful," Denis agreed. "But what about the desirable human +contacts, like love and friendship?" + +The black silhouette against the darkness shook its head. "The +pleasures even of these contacts are much exaggerated," said the +polite level voice. "It seems to me doubtful whether they are +equal to the pleasures of private reading and contemplation. +Human contacts have been so highly valued in the past only +because reading was not a common accomplishment and because books +were scarce and difficult to reproduce. The world, you must +remember, is only just becoming literate. As reading becomes +more and more habitual and widespread, an ever-increasing number +of people will discover that books will give them all the +pleasures of social life and none of its intolerable tedium. At +present people in search of pleasure naturally tend to congregate +in large herds and to make a noise; in future their natural +tendency will be to seek solitude and quiet. The proper study of +mankind is books." + +"I sometimes think that it may be," said Denis; he was wondering +if Anne and Gombauld were still dancing together. + +"Instead of which," said Mr. Wimbush, with a sigh, "I must go and +see if all is well on the dancing-floor." They got up and began +to walk slowly towards the white glare. "If all these people +were dead," Henry Wimbush went on, "this festivity would be +extremely agreeable. Nothing would be pleasanter than to read in +a well-written book of an open-air ball that took place a century +ago. How charming! one would say; how pretty and how amusing! +But when the ball takes place to-day, when one finds oneself +involved in it, then one sees the thing in its true light. It +turns out to be merely this." He waved his hand in the direction +of the acetylene flares. "In my youth," he went on after a +pause, "I found myself, quite fortuitously, involved in a series +of the most phantasmagorical amorous intrigues. A novelist could +have made his fortune out of them, and even if I were to tell +you, in my bald style, the details of these adventures, you would +be amazed at the romantic tale. But I assure you, while they +were happening--these romantic adventures--they seemed to me no +more and no less exciting than any other incident of actual life. +To climb by night up a rope-ladder to a second-floor window in an +old house in Toledo seemed to me, while I was actually performing +this rather dangerous feat, an action as obvious, as much to be +taken for granted, as--how shall I put it?--as quotidian as +catching the 8.52 from Surbiton to go to business on a Monday +morning. Adventures and romance only take on their adventurous +and romantic qualities at second-hand. Live them, and they are +just a slice of life like the rest. In literature they become as +charming as this dismal ball would be if we were celebrating its +tercentenary." They had come to the entrance of the enclosure +and stood there, blinking in the dazzling light. "Ah, if only we +were!" Henry Wimbush added. + +Anne and Gombauld were still dancing together. + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +It was after ten o'clock. The dancers had already dispersed and +the last lights were being put out. To-morrow the tents would be +struck, the dismantled merry-go-round would be packed into +waggons and carted away. An expanse of worn grass, a shabby +brown patch in the wide green of the park, would be all that +remained. Crome Fair was over. + +By the edge of the pool two figures lingered. + +"No, no, no," Anne was saying in a breathless whisper, leaning +backwards, turning her head from side to side in an effort to +escape Gombauld's kisses. "No, please. No." Her raised voice +had become imperative. + +Gombauld relaxed his embrace a little. "Why not?" he said. "I +will." + +With a sudden effort Anne freed herself. "You won't," she +retorted. "You've tried to take the most unfair advantage of +me." + +"Unfair advantage?" echoed Gombauld in genuine surprise. + +"Yes, unfair advantage. You attack me after I've been dancing +for two hours, while I'm still reeling drunk with the movement, +when I've lost my head, when I've got no mind left but only a +rhythmical body! It's as bad as making love to someone you've +drugged or intoxicated." + +Gombauld laughed angrily. "Call me a White Slaver and have done +with it." + +"Luckily," said Anne, "I am now completely sobered, and if you +try and kiss me again I shall box your ears. Shall we take a few +turns round the pool?" she added. "The night is delicious." + +For answer Gombauld made an irritated noise. They paced off +slowly, side by side. + +"What I like about the painting of Degas..." Anne began in her +most detached and conversational tone. + +"Oh, damn Degas!" Gombauld was almost shouting. + +From where he stood, leaning in an attitude of despair against +the parapet of the terrace, Denis had seen them, the two pale +figures in a patch of moonlight, far down by the pool's edge. He +had seen the beginning of what promised to be an endless +passionate embracement, and at the sight he had fled. It was too +much; he couldn't stand it. In another moment, he felt, he would +have burst into irrepressible tears. + +Dashing blindly into the house, he almost ran into Mr. Scogan, +who was walking up and down the hall smoking a final pipe. + +"Hullo!" said Mr. Scogan, catching him by the arm; dazed and +hardly conscious of what he was doing or where he was, Denis +stood there for a moment like a somnambulist. "What's the +matter?" Mr. Scogan went on. "you look disturbed, distressed, +depressed." + +Denis shook his head without replying. + +"Worried about the cosmos, eh?" Mr. Scogan patted him on the arm. +"I know the feeling," he said. "It's a most distressing symptom. +'What's the point of it all? All is vanity. What's the good of +continuing to function if one's doomed to be snuffed out at last +along with everything else?' Yes, yes. I know exactly how you +feel. It's most distressing if one allows oneself to be +distressed. But then why allow oneself to be distressed? After +all, we all know that there's no ultimate point. But what +difference does that make?" + +At this point the somnambulist suddenly woke up. "What?" he +said, blinking and frowning at his interlocutor. "What?" Then +breaking away he dashed up the stairs, two steps at a time. + +Mr. Scogan ran to the foot of the stairs and called up after him. +"It makes no difference, none whatever. Life is gay all the +same, always, under whatever circumstances--under whatever +circumstances," he added, raising his voice to a shout. But +Denis was already far out of hearing, and even if he had not +been, his mind to-night was proof against all the consolations of +philosophy. Mr. Scogan replaced his pipe between his teeth and +resumed his meditative pacing. "Under any circumstances," he +repeated to himself. It was ungrammatical to begin with; was it +true? And is life really its own reward? He wondered. When his +pipe had burned itself to its stinking conclusion he took a drink +of gin and went to bed. In ten minutes he was deeply, innocently +asleep. + +Denis had mechanically undressed and, clad in those flowered silk +pyjamas of which he was so justly proud, was lying face downwards +on his bed. Time passed. When at last he looked up, the candle +which he had left alight at his bedside had burned down almost to +the socket. He looked at his watch; it was nearly half-past one. +His head ached, his dry, sleepless eyes felt as though they had +been bruised from behind, and the blood was beating within his +ears a loud arterial drum. He got up, opened the door, tiptoed +noiselessly along the passage, and began to mount the stairs +towards the higher floors. Arrived at the servants' quarters +under the roof, he hesitated, then turning to the right he opened +a little door at the end of the corridor. Within was a pitch- +dark cupboard-like boxroom, hot, stuffy, and smelling of dust and +old leather. He advanced cautiously into the blackness, groping +with his hands. It was from this den that the ladder went up to +the leads of the western tower. He found the ladder, and set his +feet on the rungs; noiselessly, he lifted the trap-door above his +head; the moonlit sky was over him, he breathed the fresh, cool +air of the night. In a moment he was standing on the leads, +gazing out over the dim, colourless landscape, looking +perpendicularly down at the terrace seventy feet below. + +Why had he climbed up to this high, desolate place? Was it to +look at the moon? Was it to commit suicide? As yet he hardly +knew. Death--the tears came into his eyes when he thought of it. +His misery assumed a certain solemnity; he was lifted up on the +wings of a kind of exaltation. It was a mood in which he might +have done almost anything, however foolish. He advanced towards +the farther parapet; the drop was sheer there and uninterrupted. +A good leap, and perhaps one might clear the narrow terrace and +so crash down yet another thirty feet to the sun-baked ground +below. He paused at the corner of the tower, looking now down +into the shadowy gulf below, now up towards the rare stars and +the waning moon. He made a gesture with his hand, muttered +something, he could not afterwards remember what; but the fact +that he had said it aloud gave the utterance a peculiarly +terrible significance. Then he looked down once more into the +depths. + +"What ARE you doing, Denis?" questioned a voice from somewhere +very close behind him. + +Denis uttered a cry of frightened surprise, and very nearly went +over the parapet in good earnest. His heart was beating +terribly, and he was pale when, recovering himself, he turned +round in the direction from which the voice had come. + +"Are you ill?" + +In the profound shadow that slept under the eastern parapet of +the tower, he saw something he had not previously noticed--an +oblong shape. It was a mattress, and someone was lying on it. +Since that first memorable night on the tower, Mary had slept out +every evening; it was a sort of manifestation of fidelity. + +"It gave me a fright," she went on, "to wake up and see you +waving your arms and gibbering there. What on earth were you +doing?" + +Denis laughed melodramatically. "What, indeed!" he said. If she +hadn't woken up as she did, he would be lying in pieces at the +bottom of the tower; he was certain of that, now. + +"You hadn't got designs on me, I hope?" Mary inquired, jumping +too rapidly to conclusions. + +"I didn't know you were here," said Denis, laughing more bitterly +and artificially than before. + +"What IS the matter, Denis?" + +He sat down on the edge of the mattress, and for all reply went +on laughing in the same frightful and improbable tone. + +An hour later he was reposing with his head on Mary's knees, and +she, with an affectionate solicitude that was wholly maternal, +was running her fingers through his tangled hair. He had told +her everything, everything: his hopeless love, his jealousy, his +despair, his suicide--as it were providentially averted by her +interposition. He had solemnly promised never to think of self- +destruction again. And now his soul was floating in a sad +serenity. It was embalmed in the sympathy that Mary so +generously poured. And it was not only in receiving sympathy +that Denis found serenity and even a kind of happiness; it was +also in giving it. For if he had told Mary everything about his +miseries, Mary, reacting to these confidences, had told him in +return everything, or very nearly everything, about her own. + +"Poor Mary!" He was very sorry for her. Still, she might have +guessed that Ivor wasn't precisely a monument of constancy. + +"Well," she concluded, "one must put a good face on it." She +wanted to cry, but she wouldn't allow herself to be weak. There +was a silence. + +"Do you think," asked Denis hesitatingly--"do you really think +that she...that Gombauld..." + +"I'm sure of it," Mary answered decisively. There was another +long pause. + +"I don't know what to do about it," he said at last, utterly +dejected. + +"You'd better go away," advised Mary. "It's the safest thing, +and the most sensible." + +"But I've arranged to stay here three weeks more." + +"You must concoct an excuse." + +"I suppose you're right." + +"I know I am," said Mary, who was recovering all her firm self- +possession. "You can't go on like this, can you?" + +"No, I can't go on like this," he echoed. + +Immensely practical, Mary invented a plan of action. +Startlingly, in the darkness, the church clock struck three. + +"You must go to bed at once," she said. "I'd no idea it was so +late." + +Denis clambered down the ladder, cautiously descended the +creaking stairs. His room was dark; the candle had long ago +guttered to extinction. He got into bed and fell asleep almost +at once. + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +Denis had been called, but in spite of the parted curtains he had +dropped off again into that drowsy, dozy state when sleep becomes +a sensual pleasure almost consciously savoured. In this +condition he might have remained for another hour if he had not +been disturbed by a violent rapping at the door. + +"Come in," he mumbled, without opening his eyes. The latch +clicked, a hand seized him by the shoulder and he was rudely +shaken. + +"Get up, get up!" + +His eyelids blinked painfully apart, and he saw Mary standing +over him, bright-faced and earnest. + +"Get up!" she repeated. "You must go and send the telegram. +Don't you remember?" + +"O Lord!" He threw off the bed-clothes; his tormentor retired. + +Denis dressed as quickly as he could and ran up the road to the +village post office. Satisfaction glowed within him as he +returned. He had sent a long telegram, which would in a few +hours evoke an answer ordering him back to town at once--on +urgent business. It was an act performed, a decisive step taken +--and he so rarely took decisive steps; he felt pleased with +himself. It was with a whetted appetite that he came in to +breakfast. + +"Good-morning," said Mr. Scogan. "I hope you're better." + +"Better?" + +"You were rather worried about the cosmos last night." + +Denis tried to laugh away the impeachment. "Was I?" he lightly +asked. + +"I wish," said Mr. Scogan, "that I had nothing worse to prey on +my mind. I should be a happy man." + +"One is only happy in action," Denis enunciated, thinking of the +telegram. + +He looked out of the window. Great florid baroque clouds floated +high in the blue heaven. A wind stirred among the trees, and +their shaken foliage twinkled and glittered like metal in the +sun. Everything seemed marvellously beautiful. At the thought +that he would soon be leaving all this beauty he felt a momentary +pang; but he comforted himself by recollecting how decisively he +was acting. + +"Action," he repeated aloud, and going over to the sideboard he +helped himself to an agreeable mixture of bacon and fish. + +Breakfast over, Denis repaired to the terrace, and, sitting +there, raised the enormous bulwark of the "Times" against the +possible assaults of Mr. Scogan, who showed an unappeased desire +to go on talking about the Universe. Secure behind the crackling +pages, he meditated. In the light of this brilliant morning the +emotions of last night seemed somehow rather remote. And what if +he had seen them embracing in the moonlight? Perhaps it didn't +mean much after all. And even if it did, why shouldn't he stay? +He felt strong enough to stay, strong enough to be aloof, +disinterested, a mere friendly acquaintance. And even if he +weren't strong enough... + +"What time do you think the telegram will arrive?" asked Mary +suddenly, thrusting in upon him over the top of the paper. + +Denis started guiltily. "I don't know at all," he said. + +"I was only wondering," said Mary, "because there's a very good +train at 3.27, and it would be nice if you could catch it, +wouldn't it?" + +"Awfully nice," he agreed weakly. He felt as though he were +making arrangements for his own funeral. Train leaves Waterloo +3.27. No flowers...Mary was gone. No, he was blowed if he'd let +himself be hurried down to the Necropolis like this. He was +blowed. The sight of Mr. Scogan looking out, with a hungry +expression, from the drawing-room window made him precipitately +hoist the "Times" once more. For a long while he kept it +hoisted. Lowering it at last to take another cautious peep at +his surroundings, he found himself, with what astonishment! +confronted by Anne's faint, amused, malicious smile. She was +standing before him,--the woman who was a tree,--the swaying +grace of her movement arrested in a pose that seemed itself a +movement. + +"How long have you been standing there?" he asked, when he had +done gaping at her. + +"Oh, about half an hour, I suppose," she said airily. "You were +so very deep in your paper--head over ears--I didn't like to +disturb you." + +"You look lovely this morning," Denis exclaimed. It was the +first time he had ever had the courage to utter a personal remark +of the kind. + +Anne held up her hand as though to ward off a blow. "Don't +bludgeon me, please." She sat down on the bench beside him. He +was a nice boy, she thought, quite charming; and Gombauld's +violent insistences were really becoming rather tiresome. "Why +don't you wear white trousers?" she asked. "I like you so much +in white trousers." + +"They're at the wash," Denis replied rather curtly. This white- +trouser business was all in the wrong spirit. He was just +preparing a scheme to manoeuvre the conversation back to the +proper path, when Mr. Scogan suddenly darted out of the house, +crossed the terrace with clockwork rapidity, and came to a halt +in front of the bench on which they were seated. + +"To go on with our interesting conversation about the cosmos," he +began, "I become more and more convinced that the various parts +of the concern are fundamentally discrete...But would you mind, +Denis, moving a shade to your right?" He wedged himself between +them on the bench. "And if you would shift a few inches to the +left, my dear Anne...Thank you. Discrete, I think, was what I +was saying." + +"You were," said Anne. Denis was speechless. + +They were taking their after luncheon coffee in the library when +the telegram arrived. Denis blushed guiltily as he took the +orange envelope from the salver and tore it open. "Return at +once. Urgent family business." It was too ridiculous. As if he +had any family business! Wouldn't it be best just to crumple the +thing up and put it in his pocket without saying anything about +it? He looked up; Mary's large blue china eyes were fixed upon +him, seriously, penetratingly. He blushed more deeply than ever, +hesitated in a horrible uncertainty. + +"What's your telegram about?" Mary asked significantly. + +He lost his head, "I'm afraid," he mumbled, "I'm afraid this +means I shall have to go back to town at once." He frowned at +the telegram ferociously. + +"But that's absurd, impossible," cried Anne. She had been +standing by the window talking to Gombauld; but at Denis's words +she came swaying across the room towards him. + +"It's urgent," he repeated desperately. + +"But you've only been here such a short time," Anne protested. + +"I know," he said, utterly miserable. Oh, if only she could +understand! Women were supposed to have intuition. + +"If he must go, he must," put in Mary firmly. + +"Yes, I must." He looked at the telegram again for inspiration. +"You see, it's urgent family business," he explained. + +Priscilla got up from her chair in some excitement. "I had a +distinct presentiment of this last night," she said. "A distinct +presentiment." + +"A mere coincidence, no doubt," said Mary, brushing Mrs. Wimbush +out of the conversation. "There's a very good train at 3.27." +She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. "You'll have nice +time to pack." + +"I'll order the motor at once." Henry Wimbush rang the bell. +The funeral was well under way. It was awful, awful. + +"I am wretched you should be going," said Anne. + +Denis turned towards her; she really did look wretched. He +abandoned himself hopelessly, fatalistically to his destiny. +This was what came of action, of doing something decisive. If +only he'd just let things drift! If only... + +"I shall miss your conversation," said Mr. Scogan. + +Mary looked at the clock again. "I think perhaps you ought to go +and pack," she said. + +Obediently Denis left the room. Never again, he said to himself, +never again would he do anything decisive. Camlet, West Bowlby, +Knipswich for Timpany, Spavin Delawarr; and then all the other +stations; and then, finally, London. The thought of the journey +appalled him. And what on earth was he going to do in London +when he got there? He climbed wearily up the stairs. It was +time for him to lay himself in his coffin. + +The car was at the door--the hearse. The whole party had +assembled to see him go. Good-bye, good-bye. Mechanically he +tapped the barometer that hung in the porch; the needle stirred +perceptibly to the left. A sudden smile lighted up his +lugubrious face. + +"'It sinks and I am ready to depart,'" he said, quoting Landor +with an exquisite aptness. He looked quickly round from face to +face. Nobody had noticed. He climbed into the hearse. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Crome Yellow, by Aldous Huxley + diff --git a/old/crmyl10.zip b/old/crmyl10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0bfc2d5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/crmyl10.zip |