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diff --git a/old/60483-0.txt b/old/60483-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 913dfc4..0000000 --- a/old/60483-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10675 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Antic Hay, by Aldous Huxley - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: Antic Hay - -Author: Aldous Huxley - -Release Date: October 13, 2019 [EBook #60483] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANTIC HAY *** - - - - -Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - _THE - PHOENIX LIBRARY_ - - - - - ANTIC HAY - - - - - _THE PHOENIX LIBRARY_ - - - QUEEN VICTORIA _by_ Lytton Strachey - EMINENT VICTORIANS Lytton Strachey - ANTIC HAY Aldous Huxley - ALONG THE ROAD Aldous Huxley - TALES OF THE FIVE TOWNS Arnold Bennett - THE MERCY OF ALLAH Hilaire Belloc - LADY INTO FOX and A MAN IN THE ZOO (1 vol.) David Garnett - BOOKS & CHARACTERS Lytton Strachey - FIERY PARTICLES C. E. Montague - FIRST PLAYS A. A. Milne - CROME YELLOW Aldous Huxley - ART Clive Bell - DISENCHANTMENT C. E. Montague - THOSE BARREN LEAVES Aldous Huxley - VISION AND DESIGN Roger Fry - ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST Julian Huxley - PLAYS Richard Hughes - LIMBO Aldous Huxley - SECOND PLAYS A. A. Milne - THE RIGHT PLACE C. E. Montague - THE SAILOR’S RETURN David Garnett - MORTAL COILS Aldous Huxley - MR. WESTON’S GOOD WINE T. F. Powys - LOLLY WILLOWES Sylvia Townsend Warner - ON THE MARGIN Aldous Huxley - THE GRIM SMILE OF THE FIVE TOWNS Arnold Bennett - TARR Wyndham Lewis - LITTLE MEXICAN Aldous Huxley - - - 97 & 99 St. Martin’s Lane - London, W. C. 2 - - - - - ANTIC HAY - - - _By_ - - ALDOUS HUXLEY - -[Illustration] - - CHATTO AND WINDUS - LONDON - - - - - First published November 1923 - - - Printed in Great Britain; all rights reserved - - - - - MY MEN LIKE SATYRS GRAZING ON THE LAWNS - SHALL WITH THEIR GOAT-FEET DANCE THE ANTIC HAY. - _Marlowe_ - - - - - ANTIC HAY - - - - - CHAPTER I - - -Gumbril, Theodore Gumbril Junior, B.A. Oxon., sat in his oaken stall on -the north side of the School Chapel and wondered, as he listened through -the uneasy silence of half a thousand schoolboys to the First Lesson, -pondered, as he looked up at the vast window opposite, all blue and -jaundiced and bloody with nineteenth-century glass, speculated in his -rapid and rambling way about the existence and the nature of God. - -Standing in front of the spread brass eagle and fortified in his -convictions by the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy (for this first Sunday -of term was the Fifth after Easter), the Reverend Pelvey could speak of -these things with an enviable certainty. “Hear, O Israel,” he was -booming out over the top of the portentous Book: “the Lord our God is -one Lord.” - -One Lord; Mr. Pelvey knew; he had studied theology. But if theology and -theosophy, then why not theography and theometry, why not theognomy, -theotrophy, theotomy, theogamy? Why not theophysics and theo-chemistry? -Why not that ingenious toy, the theotrope or wheel of gods? Why not a -monumental theodrome? - -In the great window opposite, young David stood like a cock, crowing on -the dunghill of a tumbled giant. From the middle of Goliath’s forehead -there issued, like a narwhal’s budding horn, a curious excrescence. Was -it the embedded pebble? Or perhaps the giant’s married life? - -“... with all thine heart,” declaimed the Reverend Pelvey, “and with all -thy soul, and with all thy might.” - -No, but seriously, Gumbril reminded himself, the problem was very -troublesome indeed. God as a sense of warmth about the heart, God as -exultation, God as tears in the eyes, God as a rush of power or -thought—that was all right. But God as truth, God as 2 + 2 = 4—that -wasn’t so clearly all right. Was there any chance of their being the -same? Were there bridges to join the two worlds? And could it be that -the Reverend Pelvey, M.A., fog-horning away from behind the imperial -bird, could it be that he had an answer and a clue? That was hardly -believable. Particularly if one knew Mr. Pelvey personally. And Gumbril -did. - -“And these words which I command thee this day,” retorted Mr. Pelvey, -“shall be in thine heart.” - -Or in the heart, or in the head? Reply, Mr. Pelvey, reply. Gumbril -jumped between the horns of the dilemma and voted for other organs. - -“And thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children, and shalt talk of -them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, -and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” - -Diligently to thy children.... Gumbril remembered his own childhood; -they had not been very diligently taught to him. ‘Beetles, black -beetles’—his father had a really passionate feeling about the clergy. -Mumbojumbery was another of his favourite words. An atheist and an -anti-clerical of the strict old school he was. Not that, in any case, he -gave himself much time to think about these things; he was too busy -being an unsuccessful architect. As for Gumbril’s mother, her diligence -had not been dogmatic. She had just been diligently good, that was all. -Good; good? It was a word people only used nowadays with a kind of -deprecating humorousness. Good. Beyond good and evil? We are all that -nowadays. Or merely below them, like earwigs? I glory in the name of -earwig. Gumbril made a mental gesture and inwardly declaimed. But good -in any case, there was no getting out of that, good she had been. Not -nice, not merely _molto simpatica_—how charmingly and effectively these -foreign tags assist one in the great task of calling a spade by some -other name!—but good. You felt the active radiance of her goodness when -you were near her.... And that feeling, was that less real and valid -than two plus two? - -The Reverend Pelvey had nothing to reply. He was reading with a holy -gusto of “houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and -wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which -thou plantedst not.” - -She had been good and she had died when he was still a boy; died—but he -hadn’t been told that till much later—of creeping and devouring pain. -Malignant disease—oh, _caro nome_! - -“Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God,” said Mr. Pelvey. - -Even when the ulcers are benign; thou shalt fear. He had travelled up -from school to see her, just before she died. He hadn’t known that she -was going to die, but when he entered her room, when he saw her lying so -weakly in the bed, he had suddenly begun to cry, uncontrollably. All the -fortitude, the laughter even, had been hers. And she had spoken to him. -A few words only; but they had contained all the wisdom he needed to -live by. She had told him what he was, and what he should try to be, and -how to be it. And crying, still crying, he had promised that he would -try. - -“And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes,” said Mr. Pelvey, -“for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this -day.” - -And had he kept his promise, Gumbril wondered, had he preserved himself -alive? - -“Here endeth the First Lesson.” Mr. Pelvey retreated from the eagle, and -the organ presaged the coming _Te Deum_. - -Gumbril hoisted himself to his feet; the folds of his B.A. gown billowed -nobly about him as he rose. He sighed and shook his head with the -gesture of one who tries to shake off a fly or an importunate thought. -When the time came for singing, he sang. On the opposite side of the -chapel two boys were grinning and whispering to one another behind their -lifted Prayer Books. Gumbril frowned at them ferociously. The two boys -caught his eye and their faces at once took on an expression of sickly -piety; they began to sing with unction. They were two ugly, -stupid-looking louts, who ought to have been apprenticed years ago to -some useful trade. Instead of which they were wasting their own and -their teacher’s and their more intelligent comrades’ time in trying, -quite vainly, to acquire an elegant literary education. The minds of -dogs, Gumbril reflected, do not benefit by being treated as though they -were the minds of men. - -“O Lord, have mercy upon us: have mercy upon us.” - -Gumbril shrugged his shoulders and looked round the chapel at the faces -of the boys. Lord, indeed, have mercy upon us! He was disturbed to find -the sentiment echoed on a somewhat different note in the Second Lesson, -which was drawn from the twenty-third chapter of St. Luke. “Father, -forgive them,” said Mr. Pelvey in his unvaryingly juicy voice; “for they -know not what they do.” Ah, but suppose one did know what one was doing? -suppose one knew only too well? And of course one always did know. One -was not a fool. - -But this was all nonsense, all nonsense. One must think of something -better than this. What a comfort it would be, for example, if one could -bring air cushions into chapel! These polished oaken stalls were -devilishly hard; they were meant for stout and lusty pedagogues, not for -bony starvelings like himself. An air cushion, a delicious pneu. - -“Here endeth,” boomed Mr. Pelvey, closing his book on the back of the -German eagle. - -As if by magic, Dr. Jolly was ready at the organ with the _Benedictus_. -It was positively a relief to stand again; this oak was adamantine. But -air cushions, alas, would be too bad an example for the boys. Hardy -young Spartans! it was an essential part of their education that they -should listen to the word of revelation without pneumatic easement. No, -air cushions wouldn’t do. The real remedy, it suddenly flashed across -his mind, would be trousers with pneumatic seats. For all occasions; not -merely for churchgoing. - -The organ blew a thin Puritan-preacher’s note through one of its hundred -nostrils. “I believe....” With a noise like the breaking of a wave, five -hundred turned towards the East. The view of David and Goliath was -exchanged for a Crucifixion in the grand manner of eighteen hundred and -sixty. “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” No, no, -Gumbril preferred to look at the grooved stonework rushing smoothly up -on either side of the great east window towards the vaulted roof; -preferred to reflect, like the dutiful son of an architect he was, that -Perpendicular at its best—and its best is its largest—is the finest sort -of English Gothic. At its worst and smallest, as in most of the colleges -of Oxford, it is mean, petty, and, but for a certain picturesqueness, -almost wholly disgusting. He felt like a lecturer: next slide, please. -“And the life everlasting. Amen.” Like an oboe, Mr. Pelvey intoned: “The -Lord be with you.” - -For prayer, Gumbril reflected, there would be Dunlop knees. Still, in -the days when he had made a habit of praying, they hadn’t been -necessary. “Our Father....” The words were the same as they were in the -old days; but Mr. Pelvey’s method of reciting them made them sound -rather different. Her dresses, when he had leaned his forehead against -her knee to say those words—those words, good Lord! that Mr. Pelvey was -oboeing out of existence—were always black in the evenings, and of silk, -and smelt of orris root. And when she was dying, she had said to him: -“Remember the Parable of the Sower, and the seeds that fell in shallow -ground.” No, no. Amen, decidedly. “O Lord, show thy mercy upon us,” -chanted oboe Pelvey, and Gumbril trombone responded, profoundly and -grotesquely: “And grant us thy salvation.” No, the knees were obviously -less important, except for people like revivalists and housemaids, than -the seat. Sedentary are commoner than genuflectory professions. One -would introduce little flat rubber bladders between two layers of cloth. -At the upper end, hidden when one wore a coat, would be a tube with a -valve: like a hollow tail. Blow it up—and there would be perfect comfort -even for the boniest, even on rock. How did the Greeks stand marble -benches in their theatres? - -The moment had now come for the Hymn. This being the first Sunday of the -Summer term, they sang that special hymn, written by the Headmaster, -with music by Dr. Jolly, on purpose to be sung on the first Sundays of -terms. The organ quietly sketched out the tune. Simple it was, uplifting -and manly. - - One, two, three, four; one, two THREE—4. - One, two-and three-and four-and; One, two THREE—4. - ONE—2, THREE—4; ONE—2—3—4, - and-ONE—2, THREE—4; ONE—2—3—4. - One, two-and three, four; One, two THREE—4. - -Five hundred flawed adolescent voices took it up. For good example’s -sake, Gumbril opened and closed his mouth; noiselessly, however. It was -only at the third verse that he gave rein to his uncertain baritone. He -particularly liked the third verse; it marked, in his opinion, the -Headmaster’s highest poetical achievement. - - (_f_) For slack hands and (_dim._) idle minds - (_mf_) Mischief still the Tempter finds. - (_ff_) Keep him captive in his lair. - -At this point Dr. Jolly enriched his tune with a thick accompaniment in -the lower registers, artfully designed to symbolize the depth, the gloom -and general repulsiveness of the Tempter’s home. - - (_ff_) Keep him captive in his lair. - (_f_) Work will bind him. (_dim._) Work is (_pp_) prayer. - -Work, thought Gumbril, work. Lord, how passionately he disliked work! -Let Austin have his swink to him reserved! Ah, if only one had work of -one’s own, proper work, decent work—not forced upon one by the griping -of one’s belly! Amen! Dr. Jolly blew the two sumptuous jets of reverence -into the air; Gumbril accompanied them with all his heart. Amen, indeed. - -Gumbril sat down again. It might be convenient, he thought, to have the -tail so long that one could blow up one’s trousers while one actually -had them on. In which case, it would have to be coiled round the waist -like a belt; or looped up, perhaps, and fastened to a clip on one’s -braces. - -“The nineteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, part of the -thirty-fourth verse.” The Headmaster’s loud, harsh voice broke violently -out from the pulpit. “All with one voice for the space of about two -hours cried out, Great is Diana of the Ephesians.” - -Gumbril composed himself as comfortably as he could on his oaken seat. -It was going to be one of the Headmaster’s real swingeing sermons. Great -is Diana. And Venus? Ah, these seats, these seats! - -Gumbril did not attend evening chapel. He stayed at home in his lodgings -to correct the sixty-three Holiday Task Papers which had fallen to his -share. They lay, thick piles of them, on the floor beside his chair: -sixty-three answers to ten questions about the Italian Risorgimento. The -Risorgimento, of all subjects! It had been one of the Headmaster’s -caprices. He had called a special master’s meeting at the end of last -term to tell them all about the Risorgimento. It was his latest -discovery. - -“The Risorgimento, gentlemen, is the most important event in modern -European history.” And he had banged the table; he had looked defiantly -round the room in search of contradictors. - -But nobody had contradicted him. Nobody ever did; they all knew better. -For the Headmaster was as fierce as he was capricious. He was for ever -discovering something new. Two terms ago it had been singeing; after the -hair-cut and before the shampoo, there must be singeing. - -“The hair, gentlemen, is a tube. If you cut it and leave the end -unsealed, the water will get in and rot the tube. Hence the importance -of singeing, gentlemen. Singeing seals the tube. I shall address the -boys about it after chapel to-morrow morning; and I trust that all -house-masters”—and he had glared around him from under his savage -eyebrows—“will see that their boys get themselves regularly singed after -cutting.” - -For weeks afterwards every boy trailed behind him a faint and nauseating -whiff of burning, as though he were fresh from hell. And now it was the -Risorgimento. One of these days, Gumbril reflected, it would be birth -control, or the decimal system, or rational dress. - -He picked up the nearest batch of papers. The printed questions were -pinned to the topmost of them. - -“Give a brief account of the character and career of Pope Pius IX, _with -dates wherever possible_.” - -Gumbril leaned back in his chair and thought of his own character, with -dates. 1896: the first serious and conscious and deliberate lie. Did you -break that vase, Theodore? No, mother. It lay on his conscience for -nearly a month, eating deeper and deeper. Then he had confessed the -truth. Or rather he had not confessed; that was too difficult. He led -the conversation, very subtly, as he thought, round through the -non-malleability of glass, through breakages in general, to this -particular broken vase; he practically forced his mother to repeat her -question. And then, with a burst of tears, he had answered, yes. It had -always been difficult for him to say things directly, point-blank. His -mother had told him, when she was dying.... No, no; not that. - -In 1898 or 1899—oh, these dates!—he had made a pact with his little -cousin, Molly, that she should let him see her with no clothes on, if he -would do the same by her. She had fulfilled her part of the bargain; but -he, overwhelmed at the last moment by a passion of modesty, had broken -his promise. - -Then, when he was about twelve and still at his preparatory school, in -1902 or 1903 he had done badly in his exams., on purpose; he had been -frightened of Sadler, who was in the same form, and wanted to get the -prize. Sadler was stronger than he was, and had a genius for -persecution. He had done so badly that his mother was unhappy; and it -was impossible for him to explain. - -In 1906 he had fallen in love for the first time—ah, much more violently -than ever since—with a boy of his own age. Platonic it had been and -profound. He had done badly that term, too; not on purpose, but because -he had spent so much time helping young Vickers with his work. Vickers -was really very stupid. The next term he had ‘come out’—_Staphylococcus -pyogenes_ is a lover of growing adolescence—with spots and boils all -over his face and neck. Gumbril’s affection ceased as suddenly as it had -begun. He finished that term, he remembered, with a second prize. - -But it was time to be thinking seriously of Pio Nono. With a sigh of -disgusted weariness, Gumbril looked at his papers. What had Falarope -Major to say of the Pontiff? “Pius IX was called Ferretti. He was a -liberal before he was a Pope. A kindly man of less than average -intelligence, he thought that all difficulties could be settled by a -little goodwill, a few reforms and a political amnesty. He wrote several -encyclicals and a syllabus.” Gumbril admired the phrase about less than -average intelligence; Falarope Major should have at least one mark for -having learnt it so well by heart. He turned to the next paper. Higgs -was of opinion that “Pius the Ninth was a good but stupid man, who -thought he could settle the Risorgimento with a few reforms and a -political armistice.” Beddoes was severer. “Pius IX was a bad man, who -said that he was infallible, which showed he had a less than average -intelligence.” Sopwith Minor shared the general opinion about Pio’s -intelligence, and displayed a great familiarity with the wrong dates. -Clegg-Weller was voluminous and informative. “Pius IX was not so clever -as his prime minister, Cardinal Antonelli. When he came to the tiara he -was a liberal, and Metternich said he had never reckoned on a liberal -pope. He then became a conservative. He was kindly, but not intelligent, -and he thought Garibaldi and Cavour would be content with a few reforms -and an amnesty.” At the top of Garstang’s paper was written: “I have had -measles all the holidays, so have been unable to read more than the -first thirty pages of the book. Pope Pius IX does not come into these -pages, of the contents of which I will proceed to give the following -précis.” And the précis duly followed. Gumbril would have liked to give -him full marks. But the business-like answer of Appleyard called him -back to a better sense of his duty. “Pius IX became Pope in 1846 and -died in 1878. He was a kindly man, but his intelligence was below -the....” - -Gumbril laid the paper down and shut his eyes. No, this was really -impossible. Definitely, it couldn’t go on, it could not go on. There -were thirteen weeks in the summer term, there would be thirteen in the -autumn and eleven or twelve in the spring; and then another summer of -thirteen, and so it would go on for ever. For ever. It wouldn’t do. He -would go away and live uncomfortably on his three hundred. Or, no, he -would go away and he would make money—that was more like it—money on a -large scale, easily; he would be free and he would live. For the first -time, he would live. Behind his closed eyes, he saw himself living. - -Over the plushy floors of some vast and ignoble Ritz slowly he walked, -at ease, with confidence: over the plushy floors and there, at the end -of a long vista, there was Myra Viveash, waiting, this time, for him; -coming forward impatiently to meet him, his abject lover now, not the -cool, free, laughing mistress who had lent herself contemptuously once -to his pathetic and silent importunity and then, after a day, withdrawn -the gift again. Over the plushy floors to dine. Not that he was in love -with Myra any longer: but revenge is sweet. - -He sat in his own house. The Chinese statues looked out from the niches; -the Maillols passionately meditated, slept, and were more than alive. -The Goyas hung on the walls, there was a Boucher in the bathroom; and -when he entered with his guests, what a Piazzetta exploded above the -dining-room mantelpiece! Over the ancient wine they talked together, and -he knew everything they knew and more; he gave, he inspired, it was the -others who assimilated and were enriched. After dinner there were Mozart -quartets; he opened his portfolios and showed his Daumiers, his -Tiepolos, his Canaletto sketches, his drawings by Picasso and Lewis, and -the purity of his naked Ingres. And later, talking of Odalisques, there -were orgies without fatigue or disgust, and the women were pictures and -lust in action, art. - -Over the empty plains forty horses impelled him towards Mantua: -rubadub—adubadub, with the silencer out. Towards the most romantic city -in all the world. - -When he spoke to women—how easily and insolently he spoke now!—they -listened and laughed and looked at him sideways and dropped their -eyelids over the admission, the invitation, of their glance. With -Phyllis once he had sat, for how long? in a warm and moonless darkness, -saying nothing, risking no gesture. And in the end they had parted, -reluctantly and still in silence. Phyllis now was with him once again in -the summer night; but this time he spoke, now softly, now in the angry -breathless whisper of desire, he reached out and took her, and she was -naked in his arms. All chance encounters, all plotted opportunities -recurred; he knew, now, how to live, how to take advantage of them. - -Over the empty plains towards Mantua, towards Mantua, he slid along at -ease, free and alone. He explored the horrors of Roman society; visited -Athens and Seville. To Unamuno and Papini he conversed familiarly in -their own tongues. He understood perfectly and without effort the -quantum theory. To his friend Shearwater he gave half a million for -physiological research. He visited Schoenberg and persuaded him to write -still better music. He exhibited to the politicians the full extent of -their stupidity and their wickedness; he set them working for the -salvation, not the destruction, of humanity. Once in the past when he -had been called upon to make a public speech, he had felt so nervous -that he was sick; the thousands who listened to him now bent like wheat -under the wind of his eloquence. But it was only by the way and -occasionally that he troubled himself to move them. He found it easy now -to come to terms with every one he met, to understand all points of -view, to identify himself with even the most unfamiliar spirit. And he -knew how everybody lived, and what it was like to be a mill girl, a -dustman, an engine-driver, a Jew, an Anglican bishop, a -confidence-trickster. Accustomed as he was to being swindled and imposed -upon without protest, he now knew the art of being brutal. He was just -dressing down that insolent porter at the Continental, who had -complained that ten francs wasn’t enough (and had got, as a matter of -historic fact, another five in addition), when his landlady gave a -knock, opened the door and said: “Dinner’s ready, Mr. Gumbril.” - -Feeling a little ashamed at having been interrupted in what was, after -all, one of the ignobler and more trivial occupations of his new life, -Gumbril went down to his fatty chop and green peas. It was the first -meal to be eaten under the new dispensation; he ate it, for all that it -was unhappily indistinguishable from the meals of the past, with elation -and a certain solemnity, as though he were partaking of a sacrament. He -felt buoyant with the thought that at last, at last, he was doing -something about life. - -When the chop was eaten, he went upstairs and, after filling two -suit-cases and a Gladstone bag with the most valued of his possessions, -addressed himself to the task of writing to the Headmaster. He might -have gone away, of course, without writing. But it would be nobler, more -in keeping, he felt, with his new life, to leave a justification -behind—or rather not a justification, a denouncement. He picked up his -pen and denounced. - - - - - CHAPTER II - - -Gumbril senior occupied a tall, narrow-shouldered and rachitic house in -a little obscure square not far from Paddington. There were five floors, -and a basement with beetles, and nearly a hundred stairs, which shook -when any one ran too rudely down them. It was a prematurely old and -decaying house in a decaying quarter. The square in which it stood was -steadily coming down in the world. The houses which a few years ago had -all been occupied by respectable families, were now split up into -squalid little maisonnettes, and from the neighbouring slums, which -along with most other unpleasant things the old bourgeois families had -been able to ignore, invading bands of children came to sport on the -once sacred pavements. - -Mr. Gumbril was almost the last survivor of the old inhabitants. He -liked his house, and he liked his square. Social decadence had not -affected the fourteen plane trees which adorned its little garden, and -the gambols of the dirty children did not disturb the starlings who -came, evening by evening in summer-time, to roost in their branches. - -On fine evenings he used to sit out on his balcony waiting for the -coming of the birds. And just at sunset, when the sky was most golden, -there would be a twittering overhead, and the black, innumerable flocks -of starlings would come sweeping across on the way from their daily -haunts to their roosting-places, chosen so capriciously among the -tree-planted squares and gardens of the city and so tenaciously -retained, year after year, to the exclusion of every other place. Why -his fourteen plane trees should have been chosen, Mr. Gumbril could -never imagine. There were plenty of larger and more umbrageous gardens -all round; but they remained birdless, while every evening, from the -larger flocks, a faithful legion detached itself to settle clamorously -among his trees. They sat and chattered till the sun went down and -twilight was past, with intervals every now and then of silence that -fell suddenly and inexplicably on all the birds at once, lasted through -a few seconds of thrilling suspense, to end as suddenly and senselessly -in an outburst of the same loud and simultaneous conversation. - -The starlings were Mr. Gumbril’s most affectionately cherished friends; -sitting out on his balcony to watch and listen to them, he had caught at -the shut of treacherous evenings many colds and chills on the liver, he -had laid up for himself many painful hours of rheumatism. These little -accidents did nothing, however, to damp his affection for the birds; and -still on every evening that could possibly be called fine, he was always -to be seen in the twilight, sitting on the balcony, gazing up, -round-spectacled and rapt, at the fourteen plane trees. The breezes -stirred in his grey hair, tossing it up in long, light wisps that fell -across his forehead and over his spectacles; and then he would shake his -head impatiently, and the bony hand would be freed for a moment from its -unceasing combing and clutching of the sparse grey beard to push back -the strayed tendrils, to smooth and reduce to order the whole ruffled -head. The birds chattered on, the hand went back to its clutching and -combing; once more the wind blew; darkness came down, and the gas lamps -round the square lit up the outer leaves of the plane trees, touched the -privet bushes inside the railings with an emerald light; behind them was -impenetrable night; instead of shorn grass and bedded geraniums there -was mystery, there were endless depths. And the birds at last were -silent. - -Mr. Gumbril would get up from his iron chair, stretch his arms and his -stiff cold legs and go in through the French window to work. The birds -were his diversion; when they were silent, it was time to think of -serious matters. - -To-night, however, he was not working; for always on Sunday evenings his -old friend Porteous came to dine and talk. Breaking in unexpectedly at -midnight, Gumbril Junior found them sitting in front of the gas fire in -his father’s study. - -“My dear fellow, what on earth are you doing here?” Gumbril Senior -jumped up excitedly at his son’s entrance. The light silky hair floated -up with the movement, turned for a moment into a silver aureole, then -subsided again. Mr. Porteous stayed where he was, calm, solid and -undishevelled as a seated pillar-box. He wore a monocle on a black -ribbon, a black stock tie that revealed above its double folds a quarter -of an inch of stiff white collar, a double-breasted black coat, a pair -of pale checked trousers and patent leather boots with cloth tops. Mr. -Porteous was very particular about his appearance. Meeting him casually -for the first time, one would not have guessed that Mr. Porteous was an -expert on Late Latin poetry; and he did not mean that you should guess. -Thin-limbed, bent and agile in his loose, crumpled clothes, Gumbril -Senior had the air, beside Mr. Porteous, of a strangely animated -scarecrow. - -“What on earth?” the old gentleman repeated his question. - -Gumbril Junior shrugged his shoulders. “I was bored, I decided to cease -being a schoolmaster.” He spoke with a fine airy assumption of -carelessness. “How are you, Mr. Porteous?” - -“Thank you, invariably well.” - -“Well, well,” said Gumbril Senior, sitting down again, “I must say I’m -not surprised. I’m only surprised that you stood it, not being a born -pedagogue, for as long as you did. What ever induced you to think of -turning usher, I can’t imagine.” He looked at his son first through his -spectacles, then over the top of them; the motives of the boy’s conduct -revealed themselves to neither vision. - -“What else was there for me to do?” asked Gumbril Junior, pulling up a -chair towards the fire. “You gave me a pedagogue’s education and washed -your hands of me. No opportunities, no openings. I had no alternative. -And now you reproach me.” - -Mr. Gumbril made an impatient gesture. “You’re talking nonsense,” he -said. “The only point of the kind of education you had is this, it gives -a young man leisure to find out what he’s interested in. You apparently -weren’t sufficiently interested in anything——” - -“I am interested in everything,” interrupted Gumbril Junior. - -“Which comes to the same thing,” said his father parenthetically, “as -being interested in nothing.” And he went on from the point at which he -had been interrupted. “You weren’t sufficiently interested in anything -to want to devote yourself to it. That was why you sought the last -refuge of feeble minds with classical educations, you became a -schoolmaster.” - -“Come, come,” said Mr. Porteous. “I do a little teaching myself; I must -stand up for the profession.” - -Gumbril Senior let go his beard and brushed back the hair that the wind -of his own vehemence had brought tumbling into his eyes. “I don’t -denigrate the profession,” he said. “Not at all. It would be an -excellent profession if every one who went into it were as much -interested in teaching as you are in your job, Porteous, or I in mine. -It’s these undecided creatures like Theodore, who ruin it by drifting -in. Until all teachers are geniuses and enthusiasts, nobody will learn -anything, except what they teach themselves.” - -“Still,” said Mr. Porteous, “I wish I hadn’t had to learn so much by -myself. I wasted a lot of time finding out how to set to work and where -to discover what I wanted.” - -Gumbril Junior was lighting his pipe. “I have come to the conclusion,” -he said, speaking in little jerks between each suck of the flame into -the bowl, “that most people ... ought never ... to be taught anything at -all.” He threw away the match. “Lord have mercy upon us, they’re dogs. -What’s the use of teaching them anything except to behave well, to work -and obey. Facts, theories, the truth about the universe—what good are -those to them? Teach them to understand—why, it only confuses them; -makes them lose hold of the simple real appearance. Not more than one in -a hundred can get any good out of a scientific or literary education.” - -“And you’re one of the ones?” asked his father. - -“That goes without saying,” Gumbril Junior replied. - -“I think you mayn’t be so far wrong,” said Mr. Porteous. “When I think -of my own children, for example....” he sighed, “I thought they’d be -interested in the things that interested me; they don’t seem to be -interested in anything but behaving like little apes—not very anthropoid -ones either, for that matter. At my eldest boy’s age I used to sit up -most of the night reading Latin texts. He sits up—or rather stands, -reels, trots up—dancing and drinking. Do you remember St. Bernard? -‘Vigilet tota nocte luxuriosus non solum patienter’ (the ascetic and the -scholar only watch patiently); ‘sed et libenter, ut suam expleat -voluptatem.’ What the wise man does out of a sense of duty, the fool -does for fun. And I’ve tried very hard to make him like Latin.” - -“Well in any case,” said Gumbril Junior, “you didn’t try to feed him on -history. That’s the real unforgivable sin. And that’s what I’ve been -doing, up till this evening—encouraging boys of fifteen and sixteen to -specialize in history, hours and hours a week, making them read bad -writers’ generalizations about subjects on which only our ignorance -allows us to generalize; teaching them to reproduce these -generalizations in horrid little ‘Essays’ of their own; rotting their -minds, in fact, with a diet of soft vagueness; scandalous it was. If -these creatures are to be taught anything, it should be something hard -and definite. Latin—that’s excellent. Mathematics, physical science. Let -them read history for amusement, certainly. But for Heaven’s sake don’t -make it the staple of education!” Gumbril Junior spoke with the greatest -earnestness, as though he were an inspector of schools, making a report. -It was a subject on which, at the moment, he felt very profoundly; he -felt profoundly on all subjects while he was talking about them. “I -wrote a long letter to the Headmaster about the teaching of history this -evening,” he added. “It’s most important.” He shook his head -thoughtfully, “Most important.” - -“Hora novissima, tempora pessimma sunt, vigilemus,” said Mr. Porteous, -in the words of St. Peter Damianus. - -“Very true,” Gumbril Senior applauded. “And talking about bad times, -Theodore, what do you propose to do now, may I ask?” - -“I mean to begin by making some money.” - -Gumbril Senior put his hands on his knees, bent forward and laughed, -“Ha, ha, ha!” He had a profound bell-like laugh that was like the -croaking of a very large and melodious frog. “You won’t,” he said, and -shook his head till the hair fell into his eyes. “You won’t,” and he -laughed again. - -“To make money,” said Mr. Porteous, “one must be really interested in -money.” - -“And he’s not,” said Gumbril Senior. “None of us are.” - -“When I was still uncommonly hard up,” Mr. Porteous continued, “we used -to lodge in the same house with a Russian Jew, who was a furrier. That -man was interested in money, if you like. It was a passion, an -enthusiasm, an ideal. He could have led a comfortable, easy life, and -still have made enough to put by something for his old age. But for his -high abstract ideal of money he suffered more than Michelangelo ever -suffered for his art. He used to work nineteen hours a day, and the -other five he slept, lying under his bench, in the dirt, breathing into -his lungs the stink and the broken hairs. He is now very rich indeed and -does nothing with his money, doesn’t want to do anything, doesn’t know -what one does do with it. He desires neither power nor pleasure. His -desire for lucre is purely disinterested. He reminds me of Browning’s -‘Grammarian.’ I have a great admiration for him.” - -Mr. Porteous’s own passion had been for the poems of Notker Balbulus and -St. Bernard. It had taken him nearly twenty years to get himself and his -family out of the house where the Russian furrier used to lodge. But -Notker was worth it, he used to say; Notker was worth even the weariness -and the pallor of a wife who worked beyond her strength, even the -shabbiness of ill-dressed and none too well-fed children. He had -readjusted his monocle and gone on. But there had been occasions when it -needed more than the monocle and the careful, distinguished clothes to -keep up his _morale_. Still, those times were over now; Notker had -brought him at last a kind of fame—even, indirectly, a certain small -prosperity. - -Gumbril Senior turned once more towards his son. “And how do you -propose,” he asked, “to make this money?” - -Gumbril Junior explained. He had thought it all out in the cab on the -way from the station. “It came to me this morning,” he said, “in chapel, -during service.” - -“Monstrous,” put in Gumbril Senior, with a genuine indignation, -“monstrous these mediæval survivals in schools! Chapel, indeed!” - -“It came,” Gumbril Junior went on, “like an apocalypse, suddenly, like a -divine inspiration. A grand and luminous idea came to me—the idea of -Gumbril’s Patent Small-Clothes.” - -“And what are Gumbril’s Patent Small-Clothes?” - -“A boon to those whose occupation is sedentary”; Gumbril Junior had -already composed his prospectus and his first advertisements: “a comfort -to all travellers, civilization’s substitute for steatopygism, -indispensable to first-nighters, the concert-goers’ friend, the....” - -“Lectulus Dei floridus,” intoned Mr. Porteous. - - “Gazophylacium Ecclesiæ, - Cithara benesonans Dei, - Cymbalum jubilationis Christi, - Promptuarium mysteriorum fidei, ora pro nobis. - -Your small-clothes sound to me very like one of my old litanies, -Theodore.” - -“We want scientific descriptions, not litanies,” said Gumbril Senior. -“What _are_ Gumbril’s Patent Small-Clothes?” - -“Scientifically, then,” said Gumbril Junior, “my Patent Small-Clothes -may be described as trousers with a pneumatic seat, inflateable by means -of a tube fitted with a valve; the whole constructed of stout seamless -red rubber, enclosed between two layers of cloth.” - -“I must say,” said Gumbril Senior on a tone of somewhat grudging -approbation, “I have heard of worse inventions. You are too stout, -Porteous, to be able to appreciate the idea. We Gumbrils are all a bony -lot.” - -“When I have taken out a patent for my invention,” his son went on, very -business-like and cool, “I shall either sell it to some capitalist, or I -shall exploit it commercially myself. In either case, I shall make -money, which is more, I may say, than you or any other Gumbril have ever -done.” - -“Quite right,” said Gumbril Senior, “quite right”; and he laughed very -cheerfully. “And nor will you. You can be grateful to your intolerable -Aunt Flo for having left you that three hundred a year. You’ll need it. -But if you really want a capitalist,” he went on, “I have exactly the -man for you. He’s a man who has a mania for buying Tudor houses and -making them more Tudor than they are. I’ve pulled half a dozen of the -wretched things to pieces and put them together again differently for -him.” - -“He doesn’t sound much good to me,” said his son. - -“Ah, but that’s only his vice. Only his amusement. His business,” -Gumbril Senior hesitated. - -“Well, what is his business?” - -“Well, it seems to be everything. Patent medicine, trade newspapers, -bankrupt tobacconist’s stock—he’s talked to me about those and heaps -more. He seems to flit like a butterfly in search of honey, or rather -money.” - -“And he makes it?” - -“Well, he pays my fees and he buys more Tudor houses, and he gives me -luncheons at the Ritz. That’s all I know.” - -“Well, there’s no harm in trying.” - -“I’ll write to him,” said Gumbril Senior. “His name is Boldero. He’ll -either laugh at your idea or take it and give you nothing for it. -Still,” he looked at his son over the top of his spectacles, “if by any -conceivable chance you ever should become rich; if, if, if....” And he -emphasized the remoteness of the conditional by raising his eyebrows a -little higher, by throwing out his hands in a dubious gesture a little -farther at every repetition of the word, “if—why, then I’ve got exactly -the thing for you. Look at this really delightful little idea I had this -afternoon.” He put his hand in his coat pocket and after some sorting -and sifting produced a sheet of squared paper on which was roughly drawn -the elevation of a house. “For any one with eight or ten thousand to -spend, this would be—this would be....” Gumbril Senior smoothed his hair -and hesitated, searching for something strong enough to say of his -little idea. “Well, this would be much too good for most of the greasy -devils who do have eight or ten thousand to spend.” - -He passed the sheet to Gumbril Junior, who held it out so that both Mr. -Porteous and himself could look at it. Gumbril Senior got up from his -chair and, standing behind them, leant over to elucidate and explain. - -“You see the idea,” he said, anxious lest they should fail to -understand. “A central block of three stories, with low wings of only -one, ending in pavilions with a second floor. And the flat roofs of the -wings are used as gardens—you see?—protected from the north by a wall. -In the east wing there is the kitchen and the garage, with the maids’ -rooms in the pavilion at the end. The west is a library, and it has an -arcaded loggia along the front. And instead of a solid superstructure -corresponding to the maids’ rooms, there’s a pergola with brick piers. -You see? And in the main block there’s a Spanish sort of balcony along -the whole length at first-floor level; that gives a good horizontal -line. And you get the perpendiculars with coigns and raised panels. And -the roof’s hidden by a balustrade, and there are balustrades along the -open sides of the roof gardens on the wings. All in brick it is. This is -the garden front; the entrance front will be admirable too. Do you like -it?” - -Gumbril Junior nodded. “Very much,” he said. - -His father sighed and taking the sketch put it back in his pocket. “You -must hurry up with your ten thousand,” he said. “And you Porteous, and -you. I’ve been waiting so long to build your splendid house.” - -Laughing, Mr. Porteous got up from his chair. “And long, dear Gumbril,” -he said, “may you continue to wait. For my splendid house won’t be built -this side of New Jerusalem, and you must go on living a long time yet. A -long, long time,” Mr. Porteous repeated; and carefully he buttoned up -his double-breasted coat, carefully, as though he were adjusting an -instrument of precision, he took out and replaced his monocle. Then, -very erect and neat, very soldierly and pillar-boxical, he marched -towards the door. “You’ve kept me very late to-night,” he said. -“Unconscionably late.” - -The front door closed heavily behind Mr. Porteous’s departure. Gumbril -Senior came upstairs again into the big room on the first floor -smoothing down his hair, which the impetuosity of his ascent had once -more disarranged. - -“That’s a good fellow,” he said of his departed guest, “a splendid -fellow.” - -“I always admire the monocle,” said Gumbril Junior irrelevantly. But his -father turned the irrelevance into relevance. - -“He couldn’t have come through without it, I believe. It was a symbol, a -proud flag. Poverty’s squalid, not fine at all. The monocle made a kind -of difference, you understand. I’m always so enormously thankful I had a -little money. I couldn’t have stuck it without. It needs strength, more -strength than I’ve got.” He clutched his beard close under the chin and -remained for a moment pensively silent. “The advantage of Porteous’s -line of business,” he went on at last, reflectively, “is that it can be -carried on by oneself, without collaboration. There’s no need to appeal -to any one outside oneself, or to have any dealings with other people at -all, if one doesn’t want to. That’s so deplorable about architecture. -There’s no privacy, so to speak; always this horrible jostling with -clients and builders and contractors and people, before one can get -anything done. It’s really revolting. I’m not good at people. Most of -them I don’t like at all, not at all,” Mr. Gumbril repeated with -vehemence. “I don’t deal with them very well; it isn’t my business. My -business is architecture. But I don’t often get a chance of practising -it. Not properly.” - -Gumbril Senior smiled rather sadly. “Still,” he said, “I can do -something. I have my talent, I have my imagination. They can’t take -those from me. Come and see what I’ve been doing lately.” - -He led the way out of the room and mounted, two steps at a time, towards -a higher floor. He opened the door of what should have been, in a -well-ordered house, the Best Bedroom, and slipped into the darkness. - -“Don’t rush in,” he called back to his son, “for God’s sake don’t rush -in. You’ll smash something. Wait till I’ve turned on the light. It’s so -like these asinine electricians to have hidden the switch behind the -door like this.” Gumbril Junior heard him fumbling in the darkness; -there was suddenly light. He stepped in. - -The only furniture in the room consisted of a couple of long trestle -tables. On these, on the mantelpiece and all over the floor, were -scattered confusedly, like the elements of a jumbled city, a vast -collection of architectural models. There were cathedrals, there were -town halls, universities, public libraries, there were three or four -elegant little sky-scrapers, there were blocks of offices, huge -warehouses, factories, and finally dozens of magnificent country -mansions, complete with their terraced gardens, their noble flights of -steps, their fountains and ornamental waters and grandly bridged canals, -their little rococo pavilions and garden houses. - -“Aren’t they beautiful?” Gumbril Senior turned enthusiastically towards -his son. His long grey hair floated wispily about his head, his -spectacles flashed, and behind them his eyes shone with emotion. - -“Beautiful,” Gumbril Junior agreed. - -“When you’re really rich,” said his father, “I’ll build you one of -these.” And he pointed to a little village of Chatsworths clustering, at -one end of a long table, round the dome of a vaster and austerer St. -Peter’s. “Look at this one, for example.” He picked his way nimbly -across the room, seized the little electric reading-lamp that stood -between a railway station and a baptistery on the mantelpiece, and was -back again in an instant, trailing behind him a long flex that, as it -tautened out, twitched one of the crowning pinnacles off the top of a -sky-scraper near the fireplace. “Look,” he repeated, “look.” He switched -on the current, and moving the lamp back and forth, up and down in front -of the miniature palace. “See the beauty of the light and shade,” he -said. “There, underneath the great, ponderous cornice, isn’t that fine? -And look how splendidly the pilasters carry up the vertical lines. And -then the solidity of it, the size, the immense, impending bleakness of -it!” He threw up his arms, he turned his eyes upwards as though standing -overwhelmed at the foot of some huge precipitous façade. The lights and -shadows vacillated wildly through all the city of palaces and domes as -he brandished the lamp in ecstasy above his head. - -“And then,” he had suddenly stooped down, he was peering and pointing -once more into the details of his palace, “then there’s the doorway—all -florid and rich with carving. How magnificently and surprisingly it -flowers out of the bare walls! Like the colossal writing of Darius, like -the figures graven in the bald face of the precipice over -Behistun—unexpected and beautiful and human, human in the surrounding -emptiness.” - -Gumbril Senior brushed back his hair and turned, smiling, to look at his -son over the top of his spectacles. - -“Very fine,” Gumbril Junior nodded to him. “But isn’t the wall a little -too blank? You seem to allow very few windows in this vast palazzo.” - -“True,” his father replied, “very true.” He sighed. “I’m afraid this -design would hardly do for England. It’s meant for a place where there’s -some sun—where you do your best to keep the light out, instead of -letting it in, as you have to do here. Windows are the curse of -architecture in this country. Your walls have to be like sieves, all -holes, it’s heart-breaking. If you wanted me to build you this house, -you’d have to live in Barbados or somewhere like that.” - -“There’s nothing I should like better,” said Gumbril Junior. - -“Another great advantage of sunny countries,” Gumbril Senior pursued, -“is that one can really live like an aristocrat, in privacy, by oneself. -No need to look out on the dirty world or to let the dirty world look in -on you. Here’s this great house, for example, looking out on the world -through a few dark portholes and a single cavernous doorway. But look -inside.” He held his lamp above the courtyard that was at the heart of -the palace. Gumbril Junior leaned and looked, like his father. “All the -life looks inwards—into a lovely courtyard, a more than Spanish _patio_. -Look there at the treble tiers of arcades, the vaulted cloisters for -your cool peripatetic meditations, the central Triton spouting white -water into a marble pool, the mosaic work on the floor and flowering up -the walls, brilliant against the white stucco. And there’s the archway -that leads out into the gardens. And now you must come and have a look -at the garden front.” - -He walked round with his lamp to the other side of the table. There was -suddenly a crash; the wire had twitched a cathedral from off the table. -It lay on the floor in disastrous ruin as though shattered by some -appalling cataclysm. - -“Hell and death!” said Gumbril Senior in an outburst of Elizabethan -fury. He put down the lamp and ran to see how irreparable the disaster -had been. “They’re so horribly expensive, these models,” he explained, -as he bent over the ruins. Tenderly he picked up the pieces and replaced -them on the table. “It might have been worse,” he said at last, brushing -the dust off his hands. “Though I’m afraid that dome will never be quite -the same again.” Picking up the lamp once more, he held it high above -his head and stood looking out, with a melancholy satisfaction, over his -creations. “And to think,” he said after a pause, “that I’ve been -spending these last days designing model cottages for workmen at -Bletchley! I’m in luck to have got the job, of course, but really, that -a civilized man should have to do jobs like that! It’s too much. In the -old days these creatures built their own hovels, and very nice and -suitable they were too. The architects busied themselves with -architecture—which is the expression of human dignity and greatness, -which is man’s protest, not his miserable acquiescence. You can’t do -much protesting in a model cottage at seven hundred pounds a time. A -little, no doubt, you can protest a little; you can give your cottage -decent proportions and avoid sordidness and vulgarity. But that’s all; -it’s really a negative process. You can only begin to protest positively -and actively when you abandon the petty human scale and build for -giants—when you build for the spirit and the imagination of man, not for -his little body. Model cottages, indeed!” - -Mr. Gumbril snorted with indignation. “When I think of Alberti!” And he -thought of Alberti—Alberti, the noblest Roman of them all, the true and -only Roman. For the Romans themselves had lived their own actual lives, -sordidly and extravagantly in the middle of a vulgar empire. Alberti and -his followers in the Renaissance lived the ideal Roman life. They put -Plutarch into their architecture. They took the detestable real Cato, -the Brutus of history, and made of them Roman heroes to walk as guides -and models before them. Before Alberti there were no true Romans, and -with Piranesi’s death the race began to wither towards extinction. - -“And when I think of Brunelleschi!” Gumbril Senior went on to remember -with passion the architect who had suspended on eight thin flying ribs -of marble the lightest of all domes and the loveliest. - -“And when of Michelangelo! The grim, enormous apse.... And of Wren and -of Palladio, when I think of all these——” Gumbril Senior waved his arms -and was silent. He could not put into words what he felt when he thought -of them. - -Gumbril Junior looked at his watch. “Half-past two,” he said. “Time to -go to bed.” - - - - - CHAPTER III - - -“Mister Gumbril!” Surprise was mingled with delight. “This is indeed a -pleasure!” Delight was now the prevailing emotion expressed by the voice -that advanced, as yet without a visible source, from the dark recesses -of the shop. - -“The pleasure, Mr. Bojanus, is mine.” Gumbril closed the shop door -behind him. - -A very small man, dressed in a frock-coat, popped out from a canyon that -opened, a mere black crevice, between two stratified precipices of -mid-season suitings, and advancing into the open space before the door -bowed with an old-world grace, revealing a nacreous scalp thinly mantled -with long damp creepers of brown hair. - -“And to what, may I ask, do I owe this pleasure, sir?” Mr. Bojanus -looked up archly with a sideways cock of his head that tilted the rigid -points of his waxed moustache. The fingers of his right hand were thrust -into the bosom of his frock-coat and his toes were turned out in the -dancing-master’s First Position. “A light spring great-coat, is it? Or a -new suit? I notice,” his eye travelled professionally up and down -Gumbril’s long, thin form, “I notice that the garments you are wearing -at present, Mr. Gumbril, look—how shall I say?—well, a trifle negleejay, -as the French would put it, a trifle negleejay.” - -Gumbril looked down at himself. He resented Mr. Bojanus’s negleejay, he -was pained and wounded by the aspersion. Negleejay? And he had fancied -that he really looked rather elegant and distinguished (but, after all, -he always looked that, even in rags)—no, that he looked positively neat, -like Mr. Porteous, positively soldierly in his black jacket and his -musical comedy trousers and his patent leather shoes. And the black felt -hat—didn’t that just add the foreign, the Southern touch which saved the -whole composition from banality? He regarded himself, trying to see his -clothes—garments, Mr. Bojanus had called them; garments, good -Lord!—through the tailor’s expert eyes. There were sagging folds about -the overloaded pockets, there was a stain on his waistcoat, the knees of -his trousers were baggy and puckered like the bare knees of Hélène -Fourmont in Rubens’s fur-coat portrait at Vienna. Yes, it was all -horribly negleejay. He felt depressed; but looking at Mr. Bojanus’s -studied and professional correctness, he was a little comforted. That -frock-coat, for example. It was like something in a very modern -picture—such a smooth, unwrinkled cylinder about the chest, such a sense -of pure and abstract conic-ness in the sleekly rounded skirts! Nothing -could have been less negleejay. He was reassured. - -“I want you,” he said at last, clearing his throat importantly, “to make -me a pair of trousers to a novel specification of my own. It’s a new -idea.” And he gave a brief description of Gumbril’s Patent Small -Clothes. - -Mr. Bojanus listened with attention. - -“I can make them for you,” he said, when the description was finished. -“I can make them for you—if you _really_ wish, Mr. Gumbril,” he added. - -“Thank you,” said Gumbril. - -“And do you intend, may I ask, Mr. Gumbril, to _wear_ these ... these -garments?” - -Guiltily, Gumbril denied himself. “Only to demonstrate the idea, Mr. -Bojanus. I am exploiting the invention commercially, you see.” - -“Commercially? I see, Mr. Gumbril.” - -“Perhaps you would like a share,” suggested Gumbril. - -Mr. Bojanus shook his head. “It wouldn’t do for my cleeantail, I fear, -Mr. Gumbril. You could ’ardly expect the Best People to wear such -things.” - -“Couldn’t you?” - -Mr. Bojanus went on shaking his head. “I know them,” he said, “I know -the Best People. Well.” And he added with an irrelevance that was, -perhaps, only apparent, “Between ourselves, Mr. Gumbril, I am a great -admirer of Lenin....” - -“So am I,” said Gumbril, “theoretically. But then I have so little to -lose to Lenin. I can afford to admire him. But you, Mr. Bojanus, you, -the prosperous bourgeois—oh, purely in the economic sense of the word, -Mr. Bojanus....” - -Mr. Bojanus accepted the explanation with one of his old-world bows. - -“... you would be among the first to suffer if an English Lenin were to -start his activities here.” - -“There, Mr. Gumbril, if I may be allowed to say so, you are wrong.” Mr. -Bojanus removed his hand from his bosom and employed it to emphasize the -points of his discourse. “When the revolution comes, Mr. Gumbril—the -great and necessary revolution, as Alderman Beckford called it—it won’t -be the owning of a little money that’ll get a man into trouble. It’ll be -his class-habits, Mr. Gumbril, his class-speech, his class-education. -It’ll be Shibboleth all over again, Mr. Gumbril; mark my words. The Red -Guards will stop people in the street and ask them to say some such word -as ‘towel.’ If they call it ‘towel,’ like you and your friends, Mr. -Gumbril, why then....” Mr. Bojanus went through the gestures of pointing -a rifle and pulling the trigger; he clicked his tongue against his teeth -to symbolize the report.... “That’ll be the end of them. But if they say -‘tèaul,’ like the rest of us, Mr. Gumbril, it’ll be: ‘Pass Friend and -Long Live the Proletariat.’ Long live Tèaul.” - -“I’m afraid you may be right,” said Gumbril. - -“I’m convinced of it,” said Mr. Bojanus. “It’s my clients, Mr. Gumbril, -it’s the Best People that the other people resent. It’s their -confidence, their ease, it’s the habit their money and their position -give them of ordering people about, it’s the way they take their place -in the world for granted, it’s their prestige, which the other people -would like to deny, but can’t—it’s all that, Mr. Gumbril, that’s so -galling.” - -Gumbril nodded. He himself had envied his securer friends their power of -ignoring the humanity of those who were not of their class. To do that -really well, one must always have lived in a large house full of -clockwork servants; one must never have been short of money, never at a -restaurant ordered the cheaper thing instead of the more delicious; one -must never have regarded a policeman as anything but one’s paid defender -against the lower orders, never for a moment have doubted one’s divine -right to do, within the accepted limits, exactly what one liked without -a further thought to anything or any one but oneself and one’s own -enjoyment. Gumbril had been brought up among these blessed beings; but -he was not one of them. Alas? or fortunately? He hardly knew which. - -“And what good do you expect the revolution to do, Mr. Bojanus?” he -asked at last. - -Mr. Bojanus replaced his hand in his bosom. “None whatever, Mr. -Gumbril,” he said. “None whatever.” - -“But Liberty,” Gumbril suggested, “equality and all that. What about -those, Mr. Bojanus?” - -Mr. Bojanus smiled up at him tolerantly and kindly, as he might have -smiled at some one who had suggested, shall we say, that evening -trousers should be turned up at the bottom. “Liberty, Mr. Gumbril?” he -said; “you don’t suppose any serious-minded person imagines a revolution -is going to bring liberty, do you?” - -“The people who make the revolution always seem to ask for liberty.” - -“But do they ever get it, Mr. Gumbril?” Mr. Bojanus cocked his head -playfully and smiled. “Look at ’istory, Mr. Gumbril, look at ’istory. -First it’s the French Revolution. They ask for political liberty. And -they gets it. Then comes the Reform Bill, then Forty-Eight, then all the -Franchise Acts and Votes for Women—always more and more political -liberty. And what’s the result, Mr. Gumbril? Nothing at all. Who’s freer -for political liberty? Not a soul, Mr. Gumbril. There was never a -greater swindle ’atched in the ’ole of ’istory. And when you think ’ow -those poor young men like Shelley talked about it—it’s pathetic,” said -Mr. Bojanus, shaking his head, “reelly pathetic. Political liberty’s a -swindle because a man doesn’t spend his time being political. He spends -it sleeping, eating, amusing himself a little and working—mostly -working. When they’d got all the political liberty they wanted—or found -they didn’t want—they began to understand this. And so now it’s all for -the industrial revolution, Mr. Gumbril. But bless you, that’s as big a -swindle as the other. How can there ever be liberty under any system? No -amount of profit-sharing or self-government by the workers, no amount of -hyjeenic conditions or cocoa villages or recreation grounds can get rid -of the fundamental slavery—the necessity of working. Liberty? why, it -doesn’t exist! There’s no liberty in this world; only gilded cages. And -then, Mr. Gumbril, even suppose you could somehow get rid of the -necessity of working, suppose a man’s time were all leisure. Would he be -free then? I say nothing of the natural slavery of eating and sleeping -and all that, Mr. Gumbril; I say nothing of that, because that, if I may -say so, would be too ’air-splitting and metaphysical. But what I do ask -you is this,” and Mr. Bojanus wagged his forefinger almost menacingly at -the sleeping partner in this dialogue: “would a man with unlimited -leisure be free, Mr. Gumbril? I say he would not. Not unless he ’appened -to be a man like you or me, Mr. Gumbril, a man of sense, a man of -independent judgment. An ordinary man would not be free. Because he -wouldn’t know how to occupy his leisure except in some way that would be -forced on ’im by other people. People don’t know ’ow to entertain -themselves now; they leave it to other people to do it for them. They -swallow what’s given them. They ’ave to swallow it, whether they like it -or not. Cinemas, newspapers, magazines, gramophones, football matches, -wireless telephones—take them or leave them, if you want to amuse -youself. The ordinary man can’t leave them. He takes; and what’s that -but slavery? And so you see, Mr. Gumbril,” Mr. Bojanus smiled with a -kind of roguish triumph, “you see that even in the purely ’ypothetical -case of a man with indefinite leisure, there still would be no -freedom.... And the case, as I have said, is purely ’ypothetical; at any -rate so far as concerns the sort of people who want a revolution. And as -for the sort of people who do enjoy leisure, even now—why I think, Mr. -Gumbril, you and I know enough about the Best People to know that -freedom, except possibly sexual freedom, is not their strongest point. -And sexual freedom—what’s that?” Mr. Bojanus dramatically inquired. “You -and I, Mr. Gumbril,” he answered confidentially, “we know. It’s an -’orrible, ’ideous slavery. That’s what it is. Or am I wrong, Mr. -Gumbril?” - -“Quite right, quite right, Mr. Bojanus,” Gumbril hastened to reply. - -“From all of which,” continued Mr. Bojanus, “it follows that, except for -a few, a very few people like you and me, Mr. Gumbril, there’s no such -thing as liberty. It’s an ’oax, Mr. Gumbril. An ’orrible plant. And if I -may be allowed to say so,” Mr. Bojanus lowered his voice, but still -spoke with emphasis, “a bloody swindle.” - -“But in that case, Mr. Bojanus, why are you so anxious to have a -revolution?” Gumbril inquired. - -Thoughtfully, Mr. Bojanus twisted to a finer point his waxed moustaches. -“Well,” he said at last, “it would be a nice change. I was always one -for change and a little excitement. And then there’s the scientific -interest. You never quite know ’ow an experiment will turn out, do you, -Mr. Gumbril? I remember when I was a boy, my old dad—a great gardener he -was, a regular floriculturist, you might say, Mr. Gumbril—he tried the -experiment of grafting a sprig of Gloire de Dijon on to a black currant -bush. And, would you believe it? the roses came out black, coal black, -Mr. Gumbril. Nobody would ever have guessed that if the thing had never -been tried. And that’s what I say about the revolution. You don’t know -what’ll come of it till you try. Black roses, blue roses—’oo knows, Mr. -Gumbril, ’oo knows?” - -“Who indeed?” Gumbril looked at his watch. “About those trousers ...” he -added. - -“Those garments,” corrected Mr. Bojanus. “Ah, yes. Should we say next -Tuesday?” - -“Let us say next Tuesday.” Gumbril opened the shop door. “Good morning, -Mr. Bojanus.” - -Mr. Bojanus bowed him out, as though he had been a prince of the blood. - -The sun was shining and at the end of the street between the houses the -sky was blue. Gauzily the distances faded to a soft rich indistinctness; -there were veils of golden muslin thickening down the length of every -vista. On the trees in the Hanover Square gardens the young leaves were -still so green that they seemed to be alight, green fire, and the sooty -trunks looked blacker and dirtier than ever. It would have been a -pleasant and apposite thing if a cuckoo had started calling. But though -the cuckoo was silent it was a happy day. A day, Gumbril reflected, as -he strolled idly along, to be in love. - -From the world of tailors Gumbril passed into that of the artificial -pearl merchants and with a still keener appreciation of the amorous -qualities of this clear spring day, he began a leisured march along the -perfumed pavements of Bond Street. He thought with a profound -satisfaction of those sixty-three papers on the Risorgimento. How -pleasant it was to waste time! And Bond Street offered so many -opportunities for wasting it agreeably. He trotted round the Spring -Exhibition at the Grosvenor and came out, a little regretting, he had to -confess, his eighteen pence for admission. After that, he pretended that -he wanted to buy a grand piano. When he had finished practising his -favourite passages on the magnificent instrument to which they -obsequiously introduced him, he looked in for a few moments at -Sotheby’s, sniffed among the ancient books and strolled on again, -admiring the cigars, the lucid scent-bottles, the socks, the old -masters, the emerald necklaces, everything, in fact, in all the shops he -passed. - -‘Forthcoming Exhibition of Works by Casimir Lypiatt.’ The announcement -caught his eye. And so poor old Lypiatt was on the warpath again, he -reflected, as he pushed open the doors of the Albemarle Galleries. Poor -old Lypiatt! Dear old Lypiatt, even. He liked Lypiatt. Though he had his -defects. It would be fun to see him again. - -Gumbril found himself in the midst of a dismal collection of etchings. -He passed them in review, wondering why it was that, in these hard days -when no painter can sell a picture, almost any dull fool who can scratch -a conventional etcher’s view of two boats, a suggested cloud and the -flat sea should be able to get rid of his prints by the dozen and at -guineas apiece. He was interrupted in his speculations by the approach -of the assistant in charge of the gallery. He came up shyly and -uncomfortably, but with the conscientious determination of one ambitious -to do his duty and make good. He was a very young man with pale hair, to -which heavy oiling had given a curious greyish colour, and a face of -such childish contour and so imberb that he looked like a little boy -playing at grown-ups. He had only been at this job a few weeks and he -found it very difficult. - -“This,” he remarked, with a little introductory cough, pointing to one -view of the two boats and the flat sea, “is an earlier state than this.” -And he pointed to another view, where the boats were still two and the -sea seemed just as flat—though possibly, on a closer inspection, it -might really have been flatter. - -“Indeed,” said Gumbril. - -The assistant was rather pained by his coldness. He blushed; but -constrained himself to go on. “Some excellent judges,” he said, “prefer -the earlier state, though it is less highly finished.” - -“Ah?” - -“Beautiful atmosphere, isn’t it?” The assistant put his head on one side -and pursed his childish lips appreciatively. - -Gumbril nodded. - -With desperation, the assistant indicated the shadowed rump of one of -the boats. “A wonderful feeling in this passage,” he said, redder than -ever. - -“Very intense,” said Gumbril. - -The assistant smiled at him gratefully. “That’s the word,” he said, -delighted. “Intense. That’s it. Very intense.” He repeated the word -several times as though to make sure of remembering it when the occasion -next presented itself. He was determined to make good. - -“I see Mr. Lypiatt is to have a show here soon,” remarked Gumbril, who -had had enough of the boats. - -“He is making the final arrangements with Mr. Albemarle at this very -moment,” said the assistant triumphantly, with the air of one who -produces, at the dramatic and critical moment, a rabbit out of the empty -hat. - -“You don’t say so?” Gumbril was duly impressed. “Then I’ll wait till he -comes out,” he said, and sat down with his back to the boats. - -The assistant returned to his desk and picked up the gold-belted -fountain pen which his Aunt had given him when he first went into -business, last Christmas. “Very intense,” he wrote in capitals on a -half-sheet of notepaper. “The feeling in this passage is very intense.” -He studied the paper for a few moments, then folded it up carefully and -put it away in his waistcoat pocket. “Always make a note of it.” That -was one of the business mottoes he had himself written out so -laboriously in Indian ink and old English lettering. It hung over his -bed between “The Lord is my Shepherd,” which his mother had given him, -and a quotation from Dr. Frank Crane, “A smiling face sells more goods -than a clever tongue.” Still, a clever tongue, the young assistant had -often reflected, was a very useful thing, especially in this job. He -wondered whether one could say that the composition of a picture was -very intense. Mr. Albemarle was very keen on the composition, he -noticed. But perhaps it was better to stick to plain ‘fine,’ which was a -little commonplace, perhaps, but very safe. He would ask Mr. Albemarle -about it. And then there was all that stuff about plastic values and -pure plasticity. He sighed. It was all very difficult. A chap might be -as willing and eager to make good as he liked; but when it came to this -about atmosphere and intense passages and plasticity—well, really, what -could a chap do? Make a note of it. It was the only thing. - -In Mr. Albemarle’s private room Casimir Lypiatt thumped the table. -“Size, Mr. Albemarle,” he was saying, “size and vehemence and spiritual -significance—that’s what the old fellows had, and we haven’t....” He -gesticulated as he talked, his face worked and his green eyes, set in -their dark, charred orbits, were full of a troubled light. The forehead -was precipitous, the nose long and sharp; in the bony and almost -fleshless face, the lips of the wide mouth were surprisingly full. - -“Precisely, precisely,” said Mr. Albemarle in his juicy voice. He was a -round, smooth, little man with a head like an egg; he spoke, he moved -with a certain pomp, a butlerish gravity, that were evidently meant to -be ducal. - -“That’s what I’ve set myself to recapture,” Lypiatt went on: “the size, -the masterfulness of the masters.” He felt a warmth running through him -as he spoke, flushing his cheeks, pulsing hotly behind the eyes, as -though he had drunk a draught of some heartening red wine. His own words -elated him, and drunkenly gesticulating, he was as though drunken. The -greatness of the masters—he felt it in him. He knew his own power, he -knew, he knew. He could do all that they had done. Nothing was beyond -his strength. - -Egg-headed Albemarle confronted him, impeccably the butler, -exacerbatingly serene. Albemarle too should be fired. He struck the -table once more, he broke out again: - -“It’s been my mission,” he shouted, “all these years.” - -All these years.... Time had worn the hair from his temples; the high, -steep forehead seemed higher than it really was. He was forty now; the -turbulent young Lypiatt who had once declared that no man could do -anything worth doing after he was thirty, was forty now. But in these -fiery moments he could forget the years, he could forget the -disappointments, the unsold pictures, the bad reviews. “My mission,” he -repeated; “and by God! I feel, I know I can carry it through.” - -Warmly the blood pulsed behind his eyes. - -“Quite,” said Mr. Albemarle, nodding the egg. “Quite.” - -“And how small the scale is nowadays!” Lypiatt went on, rhapsodically. -“How trivial the conception, how limited the scope! You see no -painter-sculptor-poets, like Michelangelo; no scientist-artists, like -Leonardo; no mathematician-courtiers, like Boscovitch; no -impresario-musicians, like Handel; no geniuses of all trades, like Wren. -I have set myself against this abject specialization of ours. I stand -alone, opposing it with my example.” Lypiatt raised his hand. Like the -statue of Liberty, standing colossal and alone. - -“Nevertheless,” began Mr. Albemarle. - -“Painter, poet, musician,” cried Lypiatt. “I am all three. I....” - -“... there is a danger of—how shall I put it—dissipating one’s -energies,” Mr. Albemarle went on with determination. Discreetly, he -looked at his watch. This conversation, he thought, seemed to be -prolonging itself unnecessarily. - -“There is a greater danger in letting them stagnate and atrophy,” -Lypiatt retorted. “Let me give you my experience.” Vehemently, he gave -it. - -Out in the gallery, among the boats, the views of the Grand Canal, and -the Firth of Forth, Gumbril placidly ruminated. Poor old Lypiatt, he was -thinking. Dear old Lypiatt, even, in spite of his fantastic egotism. -Such a bad painter, such a bombinating poet, such a loud emotional -improviser on the piano! And going on like this, year after year, -pegging away at the same old things—always badly! And always without a -penny, always living in the most hideous squalor! Magnificent and -pathetic old Lypiatt! - -A door suddenly opened and a loud, unsteady voice, now deep and harsh, -now breaking to shrillness, exploded into the gallery. - -“... like a Veronese,” it was saying; “enormous, vehement, a great -swirling composition” (‘swirling composition’—mentally, the young -assistant made a note of that), “but much more serious, of course, much -more spiritually significant, much more——” - -“Lypiatt!” Gumbril had risen from his chair, had turned, had advanced, -holding out his hand. - -“Why, it’s Gumbril. Good Lord!” and Lypiatt seized the proffered hand -with an excruciating cordiality. He seemed to be in exuberantly good -spirits. “We’re settling about my show, Mr. Albemarle and I,” he -explained. “You know Gumbril, Mr. Albemarle?” - -“Pleased to meet you,” said Mr. Albemarle. “Our friend, Mr. Lypiatt,” he -added richly, “has the true artistic temp——” - -“It’s going to be magnificent.” Lypiatt could not wait till Mr. -Albemarle had finished speaking. He gave Gumbril a heroic blow on the -shoulder. - -“... artistic temperament, as I was saying,” pursued Mr. Albemarle. “He -is altogether too impatient and enthusiastic for us poor people ...” a -ducal smile of condescension accompanied this graceful act of -self-abasement ... “who move in the prosaic, practical, workaday world.” - -Lypiatt laughed, a loud, discordant peal. He didn’t seem to mind being -accused of having an artistic temperament; he seemed, indeed, to enjoy -it, if anything. “Fire and water,” he said aphoristically, “brought -together, beget steam. Mr. Albemarle and I go driving along like a steam -engine. Psh, psh!” He worked his arms like a pair of alternate pistons. -He laughed; but Mr. Albemarle only coldly and courteously smiled. “I was -just telling Mr. Albemarle about the great Crucifixion I’ve just been -doing. It’s as big and headlong as a Veronese, but much more serious, -more....” - -Behind them the little assistant was expounding to a new visitor the -beauties of the etchings. “Very intense,” he was saying, “the feeling in -this passage.” The shadow, indeed, clung with an insistent affection -round the stern of the boat. “And what a fine, what a——” he hesitated -for an instant, and under his pale, oiled hair his face became suddenly -very red—“what a swirling composition.” He looked anxiously at the -visitor. The remark had been received without comment. He felt immensely -relieved. - -They left the galleries together. Lypiatt set the pace, striding along -at a great rate and with a magnificent brutality through the elegant and -leisured crowd, gesticulating and loudly talking as he went. He carried -his hat in his hand; his tie was brilliantly orange. People turned to -look at him as he passed and he liked it. He had, indeed, a remarkable -face—a face that ought by rights to have belonged to a man of genius. -Lypiatt was aware of it. The man of genius, he liked to say, bears upon -his brow a kind of mark of Cain, by which men recognize him at once—“and -having recognized, generally stone him,” he would add with that peculiar -laugh he always uttered whenever he said anything rather bitter or -cynical; a laugh that was meant to show that the bitterness, the -cynicism, justifiable as events might have made them, were really only a -mask, and that beneath it the artist was still serenely and tragically -smiling. Lypiatt thought a great deal about the ideal artist. That -titanic abstraction stalked within his own skin. He was it—a little too -consciously, perhaps. - -“This time,” he kept repeating, “they’ll be bowled over. This time.... -It’s going to be terrific.” And with the blood beating behind his eyes, -with the exultant consciousness and certainty of power growing and -growing in him with every word he spoke, Lypiatt began to describe the -pictures there would be at his show; he talked about the preface he was -writing to the catalogue, the poems that would be printed in it by way -of literary complement to the pictures. He talked, he talked. - -Gumbril listened, not very attentively. He was wondering how any one -could talk so loud, could boast so extravagantly. It was as though the -man had to shout in order to convince himself of his own existence. Poor -Lypiatt; after all these years, Gumbril supposed, he must have some -doubts about it. Ah, but this time, this time he was going to bowl them -all over. - -“You’re pleased, then, with what you’ve done recently,” he said at the -end of one of Lypiatt’s long tirades. - -“Pleased?” exclaimed Lypiatt; “I should think I was.” - -Gumbril might have reminded him that he had been as well pleased in the -past and that ‘they’ had by no means been bowled over. He preferred, -however, to say nothing. Lypiatt went on about the size and universality -of the old masters. He himself, it was tacitly understood, was one of -them. - -They parted near the bottom of the Tottenham Court Road, Lypiatt to go -northward to his studio off Maple Street, Gumbril to pay one of his -secret visits to those rooms of his in Great Russell Street. He had -taken them nearly a year ago now, two little rooms over a grocer’s shop, -promising himself goodness only knew what adventures in them. But -somehow there had been no adventures. Still, it had pleased him, all the -same, to be able to go there from time to time when he was in London and -to think, as he sat in solitude before his gas fire, that there was -literally not a soul in the universe who knew where he was. He had an -almost childish affection for mysteries and secrets. - -“Good-bye,” said Gumbril, raising his hand to the salute. “And I’ll beat -up some people for dinner on Friday.” (For they had agreed to meet -again.) He turned away, thinking that he had spoken the last words; but -he was mistaken. - -“Oh, by the way,” said Lypiatt, who had also turned to go, but who now -came stepping quickly after his companion. “Can you, by any chance, lend -me five pounds. Only till after the exhibition, you know. I’m a bit -short.” - -Poor old Lypiatt! But it was with reluctance that Gumbril parted from -his Treasury notes. - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - -Lypiatt had a habit, which some of his friends found rather trying—and -not only friends, for Lypiatt was ready to let the merest acquaintances, -the most absolute strangers, even, into the secrets of his inspiration—a -habit of reciting at every possible opportunity his own verses. He would -declaim in a voice loud and tremulous, with an emotion that never seemed -to vary with the varying subject-matter of his poems, for whole quarters -of an hour at a stretch; would go on declaiming till his auditors were -overwhelmed with such a confusion of embarrassment and shame, that the -blood rushed to their cheeks and they dared not meet one another’s eyes. - -He was declaiming now; not merely across the dinner table to his own -friends, but to the whole restaurant. For at the first reverberating -lines of his latest, “The Conquistador,” there had been a startled -turning of heads, a craning of necks from every corner of the room. The -people who came to this Soho restaurant because it was, notoriously, so -‘artistic,’ looked at one another significantly and nodded; they were -getting their money’s worth, this time. And Lypiatt, with a fine air of -rapt unconsciousness, went on with his recitation. - -“Look down on Mexico, Conquistador”—that was the refrain. - -The Conquistador, Lypiatt had made it clear, was the Artist, and the -Vale of Mexico on which he looked down, the towered cities of Tlacopan -and Chalco, of Tenochtitlan and Iztapalapan symbolized—well, it was -difficult to say precisely what. The universe, perhaps? - -“Look down,” cried Lypiatt, with a quivering voice. - - “Look down, Conquistador! - There on the valley’s broad green floor, - There lies the lake; the jewelled cities gleam; - Chalco and Tlacopan - Awaiting the coming Man. - Look down on Mexico, Conquistador, - Land of your golden dream.” - -“Not ‘dream,’” said Gumbril, putting down the glass from which he had -been profoundly drinking. “You can’t possibly say ‘dream,’ you know.” - -“Why do you interrupt me?” Lypiatt turned on him angrily. His wide mouth -twitched at the corners, his whole long face worked with excitement. -“Why don’t you let me finish?” He allowed his hand, which had hung -awkwardly in the air above him, suspended, as it were, at the top of a -gesture, to sink slowly to the table. “Imbecile!” he said, and once more -picked up his knife and fork. - -“But really,” Gumbril insisted, “you can’t say ‘dream.’ Can you now, -seriously?” He had drunk the best part of a bottle of Burgundy and he -felt good-humoured, obstinate and a little bellicose. - -“And why not?” Lypiatt asked. - -“Oh, because one simply can’t.” Gumbril leaned back in his chair, smiled -and caressed his drooping blond moustache. “Not in this year of grace, -nineteen twenty-two.” - -“But why?” Lypiatt repeated, with exasperation. - -“Because it’s altogether _too_ late in the day,” declared precious Mr. -Mercaptan, rushing up to his emphasis with flutes and roaring, like a -true Conquistador, to fall back, however, at the end of the sentence -rather ignominiously into a breathless confusion. He was a sleek, -comfortable young man with smooth brown hair parted in the centre and -conducted in a pair of flowing curves across the temples, to be looped -in damp curls behind his ears. His face ought to have been rather more -exquisite, rather more refinedly _dix-huitième_ than it actually was. It -had a rather gross, snouty look, which was sadly out of harmony with Mr. -Mercaptan’s inimitably graceful style. For Mr. Mercaptan had a style and -used it, delightfully, in his middle articles for the literary weeklies. -His most precious work, however, was that little volume of essays, prose -poems, vignettes and paradoxes, in which he had so brilliantly -illustrated his favourite theme—the pettiness, the simian limitations, -the insignificance and the absurd pretentiousness of _Homo_ soi-disant -_Sapiens_. Those who met Mr. Mercaptan personally often came away with -the feeling that perhaps, after all, he was right in judging so severely -of humanity. - -“_Too_ late in the day,” he repeated. “Times have changed. _Sunt lacrymæ -rerum, nos et mutamur in illis._” He laughed his own applause. - -“_Quot homines, tot disputandum est_,” said Gumbril, taking another sip -of his Beaune Supérieure. At the moment, he was all for Mercaptan. - -“But _why_ is it too late?” Lypiatt insisted. - -Mr. Mercaptan made a delicate gesture. “_Ça se sent, mon cher ami_,” he -said, “_ça ne s’explique pas._” Satan, it is said, carries hell in his -heart; so it was with Mr. Mercaptan—wherever he was, it was Paris. -“Dreams in nineteen twenty-two....” He shrugged his shoulders. - -“After you’ve accepted the war, swallowed the Russian famine,” said -Gumbril. “Dreams!” - -“They belonged to the _Rostand_ epoch,” said Mr. Mercaptan, with a -little titter. “_Le Rève_—ah!” - -Lypiatt dropped his knife and fork with a clatter and leaned forward, -eager for battle. “Now I have you,” he said, “now I have you on the hip. -You’ve given yourselves away. You’ve given away the secret of your -spiritual poverty, your weakness and pettiness and impotence....” - -“Impotence? You malign me, sir,” said Gumbril. - -Shearwater ponderously stirred. He had been silent all this time, -sitting with hunched shoulders, his elbows on the table, his big round -head bent forward, absorbed, apparently, in the slow meticulous -crumbling of a piece of bread. Sometimes he put a piece of crust in his -mouth and under the bushy brown moustache his jaw moved slowly, -ruminatively, with a sideways motion, like a cow’s. He nudged Gumbril -with his elbow. “Ass,” he said, “be quiet.” - -Lypiatt went on torrentially. “You’re afraid of ideals, that’s what it -is. You daren’t admit to having dreams. Oh, I call them dreams,” he -added parenthetically. “I don’t mind being thought a fool and -old-fashioned. The word’s shorter and more English. Besides, it rhymes -with gleams. Ha, ha!” And Lypiatt laughed his loud Titan’s laugh, the -laugh of cynicism which seems to belie, but which, for those who have -understanding, reveals the high, positive spirit within. “Ideals—they’re -not sufficiently genteel for you civilized young men. You’ve quite -outgrown that sort of thing. No dream, no religion, no morality.” - -“I glory in the name of earwig,” said Gumbril. He was pleased with that -little invention. It was felicitous; it was well chosen. “One’s an -earwig in sheer self-protection,” he explained. - -But Mr. Mercaptan refused to accept the name of earwig at any price. -“_What_ there is to be ashamed of in being civilized, I _really_ don’t -know,” he said, in a voice that was now the bull’s, now the piping -robin’s. “No, if I glory in anything, it’s in my little rococo boudoir, -and the conversations across the polished mahogany, and the delicate, -lascivious, _witty_ little flirtations on ample sofas inhabited by the -soul of Crebillon Fils. We needn’t _all_ be Russians, I hope. These -revolting Dostoievskys.” Mr. Mercaptan spoke with a profound feeling. -“Nor all Utopians. Homo _au naturel_——” Mr. Mercaptan applied his thumb -and forefinger to his, alas! too snout-like nose, “_ça pue_. And as for -Homo à la H. G. Wells—_ça ne pue pas assez_. What I glory in is the -civilized, middle way between stink and asepsis. Give me a little musk, -a little intoxicating feminine exhalation, the bouquet of old wine and -strawberries, a lavender bag under every pillow and pot-pourri in the -corners of the drawing-room. Readable books, amusing conversation, -civilized women, graceful art and dry vintage, music, with a quiet life -and reasonable comfort—that’s _all_ I ask for.” - -“Talking about comfort,” Gumbril put in, before Lypiatt had time to -fling his answering thunders, “I must tell you about my new invention. -Pneumatic trousers,” he explained. “Blow them up. Perfect comfort. You -see the idea? You’re a sedentary man, Mercaptan. Let me put you down for -a couple of pairs.” - -Mr. Mercaptan shook his head. “Too Wellsian,” he said. “Too horribly -Utopian. They’d be ludicrously out of place in my boudoir. And besides, -my sofa is well enough sprung already, thank you.” - -“But what about Tolstoy?” shouted Lypiatt, letting out his impatience in -a violent blast. - -Mr. Mercaptan waved his hand. “Russian,” he said, “Russian.” - -“And Michelangelo?” - -“Alberti,” said Gumbril, very seriously, giving them all a piece of his -father’s mind—“Alberti was much the better architect, I assure you.” - -“And pretentiousness for pretentiousness,” said Mr. Mercaptan, “I prefer -old Borromini and the baroque.” - -“What about Beethoven?” went on Lypiatt. “What about Blake? Where do -they come in under your scheme of things?” - -Mr. Mercaptan shrugged his shoulders. “They stay in the hall,” he said. -“I don’t let them into the boudoir.” - -“You disgust me,” said Lypiatt, with rising indignation, and making -wider gestures. “You disgust me—you and your odious little sham -eighteenth-century civilization; your piddling little poetry; your art -for art’s sake instead of for God’s sake; your nauseating little -copulations without love or passion; your hoggish materialism; your -bestial indifference to all that’s unhappy and your yelping hatred of -all that’s great.” - -“Charming, charming,” murmured Mr. Mercaptan, who was pouring oil on his -salad. - -“How can you ever hope to achieve anything decent or solid, when you -don’t even believe in decency or solidity? I look about me,” and Lypiatt -cast his eyes wildly round the crowded room, “and I find myself alone, -spiritually alone. I strive on by myself, by myself.” He struck his -breast, a giant, a solitary giant. “I have set myself to restore -painting and poetry to their rightful position among the great moral -forces. They have been amusements, they have been mere games for too -long. I am giving my life for that. My life.” His voice trembled a -little. “People mock me, hate me, stone me, deride me. But I go on, I go -on. For I know I’m right. And in the end they too will recognize that -I’ve been right.” It was a loud soliloquy. One could fancy that Lypiatt -had been engaged in recognizing himself. - -“All the same,” said Gumbril with a cheerful stubbornness, “I persist -that the word ‘dreams’ is inadmissible.” - -“_Inadmissible_,” repeated Mr. Mercaptan, imparting to the word an -additional significance by giving it its French pronunciation. “In the -age of Rostand, well and good. But now....” - -“Now,” said Gumbril, “the word merely connotes Freud.” - -“It’s a matter of literary tact,” explained Mr. Mercaptan. “Have you no -literary tact?” - -“No,” said Lypiatt, with emphasis, “thank God, I haven’t. I have no tact -of any kind. I do things straightforwardly, frankly, as the spirit moves -me. I don’t like compromises.” - -He struck the table. The gesture startlingly let loose a peal of cracked -and diabolic laughter. Gumbril and Lypiatt and Mr. Mercaptan looked -quickly up; even Shearwater lifted his great spherical head and turned -towards the sound the large disk of his face. A young man with a blond, -fan-shaped beard stood by the table, looking down at them through a pair -of bright blue eyes and smiling equivocally and disquietingly as though -his mind were full of some nameless and fantastic malice. - -“_Come sta la Sua Terribiltà?_” he asked; and, taking off his -preposterous bowler hat, he bowed profoundly to Lypiatt. “How I -recognize my Buonarotti!” he added affectionately. - -Lypiatt laughed, rather uncomfortably, and no longer on the Titanic -scale. “How I recognize my Coleman!” he echoed, rather feebly. - -“On the contrary,” Gumbril corrected, “how almost completely I fail to -recognize. This beard”—he pointed to the blond fan—“why, may I ask?” - -“More Russianism,” said Mr. Mercaptan, and shook his head. - -“Ah, why indeed?” Coleman lowered his voice to a confidential whisper. -“For religious reasons,” he said, and made the sign of the cross. - - “Christlike in my behaviour, - Like every good believer, - I imitate the Saviour, - And cultivate a beaver. - -There be beavers which have made themselves beavers for the kingdom of -heaven’s sake. But there are some beavers, on the other hand, which were -so born from their mother’s womb.” He burst into a fit of outrageous -laughter which stopped as suddenly and as voluntarily as it had begun. - -Lypiatt shook his head. “Hideous,” he said, “hideous.” - -“Moreover,” Coleman went on, without paying any attention, “I have other -and, alas! less holy reasons for this change of face. It enables one to -make such delightful acquaintances in the street. You hear some one -saying, ‘Beaver,’ as you pass, and you immediately have the right to -rush up and get into conversation. I owe to this dear symbol,” and he -caressed the golden beard tenderly with the palm of his hand, “the most -admirably dangerous relations.” - -“Magnificent,” said Gumbril, drinking his own health. “I shall stop -shaving at once.” - -Shearwater looked round the table with raised eyebrows and a wrinkled -forehead. “This conversation is rather beyond me,” he said gravely. -Under the formidable moustache, under the thick, tufted eyebrows, the -mouth was small and ingenuous, the mild grey eyes full of an almost -childish inquiry. “What does the word ‘beaver’ signify in this context? -You don’t refer, I suppose, to the rodent, _Castor fiber_?” - -“But this is a very great man,” said Coleman, raising his bowler. “Tell -me who he is?” - -“Our friend Shearwater,” said Gumbril, “the physiologist.” - -Coleman bowed. “Physiological Shearwater,” he said. “Accept my homage. -To one who doesn’t know what a beaver is, I resign all my claims to -superiority. There’s nothing else but beavers in all the papers. Tell -me, do you never read the _Daily Express_?” - -“No.” - -“Nor the _Daily Mail_?” - -Shearwater shook his head. - -“Nor the _Mirror_? nor the _Sketch_? nor the _Graphic_? nor even (for I -was forgetting that physiologists must surely have Liberal -opinions)—even the _Daily News_?” - -Shearwater continued to shake his large spherical head. - -“Nor any of the evening papers?” - -“No.” - -Coleman once more lifted his hat. “O eloquent, just and mighty Death!” -he exclaimed, and replaced it on his head. “You never read any papers at -all—not even our friend Mercaptan’s delicious little middles in the -weeklies? How is your delicious little middle, by the way?” Coleman -turned to Mr. Mercaptan and with the point of his huge stick gave him a -little prod in the stomach. “_Ça marche—les tripes_? Hein?” He turned -back to Shearwater. “Not even those?” he asked. - -“Never,” said Shearwater. “I have more serious things to think about -than newspapers.” - -“And what serious thing, may I ask?” - -“Well, at the present moment,” said Shearwater, “I am chiefly -preoccupied with the kidneys.” - -“The kidneys!” In an ecstasy of delight, Coleman thumped the floor with -the ferrule of his stick. “The kidneys! Tell me all about kidneys. This -is of the first importance. This is really life. And I shall sit down at -your table without asking permission of Buonarotti here, and in the -teeth of Mercaptan, and without so much as thinking about this species -of Gumbril, who might as well not be there at all. I shall sit down -and——” - -“Talking of sitting,” said Gumbril, “I wish I could persuade you to -order a pair of my patent pneumatic trousers. They will——” - -Coleman waved him away. “Not now, not now,” he said. “I shall sit down -and listen to the physiologue talking about runions, while I myself -actually eat them—_sautés_. _Sautés_, mark my words.” - -Laying his hat and stick on the floor beside him, he sat down at the end -of the table, between Lypiatt and Shearwater. - -“Two believers,” he said, laying his hand for a moment on Lypiatt’s arm, -“and three black-hearted unbelievers—confronted. Eh, Buonarotti? You and -I are both _croyants et pratiquants_, as Mercaptan would say. I believe -in one devil, father quasi-almighty, Samael and his wife, the Woman of -Whoredom. Ha, ha!” He laughed his ferocious, artificial laugh. - -“Here’s an end to any civilized conversation,” Mr. Mercaptan complained, -hissing on the _c_, labiating lingeringly on the _v_ of ‘civilized’ and -giving the first two _i_’s their fullest value. The word, in his mouth, -seemed to take on a special and a richer significance. - -Coleman ignored him. “Tell me, you physiologue,” he went on, “tell me -about the physiology of the Archetypal Man. This is most important; -Buonarotti shares my opinion about this, I know. Has the Archetypal Man -a _boyau rectum_, as Mercaptan would say again, or not? Everything -depends on this, as Voltaire realized ages ago. ‘His feet,’ as we know -already on inspired authority, ‘were straight feet; and the sole of his -feet were like the sole of a calf’s foot.’ But the viscera, you must -tell us something about the viscera. Mustn’t he, Buonarotti? And where -are my _rognons sautés_?” he shouted at the waiter. - -“You revolt me,” said Lypiatt. - -“Not mortually, I ’ope?” Coleman turned with solicitude to his -neighbour; then shook his head. “Mortually I fear. Kiss me ’Ardy, and I -die happy.” He blew a kiss into the air. “But why is the physiologue so -slow? Up, pachyderm, up! Answer. You hold the key to everything. The -key, I tell you, the key. I remember, when I used to hang about the -biological laboratories at school, eviscerating frogs—crucified with -pins, they were, belly upwards, like little green Christs—I remember -once, when I was sitting there, quietly poring over the entrails, in -came the laboratory boy and said to the stinks usher: ‘Please, sir, may -I have the key of the Absolute?’ And, would you believe it, that usher -calmly put his hand in his trouser pocket and fished out a small Yale -key and gave it him without a word. What a gesture! The key of the -Absolute. But it was only the absolute alcohol the urchin wanted—to -pickle some loathsome fœtus in, I suppose. God rot his soul in peace! -And now, Castor Fiber, out with your key. Tell us about the Archetypal -Man, tell us about the primordial Adam. Tell us all about the _boyau -rectum_.” - -Ponderously, Shearwater moved his clumsy frame; leaning back in his -chair he scrutinized Coleman with a large, benevolent curiosity. The -eyes under the savage eyebrows were mild and gentle; behind the fearful -disguise of the moustache he smiled poutingly, like a baby who sees the -approaching bottle. The broad, domed forehead was serene. He ran his -hand through his thick brown hair, scratched his head meditatively and -then, when he had thoroughly examined, had comprehended and duly -classified the strange phenomenon of Coleman, opened his mouth and -uttered a little good-natured laugh of amusement. - -“Voltaire’s question,” he said at last, in his slow, deep voice, “seemed -at the time he asked it an unanswerable piece of irony. It would have -seemed almost equally ironic to his contemporaries, if he had asked -whether God had a pair of kidneys. We know a little more about the -kidneys nowadays. If he had asked me, I should answer: why not? The -kidneys are so beautifully organized; they do their work of regulation -with such a miraculous—it’s hard to find another word—such a positively -divine precision, such knowledge and wisdom, that there’s no reason why -your archetypal man, whoever he is, or any one else, for that matter, -should be ashamed of owning a pair.” - -Coleman clapped his hands. “The key,” he cried, “the key. Out of the -trouser pocket of babes and sucklings it comes. The genuine, the unique -Yale. How right I was to come here to-night! But, holy Sephiroth, -there’s my trollop.” - -He picked up his stick, jumped from his chair and threaded his way -between the tables. A woman was standing near the door. Coleman came up -to her, pointed without speaking to the table, and returned, driving her -along in front of him, tapping her gently over the haunches with his -stick, as one might drive a docile animal to the slaughter. - -“Allow me to introduce,” said Coleman. “The sharer of my joys and -sorrows. _La compagne de mes nuits blanches et de mes jours plutôt -sales._ In a word, Zoe. _Qui ne comprend pas le français, qui me déteste -avec une passion égale à la mienne, et qui mangera, ma foi, des rognons -pour faire honneur au physiologue._” - -“Have some Burgundy?” Gumbril proffered the bottle. - -Zoe nodded and pushed forward her glass. She was dark-haired, had a pale -skin and eyes like round blackberries. Her mouth was small and floridly -curved. She was dressed, rather depressingly, like a picture by Augustus -John, in blue and orange. Her expression was sullen and ferocious, and -she looked about her with an air of profound contempt. - -“Shearwater’s no better than a mystic,” fluted Mr. Mercaptan. “A -mystical scientist; really, one hadn’t reckoned on that.” - -“Like a Liberal Pope,” said Gumbril. “Poor Metternich, you remember? Pio -Nono.” And he burst into a fit of esoteric laughter. “Of less than -average intelligence,” he murmured delightedly, and refilled his glass. - -“It’s only the deliberately blind who wouldn’t reckon on the -combination,” Lypiatt put in, indignantly. “What are science and art, -what are religion and philosophy but so many expressions in human terms -of some reality more than human? Newton and Boehme and Michelangelo—what -are they doing but expressing, in different ways, different aspects of -the same thing?” - -“Alberti, I beg you,” said Gumbril. “I assure you he was the better -architect.” - -“_Fi donc!_” said Mr. Mercaptan. “San Carlo alle Quatro Fontane——” But -he got no further. Lypiatt abolished him with a gesture. - -“One reality,” he cried, “there is only one reality.” - -“One reality,” Coleman reached out a hand across the table and caressed -Zoe’s bare white arm, “and that is callipygous.” Zoe jabbed at his hand -with her fork. - -“We are all trying to talk about it,” continued Lypiatt. “The physicists -have formulated their laws, which are after all no more than stammering -provisional theories about a part of it. The physiologists are -penetrating into the secrets of life, psychologists into the mind. And -we artists are trying to say what is revealed to us about the moral -nature, the personality of that reality, which is the universe.” - -Mr. Mercaptan threw up his hands in affected horror. “Oh, _barbaridad, -barbaridad_!” Nothing less than the pure Castilian would relieve his -feelings. “But all this is meaningless.” - -“Quite right about the chemists and physicists,” said Shearwater. -“They’re always trying to pretend that they’re nearer the truth than we -are. They take their crude theories as facts and try to make us accept -them when we’re dealing with life. Oh, they are sacred, their theories. -Laws of Nature they call them; and they talk about their known truths -and our romantic biological fancies. What a fuss they make when we talk -about life! Bloody fools!” said Shearwater, mild and crushing. “Nobody -but a fool could talk of mechanism in face of the kidneys. And there are -actually imbeciles who talk about the mechanism of heredity and -reproduction.” - -“All the same,” began Mr. Mercaptan very earnestly, anxious to deny his -own life, “there are eminent authorities. I can only quote what they -say, of course. I can’t pretend to know anything about it myself. But——” - -“Reproduction, reproduction,” Coleman murmured the word to himself -ecstatically. “Delightful and horrifying to think they all come to that, -even the most virginal; that they were all made for that, little -she-dogs, in spite of their china blue eyes. What sort of a mandrake -shall we produce, Zoe and I?” he asked, turning to Shearwater. “How I -should like to have a child,” he went on without waiting for an answer. -“I shouldn’t teach it anything; no language, nothing at all. Just a -child of nature. I believe it would really be the devil. And then what -fun it would be if it suddenly started to say ‘Bekkos,’ like the -children in Herodotus. And Buonarotti here would paint an allegorical -picture of it and write an epic called ‘The Ignoble Savage.’ And Castor -Fiber would come and sound its kidneys and investigate its sexual -instincts. And Mercaptan would write one of his inimitable middle -articles about it. And Gumbril would make it a pair of patent trousers. -And Zoe and I would look parentally on and fairly swell with pride. -Shouldn’t we, Zoe?” Zoe preserved her expression of sullen, unchanging -contempt and did not deign to answer. “Ah, how delightful it would be! I -long for posterity. I live in hopes. I stope against Stopes. I——” - -Zoe threw a piece of bread, which caught him on the cheek, a little -below the eye. Coleman leaned back and laughed and laughed till the -tears rolled down his face. - - - - - CHAPTER V - - -One after another, they engaged themselves in the revolving doors of the -restaurant, trotted round in the moving cage of glass and ejected -themselves into the coolness and darkness of the street. Shearwater -lifted up his large face and took two or three deep breaths. “Too much -carbon dioxide and ammonia in there,” he said. - -“It is unfortunate that when two or three are gathered together in God’s -name, or even in the more civilized name of Mercaptan of the delicious -middle,” Mercaptan dexterously parried the prod which Coleman aimed at -him, “it is altogether deplorable that they should necessarily empest -the air.” - -Lypiatt had turned his eyes heavenwards. “What stars,” he said, “and -what prodigious gaps between the stars!” - -“A real light opera summer night.” And Mercaptan began to sing, in -fragmentary German, the ‘Barcarolle’ from the _Tales of Hoffmann_. -“Liebe Nacht, du schöne Nacht, oh stille mein tumpty-tum. Te, tum, Te -tum.... Delicious Offenbach. Ah, if only we could have a third Empire! -Another comic Napoleon! That would make Paris look like Paris again. -Tiddy, tumpty-ti-tum.” - -They walked along without any particular destination, but simply for the -sake of walking through this soft cool night. Coleman led the way, -tapping the pavement at every step with the ferrule of his stick. “The -blind leading the blind,” he explained. “Ah, if only there were a ditch, -a crevasse, a great hole full of stinging centipedes and dung. How -gleefully I should lead you all into it!” - -“I think you would do well,” said Shearwater gravely, “to go and see a -doctor.” - -Coleman gave vent to a howl of delight. - -“Does it occur to you,” he went on, “that at this moment we are walking -through the midst of seven million distinct and separate individuals, -each with distinct and separate lives and all completely indifferent to -our existence? Seven million people, each one of whom thinks himself -quite as important as each of us does. Millions of them are now sleeping -in an empested atmosphere. Hundreds of thousands of couples are at this -moment engaged in mutually caressing one another in a manner too hideous -to be thought of, but in no way differing from the manner in which each -of us performs, delightfully, passionately and beautifully, his similar -work of love. Thousands of women are now in the throes of parturition, -and of both sexes thousands are dying of the most diverse and appalling -diseases, or simply because they have lived too long. Thousands are -drunk, thousands have over-eaten, thousands have not had enough to eat. -And they are all alive, all unique and separate and sensitive, like you -and me. It’s a horrible thought. Ah, if I could lead them all into that -great hole of centipedes.” - -He tapped and tapped on the pavement in front of him, as though -searching for the crevasse. At the top of his voice he began to chant: -“O all ye Beasts and Cattle, curse ye the Lord: curse him and vilify him -for ever.” - -“All this religion,” sighed Mercaptan. “What with Lypiatt on one side, -being a muscular Christian artist, and Coleman on the other, howling the -black mass.... Really!” He elaborated an Italianate gesture, and turned -to Zoe. “What do you think of it all?” he asked. - -Zoe jerked her head in Coleman’s direction. “I think e’s a bloody -swine,” she said. They were the first words she had spoken since she had -joined the party. - -“Hear, hear!” cried Coleman, and he waved his stick. - -In the warm yellow light of the coffee-stall at Hyde Park Corner -loitered a little group of people. Among the peaked caps and the -chauffeurs’ dust-coats, among the weather-stained workmen’s jackets and -the knotted handkerchiefs, there emerged an alien elegance. A tall tubed -hat and a silk-faced overcoat, a cloak of flame-coloured satin, and in -bright, coppery hair a great Spanish comb of carved tortoiseshell. - -“Well, I’m damned,” said Gumbril as they approached. “I believe it’s -Myra Viveash.” - -“So it is,” said Lypiatt, peering in his turn. He began suddenly to walk -with an affected swagger, kicking his heels at every step. Looking at -himself from outside, his divining eyes pierced through the veil of -cynical _je-m’en-fichisme_ to the bruised heart beneath. Besides, he -didn’t want any one to guess. - -“The Viveash is it?” Coleman quickened his rapping along the pavement. -“And who is the present incumbent?” He pointed at the top hat. - -“Can it be Bruin Opps?” said Gumbril dubiously. - -“Opps!” Coleman yelled out the name. “Opps!” - -The top hat turned, revealing a shirt front, a long grey face, a glitter -of circular glass over the left eye. “Who the devil are you?” The voice -was harsh and arrogantly offensive. - -“I am that I am,” said Coleman. “But I have with me”—he pointed to -Shearwater, to Gumbril, to Zoe—“a physiologue, a pedagogue and a -priapagogue; for I leave out of account mere artists and journalists -whose titles do not end with the magic syllable. And finally,” -indicating himself, “plain Dog, which being interpreted kabbalistically -backwards, signifies God. All at your service.” He took off his hat and -bowed. - -The top hat turned back towards the Spanish comb. “Who is this horrible -drunk?” it inquired. - -Mrs. Viveash did not answer him, but stepped forward to meet the -newcomers. In one hand she held a peeled, hard-boiled egg and a thick -slice of bread and butter in the other, and between her sentences she -bit at them alternately. - -“Coleman!” she exclaimed, and her voice, as she spoke, seemed always on -the point of expiring, as though each word were the last, utterly -faintly and breakingly from a death-bed—the last, with all the profound -and nameless significance of the ultimate word. “It’s a very long time -since I heard you raving last. And you, Theodore darling, why do I never -see you now?” - -Gumbril shrugged his shoulders. “Because you don’t want to, I suppose,” -he said. - -Myra laughed and took another bite at her bread and butter.... She laid -the back of her hand—for she was still holding the butt end of her -hard-boiled egg—on Lypiatt’s arm. The Titan, who had been looking at the -sky, seemed to be surprised to find her standing there. “You?” he said, -smiling and wrinkling up his forehead interrogatively. - -“It’s to-morrow I’m sitting for you, Casimir, isn’t it?” - -“Ah, you remembered.” The veil parted for a moment. Poor Lypiatt! “And -happy Mercaptan? Always happy?” - -Gallantly Mercaptan kissed the back of the hand which held the egg. “I -might be happier,” he murmured, rolling up at her from the snouty face a -pair of small brown eyes. “_Puis-je espérer?_” - -Mrs. Viveash laughed expiringly from her inward death-bed and turned on -him, without speaking, her pale unwavering glance. Her eyes had a -formidable capacity for looking and expressing nothing; they were like -the pale blue eyes which peer out of the Siamese cat’s black velvet -mask. - -“Bellissima,” murmured Mercaptan, flowering under their cool light. - -Mrs. Viveash addressed herself to the company at large. “We have had the -most appalling evening,” she said. “Haven’t we, Bruin?” - -Bruin Opps said nothing, but only scowled. He didn’t like these damned -intruders. The skin of his contracted brows oozed over the rim of his -monocle, on to the shining glass. - -“I thought it would be fun,” Myra went on, “to go to that place at -Hampton Court, where you have dinner on an island and dance....” - -“What is there about islands,” put in Mercaptan, in a deliciously -whimsical parenthesis, “that makes them so peculiarly voluptuous? -Cythera, Monkey Island, Capri. _Je me demande._” - -“Another charming middle.” Coleman pointed his stick menacingly; Mr. -Mercaptan stepped quickly out of range. - -“So we took a cab,” Mrs. Viveash continued, “and set out. And what a -cab, my God! A cab with only one gear and that the lowest. A cab as old -as the century, a museum specimen, a collector’s piece.” They had been -hours and hours on the way. And when they got there, the food they were -offered to eat, the wine they were expected to drink! From her eternal -death-bed Mrs. Viveash cried out in unaffected horror. Everything tasted -as though it has been kept soaking for a week in the river before being -served up—rather weedy, with that delicious typhoid flavour of Thames -water. There was Thames even in the champagne. They had not been able to -eat so much as a crust of bread. Hungry and thirsty, they had -re-embarked in their antique taxi, and here, at last, they were, at the -first outpost of civilization, eating for dear life. - -“Oh, a terrible evening,” Mrs. Viveash concluded. “The only thing which -kept up my spirits was the spectacle of Bruin’s bad temper. You’ve no -idea, Bruin, what an incomparable comic you can be.” - -Bruin ignored the remark. With an expression of painfully repressed -disgust he was eating a hard-boiled egg. Myra’s caprices were becoming -more and more impossible. That Hampton Court business had been bad -enough; but when it came to eating in the street, in the middle of a lot -of filthy workmen—well, really, that was rather too much. - -Mrs. Viveash looked about her. “Am I never to know who this mysterious -person is?” She pointed to Shearwater, who was standing a little apart -from the group, his back leaning against the Park railings and staring -thoughtfully at the ground. - -“The physiologue,” Coleman explained, “and he has the key. The key, the -key!” He hammered the pavement with his stick. - -Gumbril performed the introduction in more commonplace style. - -“You don’t seem to take much interest in us, Mr. Shearwater,” Myra -called expiringly. Shearwater looked up; Mrs. Viveash regarded him -intently through pale, unwavering eyes, smiling as she looked that -queer, downward-turning smile which gave to her face, through its mask -of laughter, a peculiar expression of agony. “You don’t seem to take -much interest in us,” she repeated. - -Shearwater shook his heavy head. “No,” he said, “I don’t think I do.” - -“Why don’t you?” - -“Why should I? There’s not time to be interested in everything. One can -only be interested in what’s worth while.” - -“And we’re not worth while?” - -“Not to me personally,” replied Shearwater with candour. “The Great Wall -of China, the political situation in Italy, the habits of Trematodes—all -these are most interesting in themselves. But they aren’t interesting to -me; I don’t permit them to be. I haven’t the leisure.” - -“And what do you allow yourself to be interested in?” - -“Shall we go?” said Bruin impatiently; he had succeeded in swallowing -the last fragment of his hard-boiled egg. Mrs. Viveash did not answer, -did not even look at him. - -Shearwater, who had hesitated before replying, was about to speak. But -Coleman answered for him. “Be respectful,” he said to Mrs. Viveash. -“This is a great man. He reads no papers, not even those in which our -Mercaptan so beautifully writes. He does not know what a beaver is. And -he lives for nothing but the kidneys.” - -Mrs. Viveash smiled her smile of agony. “Kidneys? But what a _memento -mori_. There are other portions of the anatomy.” She threw back her -cloak revealing an arm, a bare shoulder, a slant of pectoral muscle. She -was wearing a white dress that, leaving her back and shoulders bare, -came up, under either arm, to a point in front and was held there by a -golden thread about the neck. “For example,” she said, and twisted her -hand several times over and over, making the slender arm turn at the -elbow, as though to demonstrate the movement of the articulations and -the muscular play. - -“_Memento vivere_,” Mr. Mercaptan aptly commented. “_Vivamus, mea -Lesbia, atque amemus._” - -Mrs. Viveash dropped her arm and pulled the cloak back into place. She -looked at Shearwater, who had followed all her movements with -conscientious attention, and who now nodded with an expression of -interrogation on his face, as though to ask: what next? - -“We all know that you’ve got beautiful arms,” said Bruin angrily. -“There’s no need for you to make an exhibition of them in the street, at -midnight. Let’s get out of this.” He laid his hand on her shoulder and -made as if to draw her away. “We’d better be going. Goodness knows -what’s happening behind us.” He indicated with a little movement of the -head the loiterers round the coffee-stall. “Some disturbance among the -_canaille_.” - -Mrs. Viveash looked round. The cab-drivers and the other consumers of -midnight coffee had gathered in an interested circle, curious and -sympathetic, round the figure of a woman who was sitting, like a limp -bundle tied up in black cotton and mackintosh, on the stall-keeper’s -high stool, leaning wearily against the wall of the booth. A man stood -beside her drinking tea out of a thick white cup. Every one was talking -at once. - -“Mayn’t the poor wretches talk?” asked Mrs. Viveash, turning back to -Bruin. “I never knew any one who had the lower classes on the brain as -much as you have.” - -“I loathe them,” said Bruin. “I hate every one poor, or ill, or old. -Can’t abide them; they make me positively sick.” - -“_Quelle âme bien-née_,” piped Mr. Mercaptan. “And how well and frankly -you express what we all feel and lack the courage to say.” - -Lypiatt gave vent to indignant laughter. - -“I remember when I was a little boy,” Bruin went on, “my old grandfather -used to tell me stories about his childhood. He told me that when he was -about five or six, just before the passing of the Reform Bill of -’thirty-two, there was a song which all right-thinking people used to -sing, with a chorus that went like this: ‘Rot the People, blast the -People, damn the Lower Classes.’ I wish I knew the rest of the words and -the tune. It must have been a good song.” - -Coleman was enraptured with the song. He shouldered his walking-stick -and began marching round and round the nearest lamp-post chanting the -words to a stirring march tune. “Rot the People, blast the People....” -He marked the rhythm with heavy stamps of his feet. - -“Ah, if only they’d invent servants with internal combustion engines,” -said Bruin, almost pathetically. “However well trained they are, they -always betray their humanity occasionally. And that is really -intolerable.” - -“How tedious is a guilty conscience!” Gumbril murmured the quotation. - -“But Mr. Shearwater,” said Myra, bringing back the conversation to more -congenial themes, “hasn’t told us yet what he thinks of arms.” - -“Nothing at all,” said Shearwater. “I’m occupied with the regulation of -the blood at the moment.” - -“But is it true what he says, Theodore?” She appealed to Gumbril. - -“I should think so.” Gumbril’s answer was rather dim and remote. He was -straining to hear the talk of Bruin’s _canaille_, and Mrs. Viveash’s -question seemed a little irrelevant. - -“I used to do cartin’ jobs,” the man with the teacup was saying. “’Ad a -van and a nold pony of me own. And didn’t do so badly neither. The only -trouble was me lifting furniture and ’eavy weights about the place. -Because I ’ad malaria out in India, in the war....” - -“Nor even—you compel me to violate the laws of modesty—nor even,” Mrs. -Viveash went on, smiling painfully, speaking huskily, expiringly, “of -legs?” - -A spring of blasphemy was touched in Coleman’s brain. “Neither -delighteth He in any man’s legs,” he shouted, and with an extravagant -show of affection he embraced Zoe, who caught hold of his hand and bit -it. - -“It comes back on you when you get tired like, malaria does.” The man’s -face was sallow and there was an air of peculiar listlessness and -hopelessness about his misery. “It comes back on you, and then you go -down with fever and you’re as weak as a child.” - -Shearwater shook his head. - -“Nor even of the heart?” Mrs. Viveash lifted her eyebrows. “Ah, now the -inevitable word has been pronounced, the real subject of every -conversation has appeared on the scene. Love, Mr. Shearwater!” - -“But as I says,” recapitulated the man with the teacup, “we didn’t do so -badly after all. We ’ad nothing to complain about. ’Ad we, Florrie?” - -The black bundle made an affirmative movement with its upper extremity. - -“That’s one of the subjects,” said Shearwater, “like the Great Wall of -China and the habits of Trematodes, I don’t allow myself to be -interested in.” - -Mrs. Viveash laughed, breathed out a little “Good God!” of incredulity -and astonishment, and asked, “Why not?” - -“No time,” he explained. “You people of leisure have nothing else to do -or think about. I’m busy and so naturally less interested in the subject -than you; and I take care, what’s more, to limit such interest as I -have.” - -“I was goin’ up Ludgate ’Ill one day with a vanload of stuff for a chap -in Clerkenwell. I was leadin’ Jerry up the ’ill—Jerry’s the name of our -ole pony....” - -“One can’t have everything,” Shearwater was explaining, “not all at the -same time, in any case. I’ve arranged my life for work now. I’m quietly -married, I simmer away domestically.” - -“_Quelle horreur!_” said Mr. Mercaptan. All the Louis Quinze Abbé in him -was shocked and revolted by the thought. - -“But love?” questioned Mrs. Viveash. “Love?” - -“Love!” Lypiatt echoed. He was looking up at the Milky Way. - -“All of a sudden out jumps a copper at me. ‘’Ow old is that ’orse?’ ’e -says. ‘It ain’t fit to drawr a load, it limps in all four feet,’ ’e -says. ‘No, it doesn’t,’ I says. ‘None of your answerin’ back,’ ’e says. -‘Take it outer the shafts at once.’” - -“But I know all about love already. I know precious little still about -kidneys.” - -“But, my good Shearwater, how can you know all about love before you’ve -made it with all women?” - -“Off we goes, me and the cop and the ’orse, up in front of the police -court magistrate....” - -“Or are you one of those imbeciles,” Mrs. Viveash went on, “who speak of -women with a large W and pretend we’re all the same? Poor Theodore here -might possibly think so in his feebler moments.” Gumbril smiled vaguely -from a distance. He was following the man with the teacup into the -magistrate’s stuffy court. “And Mercaptan certainly does, because all -the women who ever sat on his _dix-huitième_ sofa certainly were exactly -like one another. And perhaps Casimir does too; all women look like his -absurd ideal. But you, Shearwater, you’re intelligent. Surely you don’t -believe anything so stupid?” - -Shearwater shook his head. - -“The cop, ’e gave evidence against me. ‘Limping in all four feet,’ ’e -says. ‘It wasn’t,’ I says, and the police court vet, ’e bore me out. -‘The ’orse ’as been very well treated,’ ’e says. ‘But ’e’s old, ’e’s -very old.’ ‘I know ’e’s old,’ I says. ‘But where am I goin’ to find the -price for a young one?’” - -“_x_^2 – _y_^2,” Shearwater was saying, “= (_x_ + _y_)(_x_ – _y_). And -the equation holds good whatever the values of _x_ and _y_.... It’s the -same with your love business, Mrs. Viveash. The relation is still -fundamentally the same, whatever the value of the unknown personal -quantities concerned. Little individual tics and peculiarities—after -all, what do they matter?” - -“What indeed!” said Coleman. “Tics, mere tics. Sheep ticks, horse ticks, -bed bugs, tape worms, taint worms, guinea worms, liver flukes....” - -“‘The ’orse must be destroyed,” says the beak. “’E’s too old for work.’ -‘But I’m not,’ I says. ‘I can’t get a old age pension at thirty-two, can -I? ’Ow am I to earn my living if you take away what I earns my living -by?’” - -Mrs. Viveash smiled agonizingly. “Here’s a man who thinks personal -peculiarities are trivial and unimportant,” she said. “You’re not even -interested in people, then?” - -“‘I don’t know what you can do,’ ’e says. ‘I’m only ’ere to administer -the law.’ ‘Seems a queer sort of law,’ I says. ‘What law is it?’” - -Shearwater scratched his head. Under his formidable black moustache he -smiled at last his ingenuous, childish smile. “No,” he said. “No, I -suppose I’m not. It hadn’t occurred to me, until you said it. But I -suppose I’m not. No.” He laughed, quite delighted, it seemed, by this -discovery about himself. - -“‘What law is it?’ ’e says. ‘The Croolty to Animals law. That’s what it -is,’ ’e says.” - -The smile of mockery and suffering appeared and faded. “One of these -days,” said Mrs. Viveash, “you may find them more absorbing than you do -now.” - -“Meanwhile,” said Shearwater.... - -“I couldn’t find a job ’ere, and ’aving been workin’ on my own, my own -master like, couldn’t get unemployment pay. So when we ’eard of jobs at -Portsmouth, we thought we’d try to get one, even if it did mean walkin’ -there.” - -“Meanwhile, I have my kidneys.” - -“‘’Opeless,’ ’e says to me, ‘quite ’opeless. More than two hundred come -for three vacancies.’ So there was nothing for it but to walk back -again. Took us four days it did, this time. She was very bad on the way, -very bad. Being nearly six months gone. Our first it is. Things will be -’arder still, when it comes.” - -From the black bundle there issued a sound of quiet sobbing. - -“Look here,” said Gumbril, making a sudden irruption into the -conversation. “This is really too awful.” He was consumed with -indignation and pity; he felt like a prophet in Nineveh. - -“There are two wretched people here,” and Gumbril told them -breathlessly, what he had overheard. It was terrible, terrible. “All the -way to Portsmouth and back again; on foot; without proper food; and the -woman’s with child.” - -Coleman exploded with delight. “Gravid,” he kept repeating, “gravid, -gravid. The laws of gravidy, first formulated by Newton, now recodified -by the immortal Einstein. God said, Let Newstein be, and there was -light. And God said, Let there be Light; and there was darkness o’er the -face of the earth.” He roared with laughter. - -Between them they raised five pounds. Mrs. Viveash undertook to give -them to the black bundle. The cabmen made way for her as she advanced; -there was an uncomfortable silence. The black bundle lifted a face that -was old and worn, like the face of a statue in the portal of a -cathedral; an old face, but one was aware somehow, that it belonged to a -woman still young by the reckoning of years. Her hands trembled as she -took the notes, and when she opened her mouth to speak her hardly -articulate whisper of gratitude, one saw that she had lost several of -her teeth. - -The party disintegrated. All went their ways: Mr. Mercaptan to his -rococo boudoir, his sweet barocco bedroom in Sloane Street; Coleman and -Zoe towards goodness only knew what scenes of intimate life in Pimlico; -Lypiatt to his studio off the Tottenham Court Road, alone, silently -brooding and perhaps too consciously bowed with unhappiness. But the -unhappiness, poor Titan! was real enough, for had he not seen Mrs. -Viveash and the insufferable, the stupid and loutish Opps driving off in -one taxi? “Must finish up with a little dancing,” Myra had huskily -uttered from that death-bed on which her restless spirit for ever and -wearily exerted itself. Obediently, Bruin had given an address and they -had driven off. But after the dancing? Oh, was it possible that that -odious, bad-blooded young cad was her lover? And that she should like -him? It was no wonder that Lypiatt should have walked, bent like Atlas -under the weight of a world. And when, in Piccadilly, a belated and -still unsuccessful prostitute sidled out of the darkness, as he strode -by unseeing in his misery when she squeaked up at him a despairing -“Cheer up, duckie,” Lypiatt suddenly threw up his head and laughed -titanically, with the terrible bitterness of a noble soul in pain. Even -the poor drabs at the street corners were affected by the unhappiness -that radiated out from him, wave after throbbing wave, like music, he -liked to fancy, into the night. Even the wretched drabs. He walked on, -more desperately bowed than ever; but met no further adventure on his -way. - -Gumbril and Shearwater both lived in Paddington; they set off in company -up Park Lane, walking in silence. Gumbril gave a little skip to get -himself into step with his companion. To be out of step, when steps so -loudly and flat-footedly flapped on empty pavements, was disagreeable, -he found, was embarrassing, was somehow dangerous. Stepping, like this, -out of time, one gave oneself away, so to speak, one made the night -aware of two presences, when there might, if steps sounded in unison, be -only one, heavier, more formidable, more secure than either of the -separate two. In unison, then, they flapped up Park Lane. A policeman -and the three poets, sulking back to back on their fountain, were the -only human things besides themselves under the mauve electric moons. - -“It’s appalling, it’s horrible,” said Gumbril at last, after a long, -long silence, during which he had, indeed, been relishing to the full -the horror of it all. Life, don’t you know. - -“What’s appalling?” Shearwater inquired. He walked with his big head -bowed, his hands clasped behind his back and clutching his hat; walked -clumsily, with sudden lurches of his whole massive anatomy. Wherever he -was, Shearwater always seemed to take up the space that two or three -ordinary people would normally occupy. Cool fingers of wind passed -refreshingly through his hair. He was thinking of the experiment he -meant to try, in the next few days, down at the physiological -laboratory. You’d put a man on an ergometer in a heated chamber and set -him to work—hours at a time. He’d sweat, of course, prodigiously. You’d -make arrangements for collecting the sweat, weighing it, analysing it -and so on. The interesting thing would be to see what happened at the -end of a few days. The man would have got rid of so much of his salts, -that the blood composition might be altered and all sorts of delightful -consequences might follow. It ought to be a capital experiment. -Gumbril’s exclamation disturbed him. “What’s appalling?” he asked rather -irritably. - -“Those people at the coffee-stall,” Gumbril answered. “It’s appalling -that human beings should have to live like that. Worse than dogs.” - -“Dogs have nothing to complain of.” Shearwater went off at a tangent. -“Nor guinea-pigs, nor rats. It’s these blasted anti-vivisection maniacs -who make all the fuss.” - -“But think,” cried Gumbril, “what these wretched people have had to -suffer! Walking all the way to Portsmouth in search of work; and the -woman with child. It’s horrifying. And then, the way people of that -class are habitually treated. One has no idea of it until one has -actually been treated that way oneself. In the war, for example, when -one went to have one’s mitral murmurs listened to by the medical -board—they treated one then as though one belonged to the lower orders, -like all the rest of the poor wretches. It was a real eye-opener. One -felt like a cow being got into a train. And to think that the majority -of one’s fellow-beings pass their whole lives being shoved about like -maltreated animals!” - -“H’m,” said Shearwater. If you went on sweating indefinitely, he -supposed, you would end by dying. - -Gumbril looked through the railings at the profound darkness of the -park. Vast it was and melancholy, with a string, here and there, of -receding lights. “Terrible,” he said, and repeated the word several -times. “Terrible, terrible.” All the legless soldiers grinding -barrel-organs, all the hawkers of toys stamping their leaky boots in the -gutters of the Strand; at the corner of Cursitor Street and Chancery -Lane, the old woman with matches, for ever holding to her left eye a -handkerchief as yellow and dirty as the winter fog. What was wrong with -the eye? He had never dared to look, but hurried past as though she were -not there, or sometimes, when the fog was more than ordinarily cold and -stifling, paused for an instant with averted eyes to drop a brown coin -into her tray of matches. And then there were the murderers hanged at -eight o’clock, while one was savouring, almost with voluptuous -consciousness, the final dream-haunted doze. There was the phthisical -charwoman who used to work at his father’s house, until she got too weak -and died. There were the lovers who turned on the gas and the ruined -shopkeepers jumping in front of trains. Had one a right to be contented -and well-fed, had one a right to one’s education and good taste, a right -to knowledge and conversation and the leisurely complexities of love? - -He looked once more through the railings at the park’s impenetrable, -rustic night, at the lines of beaded lamps. He looked, and remembered -another night, years ago, during the war, when there were no lights in -the park and the electric moons above the roadway were in almost total -eclipse. He had walked up this street alone, full of melancholy emotions -which, though the cause of them was different, were in themselves much -the same as the melancholy emotions which swelled windily up within him -to-night. He had been most horribly in love. - -“What did you think,” he asked abruptly, “of Myra Viveash?” - -“Think?” said Shearwater. “I don’t know that I thought very much about -her. Not a case for ratiocination exactly, is she? She seemed to me -entertaining enough, as women go. I said I’d lunch with her on -Thursday.” - -Gumbril felt, all of a sudden, the need to speak confidentially. “There -was a time,” he said in a tone that was quite unreally airy, off-hand -and disengaged, “years ago, when I totally lost my head about her. -Totally.” Those tear-wet patches on his pillow, cold against his cheek -in the darkness; and oh, the horrible pain of weeping, vainly, for -something that was nothing, that was everything in the world! “Towards -the end of the war it was. I remember walking up this dismal street one -night, in the pitch darkness, writhing with jealousy.” He was silent. -Spectrally, like a dim, haunting ghost, he had hung about her; dumbly, -dumbly imploring, appealing. “The weak, silent man,” she used to call -him. And once for two or three days, out of pity, out of affection, out -of a mere desire, perhaps, to lay the tiresome ghost, she had given him -what his mournful silence implored—only to take it back, almost as soon -as accorded. That other night, when he had walked up this street before, -desire had eaten out his vitals and his body seemed empty, sickeningly -and achingly void; jealousy was busily reminding him, with an unflagging -malice, of her beauty—of her beauty and the hateful, ruffian hands which -now caressed, the eyes which looked on it. That was all long ago. - -“She is certainly handsome,” said Shearwater, commenting, at one or two -removes, on Gumbril’s last remark. “I can see that she might make any -one who got involved in her decidedly uncomfortable.” After a day or -two’s continuous sweating, it suddenly occurred to him, one might -perhaps find sea-water more refreshing than fresh water. That would be -queer. - -Gumbril burst out ferociously laughing. “But there were other times,” he -went on jauntily, “when other people were jealous of me.” Ah, revenge, -revenge. In the better world of the imagination it was possible to get -one’s own back. What fiendish vendettas were there carried to successful -ends! “I remember once writing her a quatrain in French.” (He had -written it years after the whole thing was over, he had never sent it to -any one at all; but that was all one.) “How did it go? Ah, yes.” And he -recited, with suitable gestures: - - “‘Puisque nous sommes là, je dois, - Vous avertir, sans trop de honte, - Que je n’égale pas le Comte - Casanovesque de Sixfois.’ - -Rather prettily turned, I flatter myself. Rather elegantly gross.” - -Gumbril’s laughter went hooting past the Marble Arch. It stopped rather -suddenly, however, at the corner of the Edgware Road. He had suddenly -remembered Mr. Mercaptan, and the thought depressed him. - - - - - CHAPTER VI - - -It was between Whitefield Street and the Tottenham Court Road, in a -‘heavenly Mews,’ as he liked to call it (for he had a characteristic -weakness for philosophical paronomasia), that Casimir Lypiatt lived and -worked. You passed under an archway of bald and sooty brick—and at -night, when the green gas-lamp underneath the arch threw livid lights -and enormous architectural shadows, you could fancy yourself at the -entrance of one of Piranesi’s prisons—and you found yourself in a long -cul-de-sac, flanked on either side by low buildings, having stabling for -horses below and, less commodiously, stabling for human beings in the -attics above. An old-fashioned smell of animals mingled with the more -progressive stink of burnt oil. The air was a little thicker here, it -seemed, than in the streets outside; looking down the mews on even the -clearest day, you could see the forms of things dimming and softening, -the colours growing richer and deeper with every yard of distance. It -was the best place in the world, Lypiatt used to say, for studying -aerial perspective; that was why he lived there. But you always felt -about poor Lypiatt that he was facing misfortune with a jest a little -too self-consciously. - -Mrs. Viveash’s taxi drove in under the Piranesian arch, drove in slowly -and as though with a gingerly reluctance to soil its white wheels on -pavements so sordid. The cabman looked round inquiringly. - -“This right?” he asked. - -With a white-gloved finger Mrs. Viveash prodded the air two or three -times, indicating that he was to drive straight on. Half-way down the -mews she rapped the glass; the man drew up. - -“Never been down _’ere_ before,” he said, for the sake of making a -little conversation, while Mrs. Viveash fumbled for her money. He looked -at her with a polite and slightly ironic curiosity that was frankly -mingled with admiration. - -“You’re lucky,” said Mrs. Viveash. “We poor decayed gentlewomen—you see -what we’re reduced to.” And she handed him a florin. - -Slowly the taxi-man unbuttoned his coat and put the coin away in an -inner pocket. He watched her as she crossed the dirty street, placing -her feet with a meticulous precision one after the other in the same -straight line, as though she were treading a knife edge between goodness -only knew what invisible gulfs. Floating she seemed to go, with a little -spring at every step and the skirt of her summery dress—white it was, -with a florid pattern printed in black all over it—blowing airily out -around her swaying march. Decayed gentlewomen indeed! The driver started -his machine with an unnecessary violence; he felt, for some reason, -positively indignant. - -Between the broad double-doors through which the horses passed to their -fodder and repose were little narrow human doors—for the Yahoos, Lypiatt -used to say in his large allusive way; and when he said it he laughed -with the loud and bell-mouthed cynicism of one who sees himself as a -misunderstood and embittered Prometheus. At one of these little Yahoo -doors Mrs. Viveash halted and rapped as loudly as a small and -stiff-hinged knocker would permit. Patiently she waited; several small -and dirty children collected to stare at her. She knocked again and -again waited. More children came running up from the farther end of the -mews; two young girls of fifteen or sixteen appeared at a neighbouring -doorway and immediately gave tongue in whoops of mirthless, hyena-like -laughter. - -“Have you ever read about the pied piper of Hamelin?” Mrs. Viveash asked -the nearest child. Terrified, it shrank away. “I thought not,” she said, -and knocked again. - -There was a sound, at last, of heavy feet slowly descending steep -stairs; the door opened. - -“Welcome to the palazzo!” It was Lypiatt’s heroic formula of -hospitality. - -“Welcome at last,” Mrs. Viveash corrected, and followed him up a narrow, -dark staircase that was as steep as a ladder. He was dressed in a -velveteen jacket and linen trousers that should have been white, but -needed washing. He was dishevelled and his hands were dirty. - -“Did you knock more than once?” he asked, looking back over his -shoulder. - -“More than twenty times,” Mrs. Viveash justifiably exaggerated. - -“I’m infinitely sorry,” protested Lypiatt. “I get so deeply absorbed in -my work, you know. Did you wait long?” - -“The children enjoyed it, at any rate.” Mrs. Viveash was irritated by a -suspicion, which was probably, after all, quite unjustified, that -Casimir had been rather consciously absorbed in his work; that he had -heard her first knock and plunged the more profoundly into those depths -of absorption where the true artist always dwells, or at any rate ought -to dwell; to rise at her third appeal with a slow, pained reluctance, -cursing, perhaps, at the importunity of a world which thus noisily -interrupted the flow of his inspiration. “Queer, the way they stare at -one,” she went on, with a note in her dying voice of a petulance that -the children had not inspired. “Does one look such a guy?” - -Lypiatt threw open the door at the head of the stairs and stood there on -the threshold, waiting for her. “Queer?” he repeated. “Not a bit.” And -as she moved past him into the room, he laid his hand on her shoulder -and fell into step with her, leaving the door to slam behind them. -“Merely an example of the mob’s instinctive dislike of the aristocratic -individual. That’s all. ‘Oh, why was I born with a different face?’ -Thank God I was, though. And so were you. But the difference has its -disadvantages; the children throw stones.” - -“They didn’t throw stones.” Mrs. Viveash was too truthful, this time. - -They halted in the middle of the studio. It was not a very large room -and there were too many things in it. The easel stood near the centre of -the studio; round it Lypiatt kept a space permanently cleared. There was -a broad fairway leading to the door, and another, narrower and -tortuously winding between boxes and piled-up furniture and tumbled -books, gave access to his bed. There was a piano and a table permanently -set with dirty plates and strewed with the relics of two or three meals. -Bookshelves stood on either side of the fireplace and lying on the floor -were still more books, piles on dusty piles. Mrs. Viveash stood looking -at the picture on the easel (abstract again—she didn’t like it), and -Lypiatt, who had dropped his hand from her shoulder, had stepped back -the better to see her, stood earnestly looking at Mrs. Viveash. - -“May I kiss you?” he asked after a silence. - -Mrs. Viveash turned towards him, smiling agonizingly, her eyebrows -ironically lifted, her eyes steady and calm and palely, brightly -inexpressive. “If it really gives you any pleasure,” she said. “It -won’t, I may say, to me.” - -“You make me suffer a great deal,” said Lypiatt, and said it so quietly -and unaffectedly, that Myra was almost startled; she was accustomed, -with Casimir, to noisier and more magniloquent protestations. - -“I’m very sorry,” she said; and, really, she felt sorry. “But I can’t -help it, can I?” - -“I suppose you can’t,” he said. “You can’t,” he repeated and his voice -had now become the voice of Prometheus in his bitterness. “Nor can -tigresses.” He had begun to pace up and down the unobstructed fairway -between his easel and the door; Lypiatt liked pacing while he talked. -“You like playing with the victim,” he went on; “he must die slowly.” - -Reassured, Mrs. Viveash faintly smiled. This was the familiar Casimir. -So long as he could talk like this, could talk like an old-fashioned -French novel, it was all right; he couldn’t really be so very unhappy. -She sat down on the nearest unencumbered chair. Lypiatt continued to -walk back and forth, waving his arms as he walked. - -“But perhaps it’s good for one to suffer,” he went on, “perhaps it’s -unavoidable and necessary. Perhaps I ought to thank you. Can an artist -do anything if he’s happy? Would he ever want to do anything? What is -art, after all, but a protest against the horrible inclemency of life?” -He halted in front of her, with arms extended in a questioning gesture. -Mrs. Viveash slightly shrugged her shoulders. She really didn’t know; -she couldn’t answer. “Ah, but that’s all nonsense,” he burst out again, -“all rot. I want to be happy and contented and successful; and of course -I should work better if I were. And I want, oh, above everything, -everything, I want you: to possess you completely and exclusively and -jealously and for ever. And the desire is like rust corroding my heart, -it’s like moth eating holes in the fabric of my mind. And you merely -laugh.” He threw up his hands and let them limply fall again. - -“But I don’t laugh,” said Mrs. Viveash. On the contrary, she was very -sorry for him; and, what was more, he rather bored her. For a few days, -once, she had thought she might be in love with him. His impetuosity had -seemed a torrent strong enough to carry her away. She had found out her -mistake very soon. After that he had rather amused her: and now he -rather bored her. No, decidedly, she never laughed. She wondered why she -still went on seeing him. Simply because one must see some one? or why? -“Are you going to go on with my portrait?” she asked. - -Lypiatt sighed. “Yes,” he said, “I suppose I’d better be getting on with -my work. Work—it’s the only thing. ‘Portrait of a Tigress.’” The cynical -Titan spoke again. “Or shall I call it, ‘Portrait of a Woman who has -never been in Love?’” - -“That would be a very stupid title,” said Mrs. Viveash. - -“Or, ‘Portrait of the Artist’s Heart Disease’? That would be good, that -would be damned good!” Lypiatt laughed very loudly and slapped his -thighs. He looked, Mrs. Viveash thought, peculiarly ugly when he -laughed. His face seemed to go all to pieces; not a corner of it but was -wrinkled and distorted by the violent grimace of mirth. Even the -forehead was ruined when he laughed. Foreheads are generally the human -part of people’s faces. Let the nose twitch and the mouth grin and the -eyes twinkle as monkeyishly as you like; the forehead can still be calm -and serene, the forehead still knows how to be human. But when Casimir -laughed, his forehead joined in the general disintegrating grimace. And -sometimes even when he wasn’t laughing, when he was just vivaciously -talking, his forehead seemed to lose its calm and would twitch and -wrinkle itself in a dreadful kind of agitation. ‘Portrait of the -Artist’s Heart Disease’—she didn’t find it so very funny. - -“The critics would think it was a problem picture,” Lypiatt went on. -“And so it would be, by God, so it would be. You _are_ a problem. You’re -the Sphinx. I wish I were Œdipus and could kill you.” - -All this mythology! Mrs. Viveash shook her head. - -He made his way through the intervening litter and picked up a canvas -that was leaning with averted face against the wall near the window. He -held it out at arm’s length and examined it, his head critically cocked -on one side. “Oh, it’s good,” he said softly. “It’s good. Look at it.” -And, stepping out once more into the open, he propped it up against the -table so that Mrs. Viveash could see it without moving from her chair. - -It was a stormy vision of her; it was Myra seen, so to speak, through a -tornado. He had distorted her in the portrait, had made her longer and -thinner than she really was, had turned her arms into sleek tubes and -put a bright, metallic polish on the curve of her cheek. The figure in -the portrait seemed to be leaning backwards a little from the surface of -the canvas, leaning sideways too, with the twist of an ivory statuette -carved out of the curving tip of a great tusk. Only somehow in Lypiatt’s -portrait the curve seemed to lack grace, it was without point, it had no -sense. - -“You’ve made me look,” said Mrs. Viveash at last, “as though I were -being blown out of shape by the wind.” All this show of violence—what -was the point of it? She didn’t like it, she didn’t like it at all. But -Casimir was delighted with her comment. He slapped his thighs and once -more laughed his restless, sharp-featured face to pieces. - -“Yes, by God,” he shouted, “by God, that’s right! Blown out of shape by -the wind. That’s it: you’ve said it.” He began stamping up and down the -room again, gesticulating. “The wind, the great wind that’s in me.” He -struck his forehead. “The wind of life, the wild west wind. I feel it -inside me, blowing, blowing. It carries me along with it; for though -it’s inside me, it’s more than I am, it’s a force that comes from -somewhere else, it’s Life itself, it’s God. It blows me along in the -teeth of opposing fate, it makes me work on, fight on.” He was like a -man who walks along a sinister road at night and sings to keep up his -own spirits, to emphasize and magnify his own existence. “And when I -paint, when I write or improvise my music, it bends the things I have in -my mind, it pushes them in one direction, so that everything I do has -the look of a tree that streams north-east with all its branches and all -its trunk from the root upwards, as though it were trying to run from -before the Atlantic gale.” - -Lypiatt stretched out his two hands and, with fingers splayed out to the -widest and trembling in the excessive tension of the muscles, moved them -slowly upwards and sideways, as though he were running his palms up the -stem of a little wind-wizened tree on a hilltop above the ocean. - -Mrs. Viveash continued to look at the unfinished portrait. It was as -noisy and easy and immediately effective as a Vermouth advertisement in -the streets of Padua. Cinzano, Bonomelli, Campari—illustrious names. -Giotto and Mantegna mouldered meanwhile in their respective chapels. - -“And look at this,” Lypiatt went on. He took down the canvas that was -clamped to the easel and held it out for her inspection. It was one of -Casimir’s abstract paintings: a procession of machine-like forms rushing -up diagonally from right to left across the canvas, with as it were a -spray of energy blowing back from the crest of the wave towards the top -right-hand corner. “In this painting,” he said, “I symbolize the -Artist’s conquering spirit—rushing on the universe, making it its own.” -He began to declaim: - - “Look down, Conquistador, - There on the valley’s broad green floor, - There lies the lake, the jewelled cities gleam, - Chalco and Tlacopan - Awaiting the coming Man; - Look down on Mexico, Conquistador, - Land of your golden dream. - -Or the same idea in terms of music——” and Lypiatt dashed to the piano -and evoked a distorted ghost of Scriabin. “You see?” he asked -feverishly, when the ghost was laid again and the sad cheap jangling had -faded again into silence. “You _feel_? The artist rushes on the world, -conquers it, gives it beauty, imposes a moral significance.” He returned -to the picture. “This will be fine when it’s finished,” he said. -“Tremendous. You feel the wind blowing there, too.” And with a pointing -finger he followed up the onrush of the forms. “The great southwester -driving them on. ‘Like leaves from an enchanter fleeing.’ Only not -chaotically, not in disorder. They’re blown, so to speak, in column of -four—by a conscious wind.” He leaned the canvas against the table and -was free again to march and brandish his conquering fists. - -“Life,” he said, “life—that’s the great, essential thing. You’ve got to -get life into your art, otherwise it’s nothing. And life only comes out -of life, out of passion and feeling; it can’t come out of theories. -That’s the stupidity of all this chatter about art for art’s sake and -the æsthetic emotions and purely formal values and all that. It’s only -the formal relations that matter; one subject is just as good as -another—that’s the theory. You’ve only got to look at the pictures of -the people who put it into practice to see that it won’t do. Life comes -out of life. You must paint with passion and the passion will stimulate -your intellect to create the right formal relations. And to paint with -passion, you must paint things that passionately interest you, moving -things, human things. Nobody, except a mystical pantheist, like Van -Gogh, can seriously be as much interested in napkins, apples and bottles -as in his lover’s face, or the resurrection, or the destiny of man. -Could Mantegna have devised his splendid compositions if he had painted -arrangements of Chianti flasks and cheeses instead of Crucifixions, -martyrs and triumphs of great men? Nobody but a fool could believe it. -And could I have painted that portrait if I hadn’t loved you, if you -weren’t killing me?” - -Ah, Bonomelli and illustrious Cinzano! - -“Passionately I paint passion. I draw life out of life. And I wish them -joy of their bottles and their Canadian apples and their muddy table -napkins with the beastly folds in them that look like loops of tripe.” -Once more Lypiatt disintegrated himself with laughter; then was silent. - -Mrs. Viveash nodded, slowly and reflectively. “I think you’re right,” -she said. Yes, he was surely right; there must be life, life was the -important thing. That was precisely why his paintings were so bad—she -saw now; there was no life in them. Plenty of noise there was, and -gesticulation and a violent galvanized twitching; but no life, only the -theatrical show of it. There was a flaw in the conduit; somewhere -between the man and his work life leaked out. He protested too much. But -it was no good; there was no disguising the deadness. Her portrait was a -dancing mummy. He bored her now. Did she even positively dislike him? -Behind her unchanging pale eyes Mrs. Viveash wondered. But in any case, -she reflected, one needn’t always like the people with whom one -associates. There are music halls as well as confidential boudoirs; some -people are admitted to the tea-party and the _tête-à-tête_, others, on a -stage invisible, poor things! to themselves, do their little -song-and-dance, roll out their characteristic patter, and having -provided you with your entertainment are dismissed with their due share -of applause. But then, what if they become boring? - -“Well,” said Lypiatt at last—he had stood there, motionless, for a long -time, biting his nails, “I suppose we’d better begin our sitting.” He -picked up the unfinished portrait and adjusted it on the easel. “I’ve -wasted a lot of time,” he said, “and there isn’t, after all, so much of -it to waste.” He spoke gloomily, and his whole person had become, all of -a sudden, curiously shrunken and deflated. “There isn’t so much of it,” -he repeated, and sighed. “I still think of myself as a young man, young -and promising, don’t you know. Casimir Lypiatt—it’s a young, promising -sort of name, isn’t it? But I’m not young, I’ve passed the age of -promise. Every now and then I realize it, and it’s painful, it’s -depressing.” - -Mrs. Viveash stepped up on to the model’s dais and took her seat. “Is -that right?” she asked. - -Lypiatt looked first at her, then at his picture. Her beauty, his -passion—were they only to meet on the canvas? Opps was her lover. Time -was passing; he felt tired. “That’ll do,” he said and began painting. -“How young are you?” he asked after a moment. - -“Twenty-five, I should imagine,” said Mrs. Viveash. - -“Twenty-five? Good Lord, it’s nearly fifteen years since I was -twenty-five. Fifteen years, fighting all the time. God, how I hate -people sometimes! Everybody. It’s not their malignity I mind; I can give -them back as good as they give me. It’s their power of silence and -indifference, it’s their capacity for making themselves deaf. Here am I -with something to say to them, something important and essential. And -I’ve been saying it for more than fifteen years, I’ve been shouting it. -They pay no attention. I bring them my head and heart on a charger, and -they don’t even notice that the things are there. I sometimes wonder how -much longer I can manage to go on.” His voice had become very low, and -it trembled. “One’s nearly forty, you know....” The voice faded huskily -away into silence. Languidly and as though the business exhausted him, -he began mixing colours on his palette. - -Mrs. Viveash looked at him. No, he wasn’t young; at the moment, indeed, -he seemed to have become much older than he really was. An old man was -standing there, peaked and sharp and worn. He had failed, he was -unhappy. But the world would have been unjuster, less discriminating if -it had given him success. - -“Some people believe in you,” she said; there was nothing else for her -to say. - -Lypiatt looked up at her. “You?” he asked. - -Mrs. Viveash nodded, deliberately. It was a lie. But was it possible to -tell the truth? “And then there is the future,” she reassured him, and -her faint death-bed voice seemed to prophesy with a perfect certainty. -“You’re not forty yet; you’ve got twenty, thirty years of work in front -of you. And there were others, after all, who had to wait—a long -time—sometimes till after they were dead. Great men; Blake, for -instance....” She felt positively ashamed; it was like a little talk by -Doctor Frank Crane. But she felt still more ashamed, when she saw that -Casimir had begun to cry and that the tears were rolling, one after -another, slowly down his face. - -He put down his palette, he stepped on to the dais, he came and knelt at -Mrs. Viveash’s feet. He took one of her hands between his own and he -bent over it, pressing it to his forehead, as though it were a charm -against unhappy thoughts, sometimes kissing it; soon it was wet with -tears. He wept almost in silence. - -“It’s all right,” Mrs. Viveash kept repeating, “it’s all right,” and she -laid her free hand on his bowed head, she patted it comfortingly as one -might pat the head of a large dog that comes and thrusts its muzzle -between one’s knees. She felt, even as she made it, how meaningless and -unintimate the gesture was. If she had liked him, she would have run her -fingers through his hair; but somehow his hair rather disgusted her. -“It’s all right, all right.” But, of course, it wasn’t all right; and -she was comforting him under false pretences and he was kneeling at the -feet of somebody who simply wasn’t there—so utterly detached, so far -away she was from all this scene and all his misery. - -“You’re the only person,” he said at last, “who cares or understands.” - -Mrs. Viveash could almost have laughed. - -He began once more to kiss her hand. - -“Beautiful and enchanting Myra—you were always that. But now you’re good -and dear as well, now I know you’re kind.” - -“Poor Casimir!” she said. Why was it that people always got involved in -one’s life? If only one could manage things on the principle of the -railways! Parallel tracks—that was the thing. For a few miles you’d be -running at the same speed. There’d be delightful conversation out of the -windows; you’d exchange the omelette in your restaurant car for the -vol-au-vent in theirs. And when you’d said all there was to say, you’d -put on a little more steam, wave your hand, blow a kiss and away you’d -go, forging ahead along the smooth, polished rails. But instead of that, -there were these dreadful accidents; the points were wrongly set, the -trains came crashing together; or people jumped on as you were passing -through the stations and made a nuisance of themselves and wouldn’t -allow themselves to be turned off. Poor Casimir! But he irritated her, -he was a horrible bore. She ought to have stopped seeing him. - -“You can’t wholly dislike me, then?” - -“But of course not, my poor Casimir!” - -“If you knew how horribly I loved you!” He looked up at her -despairingly. - -“But what’s the good?” said Mrs. Viveash. - -“Have you ever known what it’s like to love some one so much that you -feel you could die of it? So that it hurts all the time. As though there -were a wound. Have you ever known that?” - -Mrs. Viveash smiled her agonizing smile, nodded slowly and said, -“Perhaps. And one doesn’t die, you know. One doesn’t die.” - -Lypiatt was leaning back, staring fixedly up at her. The tears were dry -on his face, his cheeks were flushed. “Do you know what it is,” he -asked, “to love so much, that you begin to long for the anodyne of -physical pain to quench the pain in the soul? You don’t know that.” And -suddenly, with his clenched fist, he began to bang the wooden dais on -which he was kneeling, blow after blow, with all his strength. - -Mrs. Viveash leant forward and tried to arrest his hand. “You’re mad, -Casimir,” she said. “You’re mad. Don’t do that.” She spoke with anger. - -Lypiatt laughed till his face was all broken up with the grimace, and -proffered for her inspection his bleeding knuckles. The skin hung in -little white tags and tatters, and from below the blood was slowly -oozing up to the surface. “Look,” he said, and laughed again. Then -suddenly, with an extraordinary agility, he jumped to his feet, bounded -from the dais and began once more to stride up and down the fairway -between his easel and the door. - -“By God,” he kept repeating, “by God, by God. I feel it in me. I can -face the whole lot of you; the whole damned lot. Yes, and I shall get -the better of you yet. An Artist”—he called up that traditional ghost -and it comforted him; he wrapped himself with a protective gesture -within the ample folds of its bright mantle—“an Artist doesn’t fail -under unhappiness. He gets new strength from it. The torture makes him -sweat new masterpieces....” - -He began to talk about his books, his poems and pictures; all the great -things in his head, the things he had already done. He talked about his -exhibition—ah, by God, that would astonish them, that would bowl them -over, this time. The blood mounted to his face; there was a flush over -the high projecting cheek-bones. He could feel the warm blood behind his -eyes. He laughed aloud; he was a laughing lion. He stretched out his -arms; he was enormous, his arms reached out like the branches of a -cedar. The Artist walked across the world and the mangy dogs ran yelping -and snapping behind him. The great wind blew and blew, driving him on; -it lifted him and he began to fly. - -Mrs. Viveash listened. It didn’t look as though he would get much -further with the portrait. - - - - - CHAPTER VII - - -It was Press Day. The critics had begun to arrive; Mr. Albemarle -circulated among them with a ducal amiability. The young assistant -hovered vaguely about, straining to hear what the great men had to say -and trying to pretend that he wasn’t eavesdropping. Lypiatt’s pictures -hung on the walls, and Lypiatt’s catalogue, thick with its preface and -its explanatory notes, was in all hands. - -“Very strong,” Mr. Albemarle kept repeating, “very strong indeed!” It -was his password for the day. - -Little Mr. Clew, who represented the _Daily Post_, was inclined to be -enthusiastic. “How well he writes!” he said to Mr. Albemarle, looking up -from the catalogue. “And how well he paints! What _impasto_.” - -_Impasto, impasto_—the young assistant sidled off unobtrusively to the -desk and made a note of it. He would look the word up in Grubb’s -_Dictionary of Art and Artists_ later on. He made his way back, -circuitously and as though by accident, into Mr. Clew’s neighbourhood. - -Mr. Clew was one of those rare people who have a real passion for art. -He loved painting, all painting, indiscriminately. In a picture gallery -he was like a Turk in a harem; he adored them all. He loved Memling as -much as Raphael, he loved Grünewald and Michelangelo, Holman Hunt and -Manet, Romney and Tintoretto; how happy he could be with all of them! -Sometimes, it is true, he hated; but that was only when familiarity had -not yet bred love. At the first Post-Impressionist Exhibition, for -example, in 1911, he had taken a very firm stand. “This is an obscene -farce,” he had written then. Now, however, there was no more passionate -admirer of Matisse’s genius. As a connoisseur and _kunstforscher_, Mr. -Clew was much esteemed. People would bring him dirty old pictures to -look at, and he would exclaim at once: Why, it’s an El Greco, a -Piazetta, or some other suitable name. Asked how he knew, he would shrug -his shoulders and say: But it’s signed all over. His certainty and his -enthusiasm were infectious. Since the coming of El Greco into fashion, -he had discovered dozens of early works by that great artist. For Lord -Petersfield’s collection alone he had found four early El Grecos, all by -pupils of Bassano. Lord Petersfield’s confidence in Mr. Clew was -unbounded; not even that affair of the Primitives had shaken it. It was -a sad affair: Lord Petersfield’s Duccio had shown signs of cracking; the -estate carpenter was sent for to take a look at the panel; he had -looked. “A worse-seasoned piece of Illinois hickory,” he said, “I’ve -never seen.” After that he looked at the Simone Martini; for that, on -the contrary, he was full of praise. Smooth-grained, well-seasoned—it -wouldn’t crack, no, not in a hundred years. “A nicer slice of board -never came out of America.” He had a hyperbolical way of speaking. Lord -Petersfield was extremely angry; he dismissed the estate carpenter on -the spot. After that he told Mr. Clew that he wanted a Giorgione, and -Mr. Clew went out and found him one which was signed all over. - -“I like this very much,” said Mr. Clew, pointing to one of the thoughts -with which Lypiatt had prefaced his catalogue. “‘Genius,’” he adjusted -his spectacles and began to read aloud, “‘is life. Genius is a force of -nature. In art, nothing else counts. The modern impotents, who are -afraid of genius and who are envious of it, have invented in -self-defence the notion of the Artist. The Artist with his sense of -form, his style, his devotion to pure beauty, et cetera, et cetera. But -Genius includes the Artist; every Genius has, among very many others, -the qualities attributed by the impotents to the Artist. The Artist -without genius is a carver of fountains through which no water flows.’ -Very true,” said Mr. Clew, “very true indeed.” He marked the passage -with his pencil. - -Mr. Albemarle produced the password. “Very strongly put,” he said. - -“I have always felt that myself,” said Mr. Clew. “El Greco, for -example....” - -“Good morning, what about El Greco?” said a voice, all in one breath. -The thin, long, skin-covered skeleton of Mr. Mallard hung over them like -a guilty conscience. Mr. Mallard wrote every week in the _Hebdomadal -Digest_. He had an immense knowledge of art, and a sincere dislike of -all that was beautiful. The only modern painter whom he really admired -was Hodler. All others were treated by him with a merciless savagery; he -tore them to pieces in his weekly articles with all the holy gusto of a -Calvinist iconoclast smashing images of the Virgin. - -“What about El Greco?” he repeated. He had a peculiarly passionate -loathing of El Greco. - -Mr. Clew smiled up at him propitiatingly; he was afraid of Mr. Mallard. -His enthusiasms were no match for Mr. Mallard’s erudite and logical -disgusts. “I was merely quoting him as an example,” he said. - -“An example, I hope, of incompetent drawing, baroque composition, -disgusting forms, garish colouring and hysterical subject-matter.” Mr. -Mallard showed his old ivory teeth in a menacing smile. “Those are the -only things which El Greco’s work exemplifies.” - -Mr. Clew gave a nervous little laugh. “What do you think of these?” he -asked, pointing to Lypiatt’s canvases. - -“They look to me very ordinarily bad,” answered Mr. Mallard. - -The young assistant listened appalled. In a business like this, how was -it possible to make good? - -“All the same,” said Mr. Clew courageously, “I like that bowl of roses -in the window with the landscape behind. Number twenty-nine.” He looked -in the catalogue. “And there’s a really charming little verse about it: - - ‘O beauty of the rose, - Goodness as well as perfume exhaling! - Who gazes on these flowers, - On this blue hill and ripening field—he knows - Where duty leads and that the nameless Powers - In a rose can speak their will.’ - -Really charming!” Mr. Clew made another mark with his pencil. - -“But commonplace, commonplace.” Mr. Mallard shook his head. “And in any -case a verse can’t justify a bad picture. What an unsubtle harmony of -colour! And how uninteresting the composition is! That receding -diagonal—it’s been worked to death.” He too made a mark in his -catalogue—a cross and a little circle, arranged like the skull and -cross-bones on a pirate’s flag. Mr. Mallard’s catalogues were always -covered with these little marks: they were his symbols of condemnation. - -Mr. Albemarle, meanwhile, had moved away to greet the new arrivals. To -the critic of the _Daily Cinema_ he had to explain that there were no -portraits of celebrities. The reporter from the _Evening Planet_ had to -be told which were the best pictures. - -“Mr. Lypiatt,” he dictated, “is a poet and philosopher as well as a -painter. His catalogue is a—h’m—declaration of faith.” - -The reporter took it down in shorthand. “And very nice too,” he said. -“I’m most grateful to you, sir, most grateful.” And he hurried away, to -get to the Cattle Show before the King should arrive. Mr. Albemarle -affably addressed himself to the critic of the _Morning Globe_. - -“I _al_ways regard this gallery,” said a loud and cheerful voice, full -of bulls and canaries in chorus, “as positively a _mauvais lieu_. Such -exhibitions!” And Mr. Mercaptan shrugged his shoulders expressively. He -halted to wait for his companion. - -Mrs. Viveash had lagged behind, reading the catalogue as she slowly -walked along. “It’s a complete book,” she said, “full of poems and -essays and short stories even, so far as I can see.” - -“Oh, the usual cracker mottoes.” Mr. Mercaptan laughed. “I know the sort -of thing. ‘Look after the past and the future will look after itself.’ -‘God squared minus Man squared equals Art-plus-life times -Art-minus-Life.’ ‘The Higher the Art the fewer the morals’—only that’s -too nearly good sense to have been invented by Lypiatt. But I know the -sort of thing. I could go on like that for ever.” Mr. Mercaptan was -delighted with himself. - -“I’ll read you one of them,” said Mrs. Viveash. “‘A picture is a -chemical combination of plastic form and spiritual significance.’” - -“Crikey!” said Mr. Mercaptan. - -“‘Those who think that a picture is a matter of nothing but plastic form -are like those who imagine that water is made of nothing but hydrogen.’” - -Mr. Mercaptan made a grimace. “What writing!” he exclaimed; “_le style -c’est l’homme_. Lypiatt hasn’t got a style. Argal—inexorable -conclusion—Lypiatt doesn’t exist. My word, though. Look at those -horrible great nudes there. Like Carracis with cubical muscles.” - -“Sampson and Delilah,” said Mrs. Viveash. “Would you like me to read -about them?” - -“Certainly not.” - -Mrs. Viveash did not press the matter. Casimir, she thought, must have -been thinking of her when he wrote this little poem about Poets and -Women, crossed genius, torments, the sweating of masterpieces. She -sighed. “Those leopards are rather nice,” she said, and looked at the -catalogue again. “‘An animal is a symbol and its form is significant. In -the long process of adaptation, evolution has refined and simplified and -shaped, till every part of the animal expresses one desire, a single -idea. Man, who has become what he is, not by specialization, but by -generalization, symbolizes with his body no one thing. He is a symbol of -everything from the most hideous and ferocious bestiality to godhead.’” - -“Dear me,” said Mr. Mercaptan. - -A canvas of mountains and enormous clouds like nascent sculptures -presented itself. - -“‘Aerial Alps’” Mrs. Viveash began to read. - - “‘Aerial Alps of amber and of snow, - Junonian flesh, and bosomy alabaster - Carved by the wind’s uncertain hands....’” - -Mr. Mercaptan stopped his ears. “Please, please,” he begged. - -“Number seventeen,” said Mrs. Viveash, “is called ‘Woman on a Cosmic -background,’” A female figure stood leaning against a pillar on a -hilltop, and beyond was a blue night with stars. “Underneath is written: -‘For one at least, she is more than the starry universe.’” Mrs. Viveash -remembered that Lypiatt had once said very much that sort of thing to -her. “So many of Casimir’s things remind me,” she said, “of those -Italian vermouth advertisements. You know—Cinzano, Bonomelli and all -these. I wish they didn’t. This woman in white with her head in the -Great Bear....” She shook her head. “Poor Casimir.” - -Mr. Mercaptan roared and squealed with laughter. “Bonomelli,” he said; -“that’s precisely it. What a critic, Myra! I take off my hat.” They -moved on. “And what’s this grand transformation scene?” he asked. - -Mrs. Viveash looked at the catalogue. “It’s called ‘The Sermon on the -Mount,’” she said. “And really, do you know, I rather like it. All that -crowd of figures slanting up the hill and the single figure on the -top—it seems to me very dramatic.” - -“My _dear_,” protested Mr. Mercaptan. - -“And in spite of everything,” said Mrs. Viveash, feeling suddenly and -uncomfortably that she had somehow been betraying the man, “he’s really -very nice, you know. Very nice, indeed.” Her expiring voice sounded very -decidedly. - -“Ah, _ces femmes_,” exclaimed Mr. Mercaptan, “_ces femmes_! They’re all -Pasiphaes and Ledas. They all in their hearts prefer beasts to men, -savages to civilized beings. _Even_ you, Myra, I _really_ believe.” He -shook his head. - -Mrs. Viveash ignored the outburst. “Very nice,” she repeated -thoughtfully. “Only rather a bore....” Her voice expired altogether. - -They continued their round of the gallery. - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - - -Critically, in the glasses of Mr. Bojanus’s fitting-room, Gumbril -examined his profile, his back view. Inflated, the Patent Small-Clothes -bulged, bulged decidedly, though with a certain gracious opulence that -might, in a person of the other sex, have seemed only deliciously -natural. In him, however, Gumbril had to admit, the opulence seemed a -little misplaced and paradoxical. Still, if one has to suffer in order -to be beautiful, one must also expect to be ugly in order not to suffer. -Practically, the trousers were a tremendous success. He sat down heavily -on the hard wooden bench of the fitting-room and was received as though -on a lap of bounding resiliency; the Patent Small-Clothes, there was no -doubt, would be proof even against marble. And the coat, he comforted -himself, would mask with its skirts the too decided bulge. Or if it -didn’t, well, there was no help for it. One must resign oneself to -bulging, that was all. - -“Very nice,” he declared at last. - -Mr. Bojanus, who had been watching his client in silence and with a -polite but also, Gumbril could not help feeling, a somewhat ironical -smile, coughed. “It depends,” he said, “precisely what you mean by -‘nice.’” He cocked his head on one side, and the fine waxed end of his -moustache was like a pointer aimed up at some remote star. - -Gumbril said nothing, but catching sight once more of his own side view, -nodded a dubious agreement. - -“If by nice,” continued Mr. Bojanus, “you mean comfortable, well and -good. If, however, you mean elegant, then, Mr. Gumbril, I fear I must -disagree.” - -“But elegance,” said Gumbril, feebly playing the philosopher, “is only -relative, Mr. Bojanus. There are certain African negroes, among whom it -is considered elegant to pierce the lips and distend them with wooden -plates, until the mouth looks like a pelican’s beak.” - -Mr. Bojanus placed his hand in his bosom and slightly bowed. “Very -possibly, Mr. Gumbril,” he replied. “But if you’ll pardon my saying so, -we are not African negroes.” - -Gumbril was crushed, deservedly. He looked at himself again in the -mirrors. “Do you object,” he asked after a pause, “to all eccentricities -in dress, Mr. Bojanus? Would you put us all into your elegant uniform?” - -“Certainly not,” replied Mr. Bojanus. “There are certain walks of life -in which eccentricity in appearance is positively a _sine qua non_, Mr. -Gumbril, and I might almost say _de rigueur_.” - -“And which walks of life, Mr. Bojanus, may I ask? You refer, perhaps, to -the artistic walks? Sombreros and Byronic collars and possibly velveteen -trousers? Though all that sort of thing is surely a little out of date, -nowadays.” - -Enigmatically Mr. Bojanus smiled, a playful Sphinx. He thrust his right -hand deeper into his bosom and with his left twisted to a finer needle -the point of his moustache. “Not artists, Mr. Gumbril.” He shook his -head. “In practice they may show themselves a little eccentric and -negleejay. But they have no need to look unusual on principle. It’s only -the politicians who need do it on principle. It’s only _de rigueur_, as -one might say, in the political walks, Mr. Gumbril.” - -“You surprise me,” said Gumbril. “I should have thought that it was to -the politician’s interest to look respectable and normal.” - -“But it is still more to his interest as a leader of men to look -distinguished,” Mr. Bojanus replied. “Well, not precisely -distinguished,” he corrected himself, “because that implies that -politicians look _distangay_, which I regret to say, Mr. Gumbril, they -very often don’t. Distinguishable, is more what I mean.” - -“Eccentricity is their badge of office?” suggested Gumbril. He sat down -luxuriously on the Patent Small-Clothes. - -“That’s more like it,” said Mr. Bojanus, tilting his moustaches. “The -leader has got to look different from the other ones. In the good old -days they always wore their official badges. The leader ’ad his livery, -like every one else, to show who he was. That was sensible, Mr. Gumbril. -Nowadays he has no badge—at least not for ordinary occasions—for I don’t -count Privy Councillors’ uniforms and all that sort of once-a-year fancy -dress. ’E’s reduced to dressing in some eccentric way or making the most -of the peculiarities of ’is personal appearance. A very ’apazard method -of doing things, Mr. Gumbril, very ’apazard.” - -Gumbril agreed. - -Mr. Bojanus went on, making small, neat gestures as he spoke. “Some of -them,” he said, “wear ’uge collars, like Mr. Gladstone. Some wear -orchids and eyeglasses, like Joe Chamberlain. Some let their ’air grow, -like Lloyd George. Some wear curious ’ats, like Winston Churchill. Some -put on black shirts, like this Mussolini, and some put on red ones, like -Garibaldi. Some turn up their moustaches, like the German Emperor. Some -turn them down, like Clemenceau. Some grow whiskers, like Tirpitz. I -don’t speak of all the uniforms, orders, ornaments, ’ead-dresses, -feathers, crowns, buttons, tattooings, ear-rings, sashes, swords, -trains, tiaras, urims, thummims and what not, Mr. Gumbril, that ’ave -been used in the past and in other parts of the world to distinguish the -leader. We, ’oo know our ’istory, Mr. Gumbril, we know all about that.” - -Gumbril made a deprecating gesture. “You speak for yourself, Mr. -Bojanus,” he said. - -Mr. Bojanus bowed. - -“Pray continue,” said Gumbril. - -Mr. Bojanus bowed again. “Well, Mr. Gumbril,” he said, “the point of all -these things, as I’ve already remarked, is to make the leader look -different, so that ’e can be recognized at the first _coop d’oil_, as -you might say, by the ’erd ’e ’appens to be leading. For the ’uman ’erd, -Mr. Gumbril, is an ’erd which can’t do without a leader. Sheep, for -example: I never noticed that they ’ad a leader; nor rooks. Bees, on the -other ’and, I take it, ’ave. At least when they’re swarming. Correct me, -Mr. Gumbril, if I’m wrong. Natural ’istory was never, as you might say, -my _forty_.” - -“Nor mine,” protested Gumbril. - -“As for elephants and wolves, Mr. Gumbril, I can’t pretend to speak of -them with first-’and knowledge. Nor llamas, nor locusts, nor squab -pigeons, nor lemmings. But ’uman beings, Mr. Gumbril, those I can claim -to talk of with authority, if I may say so in all modesty, and not as -the scribes. I ’ave made a special study of them, Mr. Gumbril. And my -profession ’as brought me into contact with very numerous specimens.” - -Gumbril could not help wondering where precisely in Mr. Bojanus’s museum -he himself had his place. - -“The ’uman ’erd,” Mr. Bojanus went on, “must have a leader. And a leader -must have something to distinguish him from the ’erd. It’s important for -’is interests that he should be recognized easily. See a baby reaching -out of a bath and you immediately think of Pears’ Soap; see the white -’air waving out behind and think of Lloyd George. That’s the secret. But -in my opinion, Mr. Gumbril, the old system was much more sensible, give -them regular uniforms and badges, I say; make Cabinet Ministers wear -feathers in their ’air. Then the people will be looking to a real fixed -symbol of leadership, not to the peculiarities of the mere individuals. -Beards and ’air and funny collars change; but a good uniform is always -the same. Give them feathers, that’s what I say, Mr. Gumbril. Feathers -will increase the dignity of the State and lessen the importance of the -individual. And that,” concluded Mr. Bojanus with emphasis, “that, Mr. -Gumbril, will be all to the good.” - -“But you don’t mean to tell me,” said Gumbril, “that if I chose to show -myself to the multitude in my inflated trousers, I could become a -leader—do you?” - -“Ah, no,” said Mr. Bojanus. “You’d ’ave to ’ave the talent for talking -and ordering people about, to begin with. Feathers wouldn’t give the -genius, but they’d magnify the effect of what there was.” - -Gumbril got up and began to divest himself of the Small-Clothes. He -unscrewed the valve and the air whistled out, dyingly. He too sighed. -“Curious,” he said pensively, “that I’ve never felt the need for a -leader. I’ve never met any one I felt I could whole-heartedly admire or -believe in, never any one I wanted to follow. It must be pleasant, I -should think, to hand oneself over to somebody else. It must give you a -warm, splendid, comfortable feeling.” - -Mr. Bojanus smiled and shook his head. “You and I, Mr. Gumbril,” he -said, “we’re not the sort of people to be impressed with feathers or -even by talking and ordering about. We may not be leaders ourselves. But -at any rate we aren’t the ’erd.” - -“Not the main herd, perhaps.” - -“Not any ’erd,” Mr. Bojanus insisted proudly. - -Gumbril shook his head dubiously and buttoned up his trousers. He was -not sure, now he came to think of it, that he didn’t belong to all the -herds—by a sort of honorary membership and temporarily, as occasion -offered, as one belongs to the Union at the sister university or to the -Naval and Military Club while one’s own is having its annual clean-out. -Shearwater’s herd, Lypiatt’s herd, Mr. Mercaptan’s herd, Mrs. Viveash’s -herd, the architectural herd of his father, the educational herd (but -that, thank God! was now bleating on distant pastures), the herd of Mr. -Bojanus—he belonged to them all a little, to none of them completely. -Nobody belonged to his herd. How could they? No chameleon can live with -comfort on a tartan. He put on his coat. - -“I’ll send the garments this evening,” said Mr. Bojanus. Gumbril left -the shop. At the theatrical wig-maker’s in Leicester Square he ordered a -blond fan-shaped beard to match his own hair and moustache. He would, at -any rate, be his own leader; he would wear a badge, a symbol of -authority. And Coleman had said that there were dangerous relations to -be entered into by the symbol’s aid. - -Ah, now he was provisionally a member of Coleman’s herd. It was all very -depressing. - - - - - CHAPTER IX - - -Fan-shaped, blond, mounted on gauze and guaranteed undetectable, it -arrived from the wig-maker, preciously packed in a stout cardboard box -six times too large for it and accompanied by a quarter of a pint of the -choicest spirit gum. In the privacy of his bedroom Gumbril uncoffined -it, held it out for his own admiration, caressed its silkiness and -finally tried it on, holding it provisionally to his chin, in front of -the looking-glass. The effect, he decided immediately, was stunning, was -grandiose. From melancholy and all too mild he saw himself transformed -on the instant into a sort of jovial Henry the Eighth, into a massive -Rabelaisian man, broad and powerful and exuberant with vitality and -hair. - -The proportions of his face were startlingly altered. The podium, below -the mouth, had been insufficiently massive to carry the stately order of -the nose; and the ratiocinative attic of the forehead, noble enough, no -doubt, in itself, had been disproportionately high. The beard now -supplied the deficiencies in the stylobate, and planted now on a firm -basement of will, the order of the senses, the aerial attic of ideas, -reared themselves with a more classical harmoniousness of proportion. It -only remained for him to order from Mr. Bojanus an American coat, padded -out at the shoulders as squarely and heroically as a doublet of the -Cinquecento, and he would look the complete Rabelaisian man. Great -eater, deep drinker, stout fighter, prodigious lover; clear thinker, -creator of beauty, seeker of truth and prophet of heroic grandeurs. -Fitted out with coat and beard, he could qualify for the next vacancy -among the cœnobites of Thelema. - -He removed his beard—“put his beaver up,” as they used to say in the -fine old days of chivalry; he would have to remember that little joke -for Coleman’s benefit. He put his beaver up—ha, ha!—and stared ruefully -at the far from Rabelaisian figure which now confronted him. The -moustache—that was genuine enough—which had looked, in conjunction with -the splendid work of art below, so fierce and manly, served by itself, -he now perceived, only droopily to emphasize his native mildness and -melancholy. - -It was a dismal affair, which might have belonged to Maurice Barrès in -youth; a slanting, flagging, sagging thing, such as could only grow on -the lip of an assiduous Cultivator of the Me, and would become, as one -grew older, ludicrously out of place on the visage of a roaring -Nationalist. If it weren’t that it fitted in so splendidly with the -beard, if it weren’t that it became so marvellously different in the new -context he had now discovered for it, he would have shaved it off then -and there. - -Mournful appendage. But now he would transform it, he would add to it -its better half. Zadig’s quatrain to his mistress, when the tablet on -which it was written was broken in two, became a treasonable libel on -the king. So this moustache, thought Gumbril, as gingerly he applied the -spirit gum to his cheeks and chin, this moustache which by itself serves -only to betray me, becomes, as soon as it is joined to its missing -context, an amorous arm for the conquest of the fair sex. - -A little far-fetched, he decided; a little ponderous. And besides, as so -few people had read Zadig, not much use in conversation. Cautiously and -with neat, meticulous finger-tips he adjusted the transformation to his -gummed face, pressed it firmly, held it while it stuck fast. The portals -of Thelema opened before him; he was free of those rich orchards, those -halls and courts, those broad staircases winding in noble spirals within -the flanks of each of the fair round towers. And it was Coleman who had -pointed out the way; he felt duly grateful. One last look at the -Complete Man, one final and definitive constatation that the Mild and -Melancholy one was, for the time at least, no more; and he was ready in -all confidence to set out. He selected a loose, light great-coat—not -that he needed a coat at all, for the day was bright and warm; but until -Mr. Bojanus had done his labour of padding he would have to broaden -himself out in this way, even if it did mean that he might be -uncomfortably hot. To fall short of Complete Manhood for fear of a -little inconvenience would be absurd. He slipped, therefore, into his -light coat—a toga, Mr. Bojanus called it, a very neat toga in real West -Country whipcord. He put on his broadest and blackest felt hat, for -breadth above everything was what he needed to give him completeness, -breadth of stature, breadth of mind, breadth of human sympathy, breadth -of smile, breadth of humour, breadth of everything. The final touch was -a massive and antique Malacca cane belonging to his father. If he had -possessed a bulldog, he would have taken it out on a leash. But he did -not. He issued into the sunshine, unaccompanied. - -But unaccompanied he did not mean to remain for long. These warm, bright -May days were wonderful days for being in love on. And to be alone on -such days was like a malady. It was a malady from which the Mild and -Melancholy Man suffered all too frequently. And yet there were millions -of superfluous women in the country; millions of them. Every day, in the -streets, one saw thousands of them passing; and some were exquisite, -were ravishing, the only possible soul-mates. Thousands of unique -soul-mates every day. The Mild and Melancholy one allowed them to -pass—for ever. But to-day—to-day he was the complete and Rabelaisian -man; he was bearded to the teeth; the imbecile game was at its height; -there would be opportunities, and the Complete Man could know how to -take them. No, he would not be unaccompanied for long. - -Outside in the square the fourteen plane trees glowed in their young, -unsullied green. At the end of every street the golden muslin of the -haze hung in an unwrinkled curtain that thinned away above the sky’s -gauzy horizon to transparent nothing against the intenser blue. The dim, -conch-like murmur that in a city is silence seemed hazily to identify -itself with the golden mistiness of summer, and against this dim, wide -background the yells of the playing children detached themselves, -distinct and piercing. “Beaver” they shouted, “beaver!” and, “Is it cold -up there?” Full of playful menace, the Complete Man shook at them his -borrowed Malacca. He accepted their prompt hail as the most favourable -of omens. - -At the first tobacconist’s Gumbril bought the longest cigar he could -find, and trailing behind him expiring blue wreaths of Cuban smoke, he -made his way slowly and with an ample swagger towards the Park. It was -there, under the elms, on the shores of the ornamental waters, that he -expected to find his opportunity, that he intended—how confidently -behind his Gargantuan mask!—to take it. - -The opportunity offered itself sooner than he expected. - -He had just turned into the Queen’s Road and was sauntering past -Whiteley’s with the air of one who knows that he has a right to a good -place, to two or three good places even, in the sun, when he noticed -just in front of him, peering intently at the New Season’s Models, a -young woman whom in his mild and melancholy days he would have only -hopelessly admired, but who now, to the Complete Man, seemed a destined -and accessible prey. She was fairly tall, but seemed taller than she -actually was, by reason of her remarkable slenderness. Not that she -looked disagreeably thin, far from it. It was a rounded slenderness. The -Complete Man decided to consider her as tubular—flexible and tubular, -like a section of boa constrictor, should one say. She was dressed in -clothes that emphasized this serpentine slimness, in a close-fitting -grey jacket that buttoned up to the neck and a long, narrow grey skirt -that came down to her ankles. On her head was a small, sleek black hat, -that looked almost as though it were made of metal. It was trimmed on -one side with a bunch of dull golden foliage. - -Those golden leaves were the only touch of ornament in all the severe -smoothness and unbroken tubularity of her person. As for her face, that -was neither strictly beautiful nor strictly ugly, but combined elements -of both beauty and ugliness into a whole that was unexpected, that was -oddly and somehow unnaturally attractive. - -Pretending, he too, to take an interest in the New Season’s Models, -Gumbril made, squinting sideways over the burning tip of his cigar, an -inventory of her features. The forehead, that was mostly hidden by her -hat; it might be pensively and serenely high, it might be of that degree -of lowness which in men is villainous, but in women is only another—a -rather rustic one perhaps, rather _canaille_ even, but definitely -another—attraction. There was no telling. As for her eyes, they were -green, and limpid; set wide apart in her head they looked out from under -heavy lids and through openings that slanted up towards the outer -corners. Her nose was slightly aquiline. Her mouth was full-lipped, but -straight and unexpectedly wide. Her chin was small, round and firm. She -had a pale skin, a little flushed over the cheek-bones, which were -prominent. - -On the left cheek, close under the corner of the slanting eye, she had a -brown mole. Such hair as Gumbril could see beneath her hat was pale and -inconspicuously blond. When she had finished looking at the New Season’s -Models she moved slowly on, halting for a moment before the travelling -trunks and the fitted picnic baskets; dwelling for a full minute over -the corsets, passing the hats, for some reason, rather contemptuously, -but pausing, which seemed strange, for a long pensive look at the cigars -and wine. As for the tennis rackets and cricket bats, the school outfits -and the gentleman’s hosiery—she hadn’t so much as a look for one of -them. But how lovingly she lingered before the boots and shoes! Her own -feet, the Complete Man noticed with satisfaction, had an elegance of -florid curves. And while other folk walked on neat’s leather she was -content to be shod with nothing coarser than mottled serpent’s skin. - -Slowly they drifted up Queen’s Road, lingering before every jeweller’s, -every antiquarian’s, every milliner’s on the way. The stranger gave him -no opportunity, and indeed, Gumbril reflected, how should she? For the -imbecile game on which he was relying is a travelling piquet for two -players, not a game of patience. No sane human being could play it in -solitude. He would have to make the opportunity himself. - -All that was mild in him, all that was melancholy, shrank with a -sickened reluctance from the task of breaking—with what consequences -delicious and perilous in the future or, in the case of the deserved -snub, immediately humiliating?—a silence which, by the tenth or twelfth -shop window, had become quite unbearably significant. The Mild and -Melancholy one would have drifted to the top of the road, sharing, with -that community of tastes which is the basis of every happy union, her -enthusiasm for brass candlesticks and toasting-forks, imitation -Chippendale furniture, gold watch-bracelets and low-waisted summer -frocks; would have drifted to the top of the road and watched her, -dumbly, disappearing for ever into the green Park or along the blank -pavements of the Bayswater Road; would have watched her for ever -disappear and then, if the pubs had happened to be open, would have gone -and ordered a glass of port, and sitting at the bar would have savoured, -still dumbly, among the other drinkers, the muddy grapes of the Douro, -and his own unique loneliness. - -That was what the Mild and Melancholy one would have done. But the -sight, as he gazed earnestly into an antiquary’s window, of his own -powerful bearded face reflected in a sham Heppelwhite mirror, reminded -him that the Mild and Melancholy one was temporarily extinct, and that -it was the Complete Man who now dawdled, smoking his long cigar, up the -Queen’s Road towards the Abbey of Thelema. - -He squared his shoulders; in that loose toga of Mr. Bojanus’s he looked -as copious as François Premier. The time, he decided, had come. - -It was at this moment that the reflection of the stranger’s face joined -itself in the little mirror, as she made a little movement away from the -Old Welsh dresser in the corner, to that of his own. She looked at the -spurious Heppelwhite. Their eyes met in the hospitable glass. Gumbril -smiled. The corners of the stranger’s wide mouth seemed faintly to move; -like petals of the magnolia, her eyelids came slowly down over her -slanting eyes. Gumbril turned from the reflection to the reality. - -“If you want to say Beaver,” he said, “you may.” - -The Complete Man had made his first speech. - -“I want to say nothing,” said the stranger. She spoke with a charming -precision and distinctness, lingering with a pretty emphasis on the _n_ -of nothing. “N—n—nothing”—it sounded rather final. She turned away, she -moved on. - -But the Complete Man was not one to be put off by a mere ultimatum. -“There,” he said, falling into step with her, “now I’ve had it—the -deserved snub. Honour is saved, prestige duly upheld. Now we can get on -with our conversation.” - -The Mild and Melancholy one stood by, gasping with astonished -admiration. - -“You are v—very impertinent,” said the stranger, smiling and looking up -from under the magnolia petals. - -“It is in my character,” said the Complete Man. “You mustn’t blame me. -One cannot escape from one’s heredity; that’s one’s share of original -sin.” - -“There is always grace,” said the stranger. - -Gumbril caressed his beard. “True,” he replied. - -“I advise you to pr—ray for it.” - -His prayer, the Mild and Melancholy one reflected, had already been -answered. The original sin in him had been self-corrected. - -“Here is another antique shop,” said Gumbril. “Shall we stop and have a -look at it?” - -The stranger glanced at him doubtfully. But he looked quite serious. -They stopped. - -“How revolting this sham cottage furniture is,” Gumbril remarked. The -shop, he noticed, was called ‘Ye Olde Farme House.’ - -The stranger, who had been on the point of saying how much she liked -those lovely Old Welsh dressers, gave him her heartiest agreement. “So -v—vulgar.” - -“So horribly refined. So refined and artistic.” - -She laughed on a descending chromatic scale. This was excitingly new. -Poor Aunt Aggie with her Arts and Crafts, and her old English furniture. -And to think she had taken them so seriously! She saw in a flash the -fastidious lady that she now was—with Louis whatever-it-was furniture at -home, and jewels, and young poets to tea, and real artists. In the past, -when she had imagined herself entertaining real artists, it had always -been among really artistic furniture. Aunt Aggie’s furniture. But -now—no, oh no. This man was probably an artist. His beard; and that big -black hat. But not poor; very well dressed. - -“Yes, it’s funny to think that there are people who call that sort of -thing artistic. One’s quite s—sorry for them,” she added, with a little -hiss. - -“You have a kind heart,” said Gumbril. “I’m glad to see that.” - -“Not v—very kind, I’m af—fraid.” She looked at him sideways, and -significantly as the fastidious lady would have looked at one of the -poets. - -“Well, kind enough, I hope,” said the Complete Man. He was delighted -with his new acquaintance. - -Together they disembogued into the Bayswater Road. It was here, Gumbril -reflected, that the Mild and Melancholy one would dumbly have slunk away -to his glass of port and his loneliness among the alien topers at the -bar. But the Complete Man took his new friend by the elbow, and steered -her into the traffic. Together they crossed the road, together entered -the park. - -“I still think you are v—very impertinent,” said the lady. “What induced -you to follow me?” - -With a single comprehensive gesture, Gumbril indicated the sun, the sky, -the green trees airily glittering, the grass, the emerald lights and -violet shadows of the rustic distance. “On a day like this,” he said, -“how could I help it?” - -“Original sin?” - -“Oh,” the Complete Man modestly shook his head, “I lay no claim to -originality in this.” - -The stranger laughed. This was nearly as good as a young poet at the -tea-table. She was very glad that she’d decided, after all, to put on -her best suit this afternoon, even if it was a little stuffy for the -warmth of the day. He, too, she noticed, was wearing a great-coat; which -seemed rather odd. - -“Is it original,” he went on, “to go and tumble stupidly like an -elephant into a pitfall, head over ears, at first sight...?” - -She looked at him sideways, then closed down the magnolia petals, and -smiled. This was going to be the real thing—one of those long, those -interminable, or, at any rate, indefinitely renewable conversations -about love; witty, subtle, penetrating and bold, like the conversations -in books, like the conversations across the tea-table between brilliant -young poets and ladies of quality, grown fastidious through an excessive -experience, fastidious and a little weary, but still, in their subtle -way, insatiably curious. - -“Suppose we sit down,” suggested Gumbril, and he pointed to a couple of -green iron chairs, standing isolated in the middle of the grass close -together and with their fronts slanting inwards a little towards one -another in a position that suggested a confidential intimacy. At the -prospect of the conversation that, inevitably, was about to unroll -itself, he felt decidedly less elated than did his new friend. If there -was anything he disliked it was conversations about love. It bored him, -oh, it bored him most horribly, this minute analysis of the passion that -young women always seemed to expect one, at some point or other in one’s -relation with them, to make. How love alters the character for both good -and bad; how physical passion need not be incompatible with the -spiritual; how a hateful and tyrannous possessiveness can be allied in -love with the most unselfish solicitude for the other party—oh, he knew -all this and much more, so well, so well. And whether one can be in love -with more than one person at a time, whether love can exist without -jealousy, whether pity, affection, desire can in any way replace the -full and genuine passion—how often he had had to thrash out these dreary -questions! - -And all the philosophic speculations were equally familiar, all the -physiological and anthropological and psychological facts. In the theory -of the subject he had ceased to take any interest. Unhappily, a -discussion of the theory always seemed to be an essential preliminary to -the practice of it. He sighed a little wearily as he took his seat on -the green iron chair. But then, recollecting that he was now the -Complete Man, and that the Complete Man must do everything with a -flourish and a high hand, he leaned forward and, smiling with a charming -insolence through his beard, began: - -“Tiresias, you may remember, was granted the singular privilege of -living both as a man and a woman.” - -Ah, this was the genuine young poet. Supporting an elbow on the back of -her chair and leaning her cheek against her hand, she disposed herself -to listen and, where necessary, brilliantly to interpellate; it was -through half-closed eyes that she looked at him, and she smiled faintly -in a manner which she knew, from experience, to be enigmatic, and though -a shade haughty, though a tiny bit mocking and ironical, exceedingly -attractive. - -An hour and a half later they were driving towards an address in Bloxam -Gardens, Maida Vale. The name seemed vaguely familiar to Gumbril. Bloxam -Gardens—perhaps one of his aunts had lived there once? - -“It’s a dr—dreadful little maisonnette,” she explained. “Full of awful -things. We had to take it furnished. It’s so impossible to find anything -now.” - -Gumbril leaned back in his corner, wondering, as he studied that averted -profile, who or what this young woman could be. She seemed to be in the -obvious movement, to like the sort of things one would expect people to -like; she seemed to be as highly civilized, in Mr. Mercaptan’s rather -technical sense of the term, as free of all prejudices as the great -exponent of civilization himself. - -She seemed, from her coolly dropped hints, to possess all the dangerous -experience, all the assurance and easy ruthlessness of a great lady -whose whole life is occupied in the interminable affairs of the heart, -the senses and the head. But, by a strange contradiction she seemed to -find her life narrow and uninteresting. She had complained in so many -words that her husband misunderstood and neglected her, had complained, -by implication, that she knew very few interesting people. - -The maisonnette in Bloxam Gardens was certainly not very splendid—six -rooms on the second and third floors of a peeling stucco house. And the -furniture—decidedly Hire Purchase. And the curtains and -cretonnes—brightly ‘modern,’ positively ‘futurist.’ - -“What one has to put up with in furnished flats!” The lady made a -grimace as she ushered him into the sitting-room. And while she spoke -the words, she really managed to persuade herself that the furniture -wasn’t theirs, that they had found all this sordid stuff cluttering up -the rooms, not chosen it, oh with pains! themselves, not doggedly paid -for it, month by month. - -“Our own things,” she murmured vaguely, “are stored. In the Riviera.” It -was there, under the palms, among the gaudy melon flowers and the -croupiers that the fastidious lady had last held her salon of young -poets. In the Riviera—that would explain, now she came to think of it, a -lot of things, if explanation ever became necessary. - -The Complete Man nodded sympathetically. “Other people’s tastes,” he -held up his hands, they both laughed. “But why do we think of other -people?” he added. And coming forward with a conquering impulsiveness he -took both her long, fine hands in his and raised them to his bearded -mouth. - -She looked at him for a second, then dropped her eyelids, took back her -hands. “I must go and make the tea,” she said. “The servants”—the plural -was a pardonable exaggeration—“are out.” - -Gallantly, the Complete Man offered to come and help her. These scenes -of intimate life had a charm all their own. But she would not allow it. -“No, no,” she was very firm, “I simply forbid you. You must stay here. I -won’t be a moment,” and she was gone, closing the door carefully behind -her. - -Left to himself, Gumbril sat down and filed his nails. - -As for the young lady, she hurried along to her dingy little kitchen, -lit the gas, put the kettle on, set out the teapot and the cups on a -tray, and from the biscuit-box, where it was stored, took out the -remains of a chocolate cake, which had already seen service at the -day-before-yesterday’s tea-party. When all was ready here, she tiptoed -across to her bedroom and sitting down at her dressing-table, began with -hands that trembled a little with excitement to powder her nose, and -heighten the colour of her cheeks. Even after the last touch had been -given, she still sat there, looking at her image in the glass. - -The lady and the poet, she was thinking, the _grande dame_ and the -brilliant young man of genius. She liked young men with beards. But he -was not an artist, in spite of the beard, in spite of the hat. He was a -writer of sorts. So she gathered; but he was reticent, he was -delightfully mysterious. She too, for that matter. The great lady slips -out, masked, into the street; touches the young man’s sleeve: Come with -me. She chooses, does not let herself passively be chosen. The young -poet falls at her feet; she lifts him up. One is accustomed to this sort -of thing. - -She opened her jewel box, took out all her rings—there were not many of -them, alas!—and put them on. Two or three of them, on second thoughts, -she took off again; they were a little, she suspected with a sudden -qualm, in other people’s taste. - -He was very clever, very artistic—only that seemed to be the wrong word -to use; he seemed to know all the new things, all the interesting -people. Perhaps he would introduce her to some of them. And he was so -much at ease behind his knowledge, so well assured. But for her part, -she felt pretty certain, she had made no stupid mistakes. She too had -been, had looked at any rate—which was the important thing—very much at -ease. - -She liked young men with beards. They looked so Russian. Catherine of -Russia had been one of the great ladies with caprices. Masked in the -streets. Young poet, come with me. Or even, Young butcher’s boy. But -that, no, that was going too far, too low. Still, life, life—it was -there to be lived—life—to be enjoyed. And now, and now? She was still -wondering what would happen next, when the kettle, which was one of -those funny ones which whistle when they come to the boil, began, -fitfully, at first, then, under full steam, unflaggingly, to sound its -mournful, other-worldly note. She sighed and bestirred herself to attend -to it. - -“Let me help you.” Gumbril jumped up as she came into the room. “What -can I do?” He hovered rather ineptly round her. - -The lady put down her tray on the little table. “N—nothing,” she said. - -“N—nothing?” he imitated her with a playful mockery. “Am I good for -n—nothing at all?” He took one of her hands and kissed it. - -“Nothing that’s of the l—least importance.” She sat down and began to -pour out the tea. - -The Complete Man also sat down. “So to adore at first sight,” he asked, -“is not of the l—least importance?” - -She shook her head, smiled, raised and lowered her eyelids. One was so -well accustomed to this sort of thing; it had no importance. “Sugar?” -she asked. The young poet was safely there, sparkling across the -tea-table. He offered love and she, with the easy heartlessness of one -who is so well accustomed to this sort of thing, offered him sugar. - -He nodded. “Please. But if it’s of no importance to you,” he went on, -“then I’ll go away at once.” - -The lady laughed her section of a descending chromatic scale. “Oh no, -you won’t,” she said. “You can’t.” And she felt that the _grande dame_ -had made a very fine stroke. - -“Quite right,” the Complete Man replied; “I couldn’t.” He stirred his -tea. “But who are you,” he looked up at her suddenly, “you devilish -female?” He was genuinely anxious to know; and besides, he was paying -her a very pretty compliment. “What do you do with your dangerous -existence?” - -“I enjoy life,” she said. “I think one ought to enjoy life. Don’t you? I -think it’s one’s first duty.” She became quite grave. “One ought to -enjoy every moment of it,” she said. “Oh, passionately, adventurously, -newly, excitingly, uniquely.” - -The Complete Man laughed. “A conscientious hedonist. I see.” - -She felt uncomfortably that the fastidious lady had not quite lived up -to her character. She had spoken more like a young woman who finds life -too dull and daily, and would like to get on to the cinema. “I am very -conscientious,” she said, making significant play with the magnolia -petals and smiling her riddling smile. She must retrieve the Great -Catherine’s reputation. - -“I could see that from the first,” mocked the Complete Man with a -triumphant insolence. “Conscience doth make cowards of us all.” - -The fastidious lady only contemptuously smiled. “Have a little chocolate -cake,” she suggested. Her heart was beating. She wondered, she wondered. - -There was a long silence. Gumbril finished his chocolate cake, gloomily -drank his tea and did not speak. He found, all at once, that he had -nothing to say. His jovial confidence seemed, for the moment, to have -deserted him. He was only the Mild and Melancholy one foolishly -disguised as a Complete Man; a sheep in beaver’s clothing. He entrenched -himself behind his formidable silence and waited; waited, at first, -sitting in his chair, then, when this total inactivity became -unbearable, striding about the room. - -She looked at him, for all her air of serene composure, with a certain -disquiet. What on earth was he up to now? What could he be thinking -about? Frowning like that, he looked like a young Jupiter, bearded and -burly (though not, she noticed, quite so burly as he had appeared in his -overcoat) making ready to throw a thunderbolt. Perhaps he was thinking -of her—suspecting her, seeing through the fastidious lady and feeling -angry at her attempted deception. Or perhaps he was bored with her, -perhaps he was wanting to go away. Well, let him go; she didn’t mind. Or -perhaps he was just made like that—a moody young poet; that seemed, on -the whole, the most likely explanation; it was also the most pleasing -and romantic. She waited. They both waited. - -Gumbril looked at her and was put to shame by the spectacle of her -quiet serenity. He must do something, he told himself; he must recover -the Complete Man’s lost _morale_. Desperately he came to a halt in -front of the one decent picture hanging on the walls. It was an -eighteenth-century engraving of Raphael’s ‘Transfiguration’—better, he -always thought, in black and white than in its bleakly-coloured -original. - -“That’s a nice engraving,” he said. “Very nice.” The mere fact of having -uttered at all was a great comfort to him, a real relief. - -“Yes,” she said, “That belongs to me. I found it in a second-hand shop, -not far from here.” - -“Photography,” he pronounced, with that temporary earnestness which made -him seem an enthusiast about everything, “is a mixed blessing. It has -made it possible to reproduce pictures so easily and cheaply, that all -the bad artists who were well occupied in the past, making engravings of -good men’s paintings, are now free to do bad original work of their -own.” All this was terribly impersonal, he told himself, terribly off -the point. He was losing ground. He must do something drastic to win it -back. But what? - -She came to his rescue. “I bought another at the same time,” she said. -“‘The Last Communion of St. Jerome,’ by—who is it? I forget.” - -“Ah, you mean Domenichino’s ‘St. Jerome’?” The Complete Man was afloat -again. “Poussin’s favourite picture. Mine too, very nearly. I’d like to -see that.” - -“It’s in my room, I’m afraid. But if you don’t mind.” - -He bowed. “If _you_ don’t.” - -She smiled graciously to him and got up. “This way,” she said, and -opened the door. - -“It’s a lovely picture,” Gumbril went on, loquaciously now, behind her, -as they walked down the dark corridor. “And besides, I have a -sentimental attachment to it. There used to be a copy of an engraving of -it at home, when I was a child. And I remember wondering and -wondering—oh, it went on for years—every time I saw the picture; -wondering why on earth that old bishop (for I did know it was a bishop) -should be handing the naked old man a five-shilling piece.” - -She opened a door; they were in her very pink room. Grave in its solemn -and subtly harmonious beauty, the picture hung over the mantelpiece, -hung there, among the photographs of the little friends of her own age, -like some strange object from another world. From within that chipped -gilt frame all the beauty, all the grandeur of religion looked darkly -out upon the pink room. The little friends of her own age, all -deliciously nubile, sweetly smiled, turned up their eyes, clasped -Persian cats or stood jauntily, feet apart, hand in the breeches pocket -of the land-girl’s uniform; the pink roses on the wallpaper, the pink -and white curtains, the pink bed, the strawberry-coloured carpet, filled -all the air with the rosy reflections of nakedness and life. - -And utterly remote, absorbed in their grave, solemn ecstasy, the robed -and mitred priest held out, the dying saint yearningly received, the -body of the Son of God. The ministrants looked gravely on, the little -angels looped in the air above a gravely triumphant festoon, the lion -slept at the saint’s feet, and through the arch beyond, the eye -travelled out over a quiet country of dark trees and hills. - -“There it is,” she waved towards the mantelpiece. - -But Gumbril had taken it all in long ago. “You see what I mean by the -five-shilling piece.” And stepping up to the picture, he pointed to the -round bright wafer which the priest holds in his hand and whose averted -disk is like the essential sun at the centre of the picture’s harmonious -universe. “Those were the days of five-shilling pieces,” he went on. -“You’re probably too young to remember those large, lovely things. They -came my way occasionally, and consecrated wafers didn’t. So you can -understand how much the picture puzzled me. A bishop giving a naked old -man five shillings in a church, with angels fluttering overhead, and a -lion sleeping in the foreground. It was obscure, it was horribly -obscure.” He turned away from the picture and confronted his hostess, -who was standing a little way behind him smiling enigmatically and -invitingly. - -“Obscure,” he repeated. “But so is everything. So is life in general. -And you,” he stepped towards her, “you in particular.” - -“Am I?” she lifted her limpid eyes at him. Oh, how her heart was -beating, how hard it was to be the fastidious lady, calmly satisfying -her caprice. How difficult it was to be accustomed to this sort of -thing. What was going to happen next? - -What happened next was that the Complete Man came still closer, put his -arms round her, as though he were inviting her to the fox-trot, and -began kissing her with a startling violence. His beard tickled her neck; -shivering a little, she brought down the magnolia petals across her -eyes. The Complete Man lifted her up, walked across the room carrying -the fastidious lady in his arms and deposited her on the rosy catafalque -of the bed. Lying there with her eyes shut, she did her best to pretend -she was dead. - -Gumbril had looked at his wrist watch and found that it was six o’clock. -Already? He prepared himself to take his departure. Wrapped in a pink -kimono, she came out into the hall to wish him farewell. - -“When shall I see you again, Rosie?” He had learnt that her name was -Rosie. - -She had recovered her great lady’s equanimity and detachment, and was -able to shrug her shoulders and smile. “How should I know?” she asked, -implying that she could not foresee what her caprice might be an hour -hence. - -“May I write then, and ask one of these days if you do know?” - -She put her head on one side and raised her eyebrows, doubtfully. At -last nodded. “Yes, you can write,” she permitted. - -“Good,” said the Complete Man, and picked up his wide hat. She held out -her hand to him with stateliness, and with a formal gallantry he kissed -it. He was just closing the front door behind him, when he remembered -something. He turned round. “I say,” he called after the retreating pink -kimono. “It’s rather absurd. But how can I write? I don’t know your -name. I can’t just address it ‘Rosie’” - -The great lady laughed delightedly. This had the real _capriccio_ -flavour. “Wait,” she said, and she ran into the sitting-room. She was -back again in a moment with an oblong of pasteboard. “There,” she said, -and dropped it into his great-coat pocket. Then blowing a kiss she was -gone. - -The Complete Man closed the door and descended the stairs. Well, well, -he said to himself; well, well. He put his hand in his coat pocket and -took out the card. In the dim light of the staircase he read the name on -it with some difficulty. Mrs. James—but no, but no. He read again, -straining his eyes; there was no question of it. Mrs. James Shearwater. - -Mrs. James Shearwater. - -That was why he had vaguely known the name of Bloxam Gardens. - -Mrs. James Shear——. Step after step he descended, ponderously. “Good -Lord,” he said out loud. “Good Lord.” - -But why had he never seen her? Why did Shearwater never produce her? Now -he came to think of it, he hardly ever spoke of her. - -Why had she said the flat wasn’t theirs? It was; he had heard Shearwater -talk about it. - -Did she make a habit of this sort of thing! - -Could Shearwater be wholly unaware of what she was really like? But, for -that matter, what _was_ she really like? - -He was half-way down the last flight, when with a rattle and a squeak of -hinges the door of the house, which was only separated by a short lobby -from the foot of the stairs, opened, revealing, on the doorstep, -Shearwater and a friend, eagerly talking. - -“... I take my rabbit,” the friend was saying—he was a young man with -dark, protruding eyes, and staring, doggy nostrils; very eager, lively -and loud. “I take my rabbit and I inject into it the solution of eyes, -pulped eyes of another dead rabbit. You see?” - -Gumbril’s first instinct was to rush up the stairs and hide in the first -likely-looking corner. But he pulled himself together at once. He was a -Complete Man, and Complete Men do not hide; moreover, he was -sufficiently disguised to be quite unrecognizable. He stood where he -was, and listened to the conversation. - -“The rabbit,” continued the young man, and with his bright eyes and -staring, sniffing nose, he looked like a poacher’s terrier ready to go -barking after the first white tail that passed his way; “the rabbit -naturally develops the appropriate resistance, develops a specific -anti-eye to protect itself. I then take some of its anti-eye serum and -inject it into my female rabbit; I then immediately breed from her.” He -paused. - -“Well?” asked Shearwater, in his slow, ponderous way. He lifted his -great round head inquiringly and looked at the doggy young man from -under his bushy eyebrows. - -The doggy young man smiled triumphantly. “The young ones,” he said, -emphasizing his words by striking his right fist against the extended -palm of his left hand, “the young ones are born with defective sight.” - -Thoughtfully Shearwater pulled at his formidable moustache. “H’m,” he -said slowly. “Very remarkable.” - -“You realize the full significance of it?” asked the young man. “We seem -to be effecting the germ-plasm directly. We have found a way of making -acquired characteristics....” - -“Pardon me,” said Gumbril. He had decided that it was time to be gone. -He ran down the stairs and across the tiled hall, he pushed his way -firmly but politely between the talkers. - -“... heritable,” continued the young man, imperturbably eager, speaking -through and over and round the obstacle. - -“Damn!” said Shearwater. The Complete Man had trodden on his toe. -“Sorry,” he added, absent-mindedly apologizing for the injury he had -received. - -Gumbril hurried off along the street. “If we really have found out a -technique for influencing the germ-plasm directly ...” he heard the -doggy young man saying; but he was already too far away to catch the -rest of the sentence. There are many ways, he reflected, of spending an -afternoon. - -The doggy young man refused to come in, he had to get in his game of -tennis before dinner. Shearwater climbed the stairs alone. He was taking -off his hat in the little hall of his own apartment, when Rosie came out -of the sitting-room with a trayful of tea-things. - -“Well?” he asked, kissing her affectionately on the forehead. “Well? -People to tea?” - -“Only one,” Rosie replied. “I’ll go and make you a fresh cup.” - -She glided off, rustling in her pink kimono towards the kitchen. - -Shearwater sat down in the sitting-room. He had brought home with him -from the library the fifteenth volume of the _Biochemical Journal_. -There was something in it he wanted to look up. He turned over the -pages. Ah, here it was. He began reading. Rosie came back again. - -“Here’s your tea,” she said. - -He thanked her without looking up. The tea grew cold on the little table -at his side. - -Lying on the sofa, Rosie pondered and remembered. Had the events of the -afternoon, she asked herself, really happened? They seemed very -improbable and remote, now, in this studious silence. She couldn’t help -feeling a little disappointed. Was it only this? So simple and obvious? -She tried to work herself up into a more exalted mood. She even tried to -feel guilty; but there she failed completely. She tried to feel -rapturous; but without much more success. Still, he certainly had been a -most extraordinary man. Such impudence, and at the same time such -delicacy and tact. - -It was a pity she couldn’t afford to change the furniture. She saw now -that it wouldn’t do at all. She would go and tell Aunt Aggie about the -dreadful middle-classness of her Art and Craftiness. - -She ought to have an Empire _chaise longue_. Like Madame Récamier. She -could see herself lying there, dispensing tea. “Like a delicious pink -snake.” He had called her that. - -Well, really, now she came to think of it all again, it had been too -queer, too queer. - -“What’s a hedonist?” she suddenly asked. - -Shearwater looked up from the _Journal of Biochemistry_. “What?” he -said. - -“A hedonist.” - -“A man who holds that the end of life is pleasure.” - -A ‘conscientious hedonist’—ah, that was good. - -“This tea is cold,” Shearwater remarked. - -“You should have drunk it before,” she said. The silence renewed and -prolonged itself. - -Rosie was getting much better, Shearwater reflected, as he washed his -hands before supper, about not interrupting him when he was busy. This -evening she had really not disturbed him at all, or at most only once, -and that not seriously. There had been times in the past when the child -had really made life almost impossible. There were those months at the -beginning of their married life, when she had thought she would like to -study physiology herself and be a help to him. He remembered the hours -he had spent trying to teach her elementary facts about the chromosomes. -It had been a great relief when she abandoned the attempt. He had -suggested she should go in for stencilling patterns on Government linen. -Such pretty curtains and things one could make like that. But she hadn’t -taken very kindly to the idea. There had followed a long period when she -seemed to have nothing to do but prevent him from doing anything. -Ringing him up at the laboratory, invading his study, sitting on his -knee, or throwing her arms round his neck, or pulling his hair, or -asking ridiculous questions when he was trying to work. - -Shearwater flattered himself that he had been extremely patient. He had -never got cross. He had just gone on as though she weren’t there. As -though she weren’t there. - -“Hurry up,” he heard her calling. “The soup’s getting cold.” - -“Coming,” he shouted back, and began to dry his large, blunt hands. - -She seemed to have been improving lately. And to-night, to-night she had -been a model of non-existence. - -He came striding heavily into the dining-room. Rosie was sitting at the -head of the table, ladling out the soup. With her left hand she held -back the flowing pink sleeve of her kimono so that it should not trail -in the plates or the tureen. Her bare arm showed white and pearly -through the steam of lentils. - -How pretty she was! He could not resist the temptation, but coming up -behind her bent down and kissed her, rather clumsily, on the back of her -neck. - -Rosie drew away from him. “Really, Jim,” she said, disapprovingly. “At -meal-times!” The fastidious lady had to draw the line at these -ill-timed, tumbling familiarities. - -“And what about work-times?” Shearwater asked laughing. “Still, you were -wonderful this evening, Rosie, quite wonderful.” He sat down and began -eating his soup. “Not a sound all the time I was reading; or, at any -rate, only one sound, so far as I remember.” - -The great lady said nothing, but only smiled—a little contemptuously and -with a touch of pity. She pushed away the plate of soup unfinished and -planted her elbows on the table. Slipping her hands under the sleeves of -her kimono, she began, lightly, delicately, with the tips of her -fingers, to caress her own arms. - -How smooth they were, how soft and warm and how secret under the -sleeves. And all her body was as smooth and warm, was as soft and -secret, still more secret beneath the pink folds. Like a warm serpent -hidden away, secretly, secretly. - - - - - CHAPTER X - - -Mr. Boldero liked the idea of the Patent Small-Clothes. He liked it -immensely, he said, immensely. - -“There’s money in it,” he said. - -Mr. Boldero was a small dark man of about forty-five, active as a bird -and with a bird’s brown, beady eyes, a bird’s sharp nose. He was always -busy, always had twenty different irons in the fire at once, was always -fresh, clearheaded, never tired. He was also always unpunctual, always -untidy. He had no sense of time or of order. But he got away with it, as -he liked to say. He delivered the goods—or rather the goods, in the -convenient form of cash, delivered themselves, almost miraculously it -always seemed, to him. - -He was like a bird in appearance. But in mind, Gumbril found, after -having seen him once or twice, he was like a caterpillar: he ate all -that was put before him, he consumed a hundred times his own mental -weight every day. Other people’s ideas, other people’s knowledge—they -were his food. He devoured them and they were at once his own. All that -belonged to other people he annexed without a scruple or a second -thought, quite naturally, as though it were already his own. And he -absorbed it so rapidly and completely, he laid public claim to it so -promptly that he sometimes deceived people into believing that he had -really anticipated them in their ideas, that he had known for years and -years the things they had just been telling him, and which he would at -once airily repeat to them with the perfect assurance of one who -knows—knows by instinct, as it were, by inheritance. - -At their first luncheon he had asked Gumbril to tell him all about -modern painting. Gumbril had given him a brief lecture; before the -savoury had appeared on the table, Mr. Boldero was talking with perfect -familiarity of Picasso and Derain. He almost made it understood that he -had a fine collection of their works in his drawing-room at home. Being -a trifle deaf, however, he was not very good at names, and Gumbril’s -all-too-tactful corrections were lost on him. He could not be induced to -abandon his Bacosso in favour of any other version of the Spaniard’s -name. Bacosso—why, he had known all about Bacosso since he was a -schoolboy! Bacosso was an old master, already. - -Mr. Boldero was very severe with the waiters and knew so well how things -ought to be done at a good restaurant, that Gumbril felt sure he must -recently have lunched with some meticulous gormandizer of the old -school. And when the waiter made as though to serve them with brandy in -small glasses, Mr. Boldero was so passionately indignant that he sent -for the manager. - -“Do you mean to tell me,” he shouted in a perfect frenzy of righteous -anger, “that you don’t yet know how brandy ought to be drunk?” - -Perhaps it was only last week that he himself, Gumbril reflected, had -learned to aerate his cognac in Gargantuan beakers. - -Meanwhile, of course, the Patent Small-Clothes were not neglected. As -soon as he had been told about the things, Mr. Boldero began speaking of -them with a perfect and practised familiarity. They were already his, -mentally his. And it was only Mr. Boldero’s generosity that prevented -him from making the Small-Clothes more effectively his own. - -“If it weren’t for the friendship and respect which I feel for your -father, Mr. Gumbril,” he said, twinkling genially over the brandy, “I’d -just annex your Small-Clothes. Bag and baggage. Just annex them.” - -“Ah, but they’re my patent,” said Gumbril. “Or at least they’re in -process of being patented. The agents are at work.” - -Mr. Boldero laughed. “Do you suppose that would trouble me if I wanted -to be unscrupulous? I’d just take the idea and manufacture the article. -You’d bring an action. I’d have it defended with all the professional -erudition that could be brought. You’d find yourself let in for a case -that might cost thousands. And how would you pay for it? You’d be forced -to come to an agreement out of court, Mr. Gumbril. That’s what you’d -have to do. And a damned bad agreement it would be for you, I can tell -you.” Mr. Boldero laughed very cheerfully at the thought of the badness -of this agreement. “But don’t be alarmed,” he said. “I shan’t do it, you -know.” - -Gumbril was not wholly reassured. Tactfully, he tried to find out what -terms Mr. Boldero was prepared to offer. Mr. Boldero was nebulously -vague. - -They met again in Gumbril’s rooms. The contemporary drawings on the -walls reminded Mr. Boldero that he was now an art expert. He told -Gumbril all about it—in Gumbril’s own words. Every now and then, it was -true, Mr. Boldero made a little slip. Bacosso, for example, remained -unshakably Bacosso. But on the whole the performance was most -impressive. It made Gumbril feel very uncomfortable, however, while it -lasted. For he recognized in this characteristic of Mr. Boldero a -horrible caricature of himself. He too was an assimilator; more -discriminating, no doubt, more tactful, knowing better than Mr. Boldero -how to turn the assimilated experience into something new and truly his -own; but still a caterpillar, definitely a caterpillar. He began -studying Mr. Boldero with a close and disgustful attention, as one might -pore over some repulsive _memento mori_. - -It was a relief when Mr. Boldero stopped talking art and consented to -get down to business. Gumbril was wearing for the occasion the sample -pair of Small-Clothes which Mr. Bojanus had made for him. For Mr. -Boldero’s benefit he put them, so to speak, through their paces. He -allowed himself to drop with a bump on to the floor—arriving there -bruiseless and unjarred. He sat in complete comfort for minutes at a -stretch on the edge of the ornamental iron fender. In the intervals he -paraded up and down before Mr. Boldero like a mannequin. “A trifle -bulgy,” said Mr. Boldero. “But still....” He was, taking it all round, -favourably impressed. It was time, he said, to begin thinking of -details. They would have to begin by making experiments with the -bladders to discover a model combining, as Mr. Boldero put it, ‘maximum -efficiency with minimum bulge.’ When they had found the right thing, -they would have it made in suitable quantities by any good rubber firm. -As for the trousers themselves, they could rely for those on sweated -female labour in the East End. “Cheap and good,” said Mr. Boldero. - -“It sounds ideal,” said Gumbril. - -“And then,” said Mr. Boldero, “there’s our advertising campaign. On that -I may say,” he went on with a certain solemnity, “will depend the -failure or success of our enterprise. I consider it of the first -importance.” - -“Quite,” said Gumbril, nodding importantly and with intelligence. - -“We must set to work,” said Mr. Boldero, “sci—en—tifically.” Gumbril -nodded again. - -“We have to appeal,” Mr. Boldero went on so glibly that Gumbril felt -sure he must be quoting somebody else’s words, “to the great instincts -and feelings of humanity.... They are the sources of action. They spend -the money, if I may put it like that.” - -“That’s all very well,” said Gumbril. “But how do you propose to appeal -to the most important of the instincts? I refer, as you may well -imagine, to sex.” - -“I was just going to come to that,” said Mr. Boldero, raising his hand -as though to ask for a patient hearing. “Alas! we can’t. I don’t see any -way of hanging our Small-Clothes on the sexual peg.” - -“Then we are undone,” said Gumbril, too dramatically. - -“No, no.” Mr. Boldero was reassuring. “You make the error of the -Viennese. You exaggerate the importance of sex. After all, my dear Mr. -Gumbril, there is also the instinct of self-preservation; there is -also,” he leaned forward, wagging his finger, “the social instinct, the -instinct of the herd.” - -“True.” - -“Both of them as powerful as sex. What are the Professor’s famous -Censors but forbidding suggestions from the herd without, made powerful -and entrenched by the social instinct within?” - -Gumbril had no answer; Mr. Boldero continued, smiling: - -“So that we shall be all right if we stick to self-preservation and the -herd. Rub in the comfort and the utility, the hygienic virtues of our -Small-Clothes; that will catch their self-preservatory feelings. Aim at -their dread of public opinion, at their ambition to be one better than -their fellows and their terror of being different—at all the ludicrous -weaknesses a well-developed social instinct exposes them to. We shall -get them, if we set to work scientifically.” Mr. Boldero’s bird-like -eyes twinkled very brightly. “We shall get them,” he repeated, and he -laughed a happy little laugh, full of such a childlike diabolism, such -an innocent gay malignity that it seemed as though a little leprechaun -had suddenly taken the financier’s place in Gumbril’s best arm-chair. - -Gumbril laughed too; for this leprechaunish mirth was infectious. “We -shall get them,” he echoed. “Oh, I’m sure we shall, if you set about it, -Mr. Boldero.” - -Mr. Boldero acknowledged the compliment with a smile that expressed no -false humility. It was his due, and he knew it. - -“I’ll give you some of my ideas about the advertising campaign,” he -said. “Just to give you a notion. You can think them over, quietly, and -make suggestions.” - -“Yes, yes,” said Gumbril, nodding. - -Mr. Boldero cleared his throat. “We shall begin,” he said, “by -making the most simple elementary appeal to their instinct of -self-preservation: we shall point out that the Patent Small-Clothes -are comfortable; that to wear them is to avoid pain. A few striking -slogans about comfort—that’s all we want. Very simple indeed. It -doesn’t take much to persuade a man that it’s pleasanter to sit on -air than on wood. But while we’re on the subject of hard seats we -shall have to glide off subtly at a tangent to make a flank attack -on the social instincts.” And joining the tip of his forefinger to -the tip of his thumb, Mr. Boldero moved his hand delicately -sideways, as though he were sliding it along a smooth brass rail. -“We shall have to speak about the glories and the trials of -sedentary labour. We must exalt its spiritual dignity and at the -same time condemn its physical discomforts. ‘The seat of honour,’ -don’t you know. We could talk about that. ‘The Seats of the Mighty.’ -‘The seat that rules the office rocks the world.’ All those lines -might be made something of. And then we could have little historical -chats about thrones; how dignified, but how uncomfortable they’ve -been. We must make the bank clerk and the civil servant feel proud -of being what they are and at the same time feel ashamed that, being -such splendid people, they should have to submit to the indignity of -having blistered hind-quarters. In modern advertising you must -flatter your public—not in the oily, abject, tradesmanlike style of -the old advertisers, crawling before clients who were their social -superiors; that’s all over now. It’s we who are the social -superiors—because we’ve got more money than the bank clerks and the -civil servants. Our modern flattery must be manly, straightforward, -sincere, the admiration of equal for equal—all the more flattering -as we aren’t equals.” Mr. Boldero laid a finger to his nose. -“They’re dirt and we’re capitalists....” He laughed. - -Gumbril laughed too. It was the first time that he had ever thought of -himself as a capitalist, and the thought was exhilarating. - -“We flatter them,” went on Mr. Boldero. “We say that honest work is -glorious and ennobling—which it isn’t; it’s merely dull and cretinizing. -And then we go on to suggest that it would be finer still, more -ennobling, because less uncomfortable, if they wore Gumbril’s Patent -Small-Clothes. You see the line?” - -Gumbril saw the line. - -“After that,” said Mr. Boldero, “we get on to the medical side of the -matter. The medical side, Mr. Gumbril—that’s most important. Nobody -feels really well nowadays—at any rate, nobody who lives in a big town -and does the kind of loathsome work that the people we’re catering for -does. Keeping this fact before our eyes, we have to make it clear that -only those can expect to be healthy who wear pneumatic trousers.” - -“That will be a little difficult, won’t it?” questioned Gumbril. - -“Not a bit of it!” Mr. Boldero laughed with an infectious confidence. -“All we have to do is to talk about the great nerve centres of the -spine: the shocks they get when you sit down too hard; the wearing -exhaustion to which long-protracted sitting on unpadded seats subjects -them. We’ll have to talk very scientifically about the great lumbar -ganglia—if there are such things, which I really don’t pretend to know. -We’ll even talk almost mystically about the ganglia. You know that sort -of ganglion philosophy?” Mr. Boldero went on parenthetically. “Very -interesting it is, sometimes, I think. We could put in a lot about the -dark, powerful sense-life, sex-life, instinct-life which is controlled -by the lumbar ganglion. How important it is that that shouldn’t be -damaged. That already our modern conditions of civilization tend unduly -to develop the intellect and the thoracic ganglia controlling the higher -emotions. That we’re wearing out, growing feeble, losing our balance in -consequence. And that the only cure—if we are to continue our present -mode of civilized life—is to be found in Gumbril’s Patent -Small-Clothes.” Mr. Boldero brought his hand with an emphatic smack on -to the table as he spoke, as he fairly shouted, these last words. - -“Magnificent,” said Gumbril, with genuine admiration. - -“This sort of medical and philosophical dope,” Mr. Boldero went on, “is -always very effective, if it’s properly used. The public to whom we are -making our appeal is, of course, almost absolutely ignorant on these, -or, indeed, on almost all other subjects. It is therefore very much -impressed by the unfamiliar words; particularly if they have such a good -juicy sound as the word ‘ganglia.’” - -“There was a young man of East Anglia, whose loins were a tangle of -ganglia,” murmured Gumbril, _improvisatore_. - -“Precisely,” said Mr. Boldero. “Precisely. You see how juicy it is? -Well, as I say, they’re impressed. And they’re also grateful. They’re -grateful to us for having given them a piece of abstruse, unlikely -information which they can pass on to their wives, or to such friends as -they know don’t read the paper in which our advertisement appears—can -pass on airily, don’t you know, with easy erudition, as though they’d -known all about ganglia from their childhood. And they’ll feel such a -flow of superiority as they hand on the metaphysics and the pathology, -that they’ll always think of us with affection. They’ll buy our breeks -and they’ll get other people to buy. That’s why,” Mr. Boldero went off -again on an instructive tangent, “that’s why the day of secret patent -medicines is really over. It’s no good saying you have rediscovered some -secret known only, in the past, to the Egyptians. People don’t know -anything about Egyptology; but they have an inkling that such a science -exists. And that if it does exist, it’s unlikely that patent medicine -makers should have found out facts unknown to the professors at the -universities. And it’s much the same even with secrets that don’t come -from Egypt. People know there’s such a thing as medical science and they -again feel it’s improbable that manufacturers should know things ignored -by the doctors. The modern democratic advertiser is entirely -above-board. He tells you all about it. He explains that the digestive -juices acting on bismuth give rise to a disinfectant acid. He points out -that lactic ferment gets destroyed before it reaches the large -intestine, so that Metchnikoff’s cure generally won’t work. And he goes -on to explain that the only way of getting the ferment there is to mix -it with starch and paraffin: starch to feed the ferment on, paraffin to -prevent the starch being digested before it gets to the intestine. And -in consequence, he convinces you that a mixture of starch, paraffin and -ferment is the only thing that’s any good at all. Consequently you buy -it; which you would never have done without the explanation. In the same -way, Mr. Gumbril, we mustn’t ask people to take our trousers on trust. -We must explain scientifically why these trousers will be good for their -health. And by means of the ganglia, as I’ve pointed out, we can even -show that the trousers will be good for their souls and the whole human -race at large. And as you probably know, Mr. Gumbril, there’s nothing -like a spiritual message to make things go. Combine spirituality with -practicality and you’ve fairly got them. Got them, I may say, on toast. -And that’s what we can do with our trousers; we can put a message into -them, a big, spiritual message. Decidedly,” he concluded, “we shall have -to work those ganglia all we can.” - -“I’ll undertake to do that,” said Gumbril, who felt very buoyant and -self-assured. Mr. Boldero’s hydrogenous conversation had blown him up -like a balloon. - -“And I’m sure you’ll do it well,” said Mr. Boldero encouragingly. “There -is no better training for modern commerce than a literary education. As -a practical business man, I always uphold the ancient universities, -especially in their teaching of the Humanities.” - -Gumbril was much flattered. At the moment, it seemed supremely -satisfying to be told that he was likely to make a good business man. -The business man took on a radiance, began to glow, as it were, with a -phosphorescent splendour. - -“Then it’s very important,” continued Mr. Boldero, “to play on their -snobbism; to exploit that painful sense of inferiority which the -ignorant and ingenuous always feel in the presence of the knowing. We’ve -got to make our trousers the Thing—socially right as well as merely -personally comfortable. We’ve got to imply somehow that it’s bad form -not to wear them. We’ve got to make those who don’t wear them feel -rather uncomfortable. Like that film of Charlie Chaplin’s, where he’s -the absent-minded young man about town who dresses for dinner -immaculately, from the waist up—white waistcoat, tail coat, stiff shirt, -top-hat—and only discovers, when he gets down into the hall of the -hotel, that he’s forgotten to put on his trousers. We’ve got to make -them feel like that. That’s always very successful. You know those -excellent American advertisements about young ladies whose engagements -are broken off because they perspire too freely or have an unpleasant -breath? How horribly uncomfortable those make you feel! We’ve got to do -something of the same sort for our trousers. Or more immediately -applicable would be those tailor’s advertisements about correct clothes. -‘Good clothes make you feel good.’ You know the sort of line. And then -those grave warning sentences in which you’re told that a correctly cut -suit may make the difference between an appointment gained and an -appointment lost, an interview granted and an interview refused. But the -most masterly examples I can think of,” Mr. Boldero went on with growing -enthusiasm, “are those American advertisements of spectacles, in which -the manufacturers first assume the existence of a social law about -goggles, and then proceed to invoke all the sanctions which fall on the -head of the committer of a solecism upon those who break it. It’s -masterly. For sport or relaxation, they tell you, as though it was a -social axiom, you must wear spectacles of pure tortoiseshell. For -business, tortoiseshell rims and nickel ear-pieces lend incisive -poise—incisive poise, we must remember that for our ads, Mr. Gumbril. -‘Gumbril’s Patent Small-Clothes lend incisive poise to business men.’ -For semi-evening dress, shell rims with gold ear-pieces and gold -nose-bridge. And for full dress, gold-mounted rimless pince-nez are -refinement itself, and absolutely correct. Thus we see, a social law has -been created, according to which every self-respecting myope or astigmat -must have four distinct pairs of glasses. Think if he should wear the -all-shell sports model with full dress! Revolting solecism! The people -who read advertisements like that begin to feel uncomfortable; they have -only one pair of glasses, they are afraid of being laughed at, thought -low-class and ignorant and suburban. And since there are few who would -not rather be taken in adultery than in provincialism, they rush out to -buy four new pairs of spectacles. And the manufacturer gets rich, Mr. -Gumbril. Now, we must do something of the kind with our trousers. Imply -somehow that they’re correct, that you’re undressed without, that you’re -fiancée would break off the engagement if she saw you sitting down to -dinner on anything but air.” Mr. Boldero shrugged his shoulders, vaguely -waved his hand. - -“It may be rather difficult,” said Gumbril, shaking his head. - -“It may,” Mr. Boldero agreed. “But difficulties are made to be overcome. -We must pull the string of snobbery and shame: it’s essential. We must -find out methods for bringing the weight of public opinion to bear -mockingly on those who do not wear our trousers. It is difficult at the -moment to see how it can be done. But it will have to be done, it will -have to be done,” Mr. Boldero repeated emphatically. “We might even find -a way of invoking patriotism to our aid. ‘English trousers filled with -English air, for English men.’ A little far-fetched, perhaps. But there -might be something in it.” - -Gumbril shook his head doubtfully. - -“Well, it’s one of the things we’ve got to think about in any case,” -said Mr. Boldero. “We can’t afford to neglect such powerful social -emotions as these. Sex, as we’ve seen, is almost entirely out of the -question. We must run the rest, therefore, as hard as we can. For -instance, there’s the novelty business. People feel superior if they -possess something new which their neighbours haven’t got. The mere fact -of newness is an intoxication. We must encourage that sense of -superiority, brew up that intoxication. The most absurd and futile -objects can be sold because they’re new. Not long ago I sold four -million patent soap-dishes of a new and peculiar kind. The point was -that you didn’t screw the fixture into the bathroom wall; you made a -hole in the wall and built the soap-dish into a niche, like a holy water -stoup. My soap-dishes possessed no advantages over other kinds of -soap-dishes, and they cost a fantastic amount to instal. But I managed -to put them across, simply because they were new. Four million of them.” -Mr. Boldero smiled with satisfaction at the recollection. “We shall do -the same, I hope, with our trousers. People may be shy of being the -first to appear in them; but the shyness will be compensated for by the -sense of superiority and elation produced by the consciousness of the -newness of the things.” - -“Quite so,” said Gumbril. - -“And then, of course, there’s the economy slogan. ‘One pair of Gumbril’s -Patent Small-Clothes will outlast six pairs of ordinary trousers.’ -That’s easy enough. So easy that it’s really uninteresting.” Mr. Boldero -waved it away. - -“We shall have to have pictures,” said Gumbril, parenthetically. He had -an idea. - -“Oh, of course.” - -“I believe I know of the very man to do them,” Gumbril went on. “His -name’s Lypiatt. A painter. You’ve probably heard of him.” - -“Heard of him!” exclaimed Mr. Boldero. He laughed. “But who hasn’t heard -of Lydgate.” - -“Lypiatt.” - -“Lypgate, I mean, of course.” - -“I think he’d be the very man,” said Gumbril. - -“I’m certain he would,” said Mr. Boldero, not a whit behind-hand. - -Gumbril was pleased with himself. He felt he had done some one a good -turn. Poor old Lypiatt; be glad of the money. Gumbril remembered also -his own fiver. And remembering his own fiver, he also remembered that -Mr. Boldero had as yet made no concrete suggestion about terms. He -nerved himself at last to suggest to Mr. Boldero that it was time to -think of this little matter. Ah, how he hated talking about money! He -found it so hard to be firm in asserting his rights. He was ashamed of -showing himself grasping. He always thought with consideration of the -other person’s point of view—poor devil, could he afford to pay? And he -was always swindled and always conscious of the fact. Lord, how he hated -life on these occasions! Mr. Boldero was still evasive. - -“I’ll write you a letter about it,” he said at last. - -Gumbril was delighted. “Yes, do,” he said enthusiastically, “do.” He -knew how to cope with letters all right. He was a devil with the -fountain pen. It was these personal, hand-to-hand combats that he -couldn’t manage. He could have been, he always felt, such a ruthless -critic and satirist, such a violent, unscrupulous polemical writer. And -if ever he committed his autobiography to paper, how breath-takingly -intimate, how naked—naked without so much as a healthy sunburn to colour -the whiteness—how quiveringly a sensitive jelly it would be! All the -things he had never told any one would be in it. Confession at long -range—if anything, it would be rather agreeable. - -“Yes, do write me a letter,” he repeated. “Do.” - -Mr. Boldero’s letter came at last, and the proposals it contained were -derisory. A hundred pounds down and five pounds a week when the business -should be started. Five pounds a week—and for that he was to act as a -managing director, writer of advertisements and promoter of foreign -sales. Gumbril felt thankful that Mr. Boldero had put the terms in a -letter. If they had been offered point-blank across the luncheon table, -he would probably have accepted them without a murmur. He wrote a few -neat, sharp phrases saying that he could not consider less than five -hundred pounds down and a thousand a year. Mr. Boldero’s reply was -amiable; would Mr. Gumbril come and see him? - -See him? Well, of course, it was inevitable. He would have to see him -again some time. But he would send the Complete Man to deal with the -fellow. A Complete Man matched with a leprechaun—there could be no doubt -as to the issue. - - “DEAR MR. BOLDERO,” he wrote back, “I should have come to talk over - matters before this. But I have been engaged during the last days in - growing a beard and until this has come to maturity, I cannot, as - you will easily be able to understand, leave the house. By the day - after to-morrow, however, I hope to be completely presentable and - shall come to see you at your office at about three o’clock, if that - is convenient to you. I hope we shall be able to arrange matters - satisfactorily.—Believe me, dear Mr. Boldero, yours very truly, - - THEODORE GUMBRIL, JR.” - -The day after to-morrow became in due course to-day; splendidly bearded -and Rabelaisianly broad in his whipcord toga, Gumbril presented himself -at Mr. Boldero’s office in Queen Victoria Street. - -“I should hardly have recognized you,” exclaimed Mr. Boldero as he shook -hands. “How it does alter you, to be sure!” - -“Does it?” The Complete Man laughed with a significant joviality. - -“Won’t you take off your coat?” - -“No, thanks,” said Gumbril. “I’ll keep it on.” - -“Well,” said the leprechaun, leaning back in his chair and twinkling, -bird-like, across the table. - -“Well,” repeated Gumbril on a different tone from behind the stooks of -his corn-like beard. He smiled, feeling serenely strong and safe. - -“I’m sorry we should have disagreed,” said Mr. Boldero. - -“So am I,” the Complete Man replied. “But we shan’t disagree for long,” -he added, with significance; and as he spoke the words he brought down -his fist with such a bang, that the inkpots on Mr. Boldero’s very solid -mahogany writing-table trembled and the pens danced, while Mr. Boldero -himself started with a genuine alarm. He had not expected them. And now -he came to look at him more closely, this young Gumbril was a great, -hulking, dangerous-looking fellow. He had thought he would be easy to -manage. How could he have made such a mistake? - -Gumbril left the office with Mr. Boldero’s cheque for three hundred and -fifty pounds in his pocket and an annual income of eight hundred. His -bruised right hand was extremely tender to the touch. He was thankful -that a single blow had been enough. - - - - - CHAPTER XI - - -Gumbril had spent the afternoon at Bloxam Gardens. His chin was still -sore from the spirit gum with which he had attached to it the symbol of -the Complete Man; he was feeling also a little fatigued. Rosie had been -delighted to see him; St. Jerome had gone on solemnly communicating all -the time. - -His father had gone out to dine, and Gumbril had eaten his rump steak -and drunk his bottle of stout alone. He was sitting now in front of the -open French windows which led from his father’s workroom on to the -balcony, with a block on his knee and a fountain-pen in his hand, -composing advertisements for the Patent Small-Clothes. Outside, in the -plane trees of the square, the birds had gone through their nightly -performance. But Gumbril had paid no attention to them. He sat there, -smoking, sometimes writing a word or two—sunk in the quagmire of his own -drowsy and comfortable body. The flawless weather of the day had -darkened into a blue May evening. It was agreeable merely to be alive. - -He sketched out two or three advertisements in the grand idealistic -transatlantic style. He imagined one in particular with a picture of -Nelson at the head of the page and ‘England expects ...’ printed large -beneath it. “England ... Duty ... these are solemn words.” That was how -it would begin. “These are solemn words, and we use them solemnly as men -who realize what Duty is, and who do all that in them lies to perform it -as Englishmen should. The Manufacturer’s is a sacred trust. The guide -and ruler of the modern world, he has, like the Monarch of other days, -responsibilities towards his people; he has a Duty to fulfil. He rules, -but he must also serve. We realize our responsibilities, we take them -seriously. Gumbril’s Patent Small-Clothes have been brought into the -world that they may serve. Our Duty towards you is a Duty of Service. -Our proud boast is that we perform it. But besides his Duty towards -Others, every man has a duty towards Himself. What is that Duty? It is -to keep himself in the highest possible state of physical and spiritual -fitness. Gumbril’s Patent Small-Clothes protect the lumbar ganglia....” -After that it would be plain medical and mystical sailing. - -As soon as he got to the ganglia, Gumbril stopped writing. He put down -the block, sheathed his pen, and abandoned himself to the pleasures of -pure idleness. He sat, he smoked his cigar. In the basement, two floors -down, the cook and the house-parlourmaid were reading—one the _Daily -Mirror_, the other the _Daily Sketch_. For them, Her Majesty the Queen -spoke kindly words to crippled female orphans; the jockeys tumbled at -the jumps; Cupid was busy in Society, and the murderers who had -disembowelled their mistresses were at large. Above him was the city of -models, was a bedroom, a servant’s bedroom, an attic of tanks and -ancient dirt, the roof and, after that, two or three hundred light-years -away, a star of the fourth magnitude. On the other side of the -party-wall on his right, a teeming family of Jews led their dark, -compact, Jewish lives with a prodigious intensity. At this moment they -were all passionately quarrelling. Beyond the wall on the left lived the -young journalist and his wife. To-night it was he who had cooked the -supper. The young wife lay on the sofa, feeling horribly sick; she was -going to have a baby, there could be no doubt about it now. They had -meant not to have one; it was horrible. And, outside, the birds were -sleeping in the trees, the invading children from the slum tumbled and -squealed. Ships meanwhile were walloping across the Atlantic freighted -with more cigars. Rosie at this moment was probably mending Shearwater’s -socks. Gumbril sat and smoked, and the universe arranged itself in a -pattern about him, like iron filings round a magnet. - -The door opened, and the house-parlourmaid intruded Shearwater upon his -lazy felicity, abruptly, in her unceremonious old way, and hurried back -to the _Daily Sketch_. - -“Shearwater! This is very agreeable,” said Gumbril. “Come and sit down.” -He pointed to a chair. - -Clumsily, filling the space that two ordinary men would occupy, -Shearwater came zigzagging and lurching across the room, bumped against -the work-table and the sofa as he passed, and finally sat down in the -indicated chair. - -It suddenly occurred to Gumbril that this was Rosie’s husband: he had -not thought of that before. Could it be in the marital capacity that he -presented himself so unexpectedly now? After this afternoon.... He had -come home; Rosie had confessed all.... Ah! but then she didn’t know who -he was. He smiled to himself at the thought. What a joke! Perhaps -Shearwater had come to complain to him of the unknown Complete Man—to -him! It was delightful. Anon—the author of all those ballads in the -_Oxford Book of English Verse_: the famous Italian painter—Ignoto. -Gumbril was quite disappointed when his visitor began to talk of other -themes than Rosie. Sunk in the quagmire of his own comfortable guts, he -felt good-humouredly obscene. The dramatic scabrousness of the situation -would have charmed him in his present mood. Good old Shearwater—but what -an ox of a man! If he, Gumbril, took the trouble to marry a wife, he -would at least take some interest in her. - -Shearwater had begun to talk in general terms about life. What could he -be getting at, Gumbril wondered? What particulars were ambushed behind -these generalizations? There were silences. Shearwater looked, he -thought, very gloomy. Under his thick moustache the small, pouting, -babyish mouth did not smile. The candid eyes had a puzzled, tired -expression in them. - -“People are queer,” he said after one of his silences. “Very queer. One -has no idea how queer they are.” - -Gumbril laughed. “But I have a very clear idea of their queerness,” he -said. “Every one’s queer, and the ordinary, respectable, bourgeois -people are the queerest of the lot. How do they manage to live like -that? It’s astonishing. When I think of all my aunts and uncles....” He -shook his head. - -“Perhaps it’s because I’m rather incurious,” said Shearwater. “One ought -to be curious, I think. I’ve come to feel lately that I’ve not been -curious enough about people.” The particulars began to peep, alive and -individual, out of the vagueness, like rabbits; Gumbril saw them in his -fancy, at the fringe of a wood. - -“Quite,” he said encouragingly. “Quite.” - -“I think too much of my work,” Shearwater went on, frowning. “Too much -physiology. There’s also psychology. People’s minds as well as their -bodies.... One shouldn’t be limited. Not too much, at any rate. People’s -minds....” He was silent for a moment. “I can imagine,” he went on at -last, as in the tone of one who puts a very hypothetical case, “I can -imagine one’s getting so much absorbed in somebody else’s psychology -that one could really think of nothing else.” The rabbits seemed ready -to come out into the open. - -“That’s a process,” said Gumbril, with middle-aged jocularity, speaking -out of his private warm morass, “that’s commonly called falling in -love.” - -There was another silence. Shearwater broke it to begin talking about -Mrs. Viveash. He had lunched with her three or four days running. He -wanted Gumbril to tell him what she was really like. “She seems to me a -very extraordinary woman,” he said. - -“Like everybody else,” said Gumbril irritatingly. It amused him to see -the rabbits scampering about at last. - -“I’ve never known a woman like that before.” - -Gumbril laughed. “You’d say that of any woman you happened to be -interested in,” he said. “You’ve never known any women at all.” He knew -much more about Rosie, already, than Shearwater did, or probably ever -would. - -Shearwater meditated. He thought of Mrs. Viveash, her cool, pale, -critical eyes; her laughter, faint and mocking; her words that pierced -into the mind, goading it into thinking unprecedented thoughts. - -“She interests me,” he repeated. “I want you to tell me what she’s -really like.” He emphasized the word really, as though there must, in -the nature of things, be a vast difference between the apparent and the -real Mrs. Viveash. - -Most lovers, Gumbril reflected, picture to themselves, in their -mistresses, a secret reality, beyond and different from what they see -every day. They are in love with somebody else—their own invention. And -sometimes there is a secret reality; and sometimes reality and -appearance are the same. The discovery, in either case, is likely to -cause a shock. “I don’t know,” he said. “How should I know? You must -find out for yourself.” - -“But you knew her, you know her well,” said Shearwater, almost with -anxiety in his voice. - -“Not so well as all that.” - -Shearwater sighed profoundly, like a whale in the night. He felt -restless, incapable of concentrating. His mind was full of a horrible -confusion. A violent eruptive bubbling up from below had shaken its calm -clarity to pieces. All this absurd business of passion—he had always -thought it nonsense, unnecessary. With a little strength of will one -could shut it out. Women—only for half an hour out of the twenty-four. -But she had laughed, and his quiet, his security had vanished. “I can -imagine,” he had said to her yesterday, “I can imagine myself giving up -everything, work and all, to go running round after you.” “And do you -suppose I should enjoy that?” Mrs. Viveash had asked. “It would be -ridiculous,” he said, “it would be almost shameful.” And she had thanked -him for the compliment. “And at the same time,” he went on, “I feel that -it might be worth it. It might be the only thing.” His mind was -confused, full of new thoughts. “It’s difficult,” he said after a pause, -“arranging things. Very difficult. I thought I had arranged them so -well....” - -“I never arrange anything,” said Gumbril, very much the practical -philosopher. “I take things as they come.” And as he spoke the words, -suddenly he became rather disgusted with himself. He shook himself; he -climbed up out of his own morass. “It would be better, perhaps, if I -arranged things more,” he added. - -“Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s,” said -Shearwater, as though to himself; “and to God, and to sex, and to -work.... There must be a working arrangement.” He sighed again. -“Everything in proportion. In proportion,” he repeated, as though the -word were magical and had power. “In proportion.” - -“Who’s talking about proportion?” They turned round. In the doorway -Gumbril Senior was standing, smoothing his ruffled hair and tugging at -his beard. His eyes twinkled cheerfully behind his spectacles. “Poaching -on my architectural ground?” he said. - -“This is Shearwater,” Gumbril Junior put in, and explained who he was. - -The old gentleman sat down. “Proportion,” he said—“I was just thinking -about it, now, as I was walking back. You can’t help thinking about it -in these London streets, where it doesn’t exist. You can’t help pining -for it. There are some streets ... oh, my God!” And Gumbril Senior threw -up his hands in horror. “It’s like listening to a symphony of cats to -walk along them. Senseless discords and a horrible disorder all the way. -And the one street that was really like a symphony by Mozart—how busily -and gleefully they’re pulling it down now! Another year and there’ll be -nothing left of Regent Street. There’ll only be a jumble of huge, -hideous buildings at three-quarters of a million apiece. A concert of -Brobdingnagian cats. Order has been turned into a disgusting chaos. We -need no barbarians from outside; they’re on the premises, all the time.” - -The old man paused and pulled his beard meditatively. Gumbril Junior sat -in silence, smoking; and in silence Shearwater revolved within the walls -of his great round head his agonizing thoughts of Mrs. Viveash. - -“It has always struck me as very curious,” Gumbril Senior went on, “that -people are so little affected by the vile and discordant architecture -around them. Suppose, now, that all these brass bands of unemployed -ex-soldiers that blow so mournfully at all the street corners were -suddenly to play nothing but a series of senseless and devilish -discords—why, the first policeman would move them on, and the second -would put them under arrest, and the passers-by would try to lynch them -on their way to the police station. There would be a real spontaneous -outcry of indignation. But when at these same street corners the -contractors run up enormous palaces of steel and stone that are every -bit as stupid and ignoble and inharmonious as ten brass bandsmen each -playing a different tune in a different key, there is no outcry. The -police don’t arrest the architect; the passing pedestrians don’t throw -stones at the workmen. They don’t notice that anything’s wrong. It’s -odd,” said Gumbril Senior. “It’s very odd.” - -“Very odd,” Gumbril Junior echoed. - -“The fact is, I suppose,” Gumbril Senior went on, smiling with a certain -air of personal triumph, “the fact is that architecture is a more -difficult and intellectual art than music. Music—that’s just a faculty -you’re born with, as you might be born with a snub nose. But the sense -of plastic beauty—though that’s, of course, also an inborn faculty—is -something that has to be developed and intellectually ripened. It’s an -affair of the mind; experience and thought have to draw it out. There -are infant prodigies in music; but there are no infant prodigies in -architecture.” Gumbril Senior chuckled with a real satisfaction. “A man -can be an excellent musician and a perfect imbecile. But a good -architect must also be a man of sense, a man who knows how to think and -to profit by experience. Now, as almost none of the people who pass -along the streets in London, or any other city of the world, do know how -to think or to profit by experience, it follows that they cannot -appreciate architecture. The innate faculty is strong enough in them to -make them dislike discord in music; but they haven’t the wits to develop -that other innate faculty—the sense of plastic beauty—which would enable -them to see and disapprove of the same barbarism in architecture. Come -with me,” Gumbril Senior added, getting up from his chair, “and I’ll -show you something that will illustrate what I’ve been saying. Something -you’ll enjoy, too. Nobody’s seen it yet,” he said mysteriously as he led -the way upstairs. “It’s only just finished—after months and years. It’ll -cause a stir when they see it—when I let them see it, if ever I do, that -is. The dirty devils!” Gumbril Senior added good-humouredly. - -On the landing of the next floor he paused, felt in his pocket, took out -a key and unlocked the door of what should have been the second best -bedroom. Gumbril Junior wondered, without very much curiosity, what the -new toy would turn out to be. Shearwater wondered only how he could -possess Mrs. Viveash. - -“Come on,” called Gumbril Senior from inside the room. He turned on the -light. They entered. - -It was a big room; but almost the whole of the floor was covered by an -enormous model, twenty feet long by ten or twelve wide, of a complete -city traversed from end to end by a winding river and dominated at its -central point by a great dome. Gumbril Junior looked at it with surprise -and pleasure. Even Shearwater was roused from his bitter ruminations of -desire to look at the charming city spread out at his feet. - -“It’s exquisite,” said Gumbril Junior. “What is it? The capital of -Utopia, or what?” - -Delighted, Gumbril Senior laughed. “Don’t you see something rather -familiar in the dome?” he asked. - -“Well, I had thought ...” Gumbril Junior hesitated, afraid that he might -be going to say something stupid. He bent down to look more closely at -the dome. “I had thought it looked rather like St. Paul’s—and now I see -that it is St. Paul’s.” - -“Quite right,” said his father. “And this is London.” - -“I wish it were,” Gumbril Junior laughed. - -“It’s London as it might have been if they’d allowed Wren to carry out -his plans of rebuilding after the Great Fire.” - -“And why didn’t they allow him to?” Shearwater asked. - -“Chiefly,” said Gumbril Senior, “because, as I’ve said before, they -didn’t know how to think or profit by experience. Wren offered them open -spaces and broad streets; he offered them sunlight and air and -cleanliness; he offered them beauty, order and grandeur. He offered to -build for the imagination and the ambitious spirit of man, so that even -the most bestial, vaguely and remotely, as they walked those streets, -might feel that they were of the same race—or very nearly—as -Michelangelo; that they too might feel themselves, in spirit at least, -magnificent, strong and free. He offered them all these things; he drew -a plan for them, walking in peril among the still smouldering ruins. But -they preferred to re-erect the old intricate squalor; they preferred the -mediæval darkness and crookedness and beastly irregular quaintness; they -preferred holes and crannies and winding tunnels; they preferred foul -smells, sunless, stagnant air, phthisis and rickets; they preferred -ugliness and pettiness and dirt; they preferred the wretched human -scale, the scale of the sickly body, not of the mind. Miserable fools! -But I suppose,” the old man continued, shaking his head, “we can’t blame -them.” His hair had blown loose from its insecure anchorage; with a -gesture of resignation he brushed it back into place. “We can’t blame -them. We should have done the same in the circumstances—undoubtedly. -People offer us reason and beauty; but we will have none of them, -because they don’t happen to square with the notions that were grafted -into our souls in youth, that have grown there and become a part of us. -_Experientia docet_—nothing falser, so far as most of us are concerned, -was ever said. You, no doubt, my dear Theodore, have often in the past -made a fool of yourself with women....” - -Gumbril Junior made an embarrassed gesture that half denied, half -admitted the soft impeachment. Shearwater turned away, painfully -reminded of what, for a moment, he had half forgotten. Gumbril Senior -swept on. - -“Will that prevent you from making as great a fool of yourself again -to-morrow? It will not. It will most assuredly not.” Gumbril Senior -shook his head. “The inconveniences and horrors of the pox are perfectly -well known to every one; but still the disease flourishes and spreads. -Several million people were killed in a recent war and half the world -ruined; but we all busily go on in courses that make another event of -the same sort inevitable. _Experientia docet? Experientia_ doesn’t. And -that is why we must not be too hard on these honest citizens of London -who, fully appreciating the inconveniences of darkness, disorder and -dirt, manfully resisted any attempt to alter conditions which they had -been taught from childhood onwards to consider as necessary, right and -belonging inevitably to the order of things. We must not be too hard. We -are doing something even worse ourselves. Knowing by a century of -experience how beautiful, how graceful, how soothing to the mind is an -ordered piece of town-planning, we pull down almost the only specimen of -it we possess and put up in its place a chaos of Portland stone that is -an offence against civilization. But let us forget about these old -citizens and the labyrinth of ugliness and inconvenience which we have -inherited from them, and which is called London. Let us forget the -contemporaries who are making it still worse than it was. Come for a -walk with me through this ideal city. Look.” - -And Gumbril Senior began expounding it to them. - -In the middle, there, of that great elliptical Piazza at the eastern end -of the new City, stands, four-square, the Royal Exchange. Pierced only -with small dark windows, and built of rough ashlars of the silvery -Portland stone, the ground floor serves as a massy foundation for the -huge pilasters that slide up, between base and capital, past three tiers -of pedimented windows. Upon them rest the cornice, the attic and the -balustrade, and on every pier of the balustrade a statue holds up its -symbol against the sky. Four great portals, rich with allegory, admit to -the courtyard with its double tier of coupled columns, its cloister and -its gallery. The statue of Charles the Martyr rides triumphantly in the -midst, and within the windows one guesses the great rooms, rich with -heavy garlands of plaster, panelled with carved wood. - -Ten streets give on to the Piazza, and at either end of its ellipse the -water of sumptuous fountains ceaselessly blows aloft and falls. -Commerce, in that to the north of the Exchange, holds up her cornucopia, -and from the midst of its grapes and apples the master jet leaps up; -from the teats of all the ten Useful Arts, grouped with their symbols -about the central figure, there spouts a score of fine subsidiary -streams. The dolphins, the sea-horses and the Tritons sport in the basin -below. To the south, the ten principal cities of the Kingdom stand in a -family round the Mother London, who pours from her urn an inexhaustible -Thames. - -Ranged round the Piazza are the Goldsmiths’ Hall, the Office of Excise, -the Mint, the Post Office. Their flanks are curved to the curve of the -ellipse. Between pilasters, their windows look out on to the Exchange, -and the sister statues on the balustrades beckon to one another across -the intervening space. - -Two master roads of ninety feet from wall to wall run westwards from the -Exchange. New Gate ends the more northern vista with an Arch of Triumph, -whose three openings are deep, shadowy and solemn as the entries of -caverns. The Guildhall and the halls of the twelve City Companies in -their livery of rose-red brick, with their lacings of white stone at the -coigns and round the windows, lend to the street an air of domestic and -comfortable splendour. And every two or three hundred paces the line of -the houses is broken, and in the indentation of a square recess there -rises, conspicuous and insular, the fantastic tower of a parish church. -Spire out of dome; octagon on octagon diminishing upwards; cylinder on -cylinder; round lanterns, lanterns of many sides; towers with airy -pinnacles; clusters of pillars linked by incurving cornices, and above -them, four more clusters and above once more; square towers pierced with -pointed windows; spires uplifted on flying buttresses; spires bulbous at -the base—the multitude of them beckons, familiar and friendly, on the -sky. From the other shore, or sliding along the quiet river, you see -them all, you tell over their names; and the great dome swells up in the -midst overtopping them all. - -The dome of St. Paul’s. - -The other master street that goes westward from the Piazza of the -Exchange slants down towards it. The houses are of brick, plain-faced -and square, arcaded at the base, so that the shops stand back from the -street and the pedestrian walks dry-shod under the harmonious succession -of the vaultings. And there at the end of the street, at the base of a -triangular space formed by the coming together of this with another -master street that runs eastwards to Tower Hill, there stands the -Cathedral. To the north of it is the Deanery and under the arcades are -the booksellers’ shops. - -From St. Paul’s the main road slopes down under the swaggering -Italianate arches of Ludgate, past the wide lime-planted boulevards that -run north and south within and without the city wall, to the edge of the -Fleet Ditch—widened now into a noble canal, on whose paved banks the -barges unload their freights of country stuff—leaps it on a single -flying arch to climb again to a round circus, a little to the east of -Temple Bar, from which, in a pair of diagonally superimposed crosses, -eight roads radiate: three northwards towards Holborn, three from the -opposite arc towards the river, one eastward to the City, and one past -Lincoln’s Inn Fields to the west. The piazza is all of brick and the -houses that compose it are continuous above the ground-floor level; for -the roads lead out under archways. To one who stands in the centre at -the foot of the obelisk that commemorates the victory over the Dutch, it -seems a smooth well of brickwork pierced by eight arched conduits at the -base and diversified above by the three tiers of plain, unornamented -windows. - -Who shall describe all the fountains in the open places, all the statues -and monuments? In the circus north of London Bridge, where the four -roads come together, stands a pyramid of nymphs and Tritons—river -goddesses of Polyolbion, sea-gods of the island beaches—bathing in a -ceaseless tumble of white water. And here the city griffon spouts from -its beak, the royal lion from between its jaws. St. George at the foot -of the Cathedral rides down a dragon whose nostrils spout, not fire, but -the clear water of the New River. In front of the India House, four -elephants of black marble, endorsed with towers of white, blow through -their upturned trunks the copious symbol of Eastern wealth. In the -gardens of the Tower sits Charles the Second, enthroned among a troop of -Muses, Cardinal Virtues, Graces and Hours. The tower of the -Customs-House is a pharos. A great water-gate, the symbol of naval -triumph, spans the Fleet at its junction with the Thames. The river is -embanked from Blackfriars to the Tower, and at every twenty paces a -grave stone angel looks out from the piers of the balustrade across the -water.... - -Gumbril Senior expounded his city with passion. He pointed to the model -on the ground, he lifted his arms and turned up his eyes to suggest the -size and splendour of his edifices. His hair blew wispily loose and fell -into his eyes, and had to be brushed impatiently back again. He pulled -at his beard; his spectacles flashed, as though they were living eyes. -Looking at him, Gumbril Junior could imagine that he saw before him the -passionate and gesticulating silhouette of one of those old shepherds -who stand at the base of Piranesi’s ruins demonstrating obscurely the -prodigious grandeur and the abjection of the human race. - - - - - CHAPTER XII - - -“You? Is it you?” She seemed doubtful. - -Gumbril nodded. “It’s me,” he reassured her. “I’ve shaved; that’s all.” -He had left his beard in the top right-hand drawer of the chest of -drawers, among the ties and the collars. - -Emily looked at him judicially. “I like you better without it,” she -decided at last. “You look nicer. Oh no, I don’t mean to say you weren’t -nice before,” she hastened to add. “But—you know—gentler——” She -hesitated. “It’s a silly word,” she said, “but there it is: sweeter.” - -That was the unkindest cut of all. “Milder and more melancholy?” he -suggested. - -“Well, if you like to put it like that,” Emily agreed. - -He took her hand and raised it to his lips. “I forgive you,” he said. - -He could forgive her anything for the sake of those candid eyes, -anything for the grave, serious mouth, anything for the short brown hair -that curled—oh, but never seriously, never gravely—with such a hilarious -extravagance round her head. He had met her, or rather the Complete Man, -flushed with his commercial triumphs as he returned from his victory -over Mr. Boldero, had met her at the National Gallery. “Old Masters, -young mistresses;” Coleman had recommended the National Gallery. He was -walking up the Venetian Room, feeling as full of swaggering vitality as -the largest composition of Veronese, when he heard, gigglingly whispered -just behind him his Open Sesame to new adventure, “Beaver.” He spun -round on his tracks and found himself face to face with two rather -startled young women. He frowned ferociously: he demanded satisfaction -for the impertinence. They were both, he noticed, of gratifyingly -pleasing appearance and both extremely young. One of them, the elder it -seemed, and the more charming, as he had decided from the first, of the -two, was dreadfully taken aback; blushed to the eyes, stammered -apologetically. But the other, who had obviously pronounced the word, -only laughed. It was she who made easy the forming of an acquaintance -which ripened, half an hour later, over the tea-cups and to the strains -of the most classy music on the fifth floor of Lyons’s Strand Corner -House. - -Their names were Emily and Molly. Emily, it seemed, was married. It was -Molly who let that out, and the other had been angry with her for what -was evidently an indiscretion. The bald fact that Emily was married had -at once been veiled with mysteries, surrounded and protected by -silences; whenever the Complete Man asked a question about it, Emily did -not answer and Molly only giggled. But if Emily was married and the -elder of the two, Molly was decidedly the more knowledgeable about life; -Mr. Mercaptan would certainly have set her down as the more civilized. -Emily didn’t live in London; she didn’t seem to live anywhere in -particular. At the moment she was staying with Molly’s family at Kew. - -He had seen them the next day, and the day after, and the day after -that; once at lunch, to desert them precipitately for his afternoon with -Rosie; once at tea in Kew Gardens; once at dinner, with a theatre to -follow and an extravagant taxi back to Kew at midnight. The tame decoy -allays the fears of the shy wild birds; Molly, who was tame, who was -frankly a flirting little wanton, had served the Complete Man as a decoy -for the ensnaring of Emily. When Molly went away to stay with friends in -the country, Emily was already inured and accustomed to the hunter’s -presence; she accepted the playful attitude of gallantry, which the -Complete Man, at the invitation of Molly’s rolling eyes and provocative -giggle, had adopted from the first, as natural and belonging to the -established order of things. With giggling Molly to give her a lead, she -had gone in three days much further along the path of intimacy than, by -herself, she would have advanced in ten times the number of meetings. - -“It seems funny,” she had said the first time they met after Molly’s -departure, “it seems funny to be seeing you without Molly.” - -“It seemed funnier with Molly,” said the Complete Man. “It wasn’t Molly -I wanted to see.” - -“Molly’s a very nice, dear girl,” she declared loyally. “Besides, she’s -amusing and can talk. And I can’t; I’m not a bit amusing.” - -It wasn’t difficult to retort to that sort of thing; but Emily didn’t -believe in compliments; oh, quite genuinely not. - -He set out to make the exploration of her; and now that she was inured -to him, no longer too frightened to let him approach, now, moreover, -that he had abandoned the jocular insolences of the Complete Man in -favour of a more native mildness, which he felt instinctively was more -suitable in this particular case, she laid no difficulties in his way. -She was lonely, and he seemed to understand everything so well; in the -unknown country of her spirit and her history she was soon going eagerly -before him as his guide. - -She was an orphan. Her mother she hardly remembered. Her father had died -of influenza when she was fifteen. One of his business friends used to -come and see her at school, take her out for treats and give her -chocolates. She used to call him Uncle Stanley. He was a leather -merchant, fat and jolly with a rather red face, very white teeth and a -bald head that was beautifully shiny. When she was seventeen and a half -he asked her to marry him, and she had said yes. - -“But why?” Gumbril asked. “Why on earth?” he repeated. - -“He said he’d take me round the world; it was just when the war had come -to an end. Round the world, you know; and I didn’t like school. I didn’t -know anything about it and he was very nice to me; he was very pressing. -I didn’t know what marriage meant.” - -“Didn’t know?” - -She shook her head; it was quite true. “But not in the least.” - -And she had been born within the twentieth century. It seemed a case for -the text-books of sexual psychology. “Mrs. Emily X., born in 1901, was -found to be in a state of perfect innocence and ignorance at the time of -the Armistice, 11th November 1918,” etc. - -“And so you married him?” - -She had nodded. - -“And then?” - -She had covered her face with her hands, she had shuddered. The amateur -uncle, now professionally a husband, had come to claim his rights—drunk. -She had fought him, she had eluded him, had run away and locked herself -into another room. On the second night of her honeymoon he gave her a -bruise on the forehead and a bite on the left breast which had gone on -septically festering for weeks. On the fourth, more determined than -ever, he seized her so violently by the throat, that a blood-vessel -broke and she began coughing bright blood over the bedclothes. The -amateur uncle had been reduced to send for a doctor and Emily had spent -the next few weeks in a nursing home. That was four years ago; her -husband had tried to induce her to come back, but Emily had refused. She -had a little money of her own; she was able to refuse. The amateur uncle -had consoled himself with other and more docile nieces. - -“And has nobody tried to make love to you since then?” he asked. - -“Oh, lots of them have tried.” - -“And not succeeded?” - -She shook her head. “I don’t like men,” she said. “They’re hateful, most -of them. They’re brutes.” - -“_Anch’ io?_” - -“What?” she asked, puzzled. - -“Am I a brute too?” And behind his beard, suddenly, he felt rather a -brute. - -“No,” said Emily, after a little hesitation, “you’re different. At least -I think you are; though sometimes,” she added candidly, “sometimes you -do and say things which make me wonder if you really are different.” - -The Complete Man laughed. - -“Don’t laugh like that,” she said. “It’s rather stupid.” - -“You’re perfectly right,” said Gumbril. “It is.” - -And how did she spend her time? He continued the exploration. - -Well, she read a lot of books; but most of the novels she got from -Boots’ seemed to her rather silly. - -“Too much about the same thing. Always love.” - -The Complete Man gave a shrug. “Such is life.” - -“Well, it oughtn’t to be,” said Emily. - -And then, when she was in the country—and she was often in the country, -taking lodgings here and there in little villages, weeks and months at a -time—she went for long walks. Molly couldn’t understand why she liked -the country; but she did. She was very fond of flowers. She liked them -more than people, she thought. - -“I wish I could paint,” she said. “If I could, I’d be happy for ever, -just painting flowers. But I can’t paint.” She shook her head. “I’ve -tried so often. Such dirty, ugly smudges come out on the paper; and it’s -all so lovely in my head, so lovely out in the fields.” - -Gumbril began talking with erudition about the flora of West Surrey: -where you could find butterfly orchis and green man and the bee, the -wood where there was actually wild columbine growing, the best -localities for butcher’s broom, the outcrops of clay where you get wild -daffodils. All this odd knowledge came spouting up into his mind from -some underground source of memory. Flowers—he never thought about -flowers nowadays from one year’s end to the other. But his mother had -liked flowers. Every spring and summer they used to go down to stay at -their cottage in the country. All their walks, all their drives in the -governess cart had been hunts after flowers. And naturally the child had -hunted with all his mother’s ardour. He had kept books of pressed -flowers, he had mummified them in hot sand, he had drawn maps of the -country and coloured them elaborately with different coloured inks to -show where the different flowers grew. How long ago all that was! -Horribly long ago! Many seeds had fallen in the stony places of his -spirit, to spring luxuriantly up into stalky plants and wither again -because they had no deepness of earth; many had been sown there and had -died, since his mother scattered the seeds of the wild flowers. - -“And if you want sundew,” he wound up, “you’ll find it in the Punch -Bowl, under Hindhead. Or round about Frensham. The Little Pond, you -know, not the Big.” - -“But you know all about them,” Emily exclaimed in delight. “I’m ashamed -of my poor little knowledge. And you must really love them as much as I -do.” - -Gumbril did not deny it; they were linked henceforth by a chain of -flowers. - -But what else did she do? - -Oh, of course she played the piano a great deal. Very badly; but at any -rate it gave her pleasure. Beethoven: she liked Beethoven best. More or -less, she knew all the sonatas, though she could never keep up anything -like the right speed in the difficult parts. - -Gumbril had again shown himself wonderfully at home. “Aha!” he said. “I -bet you can’t shake that low B in the last variation but one of Op. 106 -so that it doesn’t sound ridiculous.” - -And of course she couldn’t, and of course she was glad that he knew all -about it and how impossible it was. - -In the cab, as they drove back to Kew that evening, the Complete Man had -decided it was time to do something decisive. The parting kiss—more of a -playful sonorous buss than a serious embracement—that was already in the -protocol, as signed and sealed before her departure by giggling Molly. -It was time, the Complete Man considered, that this salute should take -on a character less formal and less playful. One, two, three and, -decisively, as they passed through Hammersmith Broadway, he risked the -gesture. Emily burst into tears. He was not prepared for that, though -perhaps he should have been. It was only by imploring, only by almost -weeping himself, that Gumbril persuaded her to revoke her decision -never, never to see him again. - -“I had thought you were different,” she sobbed. “And now, now——” - -“Please, please,” he entreated. He was on the point of tearing off his -beard and confessing everything there and then. But that, on second -thoughts, would probably only make things worse. - -“Please, I promise.” - -In the end, she had consented to see him once again, provisionally, in -Kew Gardens, on the following day. They were to meet at the little -temple that stands on the hillock above the valley of the heathers. - -And now, duly, they had met. The Complete Man had been left at home in -the top right-hand drawer, along with the ties and collars. She would -prefer, he guessed, the Mild and Melancholy one; he was quite right. She -had thought him ‘sweeter’ at a first glimpse. - -“I forgive you,” he said, and kissed her hand. “I forgive you.” - -Hand in hand they walked down towards the valley of the heaths. - -“I don’t know why you should be forgiving me,” she said, laughing. “It -seems to me that I ought to be doing the forgiving. After yesterday.” -She shook her head at him. “You made me so wretched.” - -“Ah, but you’ve already done your forgiving.” - -“You seem to take it very much for granted,” said Emily. “Don’t be too -sure.” - -“But I am sure,” said Gumbril. “I can see——” - -Emily laughed again. “I feel happy,” she declared. - -“So do I.” - -“How green the grass is!” - -Green, green—after these long damp months it glowed in the sunlight, as -though it were lighted from inside. - -“And the trees!” - -The pale, high, clot-polled trees of the English spring; the dark, -symmetrical pine trees, islanded here and there on the lawns, each with -its own separate profile against the sky and its own shadow, -impenetrably dark or freckled with moving lights, on the grass at its -feet. - -They walked on in silence. Gumbril took off his hat, breathed the soft -air that smelt of the greenness of the garden. - -“There are quiet places also in the mind,” he said meditatively. “But we -build bandstands and factories on them. Deliberately—to put a stop to -the quietness. We don’t like the quietness. All the thoughts, all the -preoccupations in my head—round and round, continually.” He made a -circular motion with his hand. “And the jazz bands, the music-hall -songs, the boys shouting the news. What’s it for? what’s it all for? To -put an end to the quiet, to break it up and disperse it, to pretend at -any cost it isn’t there. Ah, but it is; it is there, in spite of -everything, at the back of everything. Lying awake at night, -sometimes—not restlessly, but serenely, waiting for sleep—the quiet -re-establishes itself, piece by piece; all the broken bits, all the -fragments of it we’ve been so busily dispersing all day long. It -re-establishes itself, an inward quiet, like this outward quiet of grass -and trees. It fills one, it grows—a crystal quiet, a growing, expanding -crystal. It grows, it becomes more perfect; it is beautiful and -terrifying, yes, terrifying as well as beautiful. For one’s alone in the -crystal and there’s no support from outside, there’s nothing external -and important, nothing external and trivial to pull oneself up by or to -stand on, superiorly, contemptuously, so that one can look down. There’s -nothing to laugh at or feel enthusiastic about. But the quiet grows and -grows. Beautifully and unbearably. And at last you are conscious of -something approaching; it is almost a faint sound of footsteps. -Something inexpressibly lovely and wonderful advances through the -crystal, nearer, nearer. And, oh, inexpressibly terrifying. For if it -were to touch you, if it were to seize and engulf you, you’d die; all -the regular, habitual, daily part of you would die. There would be an -end of bandstands and whizzing factories, and one would have to begin -living arduously in the quiet, arduously in some strange, unheard-of -manner. Nearer, nearer come the steps; but one can’t face the advancing -thing. One daren’t. It’s too terrifying, it’s too painful to die. -Quickly, before it is too late, start the factory wheels, bang the drum, -blow up the saxophone. Think of the women you’d like to sleep with, the -schemes for making money, the gossip about your friends, the last -outrage of the politicians. Anything for a diversion. Break the silence, -smash the crystal to pieces. There, it lies in bits; it is easily -broken, hard to build up and easy to break. And the steps? Ah, those -have taken themselves off, double quick. Double quick, they were gone at -the first flawing of the crystal. And by this time the lovely and -terrifying thing is three infinities away, at least. And you lie -tranquilly on your bed, thinking of what you’d do if you had ten -thousand pounds, and of all the fornications you’ll never commit.” He -thought of Rosie’s pink underclothes. - -“You make things very complicated,” she said, after a silence. - -Gumbril spread out his great-coat on a green bank and they sat down. -Leaning back, his hands under his head, he watched her sitting there -beside him. She had taken off her hat; there was a stir of wind in those -childish curls, and at the nape, at the temples, where the hair had -sleaved out thin and fine, the sunlight made little misty haloes of -gold. Her hands clasped round her knees, she sat quite still, looking -out across the green expanses, at the trees, at the white clouds on the -horizon. There was quiet in her mind, he thought. She was native to that -crystal world; for her, the steps came comfortingly through the silence -and the lovely thing brought with it no terrors. It was all so easy for -her and simple. - -Ah, so simple, so simple; like the Hire Purchase System on which Rosie -had bought her pink bed. And how simple it was, too, to puddle clear -waters and unpetal every flower!—every wild flower, by God! one ever -passed in a governess cart at the heels of a barrel-bellied pony. How -simple to spit on the floors of churches! _Si prega di non sputare._ -Simple to kick one’s legs and enjoy oneself—dutifully—in pink -underclothing. Perfectly simple. - -“It’s like the Arietta, don’t you think?” said Emily suddenly, “the -Arietta of Op. 111.” And she hummed the first bars of the air. “Don’t -you feel it’s like that?” - -“What’s like that?” - -“Everything,” said Emily. “To-day, I mean. You and me. These gardens——” -And she went on humming. - -Gumbril shook his head. “Too simple for me,” he said. - -Emily laughed. “Ah, but then think how impossible it gets a little -farther on.” She agitated her fingers wildly, as though she were trying -to play the impossible passages. “It begins easily for the sake of poor -imbeciles like me; but it goes on, it goes on, more and more fully and -subtly and abstrusely and embracingly. But it’s still the same -movement.” - -The shadows stretched farther and farther across the lawns, and as the -sun declined the level light picked out among the grasses innumerable -stipplings of shadow; and in the paths, that had seemed under the more -perpendicular rays as level as a table, a thousand little shadowy -depressions and sun-touched mountains were now apparent. Gumbril looked -at his watch. - -“Good Lord!” he said, “we must fly.” He jumped up. “Quick, quick!” - -“But why?” - -“We shall be late.” He wouldn’t tell her for what. “Wait and see” was -all that Emily could get out of him by her questioning. They hurried out -of the gardens, and in spite of her protests he insisted on taking a -taxi into town. “I have such a lot of unearned increment to get rid of,” -he explained. The Patent Small-Clothes seemed at the moment remoter than -the farthest stars. - - - - - CHAPTER XIII - - -In spite of the taxi, in spite of the gobbled dinner, they were late. -The concert had begun. - -“Never mind,” said Gumbril. “We shall get in in time for the minuetto. -It’s then that the fun really begins.” - -“Sour grapes,” said Emily, putting her ear to the door. “It sounds to me -simply too lovely.” - -They stood outside, like beggars waiting abjectly at the doors of a -banqueting-hall—stood and listened to the snatches of music that came -out tantalizingly from within. A rattle of clapping announced at last -that the first movement was over; the doors were thrown open. Hungrily -they rushed in. The Sclopis Quartet and a subsidiary viola were bowing -from the platform. There was a chirrup of tuning, then preliminary -silence. Sclopis nodded and moved his bow. The minuetto of Mozart’s G -minor Quintet broke out, phrase after phrase, short and decisive, with -every now and then a violent sforzando chord, startling in its harsh and -sudden emphasis. - -Minuetto—all civilization, Mr. Mercaptan would have said, was implied in -the delicious word, the delicate, pretty thing. Ladies and precious -gentlemen, fresh from the wit and gallantry of Crebillon-haunted sofas, -stepping gracefully to a pattern of airy notes. To this passion of one -who cries out, to this obscure and angry argument with fate how would -they, Gumbril wondered, how would they have tripped it? - -How pure the passion, how unaffected, clear and without clot or -pretension the unhappiness of that slow movement which followed! Blessed -are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Pure and unsullied; pure -and unmixed, unadulterated. “Not passionate, thank God; only sensual and -sentimental.” In the name of earwig. Amen. Pure, pure. Worshippers have -tried to rape the statues of the gods; the statuaries who made the -images were generally to blame. And how deliciously, too, an artist can -suffer! and, in the face of the whole Albert Hall, with what an -effective gesture and grimace! But blessed are the pure in heart, for -they shall see God. The instruments come together and part again. Long -silver threads hang aerially over a murmur of waters; in the midst of -muffled sobbing a cry. The fountains blow their architecture of slender -pillars, and from basin to basin the waters fall; from basin to basin, -and every fall makes somehow possible a higher leaping of the jet, and -at the last fall the mounting column springs up into the sunlight, and -from water the music has modulated up into a rainbow. Blessed are the -pure in heart, for they shall see God; they shall make God visible, too, -to other eyes. - -Blood beats in the ears. Beat, beat, beat. A slow drum in the darkness, -beating in the ears of one who lies wakeful with fever, with the -sickness of too much misery. It beats unceasingly, in the ears, in the -mind itself. Body and mind are indivisible, and in the spirit blood -painfully throbs. Sad thoughts droop through the mind. A small, pure -light comes swaying down through the darkness, comes to rest, resigning -itself to the obscurity of its misfortune. There is resignation, but -blood still beats in the ears. Blood still painfully beats, though the -mind has acquiesced. And then, suddenly, the mind exerts itself, throws -off the fever of too much suffering and laughing, commands the body to -dance. The introduction to the last movement comes to its suspended, -throbbing close. There is an instant of expectation, and then, with a -series of mounting trochees and a downward hurrying, step after tiny -step, in triple time, the dance begins. Irrelevant, irreverent, out of -key with all that has gone before. But man’s greatest strength lies in -his capacity for irrelevance. In the midst of pestilences, wars and -famines, he builds cathedrals; and a slave, he can think the irrelevant -and unsuitable thoughts of a free man. The spirit is slave to fever and -beating blood, at the mercy of an obscure and tyrannous misfortune. But -irrelevantly, it elects to dance in triple measure—a mounting skip, a -patter of descending feet. - -The G minor Quintet is at an end; the applause rattles out loudly. -Enthusiasts stand up and cry bravo. And the five men on the platform -rise and bow their acknowledgments. Great Sclopis himself receives his -share of the plaudits with a weary condescension; weary are his poached -eyes, weary his disillusioned smile. It is only his due, he knows; but -he has had so much clapping, so many lovely women. He has a Roman nose, -a colossal brow and, though the tawny musical mane does much to conceal -the fact, no back to his head. Garofalo, the second fiddle, is black, -beady-eyed and pot-bellied. The convex reflections of the electroliers -slide back and forth over his polished bald head, as he bends, again, -again, in little military salutes. Peperkoek, two metres high, bows with -a sinuous politeness. His face, his hair are all of the same greyish -buff colour; he does not smile, his appearance is monolithic and grim. -Not so exuberant Knoedler, who sweats and smiles and embraces his ’cello -send lays his hand to his heart and bows almost to the ground as though -all this hullabaloo were directed only at him. As for poor little Mr. -Jenkins, the subsidiary viola, he has slid away into the background, and -feeling that this is really the Sclopis’s show and that he, a mere -intruder, has no right to any of these demonstrations, he hardly bows at -all, but only smiles, vaguely and nervously, and from time to time makes -a little spasmodic twitch to show that he isn’t really ungrateful or -haughty, as you might think, but that he feels in the circumstances—the -position is a little embarrassing—it is hard to explain.... - -“Strange,” said Gumbril, “to think that those ridiculous creatures could -have produced what we’ve just been hearing.” - -The poached eye of Sclopis lighted on Emily, flushed and ardently -applauding. He gave her, all to herself, a weary smile. He would have a -letter, he guessed, to-morrow morning signed ‘Your little Admirer in the -Third Row.’ She looked a choice little piece. He smiled again to -encourage her. Emily, alas! had not even noticed. She was applauding the -music. - -“Did you enjoy it?” he asked, as they stepped out into a deserted Bond -Street. - -“Did I...?” Emily laughed expressively. “No, I didn’t enjoy,” she said. -“Enjoy isn’t the word. You enjoy eating ices. It made me happy. It’s -unhappy music, but it made me happy.” - -Gumbril hailed a cab and gave the address of his rooms in Great Russell -Street. “Happy,” he repeated, as they sat there side by side in the -darkness. He, too, was happy. - -“Where are we going?” she asked. - -“To my rooms,” said Gumbril, “we shall be quiet there.” He was afraid -she might object to going there—after yesterday. But she made no -comment. - -“Some people think that it’s only possible to be happy if one makes a -noise,” she said, after a pause. “I find it’s too delicate and -melancholy for noise. Being happy is rather melancholy—like the most -beautiful landscape, like those trees and the grass and the clouds and -the sunshine to-day.” - -“From the outside,” said Gumbril, “it even looks rather dull.” They -stumbled up the dark staircase to his rooms. Gumbril lit a pair of -candles and put the kettle on the gas ring. They sat together on the -divan sipping tea. In the rich, soft light of the candles she looked -different, more beautiful. The silk of her dress seemed wonderfully rich -and glossy, like the petals of a tulip, and on her face, on her bare -arms and neck the light seemed to spread an impalpable bright bloom. On -the wall behind them, their shadows ran up towards the ceiling, enormous -and profoundly black. - -“How unreal it is,” Gumbril whispered. “Not true. This remote secret -room. These lights and shadows out of another time. And you out of -nowhere and I, out of a past utterly remote from yours, sitting together -here, together—and being happy. That’s the strangest thing of all. Being -quite senselessly happy. It’s unreal, unreal.” - -“But why,” said Emily, “why? It’s here and happening now. It _is_ real.” - -“It all might vanish, at any moment,” he said. - -Emily smiled rather sadly. “It’ll vanish in due time,” she said. “Quite -naturally, not by magic; it’ll vanish the way everything else vanishes -and changes. But it’s here now.” - -They gave themselves up to the enchantment. The candles burned, two -shining eyes of flame, without a wink, minute after minute. But for them -there were no longer any minutes. Emily leaned against him, her body -held in the crook of his arm, her head resting on his shoulder. He -caressed his cheek against her hair; sometimes, very gently, he kissed -her forehead or her closed eyes. - -“If I had known you years ago ...” she sighed. “But I was a silly little -idiot then. I shouldn’t have noticed any difference between you and -anybody else.” - -“I shall be very jealous,” Emily spoke again after another timeless -silence. “There must never be anybody else, never the shadow of anybody -else.” - -“There never will be anybody else,” said Gumbril. - -Emily smiled and opened her eyes, looked up at him. “Ah, not here,” she -said, “not in this real unreal room. Not during this eternity. But there -will be other rooms just as real as this.” - -“Not so real, not so real.” He bent his face towards hers. She closed -her eyes again, and the lids fluttered with a sudden tremulous movement -at the touch of his light kiss. - -For them there were no more minutes. But time passed, time passed -flowing in a dark stream, stanchlessly, as though from some profound -mysterious wound in the world’s side, bleeding, bleeding for ever. One -of the candles had burned down to the socket and the long, smoky flame -wavered unsteadily. The flickering light troubled their eyes; the -shadows twitched and stirred uneasily. Emily looked up at him. - -“What’s the time?” she said. - -Gumbril looked at his watch. It was nearly one o’clock. “Too late for -you to get back,” he said. - -“Too late?” Emily sat-up. Ah, the enchantment was breaking, was giving -way, like a film of ice beneath a weight, like a web before a thrust of -the wind. They looked at one another. “What shall I do?” she asked. - -“You could sleep here,” Gumbril answered in a voice that came from a -long way away. - -She sat for a long time in silence, looking through half-closed eyes at -the expiring candle flame. Gumbril watched her in an agony of suspense. -Was the ice to be broken, the web-work finally and for ever torn? The -enchantment could still be prolonged, the eternity renewed. He felt his -heart beating in his breast; he held his breath. It would be terrible if -she were to go now, it would be a kind of death. The flame of the candle -flickered more violently, leaping up in a thin, long, smoky flare, -sinking again almost to darkness. Emily got up and blew out the candle. -The other still burned calmly and steadily. - -“May I stay?” she asked. “Will you allow me?” - -He understood the meaning of her question, and nodded. “Of course,” he -said. - -“Of course? Is it as much of course as all that?” - -“When I say so.” He smiled at her. The eternity had been renewed, the -enchantment prolonged. There was no need to think of anything now but -the moment. The past was forgotten, the future abolished. There was only -this secret room and the candlelight and the unreal, impossible -happiness of being two. Now that this peril of a disenchantment had been -averted, it would last for ever. He got up from the couch, crossed the -room, he took her hands and kissed them. - -“Shall we sleep now?” she asked. - -Gumbril nodded. - -“Do you mind if I blow out the light?” And without waiting for his -answer, Emily turned, gave a puff, and the room was in darkness. He -heard the rustling of her undressing. Hastily he stripped off his own -clothes, pulled back the coverlet from the divan. The bed was made and -ready; he opened it and slipped between the sheets. A dim greenish light -from the gas lamp in the street below came up between the parted -curtains illuminating faintly the farther end of the room. Against this -tempered darkness he could see her, silhouetted, standing quite still, -as if hesitating on some invisible brink. - -“Emily,” he whispered. - -“I’m coming,” Emily answered. She stood there, unmoving, a few seconds -longer, then overstepped the brink. She came silently across the room, -and sat down on the edge of the low couch. Gumbril lay perfectly still, -without speaking, waiting in the enchanted timeless darkness. Emily -lifted her knees, slid her feet in under the sheet, then stretched -herself out beside him, her body, in the narrow bed, touching his. -Gumbril felt that she was trembling; trembling, a sharp involuntary -start, a little shudder, another start. - -“You’re cold,” he said, and slipping one arm beneath her shoulders he -drew her, limp and unresisting, towards him. She lay there, pressed -against him. Gradually the trembling ceased. Quite still, quite still in -the calm of the enchantment. The past is forgotten, the future -abolished; there is only this dark and everlasting moment. A drugged and -intoxicated stupor of happiness possessed his spirit; a numbness, warm -and delicious, lay upon him. And yet through the stupor he knew with a -dreadful anxious certainty that the end would soon be there. Like a man -on the night before his execution, he looked forward through the endless -present; he foresaw the end of his eternity. And after? Everything was -uncertain and unsafe. - -Very gently, he began caressing her shoulder, her long slender arm, -drawing his finger-tips lightly and slowly over her smooth skin; slowly -from her neck, over her shoulder, lingeringly round the elbow to her -hand. Again, again; he was learning her arm. The form of it was part of -the knowledge, now, of his finger-tips; his fingers knew it as they knew -a piece of music, as they knew Mozart’s Twelfth Sonata, for example. And -the themes that crowd so quickly one after another at the beginning of -the first movement played themselves serially, glitteringly in his mind; -they became a part of the enchantment. - -Through the silk of her shift he learned her curving side, her smooth -straight back and the ridge of her spine. He stretched down, touched her -feet, her knees. Under the smock he learned her warm body, lightly, -slowly caressing. He knew her, his fingers, he felt, could build her up, -a warm and curving statue in the darkness. He did not desire her; to -desire would have been to break the enchantment. He let himself sink -deeper and deeper into his dark stupor of happiness. She was asleep in -his arms; and soon he too was asleep. - - - - - CHAPTER XIV - - -Mrs. Viveash descended the steps into King Street, and standing there on -the pavement looked dubiously first to the right and then to the left. -Little and loud, the taxis rolled by on their white wheels, the -long-snouted limousines passed with a sigh. The air smelt of watered -dust, tempered in Mrs. Viveash’s immediate neighbourhood by those -memories of Italian jasmines which were her perfume. On the opposite -pavement, in the shade, two young men, looking very conscious of their -grey top-hats, marched gravely along. - -Life, Mrs. Viveash thought, looked a little dim this morning, in spite -of the fine weather. She glanced at her watch; it was one o’clock. Soon -one would have to eat some lunch. But where, and with whom? Mrs. Viveash -had no engagements. All the world was before her, she was absolutely -free, all day long. Yesterday, when she declined all those pressing -invitations, the prospect had seemed delightful. Liberty, no -complications, no contacts; a pre-Adamite empty world to do what she -liked in. - -But to-day, when it came to the point, she hated her liberty. To come -out like this at one o’clock into a vacuum—it was absurd, it was -appalling. The prospect of immeasurable boredom opened before her. -Steppes after steppes of ennui, horizon beyond horizon, for ever the -same. She looked again to the right and again to the left. Finally she -decided to go to the left. Slowly, walking along her private knife-edge -between her personal abysses, she walked towards the left. She -remembered suddenly one shining day like this in the summer of 1917, -when she had walked along this same street, slowly, like this, on the -sunny side, with Tony Lamb. All that day, that night, it had been one -long good-bye. He was going back the next morning. Less than a week -later he was dead. Never again, never again: there had been a time when -she could make herself cry, simply by saying those two words once or -twice, under her breath. Never again, never again. She repeated them -softly now. But she felt no tears behind her eyes. Grief doesn’t kill, -love doesn’t kill; but time kills everything, kills desire, kills -sorrow, kills in the end the mind that feels them; wrinkles and softens -the body while it still lives, rots it like a medlar, kills it too at -last. Never again, never again. Instead of crying, she laughed, laughed -aloud. The pigeon-breasted old gentleman who had just passed her, -twirling between his finger and thumb the ends of a white military -moustache, turned round startled. Could she be laughing at him? - -“Never again,” murmured Mrs. Viveash. - -“I beg your pardon?” queried the martial gentleman, in a rich, -port-winey, cigary voice. - -Mrs. Viveash looked at him with such wide-eyed astonishment that the old -gentleman was quite taken aback. “A thousand apologies, dear lady. -Thought you were addressing ... H’m, ah’m.” He replaced his hat, squared -his shoulders and went off smartly, left, right, bearing preciously -before him his pigeon-breast. Poor thing, he thought, poor young thing. -Talking to herself. Must be cracked, must be off her head. Or perhaps -she took drugs. That was more likely: that was much more likely. Most of -them did nowadays. Vicious young women. Lesbians, drug-fiends, -nymphomaniacs, dipsos—thoroughly vicious, nowadays, thoroughly vicious. -He arrived at his club in an excellent temper. - -Never again, never, never again. Mrs. Viveash would have liked to be -able to cry. - -St. James’s Square opened before her. Romantically under its trees the -statue pranced. The trees gave her an idea: she might go down into the -country for the afternoon, take a cab and drive out, out, goodness only -knew where! To the top of a hill somewhere. Box Hill, Leith Hill, -Holmbury Hill, Ivinghoe Beacon—any hill where one could sit and look out -over plains. One might do worse than that with one’s liberty. - -But not much worse, she reflected. - -Mrs. Viveash had turned up towards the northern side of the square and -was almost at its north-western corner when, with a thrill of genuine -delight, with a sense of the most profound relief she saw a familiar -figure, running down the steps of the London Library. - -“Theodore!” she hallooed faintly but penetratingly, from her inward -death-bed. “Gumbril!” She waved her parasol. - -Gumbril halted, looked round, came smiling to meet her. “How -delightful,” he said, “but how unfortunate.” - -“Why unfortunate?” asked Mrs. Viveash. “Am I of evil omen?” - -“Unfortunate,” Gumbril explained, “because I’ve got to catch a train and -can’t profit by this meeting.” - -“Ah no, Theodore,” said Mrs. Viveash, “you’re not going to catch a -train. You’re going to come and lunch with me. Providence has decreed -it. You can’t say no to Providence.” - -“I must,” Gumbril shook his head. “I’ve said yes to somebody else.” - -“To whom?” - -“Ah!” said Gumbril, with a coy and saucy mysteriousness. - -“And where are you going in your famous train?” - -“Ah again,” Gumbril answered. - -“How intolerably tiresome and silly you are!” Mrs. Viveash declared. -“One would think you were a sixteen-year-old schoolboy going out for his -first assignation with a shop girl. At your age, Gumbril!” She shook her -head, smiled agonizingly and with contempt. “Who is she? What sordid -pick-up?” - -“Not sordid in the least,” protested Gumbril. - -“But decidedly a pick-up. Eh?” A banana-skin was lying, like a -bedraggled starfish, in the gutter, just in front of where they were -standing. Mrs. Viveash stepped forward and with the point of her parasol -lifted it carefully up and offered it to her companion. - -“_Merci_,” Gumbril bowed. - -She tossed the skin back again into the gutter. “In any case,” she said, -“the young lady can wait while we have luncheon.” - -Gumbril shook his head. “I’ve made the arrangement,” he said. Emily’s -letter was in his pocket. She had taken the loveliest cottage just out -of Robertsbridge, in Sussex. Ah, but the loveliest imaginable. For the -whole summer. He could come and see her there. He had telegraphed that -he would come to-day, this afternoon, by the two o’clock from Charing -Cross. - -Mrs. Viveash took him by the elbow. “Come along,” she said. “There’s a -post office in that passage going from Jermyn Street to Piccadilly. You -can wire from there your infinite regrets. These things always improve -with a little keeping. There will be raptures when you _do_ go -to-morrow.” - -Gumbril allowed himself to be led along. “What an insufferable woman you -are,” he said, laughing. - -“Instead of being grateful to me for asking you to luncheon!” - -“Oh, I am grateful,” said Gumbril. “And astonished.” - -He looked at her. Mrs. Viveash smiled and fixed him for a moment with -her pale, untroubled eyes.... She said nothing. - -“Still,” Gumbril went on, “I must be at Charing Cross by two, you know.” - -“But we’re lunching at Verrey’s.” - -Gumbril shook his head. - -They were at the corner of Jermyn Street. Mrs. Viveash halted and -delivered her ultimatum, the more impressive for being spoken in that -expiring voice of one who says _in articulo_ the final and supremely -important things. “We lunch at Verrey’s, Theodore, or I shall never, -never speak to you again.” - -“But be reasonable, Myra,” he implored. If only he’d told her that he -had a business appointment.... Imbecile, to have dropped those stupid -hints—in that tone! - -“I prefer not to be,” said Mrs. Viveash. - -Gumbril made a gesture of despair and was silent. He thought of Emily in -her native quiet among the flowers; in a cottage altogether too -cottagey, with honeysuckles and red ramblers and hollyhocks—though, on -second thoughts, none of them would be blooming yet, would -they?—happily, in white muslin, extracting from the cottage piano the -easier sections of the Arietta. A little absurd, perhaps, when you -considered her like that; but exquisite, but adorable, but pure of heart -and flawless in her bright pellucid integrity, complete as a crystal in -its faceted perfection. She would be waiting for him, expecting him; and -they would walk through the twiddly lanes—or perhaps there would be a -governess cart for hire, with a fat pony like a tub on legs to pull -it—they would look for flowers in the woods and perhaps he would still -remember what sort of noise a whitethroat makes; or even if he didn’t -remember, he could always magisterially say he did. “That’s a -whitethroat, Emily. Do you hear? The one that goes ‘Tweedly, weedly, -weedledy dee.’” - -“I’m waiting,” said Mrs. Viveash. “Patiently, however.” - -Gumbril looked at her and found her smiling like a tragic mask. After -all, he reflected, Emily would still be there if he went down to-morrow. -It would be stupid to quarrel with Myra about something that was really, -when he came to think of it, not of enormous importance. It was stupid -to quarrel with any one about anything; and with Myra and about this, -particularly so. In this white dress patterned with flowing arabesques -of black she looked, he thought, more than ever enchanting. There had -been times in the past.... The past leads on to the present.... No; but -in any case she was excellent company. - -“Well,” he said, sighing decisively, “let’s go and send my wire.” - -Mrs. Viveash made no comment, and traversing Jermyn Street they walked -up the narrow passage under the lee of Wren’s bald barn of St. James’s, -to the post office. - -“I shall pretext a catastrophe,” said Gumbril, as they entered; and -going to the telegraph desk he wrote: “Slight accident on way to station -not serious at all but a little indisposed come same train to-morrow.” -He addressed the form and handed it in. - -“A little what?” asked the young lady behind the bars, as she read it -through, prodding each successive word with the tip of her blunt pencil. - -“A little indisposed,” said Gumbril, and he felt suddenly very much -ashamed of himself. “A little indisposed,”—no, really, that was too -much. He’d withdraw the telegram, he’d go after all. - -“Ready?” asked Mrs. Viveash, coming up from the other end of the counter -where she had been buying stamps. - -Gumbril pushed a florin under the bars. - -“A little indisposed,” he said, hooting with laughter, and he walked -towards the door leaning heavily on his stick and limping. “Slight -accident,” he explained. - -“What is the meaning of this clownery?” Mrs. Viveash inquired. - -“What indeed?” Gumbril had limped up to the door and stood there, -holding it open for her. He was taking no responsibility for himself. It -was the clown’s doing, and the clown, poor creature, was _non compos_, -not entirely there, and couldn’t be called to account for his actions. -He limped after her towards Piccadilly. - -“_Giudicato guarabile in cinque giorni_,” Mrs. Viveash laughed. “How -charming that always is in the Italian papers. The fickle lady, the -jealous lover, the stab, the _colpo di rivoltella_, the mere Anglo-Saxon -black eye—all judged by the house surgeon at the Misericordia curable in -five days. And you, my poor Gumbril, are you curable in five days?” - -“That depends,” said Gumbril. “There may be complications.” - -Mrs. Viveash waved her parasol; a taxi came swerving to the pavement’s -edge in front of them. “Meanwhile,” she said, “you can’t be expected to -walk.” - -At Verrey’s they lunched off lobsters and white wine. “Fish suppers,” -Gumbril quoted jovially from the Restoration, “fish suppers will make a -man hop like a flea.” Through the whole meal he clowned away in the most -inimitable style. The ghost of a governess cart rolled along the twiddly -lanes of Robertsbridge. But one can refuse to accept responsibility; a -clown cannot be held accountable. And besides, when the future and the -past are abolished, when it is only the present instant, whether -enchanted or unenchanted, that counts, when there are no causes or -motives, no future consequences to be considered, how can there be -responsibility, even for those who are not clowns? He drank a great deal -of hock, and when the clock struck two and the train had begun to snort -out of Charing Cross, he could not refrain from proposing the health of -Viscount Lascelles. After that he began telling Mrs. Viveash about his -adventure as a Complete Man. - -“You should have seen me,” he said, describing his beard. - -“I should have been bowled over.” - -“You shall see me, then,” said Gumbril. “Ah, what a Don Giovanni. _La ci -darem la mano, La mi dirai di si, Vieni, non e lontano, Partiam, ben -mio, da qui._ And they came, they came. Without hesitation. No ‘_vorrei -e non vorrei_,’ no ‘_mi trema un poco il cor_.’ Straight away.” - -“_Felice, io so, sarei_,” Mrs. Viveash sang very faintly under her -breath, from a remote bed of agony. - -Ah, happiness, happiness; a little dull, some one had wisely said, when -you looked at it from outside. An affair of duets at the cottage piano, -of collecting specimens, hand in hand, for the _hortus siccus_. A matter -of integrity and quietness. - -“Ah, but the history of the young woman who was married four years ago,” -exclaimed Gumbril with clownish rapture, “and remains to this day a -virgin—what an episode in my memoirs!” In the enchanted darkness he had -learned her young body. He looked at his fingers; her beauty was a part -of their knowledge. On the tablecloth he drummed out the first bars of -the Twelfth Sonata of Mozart. “And even after singing her duet with the -Don,” he continued, “she is still virgin. There are chaste pleasures, -sublimated sensualities. More thrillingly voluptuous,” with the gesture -of a restaurant-keeper who praises the speciality of the house, he blew -a treacly kiss, “than any of the grosser deliriums.” - -“What is all this about?” asked Mrs. Viveash. - -Gumbril finished off his glass. “I am talking esoterically,” he said, -“for my own pleasure, not yours.” - -“But tell me more about the beard,” Mrs. Viveash insisted. “I liked the -beard so much.” - -“All right,” said Gumbril, “let us try to be unworthy with coherence.” - -They sat for a long time over their cigarettes; it was half past three -before Mrs. Viveash suggested they should go. - -“Almost time,” she said, looking at her watch, “to have tea. One damned -meal after another. And never anything new to eat. And every year one -gets bored with another of the old things. Lobster, for instance, how I -used to adore lobster once! But to-day—well, really, it was only your -conversation, Theodore, that made it tolerable.” - -Gumbril put his hand to his heart and bowed. He felt suddenly extremely -depressed. - -“And wine: I used to think Orvieto so heavenly. But this spring, when I -went to Italy, it was just a bad muddy sort of Vouvray. And those soft -caramels they call Fiats; I used to eat those till I was sick. I was at -the sick stage before I’d finished one of them, this time in Rome.” Mrs. -Viveash shook her head. “Disillusion after disillusion.” - -They walked down the dark passage into the street. - -“We’ll go home,” said Mrs. Viveash. “I really haven’t the spirit to do -anything else this afternoon.” To the commissionaire who opened the door -of the cab she gave the address of her house in St. James’s. - -“Will one ever recapture the old thrills?” she asked rather fatiguedly -as they drove slowly through the traffic of Regent Street. - -“Not by chasing after them,” said Gumbril, in whom the clown had quite -evaporated. “If one sat still enough they might perhaps come back of -their own accord....” There would be the faint sound as it were of feet -approaching through the quiet. - -“It isn’t only food,” said Mrs. Viveash, who had closed her eyes and was -leaning back in her corner. - -“So I can well believe.” - -“It’s everything. Nothing’s the same now. I feel it never will be.” - -“Never more,” croaked Gumbril. - -“Never again,” Mrs. Viveash echoed. “Never again.” There were still no -tears behind her eyes. “Did you ever know Tony Lamb?” she asked. - -“No,” Gumbril answered from his corner. “What about him?” - -Mrs. Viveash did not answer. What, indeed, about him? She thought of his -very clear blue eyes and the fair, bright hair that had been lighter -than his brown face. Brown face and neck, red-brown hands; and all the -rest of his skin was as white as milk. “I was very fond of him,” she -said at last. “That’s all. He was killed in 1917, just about this time -of the year. It seems a very long time ago, don’t you think?” - -“Does it?” Gumbril shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. The past is -abolished. _Vivamus, mea Lesbia._ If I weren’t so horribly depressed, -I’d embrace you. That would be some slight compensation for my”—he -tapped his foot with the end of his walking-stick—“my accident.” - -“You’re depressed too?” - -“One should never drink at luncheon,” said Gumbril. “It wrecks the -afternoon. One should also never think of the past and never for one -moment consider the future. These are treasures of ancient wisdom. But -perhaps after a little tea——” He leaned forward to look at the figures -on the taximeter, for the cab had come to a standstill—“after a nip of -the tannin stimulant”—he threw open the door—“we may feel rather -better.” - -Mrs. Viveash smiled excruciatingly. “For me,” she said, as she stepped -out on to the pavement, “even tannin has lost its virtues now.” - -Mrs. Viveash’s drawing-room was tastefully in the movement. The -furniture was upholstered in fabrics designed by Dufy—racehorses and -roses, little tennis players clustering in the midst of enormous -flowers, printed in grey and ochre on a white ground. There were a -couple of lamp-shades by Balla. On the pale rose-stippled walls hung -three portraits of herself by three different and entirely incongruous -painters, a selection of the usual oranges and lemons, and a rather -forbidding contemporary nude painted in two tones of green. - -“And how bored I am with this room and all these beastly pictures!” -exclaimed Mrs. Viveash as she entered. She took off her hat and, -standing in front of the mirror above the mantelpiece, smoothed her -coppery hair. - -“You should take a cottage in the country,” said Gumbril, “buy a pony -and a governess cart and drive along the twiddly lanes looking for -flowers. After tea you open the cottage piano,” and suiting his action -to the words, Gumbril sat down at the long-tailed Blüthner, “and you -play, you play.” Very slowly and with parodied expressiveness he played -the opening theme of the Arietta. “You wouldn’t be bored then,” he said, -turning round to her, when he had finished. - -“Ah, wouldn’t I!” said Mrs. Viveash. “And with whom do you propose that -I should share my cottage?” - -“Any one you like,” said Gumbril. His fingers hung, as though meditating -over the keys. - -“But I don’t like any one,” cried Mrs. Viveash with a terrible vehemence -from her death-bed.... Ah, now it had been said, the truth. It sounded -like a joke. Tony had been dead five years now. Those bright blue -eyes—ah, never again. All rotted away to nothing. - -“Then you should try,” said Gumbril, whose hands had begun to creep -softly forward into the Twelfth Sonata. “You should try.” - -“But I do try,” said Mrs. Viveash. Her elbows propped on the -mantelpiece, her chin resting on her clasped hands, she was looking -fixedly at her own image in the glass. Pale eyes looked unwaveringly -into pale eyes. The red mouth and its reflection exchanged their smiles -of pain. She had tried; it revolted her now to think how often she had -tried; she had tried to like some one, any one, as much as Tony. She had -tried to recapture, to re-evoke, to revivify. And there had never been -anything, really, but a disgust. “I haven’t succeeded,” she added, after -a pause. - -The music had shifted from F major to D minor; it mounted in leaping -anapæsts to a suspended chord, ran down again, mounted once more, -modulating to C minor, then, through a passage of trembling notes to A -flat major, to the dominant of D flat, to the dominant of C, to C minor, -and at last, to a new clear theme in the major. - -“Then I’m sorry for you,” said Gumbril, allowing his fingers to play on -by themselves. He felt sorry, too, for the subjects of Mrs. Viveash’s -desperate experiments. She mightn’t have succeeded in liking them—for -their part, poor devils, they in general only too agonizingly liked -her.... Only too.... He remembered the cold, damp spots on his pillow, -in the darkness. Those hopeless, angry tears. “You nearly killed me -once,” he said. - -“Only time kills,” said Mrs. Viveash, still looking into her own pale -eyes. “I have never made any one happy,” she added, after a pause. -“Never any one,” she thought, except Tony, and Tony they had killed, -shot him through the head. Even the bright eyes had rotted, like any -other carrion. She too had been happy then. Never again. - -A maid came in with the tea-things. - -“Ah, the tannin!” exclaimed Gumbril with enthusiasm, and broke off his -playing. “The one hope of salvation.” He poured out two cups, and -picking up one of them he came over to the fireplace and stood behind -her, sipping slowly at the pale brewage and looking over her shoulder at -their two reflections in the mirror. - -“_La ci darem_,” he hummed. “If only I had my beard!” He stroked his -chin and with the tip of his forefinger brushed up the drooping ends of -his moustache. “You’d come trembling like Zerlina, in under its golden -shadow.” - -Mrs. Viveash smiled. “I don’t ask for anything better,” she said. “What -more delightful part! _Felice, io so, sarei: Batti, batti, o bel -Mazetto._ Enviable Zerlina!” - -The servant made another silent entry. - -“A gentleman,” she said, “called Mr. Shearwater would like——” - -“Tell him I’m not at home,” said Mrs. Viveash, without looking round. - -There was a silence. With raised eyebrows Gumbril looked over Mrs. -Viveash’s shoulder at her reflection. Her eyes were calm and without -expression, she did not smile or frown. Gumbril still questioningly -looked. In the end he began to laugh. - - - - - CHAPTER XV - - -They were playing that latest novelty from across the water, “What’s he -to Hecuba?” Sweet, sweet and piercing, the saxophone pierced into the -very bowels of compassion and tenderness, pierced like a revelation from -heaven, pierced like the angel’s treacly dart into the holy Teresa’s -quivering and ecstasiated flank. More ripely and roundly, with a kindly -and less agonizing voluptuousness, the ’cello meditated those Mohammedan -ecstasies that last, under the green palms of Paradise, six hundred -inenarrable years apiece. Into this charged atmosphere the violin -admitted refreshing draughts of fresh air, cool and thin like the breath -from a still damp squirt. And the piano hammered and rattled away -unmindful of the sensibilities of the other instruments, banged away all -the time reminding every one concerned, in a thoroughly business-like -way, that this was a cabaret where people came to dance the fox-trot; -not a baroque church for female saints to go into ecstasies in, not a -mild, happy valley of tumbling houris. - -At each recurrence of the refrain the four negroes of the orchestra, or -at least the three of them who played with their hands alone—for the -saxophonist always blew at this point with a redoubled sweetness, -enriching the passage with a warbling contrapuntal soliloquy that fairly -wrung the entrails and transported the pierced heart—broke into -melancholy and drawling song: - - “What’s he to Hecuba? - Nothing at all. - That’s why there’ll be no wedding on Wednesday week, - Way down in old Bengal.” - -“What unspeakable sadness,” said Gumbril, as he stepped, stepped through -the intricacies of the trot. “Eternal passion, eternal pain. _Les chants -désesperés sont les chants les plus beaux, Et j’en sais d’immortels qui -sont de purs sanglots._ Rum tiddle-um-tum, pom-pom. Amen. What’s he to -Hecuba? Nothing at all. Nothing, mark you. Nothing, nothing.” - -“Nothing,” repeated Mrs. Viveash. “I know all about that.” She sighed. - -“I am nothing to you,” said Gumbril, gliding with skill between the wall -and the Charybdis of a couple dangerously experimenting with a new step. -“You are nothing to me. Thank God. And yet here we are, two bodies with -but a single thought, a beast with two backs, a perfectly united centaur -trotting, trotting.” They trotted. - -“What’s he to Hecuba?” The grinning blackamoors repeated the question, -reiterated the answer on a tone of frightful unhappiness. The saxophone -warbled on the verge of anguish. The couples revolved, marked time, -stepped and stepped with an habitual precision, as though performing -some ancient and profoundly significant rite. Some were in fancy dress, -for this was a gala night at the cabaret. Young women disguised as -callipygous Florentine pages, blue-breeched Gondoliers, black-breeched -Toreadors circulated, moon-like, round the hall, clasped sometimes in -the arms of Arabs, or white clowns, or more often of untravestied -partners. The faces reflected in the mirrors were the sort of faces one -feels one ought to know by sight; the cabaret was ‘Artistic.’ - -“What’s he to Hecuba?” - -Mrs. Viveash murmured the response, almost piously, as though she were -worshipping almighty and omnipresent Nil. “I adore this tune,” she said, -“this divine tune.” It filled up a space, it moved, it jigged, it set -things twitching in you, it occupied time, it gave you a sense of being -alive. “Divine tune, divine tune,” she repeated with emphasis, and she -shut her eyes, trying to abandon herself, trying to float, trying to -give Nil the slip. - -“Ravishing little Toreador, that,” said Gumbril, who had been following -the black-breeched travesty with affectionate interest. - -Mrs. Viveash opened her eyes. Nil was unescapable. “With Piers Cotton, -you mean? Your tastes are a little common, my dear Theodore.” - -“Green-eyed monster!” - -Mrs. Viveash laughed. “When I was being ‘finished’ in Paris,” she said, -“Mademoiselle always used to urge me to take fencing lessons. _C’est un -exercice très gracieux. Et puis_,” Mrs. Viveash mimicked a passionate -earnestness, “_et puis, ça dévelope le bassin_. Your Toreador, Gumbril, -looks as though she must be a champion with the foils. _Quel bassin!_” - -“Hush,” said Gumbril. They were abreast of the Toreador and her partner. -Piers Cotton turned his long greyhound’s nose in their direction. - -“How are you?” he asked across the music. - -They nodded. “And you?” - -“Ah, writing such a book,” cried Piers Cotton, “such a brilliant, -brilliant, flashing book.” The dance was carrying them apart. “Like a -smile of false teeth,” he shouted across the widening gulf, and -disappeared in the crowd. - -“What’s he to Hecuba?” Lachrymosely, the hilarious blackamoors chanted -their question, mournfully pregnant with its foreknown reply. - -Nil, omnipresent nil, world-soul, spiritual informer of all matter. Nil -in the shape of a black-breeched moon-basined Toreador. Nil, the man -with the greyhound’s nose. Nil, as four blackamoors. Nil in the form of -a divine tune. Nil, the faces, the faces one ought to know by sight, -reflected in the mirrors of the hall. Nil this Gumbril whose arm is -round one’s waist, whose feet step in and out among one’s own. Nothing -at all. - -That’s why there’ll be no wedding. No wedding at St. George’s, Hanover -Square,—oh, desperate experiment!—with Nil Viveash, that charming boy, -that charming nothing at all, engaged at the moment in hunting -elephants, hunting fever and carnivores among the Tikki-tikki pygmies. -That’s why there’ll be no wedding on Wednesday week. For Lycidas is -dead, dead ere his prime. For the light strawy hair (not a lock left), -the brown face, the red-brown hands and the smooth boy’s body, -milk-white, milk-warm, are nothing at all, nothing, now, at all—nil -these five years—and the shining blue eyes as much nil as the rest. - -“Always the same people,” complained Mrs. Viveash, looking round the -room. “The old familiar faces. Never any one new. Where’s the younger -generation, Gumbril? We’re old, Theodore. There are millions younger -than we are. Where are they?” - -“I’m not responsible for them,” said Gumbril. “I’m not even responsible -for myself.” He imagined a cottagey room, under the roof, with a window -near the floor and a sloping ceiling where you were always bumping your -head; and in the candlelight Emily’s candid eyes, her grave and happy -mouth; in the darkness, the curve, under his fingers, of her firm body. - -“Why don’t they come and sing for their supper?” Mrs. Viveash went on -petulantly. “It’s their business to amuse us.” - -“They’re probably thinking of amusing themselves,” Gumbril suggested. - -“Well, then, they should do it where we can see them.” - -“What’s he to Hecuba?” - -“Nothing at all,” Gumbril clownishly sang. The room, in the cottage, had -nothing to do with him. He breathed Mrs. Viveash’s memories of Italian -jasmines, laid his cheek for a moment against her smooth hair. “Nothing -at all.” Happy clown! - -Way down in old Bengal, under the green Paradisiac palms, among the -ecstatic mystagogues and the saints who scream beneath the divine -caresses, the music came to an end. The four negroes wiped their -glistening faces. The couples fell apart. Gumbril and Mrs. Viveash sat -down and smoked a cigarette. - - - - - CHAPTER XVI - - -The blackamoors had left the platform at the end of the hall. The -curtains looped up at either side had slid down, cutting it off from the -rest of the room—“making two worlds,” Gumbril elegantly and allusively -put it, “where only one grew before—and one of them a better world,” he -added too philosophically, “because unreal.” There was the theatrical -silence, the suspense. The curtains parted again. - - On a narrow bed—on a bier perhaps—the corpse of a woman. The husband - kneels beside it. At the foot stands the doctor, putting away his - instruments. In a beribboned pink cradle reposes a monstrous baby. - - THE HUSBAND: Margaret! Margaret! - - THE DOCTOR: She is dead. - - THE HUSBAND: Margaret! - - THE DOCTOR: Of septicæmia, I tell you. - - THE HUSBAND: I wish that I too were dead! - - THE DOCTOR: But you won’t to-morrow. - - THE HUSBAND: To-morrow! But I don’t want to live to see to-morrow. - - THE DOCTOR: You will to-morrow. - - THE HUSBAND: Margaret! Margaret! Wait for me there; I shall not fail - to meet you in that hollow vale. - - THE DOCTOR: You will not be slow to survive her. - - THE HUSBAND: Christ have mercy upon us! - - THE DOCTOR: You would do better to think of the child. - - THE HUSBAND (_rising and standing menacingly over the cradle_): Is - that the monster? - - THE DOCTOR: No worse than others. - - THE HUSBAND: Begotten in a night of immaculate pleasure, monster, - may you live loveless, in dirt and impurity! - - THE DOCTOR: Conceived in lust and darkness, may your own impurity - always seem heavenly, monster, in your own eyes! - - THE HUSBAND: Murderer, slowly die all your life long! - - THE DOCTOR: The child must be fed. - - THE HUSBAND: Fed? With what? - - THE DOCTOR: With milk. - - THE HUSBAND: Her milk is cold in her breasts. - - THE DOCTOR: There are still cows. - - THE HUSBAND: Tubercular shorthorns. (_Calling._) Let - Short-i’-the-horn be brought! - - VOICES (_off_): Short-i’-the-horn! Short-i’-the-horn! (_Fadingly_) - Short-i’-the.... - - THE DOCTOR: In nineteen hundred and twenty-one, twenty-seven - thousand nine hundred and thirteen women died in childbirth. - - THE HUSBAND: But none of them belonged to my harem. - - THE DOCTOR: Each of them was somebody’s wife. - - THE HUSBAND: Doubtless. But the people we don’t know are only - characters in the human comedy. We are the tragedians. - - THE DOCTOR: Not in the spectator’s eyes. - - THE HUSBAND: Do I think of the spectators? Ah, Margaret! - Margaret!... - - THE DOCTOR: The twenty-seven thousand nine hundred and fourteenth. - - THE HUSBAND: The only one! - - THE DOCTOR: But here comes the cow. - - (_Short-i’-the-horn is led in by a Yokel._) - - THE HUSBAND: Ah, good Short-i’-the-horn! (_He pats the animal._) She - was tested last week, was she not? - - THE YOKEL: Ay, sir. - - THE HUSBAND: And found tubercular. No? - - THE YOKEL: Even in the udders, may it please you. - - THE HUSBAND: Excellent! Milk me the cow, sir, into this dirty - wash-pot. - - THE YOKEL: I will, sir. (_He milks the cow._) - - THE HUSBAND: Her milk—her milk is cold already. All the woman in her - chilled and curdled within her breasts. Ah, Jesus! what miraculous - galactagogue will make it flow again? - - THE YOKEL: The wash-pot is full, sir. - - THE HUSBAND: Then take the cow away. - - THE YOKEL: Come, Short-i’-the-horn; come up, good Short-i’-the-horn. - (_He goes out with the cow._) - - THE HUSBAND (_pouring the milk into a long-tubed feeding-bottle_): - Here’s for you, monster, to drink your own health in. (_He gives the - bottle to the child._) - - CURTAIN. - -“A little ponderous, perhaps,” said Gumbril, as the curtain came down. - -“But I liked the cow.” Mrs. Viveash opened her cigarette-case and found -it empty. Gumbril offered her one of his. She shook her head. “I don’t -want it in the least,” she said. - -“Yes, the cow was in the best pantomime tradition,” Gumbril agreed. Ah! -but it was a long time since he had been to a Christmas pantomime. Not -since Dan Leno’s days. All the little cousins, the uncles and aunts on -both sides of the family, dozens and dozens of them—every year they -filled the best part of a row in the dress circle at Drury Lane. And -buns were stickily passed from hand to hand, chocolates circulated; the -grown-ups drank tea. And the pantomime went on and on, glory after -glory, under the shining arch of the stage. Hours and hours; and the -grown-ups always wanted to go away before the harlequinade. And the -children felt sick from eating too much chocolate, or wanted with such -extreme urgency to go to the w.c. that they had to be led out, trampling -and stumbling over everybody else’s feet—and every stumble making the -need more agonizingly great—in the middle of the transformation scene. -And there was Dan Leno, inimitable Dan Leno, dead now as poor Yorick, no -more than a mere skull like anybody else’s skull. And his mother, he -remembered, used to laugh at him sometimes till the tears ran down her -cheeks. She used to enjoy things thoroughly, with a whole heart. - -“I wish they’d hurry up with the second scene,” said Mrs. Viveash. “If -there’s anything that bores me, it’s _entr’actes_.” - -“Most of one’s life is an _entr’acte_,” said Gumbril, whose present mood -of hilarious depression seemed favourable to the enunciation of -apophthegms. - -“None of your cracker mottoes, please,” protested Mrs. Viveash. All the -same, she reflected, what was she doing now but waiting for the curtain -to go up again, waiting, with what unspeakable weariness of spirit, for -the curtain that had rung down, ten centuries ago, on those blue eyes, -that bright strawy hair and the weathered face? - -“Thank God,” she said with an expiring earnestness, “here’s the second -scene!” - - The curtain went up. In a bald room stood the Monster, grown now - from an infant into a frail and bent young man with bandy legs. At - the back of the stage a large window giving on to a street along - which people pass. - - THE MONSTER (_solus_): The young girls of Sparta, they say, used to - wrestle naked with naked Spartan boys. The sun caressed their skins - till they were brown and transparent like amber or a flask of olive - oil. Their breasts were hard, their bellies flat. They were pure - with the chastity of beautiful animals. Their thoughts were clear, - their minds cool and untroubled. I spit blood into my handkerchief - and sometimes I feel in my mouth something slimy, soft and - disgusting, like a slug—and I have coughed up a shred of my lung. - The rickets from which I suffered in childhood have bent my bones - and made them old and brittle. All my life I have lived in this huge - town, whose domes and spires are wrapped in a cloud of stink that - hides the sun. The slug-dank tatters of lung that I spit out are - black with the soot I have been breathing all these years. I am now - come of age. Long-expected one-and-twenty has made me a fully - privileged citizen of this great realm of which the owners of the - _Daily Mirror_, the _News of the World_ and the _Daily Express_ are - noble peers. Somewhere, I must logically infer, there must be other - cities, built by men for men to live in. Somewhere, in the past, in - the future, a very long way off.... But perhaps the only street - improvement schemes that ever really improve the streets are schemes - in the minds of those who live in them: schemes of love mostly. Ah! - here she comes. - - (_The_ YOUNG LADY _enters. She stands outside the window, in the - street, paying no attention to the_ MONSTER; _she seems to be - waiting for somebody._) - - She is like a pear tree in flower. When she smiles, it is as though - there were stars. Her hair is like the harvest in an eclogue, her - cheeks are all the fruits of summer. Her arms and thighs are as - beautiful as the soul of St. Catherine of Siena. And her eyes, her - eyes are plumbless with thought and limpidly pure like the water of - the mountains. - - THE YOUNG LADY: If I wait till the summer sale, the crêpe de Chine - will be reduced by at least two shillings a yard, and on six - camisoles that will mean a lot of money. But the question is: can I - go from May till the end of July with the underclothing I have now? - - THE MONSTER: If I knew her, I should know the universe! - - THE YOUNG LADY: My present ones are so dreadfully middle-class. And - if Roger should ... by any chance.... - - THE MONSTER: Or, rather, I should be able to ignore it, having a - private universe of my own. - - THE YOUNG LADY: If—if he did—well, it might be rather humiliating - with these I have ... like a servant’s almost.... - - THE MONSTER: Love makes you accept the world; it puts an end to - criticism. - - THE YOUNG LADY: His hand already.... - - THE MONSTER: Dare I, dare I tell her how beautiful she is? - - THE YOUNG LADY: On the whole, I think I’d better get it now, though - it will cost more. - - THE MONSTER (_desperately advancing to the window as though to - assault a battery_): Beautiful! beautiful! - - THE YOUNG LADY (_looking at him_): Ha, ha, ha! - - THE MONSTER: But I love you, flowering pear tree; I love you, golden - harvest; I love you, fruitage of summer; I love you, body and limbs, - with the shape of a saint’s thought. - - THE YOUNG LADY (_redoubles her laughter_): Ha, ha, ha! - - THE MONSTER (_taking her hand_): You cannot be cruel! (_He is seized - with a violent paroxysm of coughing which doubles him up, which - shakes and torments him. The handkerchief he holds to his mouth is - spotted with blood._) - - THE YOUNG LADY: You disgust me! (_She draws away her skirts so that - they shall not come in contact with him._) - - THE MONSTER: But I swear to you, I love—I—— (_He is once more - interrupted by his cough._) - - THE YOUNG LADY: Please go away. (_In a different voice_) Ah, Roger! - (_She advances to meet a snub-nosed lubber with curly hair and a - face like a groom’s, who passes along the street at this moment._) - - ROGER: I’ve got the motor-bike waiting at the corner. - - THE YOUNG LADY: Let’s go, then. - - ROGER (_pointing to the_ MONSTER): What’s that? - - THE YOUNG LADY: Oh, it’s nothing in particular. - - (_Both roar with laughter._ ROGER _escorts her out, patting her - familiarly on the back as they walk along._) - - THE MONSTER (_looking after her_): There is a wound under my left - pap. She has deflowered all women. I cannot.... - -“Lord!” whispered Mrs. Viveash, “how this young man bores me!” - -“I confess,” replied Gumbril, “I have rather a taste for moralities. -There is a pleasant uplifting vagueness about these symbolical -generalized figures which pleases me.” - -“You were always charmingly simple-minded,” said Mrs. Viveash. “But -who’s this? As long as the young man isn’t left alone on the stage, I -don’t mind.” - - Another female figure has appeared in the street beyond the window. It - is the Prostitute. Her face, painted in two tones of red, white, - green, blue and black, is the most tasteful of _nature-mortes_. - - THE PROSTITUTE: Hullo, duckie! - - THE MONSTER: Hullo! - - THE PROSTITUTE: Are you lonely? - - THE MONSTER: Yes. - - THE PROSTITUTE: Would you like me to come in to see you? - - THE MONSTER: Very well. - - THE PROSTITUTE: Shall we say thirty bob? - - THE MONSTER: As you like. - - THE PROSTITUTE: Come along then. - - (_She climbs through the window and they go off together through - the door on the left of the stage. The curtains descend for a - moment, then rise again. The_ MONSTER _and the_ PROSTITUTE _are - seen issuing from the door at which they went out._) - - THE MONSTER (_taking out a cheque-book and a fountain pen_): - Thirty shillings.... - - THE PROSTITUTE: Thank you. Not a cheque. I don’t want any cheques. - How do I know it isn’t a dud one that they’ll refuse payment for - at the bank? Ready money for me, thanks. - - THE MONSTER: But I haven’t got any cash on me at the moment. - - THE PROSTITUTE: Well, I won’t take a cheque. Once bitten, twice - shy, I can tell you. - - THE MONSTER: But I tell you I haven’t got any cash. - - THE PROSTITUTE: Well, all I can say is, here I stay till I get it. - And, what’s more, if I don’t get it quick, I’ll make a row. - - THE MONSTER: But this is absurd. I offer you a perfectly good - cheque.... - - THE PROSTITUTE: And I won’t take it. So there! - - THE MONSTER: Well then, take my watch. It’s worth more than thirty - bob. (_He pulls out his gold half-hunter._) - - THE PROSTITUTE: Thank you, and get myself arrested as soon as I - take it to the pop-shop! No, I want cash, I tell you. - - THE MONSTER: But where the devil do you expect me to get it at - this time of night? - - THE PROSTITUTE: I don’t know. But you’ve got to get it pretty - quick. - - THE MONSTER: You’re unreasonable. - - THE PROSTITUTE: Aren’t there any servants in this house? - - THE MONSTER: Yes. - - THE PROSTITUTE: Well, go and borrow it from one of them. - - THE MONSTER: But really, that would be too low, too humiliating. - - THE PROSTITUTE: All right, I’ll begin kicking up a noise. I’ll go - to the window and yell till all the neighbours are woken up and - the police come to see what’s up. You can borrow it from the - copper then. - - THE MONSTER: You really won’t take my cheque? I swear to you it’s - perfectly all right. There’s plenty of money to meet it. - - THE PROSTITUTE: Oh, shut up! No more dilly-dallying. Get me my - money at once, or I’ll start the row. One, two, three.... (_She - opens her mouth wide as if to yell._) - - THE MONSTER: All right. (_He goes out._) - - THE PROSTITUTE: Nice state of things we’re coming to, when young - rips try and swindle us poor girls out of our money! Mean, - stinking skunks! I’d like to slit the throats of some of them. - - THE MONSTER (_coming back again_): Here you are. (_He hands her - money._) - - THE PROSTITUTE (_examining it_): Thank you, dearie. Any other time - you’re lonely.... - - THE MONSTER: No, no! - - THE PROSTITUTE: Where did you get it finally? - - THE MONSTER: I woke the cook. - - THE PROSTITUTE (_goes off into a peal of laughter_): Well, so - long, duckie. (_She goes out._) - - THE MONSTER (_solus_): Somewhere there must be love like music. - Love harmonious and ordered: two spirits, two bodies moving - contrapuntally together. Somewhere, the stupid brutish act must be - made to make sense, must be enriched, must be made significant. - Lust, like Diabelli’s waltz, a stupid air, turned by a genius into - three-and-thirty fabulous variations. Somewhere.... - -“Oh dear!” sighed Mrs. Viveash. - -“Charming!” Gumbril protested. - - ... love like sheets of silky flame; like landscapes brilliant in - the sunlight against a background of purple thunder; like the - solution of a cosmic problem; like faith.... - -“Crikey!” said Mrs. Viveash. - - ... Somewhere, somewhere. But in my veins creep the maggots of the - pox.... - -“Really, really!” Mrs. Viveash shook her head. “Too medical!” - - ... crawling towards the brain, crawling into the mouth, burrowing - into the bones. Insatiably. - - The Monster threw himself to the ground, and the curtain came down. - -“And about time too!” declared Mrs. Viveash. - -“Charming!” Gumbril stuck to his guns. “Charming! charming!” - -There was a disturbance near the door. Mrs. Viveash looked round to see -what was happening. “And now on top of it all,” she said, “here comes -Coleman, raving, with an unknown drunk.” - -“Have we missed it?” Coleman was shouting. “Have we missed all the -lovely bloody farce?” - -“Lovely bloody!” his companion repeated with drunken raptures, and he -went into fits of uncontrollable laughter. He was a very young boy with -straight dark hair and a face of Hellenic beauty, now distorted with -tipsiness. - -Coleman greeted his acquaintances in the hall, shouting a jovial -obscenity to each. “And Bumbril-Gumbril,” he exclaimed, catching sight -of him at last in the front row. “And Hetaira-Myra!” He pushed his way -through the crowd, followed unsteadily by his young disciple. “So you’re -here,” he said, standing over them and looking down with an enigmatic -malice in his bright blue eyes. “Where’s the physiologue?” - -“Am I the physiologue’s keeper?” asked Gumbril. “He’s with his glands -and his hormones, I suppose. Not to mention his wife.” He smiled to -himself. - -“Where the hormones, there moan I,” said Coleman, skidding off sideways -along the slippery word. “I hear, by the way, that there’s a lovely -prostitute in this play.” - -“You’ve missed her,” said Mrs. Viveash. - -“What a misfortune,” said Coleman. “We’ve missed the delicious trull,” -he said, turning to the young man. - -The young man only laughed. - -“Let me introduce, by the way,” said Coleman. “This is Dante,” he -pointed to the dark-haired boy; “and I am Virgil. We’re making a round -tour—or, rather, a descending spiral tour of hell. But we’re only at the -first circle so far. These, Alighieri, are two damned souls, though not, -as you might suppose, Paolo and Francesca.” - -The boy continued to laugh, happily and uncomprehendingly. - -“Another of these interminable _entr’actes_,” complained Mrs. Viveash. -“I was just saying to Theodore here that if there’s one thing I dislike -more than another, it’s a long _entr’acte_.” Would hers ever come to an -end? - -“And if there’s one thing _I_ dislike more than another,” said the boy, -breaking silence for the first time, with an air of the greatest -earnestness, “it’s ... it’s one thing more than another.” - -“And you’re perfectly right in doing so,” said Coleman. “Perfectly -right.” - -“I know,” the boy replied modestly. - - When the curtain rose again it was on an aged Monster, with a black - patch over the left side of his nose, no hair, no teeth, and sitting - harmlessly behind the bars of an asylum. - - THE MONSTER: Asses, apes and dogs! Milton called them that; he - should have known. Somewhere there must be men, however. The - variations on Diabelli prove it. Brunelleschi’s dome is more than - the magnification of Cléo de Mérode’s breast. Somewhere there are - men with power, living reasonably. Like our mythical Greeks and - Romans. Living cleanly. The images of the gods are their portraits. - They walk under their own protection. (_The_ MONSTER _climbs on to a - chair and stands in the posture of a statue_.) Jupiter, father of - gods, a man, I bless myself, I throw bolts at my own disobedience, I - answer my own prayers, I pronounce oracles to satisfy the questions - I myself propound. I abolish all tetters, poxes, blood-spitting, - rotting of bones. With love I recreate the world from within. Europa - puts an end to squalor, Leda does away with tyranny, Danae tempers - stupidity. After establishing these reforms in the social sewer, I - climb, I climb, up through the manhole, out of the manhole, beyond - humanity. For the manhole, even the manhole, is dark; though not so - dingy as the doghole it was before I altered it. Up through the - manhole, towards the air. Up, up! (_And the_ MONSTER, _suiting the - action to his words, climbs up the runged back of his chair and - stands, by a miraculous feat of acrobacy, on the topmost bar_.) I - begin to see the stars through other eyes than my own. More than dog - already, I become more than man. I begin to have inklings of the - shape and sense of things. Upwards, upwards I strain, I peer, I - reach aloft. (_The balanced_ MONSTER _reaches, strains and peers_.) - And I seize, I seize! (_As he shouts these words, the_ MONSTER - _falls heavily, head foremost, to the floor. He lies there quite - still. After a little time the door opens and the_ DOCTOR _of the - first scene enters with a_ WARDER.) - - THE WARDER: I heard a crash. - - THE DOCTOR (_who has by this time become immensely old and has a - beard like Father Thames_): It looks as though you were right. (_He - examines the_ MONSTER.) - - THE WARDER: He was for ever climbing on to his chair. - - THE DOCTOR: Well, he won’t any more. His neck’s broken. - - THE WARDER: You don’t say so? - - THE DOCTOR: I do. - - THE WARDER: Well, I never! - - THE DOCTOR: Have it carried down to the dissecting-room. - - THE WARDER: I’ll send for the porters at once. - - (_Exeunt severally, and_ CURTAIN.) - -“Well,” said Mrs. Viveash, “I’m glad that’s over.” - -The music struck up again, saxophone and ’cello, with the thin draught -of the violin to cool their ecstasies and the thumping piano to remind -them of business. Gumbril and Mrs. Viveash slid out into the dancing -crowd, revolving as though by force of habit. - -“These substitutes for the genuine copulative article,” said Coleman to -his disciple, “are beneath the dignity of hell-hounds like you and me.” - -Charmed, the young man laughed; he was attentive as though at the feet -of Socrates. Coleman had found him in a night club, where he had gone in -search of Zoe, found him very drunk in the company of two formidable -women fifteen or twenty years his senior, who were looking after him, -half maternally out of pure kindness of heart, half professionally; for -he seemed to be carrying a good deal of money. He was incapable of -looking after himself. Coleman had pounced on him at once, claimed an -old friendship which the youth was too tipsy to be able to deny, and -carried him off. There was something, he always thought, peculiarly -interesting about the spectacle of children tobogganing down into the -cesspools. - -“I like this place,” said the young man. - -“Tastes differ!” Coleman shrugged his shoulders. “The German professors -have catalogued thousands of people whose whole pleasure consists in -eating dung.” - -The young man smiled and nodded, rather vaguely. “Is there anything to -drink here?” he asked. - -“Too respectable,” Coleman answered, shaking his head. - -“I think this is a bloody place,” said the young man. - -“Ah! but some people like blood. And some like boots. And some like long -gloves and corsets. And some like birch-rods. And some like sliding down -slopes and can’t look at Michelangelo’s ‘Night’ on the Medici Tombs -without dying the little death, because the statue seems to be sliding. -And some....” - -“But I want something to drink,” insisted the young man. - -Coleman stamped his feet, waved his arms. “_À boire! à boire!_” he -shouted, like the newborn Gargantua. Nobody paid any attention. - -The music came to an end. Gumbril and Mrs. Viveash reappeared. - -“Dante,” said Coleman, “calls for drink. We must leave the building.” - -“Yes. Anything to get out of this,” said Mrs. Viveash. “What’s the -time?” - -Gumbril looked at his watch. “Half-past one.” - -Mrs. Viveash sighed. “Can’t possibly go to bed,” she said, “for another -hour at least.” - -They walked out into the street. The stars were large and brilliant -overhead. There was a little wind that almost seemed to come from the -country. Gumbril thought so, at any rate; he thought of the country. - -“The question is, where?” said Coleman. “You can come to my bordello, if -you like; but it’s a long way off and Zoe hates us all so much, she’ll -probably set on us with the meat-chopper. If she’s back again, that is. -Though she may be out all night. _Zoe mou, sas agapo._ Shall we risk -it?” - -“To me it’s quite indifferent,” said Mrs. Viveash faintly, as though -wholly preoccupied with expiring. - -“Or there’s my place,” Gumbril said abruptly, as though shaking himself -awake out of some dream. - -“But you live still farther, don’t you?” said Coleman. “With venerable -parents, and so forth. One foot in the grave and all that. Shall we -mingle hornpipes with funerals?” He began to hum Chopin’s ‘Funeral -March’ at three times its proper speed, and seizing the young stranger -in his arms, two-stepped two or three turns on the pavement, then -released his hold and let him go reeling against the area railings. - -“No, I don’t mean the family mansion,” said Gumbril. “I mean my own -rooms. They’re quite near. In Great Russell Street.” - -“I never knew you had any rooms, Theodore,” said Mrs. Viveash. - -“Nobody did.” Why should they know now? Because the wind seemed almost a -country wind? “There’s drink there,” he said. - -“Splendid!” cried the young man. They were all splendid people. - -“There’s some gin,” said Gumbril. - -“Capital aphrodisiac!” Coleman commented. - -“Some light white wine.” - -“Diuretic.” - -“And some whisky.” - -“The great emetic,” said Coleman. “Come on.” And he struck up the March -of the Fascisti. “_Giovinezza, giovinezza, primavera di bellezza_....” -The noise went fading down the dark, empty streets. - -The gin, the white wine, and even, for the sake of the young stranger, -who wanted to sample everything, the emetic whisky, were produced. - -“I like your rooms,” said Mrs. Viveash, looking round her. “And I resent -your secrecy about them, Theodore.” - -“Drink, puppy!” Coleman refilled the boy’s glass. - -“Here’s to secrecy,” Gumbril proposed. Shut it tightly, keep it dark, -cover it up. Be silent, prevaricate, lie outright. He laughed and drank. -“Do you remember,” he went on, “those instructive advertisements of -Eno’s Fruit Salt they used to have when we were young? There was one -little anecdote about a doctor who advised the hypochondriacal patient -who had come to consult him, to go and see Grimaldi, the clown; and the -patient answered, ‘I am Grimaldi.’ Do you remember?” - -“No,” said Mrs. Viveash. “And why do you?” - -“Oh, I don’t know. Or rather, I do know,” Gumbril corrected himself, and -laughed again. - -The young man suddenly began to boast. “I lost two hundred pounds -yesterday playing _chemin de fer_,” he said, and looked round for -applause. - -Coleman patted his curly head. “Delicious child!” he said. “You’re -positively Hogarthian.” - -Angrily, the boy pushed him away. “What are you doing?” he shouted; then -turned and addressed himself once more to the others. “I couldn’t afford -it, you know—not a bloody penny of it. Not my money, either.” He seemed -to find it exquisitely humorous. “And that two hundred wasn’t all,” he -added, almost expiring with mirth. - -“Tell Coleman how you borrowed his beard, Theodore.” - -Gumbril was looking intently into his glass, as though he hoped to see -in its pale mixture of gin and Sauterne visions, as in a crystal, of the -future. Mrs. Viveash touched him on the arm and repeated her injunction. - -“Oh, that!” said Gumbril rather irritably. “No. It isn’t an interesting -story.” - -“Oh yes, it is! I insist,” said Mrs. Viveash, commanding peremptorily -from her death-bed. - -Gumbril drank his gin and Sauterne. “Very well then,” he said -reluctantly, and began. - -“I don’t know what my governor will say,” the young man put in once or -twice. But nobody paid any attention to him. He relapsed into a sulky -and, it seemed to him, very dignified silence. Under the warm, jolly -tipsiness he felt a chill of foreboding. He poured out some more whisky. - -Gumbril warmed to his anecdote. Expiringly Mrs. Viveash laughed from -time to time, or smiled her agonizing smile. Coleman whooped like a -Redskin. - -“And after the concert to these rooms,” said Gumbril. - -Well, let everything go. Into the mud. Leave it there, and let the dogs -lift their hind legs over it as they pass. - -“Ah! the genuine platonic fumblers,” commented Coleman. - -“I am Grimaldi,” Gumbril laughed. Further than this it was difficult to -see where the joke could go. There, on the couch, where Mrs. Viveash and -Coleman were now sitting, she had lain sleeping in his arms. - -“Towsing, in Elizabethan,” said Coleman. - -Unreal, eternal in the secret darkness. A night that was an eternal -parenthesis among the other nights and days. - -“I feel I’m going to be sick,” said the young man suddenly. He had -wanted to go on silently and haughtily sulking; but his stomach declined -to take part in the dignified game. - -“Good Lord!” said Gumbril, and jumped up. But before he could do -anything effective, the young man had fulfilled his own prophecy. - -“The real charm about debauchery,” said Coleman philosophically, “is its -total pointlessness, futility, and above all its incredible tediousness. -If it really were all roses and exhilaration, as these poor children -seem to imagine, it would be no better than going to church or studying -the higher mathematics. I should never touch a drop of wine or another -harlot again. It would be against my principles. I told you it was -emetic,” he called to the young man. - -“And what are your principles?” asked Mrs. Viveash. - -“Oh, strictly ethical,” said Coleman. - -“You’re responsible for this creature,” said Gumbril, pointing to the -young man, who was sitting on the floor near the fireplace, cooling his -forehead against the marble of the mantelpiece. “You must take him away. -Really, what a bore!” His nose and mouth were all wrinkled up with -disgust. - -“I’m sorry,” the young man whispered. He kept his eyes shut and his face -was exceedingly pale. - -“But with pleasure,” said Coleman. “What’s your name?” he asked the -young man, “and where do you live?” - -“My name is Porteous,” murmured the young man. - -“Good lord!” cried Gumbril, letting himself fall on to the couch beside -Mrs. Viveash. “That’s the last straw!” - - - - - CHAPTER XVII - - -The two o’clock snorted out of Charing Cross, but no healths were drunk, -this time, to Viscount Lascelles. A desiccating sobriety made arid the -corner of the third-class carriage in which Gumbril was sitting. His -thoughts were an interminable desert of sand, with not a palm in sight, -not so much as a comforting mirage. Once again he fumbled in his -breast-pocket, brought out and unfolded the flimsy paper. Once more he -read. How many times had he read before? - - “Your telegram made me very unhappy. Not merely because of the - accident—though it made me shudder to think that something terrible - might have happened, poor darling—but also, selfishly, my own - disappointment. I had looked forward so much. I had made a picture - of it all so clearly. I should have met you at the station with the - horse and trap from the Chequers, and we’d have driven back to the - cottage—and you’d have loved the cottage. We’d have had tea and I’d - have made you eat an egg with it after your journey. Then we’d have - gone for a walk; through the most heavenly wood I found yesterday to - a place where there’s a wonderful view—miles and miles of it. And - we’d have wandered on and on, and sat down under the trees, and the - sun would have set, and the twilight would slowly have come to an - end, and we’d have gone home again and found the lamps lighted and - supper ready—not very grand, I’m afraid, for Mrs. Vole isn’t the - best of cooks. And then the piano; for there is a piano, and I had - the tuner come specially from Hastings yesterday, so that it isn’t - _so_ bad now. And you’d have played; and perhaps I would have made - my noises on it. And at last it would have been time for candles and - bed. When I heard you were coming, Theodore, I told Mrs. Vole a lie - about you. I said you were my husband, because she’s fearfully - respectable, of course; and it would dreadfully disturb her if you - weren’t. But I told myself that, too. I meant that you should be. - You see, I tell you everything. I’m not ashamed. I wanted to give - you everything I could, and then we should always be together, - loving one another. And I should have been your slave, I should have - been your property and lived inside your life. But you would always - have had to love me. - - “And then, just as I was getting ready to go and call at the - Chequers for the horse and trap, your telegram came. I saw the word - ‘accident,’ and I imagined you all bleeding and smashed—oh, - dreadful, dreadful. But then, when you seemed to make rather a joke - of it—why did you say ‘a little indisposed?’ that seemed, somehow, - so stupid, I thought—and said you were coming to-morrow, it wasn’t - that which upset me; it was the dreadful, dreadful disappointment. - It was like a stab, that disappointment; it hurt so terribly, so - unreasonably much. It made me cry and cry, so that I thought I - should never be able to stop. And then, gradually, I began to see - that the pain of the disappointment wasn’t unreasonably great. It - wasn’t merely a question of your coming being put off for a day; it - was a question of its being put off for ever, of my never seeing you - again. I saw that that accident had been something really arranged - by Providence. It was meant to warn me and show me what I ought to - do. I saw how hopelessly impracticable the happiness I had been - imagining really was. I saw that you didn’t, you couldn’t love me in - anything like the same way as I loved you. I was only a curious - adventure, a new experience, a means to some other end. Mind, I’m - not blaming you in the least. I’m only telling you what is true, - what I gradually came to realize as true. If you’d come—what then? - I’d have given you everything, my body, my mind, my soul, my whole - life. I’d have twisted myself into the threads of your life. And - then, when in due course you wanted to make an end to this curious - little adventure, you would have had to cut the tangle and it would - have killed me; it would also have hurt you. At least I think it - would. In the end, I thanked God for the accident which had - prevented you coming. In this way, Providence lets us off very - lightly—you with a bruise or two (for I do hope it really is - nothing, my precious darling), and me with a bruise inside, round - the heart. But both will get well quite soon. And all our lives, we - shall have an afternoon under the trees, an evening of music and in - the darkness, a night, an eternity of happiness, to look back on. I - shall go away from Robertsbridge at once. Good-bye, Theodore. What a - long letter! The last you’ll ever get from me. The last—what a - dreadful hurting word that is. I shall take it to post at once, for - fear, if I leave it, I may be weak enough to change my mind and let - you come to-morrow. I shall take it at once, then I shall come home - again and pack up and tell some new fib to Mrs. Vole. And after - that, perhaps I shall allow myself to cry again. Good-bye.” - -Aridly, the desert of sand stretched out with not a tree and not even a -mirage, except perhaps the vague and desperate hope that he might get -there before she started, that she might conceivably have changed her -mind. Ah, if only he’d read the letter a little earlier! But he hadn’t -woken up before eleven, he hadn’t been down before half-past. Sitting at -the breakfast-table, he had read the letter through. - -The eggs and bacon had grown still colder, if that was possible, than -they were. He had read it through, he had rushed to the A.B.C. There was -no practicable train before the two o’clock. - -If he had taken the seven-twenty-seven he would certainly have got there -before she started. Ah, if only he had woken up a little earlier! But -then he would have had to go to bed a little earlier. And in order to go -to bed earlier, he would have had to abandon Mrs. Viveash before she had -bored herself to that ultimate point of fatigue at which she did at last -feel ready for repose. And to abandon Mrs. Viveash—ah, that was really -impossible, she wouldn’t allow herself to be left alone. If only he -hadn’t gone to the London Library yesterday! A wanton, unnecessary visit -it had been. For after all, the journey was short; he didn’t need a book -for the train. And the _Life of Beckford_, for which he had asked, -proved, of course, to be out—and he had been utterly incapable of -thinking of any other book, among the two or three hundred thousand on -the shelves, that he wanted to read. And, in any case, what the devil -did he want with a _Life of Beckford_? Hadn’t he his own life, the life -of Gumbril, to attend to? Wasn’t one life enough, without making -superfluous visits to the London Library in search of other lives? And -then what a stroke of bad luck to have run into Mrs. Viveash at that -very moment! What an abject weakness to have let himself be bullied into -sending that telegram. “A little indisposed....” Oh, my God! Gumbril -shut his eyes and ground his teeth together; he felt himself blushing -with a retrospective shame. - -And of course it was quite useless taking the train, like this, to -Robertsbridge. She’d be gone, of course. Still, there was always the -desperate hope. There was the mirage across the desiccated plains, the -mirage one knew to be deceptive and which, on a second glance, proved -not even to be a mirage, but merely a few livery spots behind the eyes. -Still, it was amply worth doing—as a penance, and to satisfy the -conscience and to deceive oneself with an illusion of action. And then -the fact that he was to have spent the afternoon with Rosie and had put -her off—that too was highly satisfying. And not merely put her off, -but—ultimate clownery in the worst of deliriously bad taste—played a -joke on her. “Impossible come to you, meet me 213 Sloane Street, second -floor, a little indisposed.” He wondered how she’d get on with Mr. -Mercaptan; for it was to his rococo boudoir and Crébillon-souled sofa -that he had on the spur of the clownish moment, as he dashed into the -post office on the way to the station, sent her. - -Aridly, the desiccated waste extended. Had she been right in her letter? -Would it really have lasted no more than a little while, and ended as -she prophesied, with an agonizing cutting of the tangle? Or could it be -that she had held out the one hope of happiness? Wasn’t she perhaps the -one unique being with whom he might have learned to await in quietness -the final coming of that lovely terrible thing, from before the sound of -whose secret footsteps more than once and oh! ignobly he had fled? He -could not decide, it was impossible to decide until he had seen her -again, till he had possessed her, mingled his life with hers. And now -she had eluded him; for he knew very well that he would not find her. He -sighed and looked out of the window. - -The train pulled up at a small suburban station. Suburban, for though -London was already some way behind, the little sham half-timbered houses -near the station, the newer tile and rough-cast dwellings farther out on -the slope of the hill proclaimed with emphasis the presence of the -business man, the holder of the season ticket. Gumbril looked at them -with a pensive disgust which must have expressed itself on his features; -for the gentleman sitting in the corner of the carriage facing his, -suddenly leaned forward, tapped him on the knee, and said, “I see you -agree with me, sir, that there are too many people in the world.” - -Gumbril, who up till now had merely been aware that somebody was sitting -opposite him, now looked with more attention at the stranger. He was a -large, square old gentleman of robust and flourishing appearance, with a -face of wrinkled brown parchment and a white moustache that merged, in a -handsome curve, with a pair of side whiskers, in a manner which reminded -one of the photographs of the Emperor Francis Joseph. - -“I perfectly agree with you, sir,” Gumbril answered. If he had been -wearing his beard, he would have gone on to suggest that loquacious old -gentlemen in trains are among the supernumeraries of the planet. As it -was, however he spoke with courtesy, and smiled in his most engaging -fashion. - -“When I look at all these revolting houses,” the old gentleman -continued, shaking his fist at the snuggeries of the season-ticket -holders, “I am filled with indignation. I feel my spleen ready to burst, -sir, ready to burst.” - -“I can sympathize with you,” said Gumbril. “The architecture is -certainly not very soothing.” - -“It’s not the architecture I mind so much,” retorted the old gentleman, -“that’s merely a question of art, and all nonsense so far as I’m -concerned. What disgusts me is the people inside the architecture, the -number of them, sir. And the way they breed. Like maggots, sir, like -maggots. Millions of them, creeping about the face of the country, -spreading blight and dirt wherever they go; ruining everything. It’s the -people I object to.” - -“Ah well,” said Gumbril, “if you will have sanitary conditions that -don’t allow plagues to flourish properly; if you will tell mothers how -to bring up their children, instead of allowing nature to kill them off -in her natural way; if you will import unlimited supplies of corn and -meat: what can you expect? Of course the numbers go up.” - -The old gentleman waved all this away. “I don’t care what the causes -are,” he said. “That’s all one to me. What I do object to, sir, is the -effects. Why sir, I am old enough to remember walking through the -delicious meadows beyond Swiss Cottage, I remember seeing the cows -milked in West Hampstead, sir. And now, what do I see now, when I go -there? Hideous red cities pullulating with Jews, sir. Pullulating with -prosperous Jews. Am I right in being indignant, sir? Do I do well, like -the prophet Jonah, to be angry?” - -“You do, sir,” said Gumbril, with growing enthusiasm, “and the more so -since this frightful increase in population is the world’s most -formidable danger at the present time. With populations that in Europe -alone expand by millions every year, no political foresight is possible. -A few years of this mere bestial propagation will suffice to make -nonsense of the wisest schemes of to-day—or would suffice,” he hastened -to correct himself, “if any wise schemes were being matured at the -present.” - -“Very possibly, sir,” said the old gentleman, “but what I object to is -seeing good cornland being turned into streets, and meadows, where cows -used to graze, covered with houses full of useless and disgusting human -beings. I resent seeing the country parcelled out into back gardens.” - -“And is there any prospect,” Gumbril earnestly asked, “of our ever being -able in the future to support the whole of our population? Will -unemployment ever decrease?” - -“I don’t know, sir,” the old gentleman replied. “But the families of the -unemployed will certainly increase.” - -“You are right, sir,” said Gumbril, “they will. And the families of the -employed and the prosperous will as steadily grow smaller. It is -regrettable that birth control should have begun at the wrong end of the -scale. There seems to be a level of poverty below which it doesn’t seem -worth while practising birth control, and a level of education below -which birth control is regarded as morally wrong. Strange, how long it -has taken for the ideas of love and procreation to dissociate themselves -in the human mind. In the majority of minds they are still, even in this -so-called twentieth century, indivisibly wedded. Still,” he continued -hopefully, “progress is being made, progress is certainly, though -slowly, being made. It is gratifying to find, for example, in the latest -statistics, that the clergy, as a class, are now remarkable for the -smallness of their families. The old jest is out of date. Is it too much -to hope that these gentlemen may bring themselves in time to preach what -they already practise?” - -“It _is_ too much to hope, sir,” the old gentleman answered with -decision. - -“You are probably right,” said Gumbril. - -“If we were all to preach all the things we all practise,” continued the -old gentleman, “the world would soon be a pretty sort of bear-garden, I -can tell you. Yes, and a monkey-house. And a wart-hoggery. As it is, -sir, it is merely a place where there are too many human beings. Vice -must pay its tribute to virtue, or else we are all undone.” - -“I admire your wisdom, sir,” said Gumbril. - -The old gentleman was delighted. “And I have been much impressed by your -philosophical reflections,” he said. “Tell me, are you at all interested -in old brandy?” - -“Well, not philosophically,” said Gumbril. “As a mere empiric only.” - -“As a mere empiric!” The old gentleman laughed. “Then let me beg you to -accept a case. I have a cellar which I shall never drink dry, alas! -before I die. My only wish is that what remains of it shall be -distributed among those who can really appreciate it. In you, sir, I see -a fitting recipient of a case of brandy.” - -“You overwhelm me,” said Gumbril. “You are too kind, and, I may add, too -flattering.” The train, which was a mortally slow one, came grinding for -what seemed the hundredth time to a halt. - -“Not at all,” said the old gentleman. “If you have a card, sir.” - -Gumbril searched his pockets. “I have come without one.” - -“Never mind,” said the old gentleman. “I think I have a pencil. If you -will give me your name and address, I will have the case sent to you at -once.” - -Leisurely, he hunted for the pencil, he took out a notebook. The train -gave a jerk forward. - -“Now, sir,” he said. - -Gumbril began dictating. “Theodore,” he said slowly. - -“The—o—dore,” the old gentleman repeated, syllable by syllable. - -The train crept on, with slowly gathering momentum, through the station. -Happening to look out of the window at this moment, Gumbril saw the name -of the place painted across a lamp. It was Robertsbridge. He made a -loud, inarticulate noise, flung open the door of the compartment, -stepped out on to the footboard and jumped. He landed safely on the -platform, staggered forward a few paces with his acquired momentum and -came at last to a halt. A hand reached out and closed the swinging door -of his compartment and, an instant afterwards, through the window, a -face that, at a distance, looked more than ever like the face of the -Emperor Francis Joseph, looked back towards the receding platform. The -mouth opened and shut; no words were audible. Standing on the platform, -Gumbril made a complicated pantomime, signifying his regret by shrugging -his shoulders and placing his hand on his heart; urging in excuse for -his abrupt departure the necessity under which he laboured of alighting -at this particular station—which he did by pointing at the name on the -boards and lamps, then at himself, then at the village across the -fields. The old gentleman waved his hand, which still held, Gumbril -noticed, the notebook in which he had been writing. Then the train -carried him out of sight. There went the only case of old brandy he was -ever likely to possess, thought Gumbril sadly, as he turned away. -Suddenly, he remembered Emily again; for a long time he had quite -forgotten her. - -The cottage, when at last he found it, proved to be fully as picturesque -as he had imagined. And Emily, of course, had gone, leaving, as might -have been expected, no address. He took the evening train back to -London. The aridity was now complete, and even the hope of a mirage had -vanished. There was no old gentleman to make a diversion. The size of -clergymen’s families, even the fate of Europe, seemed unimportant now, -were indeed perfectly indifferent to him. - - - - - CHAPTER XVIII - - -Two hundred and thirteen Sloane Street. The address, Rosie reflected, as -she vaporized synthetic lilies of the valley over all her sinuous -person, was decidedly a good one. It argued a reasonable prosperity, -attested a certain distinction. The knowledge of his address confirmed -her already high opinion of the bearded stranger who had so surprisingly -entered her life, as though in fulfilment of all the fortune-tellers’ -prophecies that ever were made; had entered, yes, and intimately made -himself at home. She had been delighted, when the telegram came that -morning, to think that at last she was going to find out something more -about this man of mystery. For dark and mysterious he had remained, -remote even in the midst of the most intimate contacts. Why, she didn’t -even know his name. “Call me Toto,” he had suggested, when she asked him -what it was. And Toto she had had to call him, for lack of anything more -definite or committal. But to-day he was letting her further into his -secret. Rosie was delighted. Her pink underclothing, she decided, as she -looked in the long glass, was really ravishing. She examined herself, -turning first one way, then the other, looking over her shoulder to see -the effect from behind. She pointed a toe, bent and straightened a knee, -applauding the length of her legs (“Most women,” Toto had said, “are -like dachshunds”), their slenderness and plump suavity of form. In their -white stockings of Milanese silk they looked delicious; and how -marvellously, by the way, those Selfridge people had mended those -stockings by their new patent process! Absolutely like new, and only -charged four shillings. Well, it was time to dress. Good-bye, then, to -the pink underclothing and the long white legs. She opened the wardrobe -door. The moving glass reflected, as it swung through its half-circle, -pink bed, rose-wreathed walls, little friends of her own age, and the -dying saint at his last communion. Rosie selected the frock she had -bought the other day at one of those little shops in Soho, there they -sell such smart things so cheaply to a clientage of minor actresses and -cocottes. Toto hadn’t seen it yet. She looked extremely distinguished in -it. The little hat, with its inch of veil hanging like a mask, -unconcealing and inviting, from the brim, suited her to perfection. One -last dab of powder, one last squirt of synthetic lilies of the valley, -and she was ready. She closed the door behind her. St. Jerome was left -to communicate in the untenanted pinkness. - -Mr. Mercaptan sat at his writing-table—an exquisitely amusing affair in -papier mâché, inlaid with floral decorations in mother-of-pearl and -painted with views of Windsor Castle and Tintern in the romantic manner -of Prince Albert’s later days—polishing to its final and gem-like -perfection one of his middle articles. It was on a splendid subject—the -‘Jus Primæ Noctis, or Droit du Seigneur’—“that delicious _droit_,” wrote -Mr. Mercaptan, “on which, one likes to think, the Sovereigns of England -insist so firmly in their motto, _Dieu et mon Droit—de Seigneur_.” That -was charming, Mr. Mercaptan thought, as he read it through. And he liked -that bit which began elegiacally: “But, alas! the Right of the First -Night belongs to a Middle Age as mythical, albeit happily different, as -those dismal epochs invented by Morris or by Chesterton. The Lord’s -right, as we prettily imagine it, is a figment of the baroque -imagination of the seventeenth century. It never existed. Or at least it -did exist, but as something deplorably different from what we love to -picture it.” And he went on, eruditely, to refer to that Council of -Carthage which, in 398, demanded of the faithful that they should be -continent on their wedding-night. It was the Lord’s right—the _droit_ of -a heavenly Seigneur. On this text of fact, Mr. Mercaptan went on to -preach a brilliant sermon on that melancholy sexual perversion known as -continence. How much happier we all should be if the real historical -_droit du Seigneur_ had in fact been the mythical right of our ‘pretty -prurient imaginations’! He looked forward to a golden age when all -should be seigneurs possessing rights that should have broadened down -into universal liberty. And so on. Mr. Mercaptan read through his -creation with a smile of satisfaction on his face. Every here and there -he made a careful correction in red ink. Over ‘pretty prurient -imaginations’ his pen hung for a full minute in conscientious -hesitation. Wasn’t it perhaps a little too strongly alliterative, a -shade, perhaps, cheap? Perhaps ‘pretty lascivious’ or ‘delicate -prurient’ would be better. He repeated the alternatives several times, -rolling the sound of them round his tongue, judicially, like a -tea-taster. In the end, he decided that ‘pretty prurient’ was right. -‘Pretty prurient’—they were the _mots justes_, decidedly, without a -question. - -Mr. Mercaptan had just come to this decision and his poised pen was -moving farther down the page, when he was disturbed by the sound of -arguing voices in the corridor, outside his room. - -“What is it, Mrs. Goldie?” he called irritably, for it was not difficult -to distinguish his housekeeper’s loud and querulous tones. He had given -orders that he was not to be disturbed. In these critical moments of -correction one needed such absolute tranquillity. - -But Mr. Mercaptan was to have no tranquillity this afternoon. The door -of his sacred boudoir was thrown rudely open, and there strode in, like -a Goth into the elegant marble vomitorium of Petronius Arbiter, a -haggard and dishevelled person whom Mr. Mercaptan recognized, with a -certain sense of discomfort, as Casimir Lypiatt. - -“To what do I owe the _pleasure_ of this unexpected...?” Mr. Mercaptan -began with an essay in offensive courtesy. - -But Lypiatt, who had no feeling for the finer shades, coarsely -interrupted him. “Look here, Mercaptan,” he said. “I want to have a talk -with you.” - -“Delighted, I’m sure,” Mr. Mercaptan replied. “And _what_, may I ask, -about?” He knew, of course, perfectly well; and the prospect of the talk -disturbed him. - -“About this,” said Lypiatt; and he held out what looked like a roll of -paper. - -Mr. Mercaptan took the roll and opened it out. It was a copy of the -_Weekly World_. “Ah!” said Mr. Mercaptan, in a tone of delighted -surprise, “_The World_. You have read my little article?” - -“That was what I wanted to talk to you about,” said Lypiatt. - -Mr. Mercaptan modestly laughed. “It hardly deserves it,” he said. - -Preserving a calm of expression which was quite unnatural to him, and -speaking in a studiedly quiet voice, Lypiatt pronounced with careful -deliberation: “It is a disgusting, malicious, ignoble attack on me,” he -said. - -“Come, _come_!” protested Mr. Mercaptan. “A critic must be allowed to -criticize.” - -“But there are limits,” said Lypiatt. - -“Oh, I _quite_ agree,” Mr. Mercaptan eagerly conceded. “But, after all, -Lypiatt, you can’t pretend that I have come anywhere near those limits. -If I had called you a _mur_derer, or even an _adul_terer—then, I admit, -you would have some cause to complain. But I haven’t. There’s nothing -like a personality in the whole thing.” - -Lypiatt laughed derisively, and his face went all to pieces, like a pool -of water into which a stone is suddenly dropped. - -“You’ve merely said I was insincere, an actor, a mountebank, a quack, -raving fustian, spouting mock heroics. That’s all.” - -Mr. Mercaptan put on the expression of one who feels himself injured and -misunderstood. He shut his eyes, he flapped deprecatingly with his hand. -“I _merely_ suggested,” he said, “that you protest _too_ much. You -defeat your own ends; you lose emphasis by trying to be over-emphatic. -All this _folie de grandeur_, all this hankering after _terribiltà_——” -sagely Mr. Mercaptan shook his head, “it’s led so _many_ people astray. -And, in any case, you can’t _really_ expect _me_ to find it very -sympathetic.” Mr. Mercaptan uttered a little laugh and looked -affectionately round his boudoir, his retired and perfumed poutery -within whose walls so much civilization had finely flowered. He looked -at his magnificent sofa, gilded and carved, upholstered in white satin, -and so deep—for it was a great square piece of furniture, almost as -broad as it was long—that when you sat right back, you had of necessity -to lift your feet from the floor and recline at length. It was under the -white satin that Crébillon’s spirit found, in these late degenerate -days, a sympathetic home. He looked at his exquisite Condor fans over -the mantelpiece; his lovely Marie Laurencin of two young girls, -pale-skinned and berry-eyed, walking embraced in a shallow myopic -landscape amid a troop of bounding heraldic dogs. He looked at his -cabinet of _bibelots_ in the corner where the nigger mask and the superb -Chinese phallus in sculptured rock crystal contrasted so amusingly with -the Chelsea china, the little ivory Madonna, which might be a fake, but -in any case was quite as good as any mediæval French original, and the -Italian medals. He looked at his comical writing-desk in shining black -papier mâché and mother-of-pearl; he looked at his article on the “Jus -Primæ Noctis,” black and neat on the page, with the red corrections -attesting his tireless search for, and his, he flattered himself, almost -invariable discovery of, the inevitable word. No, really, one couldn’t -expect _him_ to find Lypiatt’s notions very sympathetic. - -“But I don’t expect you to,” said Lypiatt, “and, good God! I don’t want -you to. But you call me insincere. That’s what I can’t and won’t stand. -How dare you do that?” His voice was growing louder. - -Once more Mr. Mercaptan deprecatingly flapped. “At the most,” he -corrected, “I said that there was a certain look of insincerity about -some of the pictures. Hardly avoidable, indeed, in work of this kind.” - -Quite suddenly, Lypiatt lost his self-control. All the accumulated anger -and bitterness of the last days burst out. His show had been a hopeless -failure. Not a picture sold, a press that was mostly bad, or, when good, -that had praised for the wrong, the insulting reasons. “Bright and -effective work.” “Mr. Lypiatt would make an excellent stage designer.” -Damn them! damn them! And then, when the dailies had all had their yelp, -here was Mercaptan in the _Weekly World_ taking him as a text for what -was practically an essay on insincerity in art. “How dare you?” he -furiously shouted. “You—how dare you talk about sincerity? What can you -know about sincerity, you disgusting little bug!” And avenging himself -on the person of Mr. Mercaptan against the world that had neglected him, -against the fate that had denied him his rightful share of talent, -Lypiatt sprang up and, seizing the author of the “Jus Primæ Noctis” by -the shoulders, he shook him, he bumped him up and down in his chair, he -cuffed him over the head. “How can you have the impudence,” he asked, -letting go of his victim, but still standing menacingly over him, “to -touch anything that even attempts to be decent and big?” All these -years, these wretched years of poverty and struggle and courageous hope -and failure and repeated disappointment; and now this last failure, more -complete than all. He was trembling with anger; at least one forgot -unhappiness while one was angry. - -Mr. Mercaptan had recovered from his first terrified surprise. “Really, -_really_” he repeated, “_too_ barbarous. Scuffling like hobbledehoys.” - -“If you knew,” Lypiatt began; but he checked himself. If you knew, he -was going to say, what those things had cost me, what they meant, what -thought, what passion——But how could Mercaptan understand? And it would -sound as though he were appealing to this creature’s sympathy. “Bug!” he -shouted instead, “bug!” And he struck out again with the flat of his -hand. Mr. Mercaptan put up his hands and ducked away from the slaps, -blinking. - -“Really,” he protested, “_really_....” - -Insincere? Perhaps it was half true. Lypiatt seized his man more -furiously than before and shook him, shook him. “And then that vile -insult about the vermouth advertisement,” he cried out. That had -rankled. Those flaring, vulgar posters! “You thought you could mock me -and spit at me with impunity, did you? I’ve stood it so long, you -thought I’d always stand it? Was that it? But you’re mistaken.” He -lifted his fist. Mr. Mercaptan cowered away, raising his arm to protect -his head. “Vile bug of a coward,” said Lypiatt, “why don’t you defend -yourself like a man? You can only be dangerous with words. Very witty -and spiteful and cutting about those vermouth posters, wasn’t it? But -you wouldn’t dare to fight me if I challenged you.” - -“Well, as a matter of _fact_,” said Mr. Mercaptan, peering up from under -his defences, “I didn’t invent _that_ particular piece of criticism. I -borrowed the _apéritif_.” He laughed feebly, more canary than bull. - -“You borrowed it, did you?” Lypiatt contemptuously repeated. “And who -from, may I ask?” Not that it interested him in the least to know. - -“Well, if you really _want_ to know,” said Mr. Mercaptan, “it was from -our friend Myra Viveash.” - -Lypiatt stood for a moment without speaking, then putting his menacing -hand in his pocket, he turned away. “Oh!” he said noncommittally, and -was silent again. - -Relieved, Mr. Mercaptan sat up in his chair; with the palm of his right -hand he smoothed his dishevelled head. - -Airily, outside in the sunshine, Rosie walked down Sloane Street, -looking at the numbers on the doors of the houses. A hundred and -ninety-nine, two hundred, two hundred and one—she was getting near now. -Perhaps all the people who passed, strolling so easily and elegantly and -disengagedly along, perhaps they all of them carried behind their eyes a -secret, as delightful and amusing as hers. Rosie liked to think so; it -made life more exciting. How nonchalantly distinguished, Rosie -reflected, she herself must look. Would any one who saw her now, -sauntering along like this, would any one guess that, ten houses farther -down the street, a young poet, or at least very nearly a young poet, was -waiting, on the second floor, eagerly for her arrival? Of course they -wouldn’t and couldn’t guess! That was the fun and the enormous -excitement of the whole thing. Formidable in her light-hearted -detachment, formidable in the passion which at will she could give rein -to and check again, the great lady swam beautifully along through the -sunlight to satisfy her caprice. Like Diana, she stooped over the -shepherd boy. Eagerly the starving young poet waited, waited in his -garret. Two hundred and twelve, two hundred and thirteen. Rosie looked -at the entrance and was reminded that the garret couldn’t after all be -very sordid, nor the young poet absolutely starving. She stepped in and, -standing in the hall, looked at the board with the names. Ground floor: -Mrs. Budge. First floor: F. de M. Rowbotham. Second floor: P. Mercaptan. - -P. Mercaptan.... But it was a charming name, a romantic name, a real -young poet’s name! Mercaptan—she felt more than ever pleased with her -selection. The fastidious lady could not have had a happier caprice. -Mercaptan ... Mercaptan.... She wondered what the P. stood for. Peter, -Philip, Patrick, Pendennis even? She could hardly have guessed that Mr. -Mercaptan’s father, the eminent bacteriologist, had insisted, -thirty-four years ago, on calling his first-born ‘Pasteur.’ - -A little tremulous, under her outward elegant calm, Rosie mounted the -stairs. Twenty-five steps to the first floor—one flight of thirteen, -which was rather disagreeably ominous, and one of twelve. Then two -flights of eleven, and she was on the second landing, facing a front -door, a bell-push like a round eye, a brass name-plate. For a great lady -thoroughly accustomed to this sort of thing, she felt her heart beating -rather unpleasantly fast. It was those stairs, no doubt. She halted a -moment, took two deep breaths, then pushed the bell. - -The door was opened by an aged servant of the most forbiddingly -respectable appearance. - -“Mr. Mercaptan at home?” - -The person at the door burst at once into a long, rambling, angry -complaint, but precisely about what Rosie could not for certain make -out. Mr. Mercaptan had left orders, she gathered, that he wasn’t to be -disturbed. But some one had come and disturbed him, “fairly shoved his -way in, so rude and inconsiderate,” all the same. And now he’d been once -disturbed, she didn’t see why he shouldn’t be disturbed again. But she -didn’t know what things were coming to if people fairly shoved their way -in like that. Bolshevism, she called it. - -Rosie murmured her sympathies, and was admitted into a dark hall. Still -querulously denouncing the Bolsheviks who came shoving in, the person -led the way down a corridor and, throwing open a door, announced, in a -tone of grievance: “A lady to see you, Master Paster”—for Mrs. Goldie -was an old family retainer, and one of the few who knew the Secret of -Mr. Mercaptan’s Christian name, one of the fewer still who were -privileged to employ it. Then, as soon as Rosie had stepped across the -threshold, she cut off her retreat with a bang and went off, muttering -all the time, towards her kitchen. - -It certainly wasn’t a garret. Half a glance, the first whiff of -pot-pourri, the feel of the carpet beneath her feet, had been enough to -prove that. But it was not the room which occupied Rosie’s attention, it -was its occupants. One of them, thin, sharp-featured and, in Rosie’s -very young eyes, quite old, was standing with an elbow on the -mantelpiece. The other, sleeker and more genial in appearance, was -sitting in front of a writing-desk near the window. And neither of -them—Rosie glanced desperately from one to the other, hoping vainly that -she might have overlooked a blond beard—neither of them was Toto. - -The sleek man at the writing-desk got up, advanced to meet her. - -“An unexpected pleasure,” he said, in a voice that alternately boomed -and fluted. “_Too_ delightful! But to what do I owe——? _Who_, may I -ask——?” - -He had held out his hand; automatically Rosie proffered hers. The sleek -man shook it with cordiality, almost with tenderness. - -“I ... I think I must have made a mistake,” she said. “Mr. -Mercaptan...?” - -The sleek man smiled. “I am Mr. Mercaptan.” - -“You live on the second floor?” - -“I never laid claims to being a mathematician,” said the sleek man, -smiling as though to applaud himself, “but I have always calculated -that ...” he hesitated ... “_enfin, que ma demeure se trouve, en effet_, -on the second floor. Lypiatt will bear me out, I’m sure.” He turned to -the thin man, who had not moved from the fireplace, but had stood all -the time motionlessly, his elbow on the mantelpiece, looking gloomily at -the ground. - -Lypiatt looked up. “I must be going,” he said abruptly. And he walked -towards the door. Like vermouth posters, like vermouth posters!—so that -was Myra’s piece of mockery! All his anger had sunk like a quenched -flame. He was altogether quenched, put out with unhappiness. - -Politely Mr. Mercaptan hurried across the room and opened the door for -him. “_Good_-bye, then,” he said airily. - -Lypiatt did not speak, but walked out into the hall. The front door -banged behind him. - -“Well, _well_,” said Mr. Mercaptan, coming back across the room to where -Rosie was still irresolutely standing. “Talk about the _furor poeticus_! -But _do_ sit down, I beg you. On Crébillon.” He indicated the vast white -satin sofa. “I call it Crébillon,” he explained, “because the soul of -that great writer undoubtedly tenants it, _undoubtedly_. You know his -book, of course? You know _Le Sopha_?” - -Sinking into Crébillon’s soft lap, Rosie had to admit that she didn’t -know _Le Sopha_. She had begun to recover her self-possession. If this -wasn’t _the_ young poet, it was certainly _a_ young poet. And a very -peculiar one, too. As a great lady she laughingly accepted the odd -situation. - -“Not know _Le Sopha_?” exclaimed Mr. Mercaptan. “Oh! but, my dear and -mysterious young lady, let me lend you a copy of it at once. _No_ -education can be called _complete_ without a knowledge of that divine -book.” He darted to the bookshelf and came back with a small volume -bound in white vellum. “The hero’s soul,” he explained, handing her the -volume, “passes, by the laws of metempsychosis, into a sofa. He is -doomed to remain a sofa until such time as two persons consummate upon -his bosom their reciprocal and equal loves. The book is the record of -the poor sofa’s hopes and disappointments.” - -“Dear me!” said Rosie, looking at the title-page. - -“But now,” said Mr. Mercaptan, sitting down beside her on the edge of -Crébillon, “won’t you please explain? To what happy quiproquo do I owe -this sudden and altogether delightful invasion of my privacy?” - -“Well,” said Rosie, and hesitated. It was really rather difficult to -explain. “I was to meet a friend of mine.” - -“Quite so,” said Mr. Mercaptan encouragingly. - -“Who sent me a telegram,” Rosie went on. - -“He sent you a telegram!” Mr. Mercaptan echoed. - -“Changing the—the place we had fixed and telling me to meet him at this -address.” - -“Here?” - -Rose nodded. “On the s—second floor,” she made it more precise. - -“But _I_ live on the second floor,” said Mr. Mercaptan. “You don’t mean -to say your friend is also called Mercaptan and lives here too?” - -Rosie smiled. “I don’t know what he’s called,” she said with a cool -ironical carelessness that was genuinely _grande dame_. - -“You don’t know his name?” Mr. Mercaptan gave a roar and a squeal of -delighted laughter. “But that’s _too_ good,” he said. - -“S—second floor, he wrote in the telegram.” Rosie was now perfectly at -her ease. “When I saw your name, I thought it was his name. I must say,” -she added, looking sideways at Mr. Mercaptan and at once dropping the -magnolia petals of her eyelids, “it seemed to me a very charming name.” - -“You overwhelm me,” said Mr. Mercaptan, smiling all over his cheerful, -snouty face. “As for _your_ name—I am too discreet a _galantuomo_ to -ask. And, in any case, what _does_ it matter? A rose by any other -name....” - -“But, as a matter of fact,” she said, raising and lowering once again -her smooth, white lids, “my name does happen to be Rose; or, at any -rate, Rosie.” - -“So you are sweet by right!” exclaimed Mr. Mercaptan, with a pretty -gallantry which he was the first to appreciate. “Let’s order tea on the -strength of it.” He jumped up and rang the bell. “How I congratulate -myself on this astonishing piece of good fortune!” - -Rosie said nothing. This Mr. Mercaptan, she thought, seemed to be even -more a man of the great artistic world than Toto. - -“What puzzles me,” he went on, “is why your anonymous friend should have -chosen my address out of all the millions of others. He must know me, -or, at any rate, know about me.” - -“I should imagine,” said Rosie, “that you have a lot of friends.” - -Mr. Mercaptan laughed—the whole orchestra, from bassoon to piccolo. -“_Des amis, des amies_—with and without the mute ‘e,’” he declared. - -The aged and forbidding servant appeared at the door. - -“Tea for two, Mrs. Goldie.” - -Mrs. Goldie looked round the room suspiciously. “The other gentleman’s -gone, has he?” she asked. And having assured herself of his absence, she -renewed her complaint. “Shoving in like that,” she said. “Bolshevism, -that’s what I——” - -“All right, all right, Mrs. Goldie. Let’s have our tea as quickly as -possible.” Mr. Mercaptan held up his hand, authoritatively, with the -gesture of a policeman controlling the traffic. - -“Very well, Master Paster.” Mrs. Goldie spoke with resignation and -departed. - -“But tell me,” Mr. Mercaptan went on, “if it _isn’t_ indiscreet—what -does your friend look like?” - -“W—well,” Rosie answered, “he’s fair, and though he’s quite young he -wears a beard.” With her two hands she indicated on her own unemphatic -bosom the contours of Toto’s broad blond fan. - -“A beard! But, good heavens,” Mr. Mercaptan slapped his thigh, “it’s -Coleman, it’s obviously and undoubtedly Coleman!” - -“Well, whoever it was,” said Rosie severely, “he played a very stupid -sort of joke.” - -“For which I thank him. _De tout mon cœur._” - -Rosie smiled and looked sideways. “All the same,” she said, “I shall -give him a piece of my mind.” - -Poor Aunt Aggie! Oh, poor Aunt Aggie, indeed! In the light of Mr. -Mercaptan’s boudoir her hammered copper and her leadless glaze certainly -did look a bit comical. - -After tea Mr. Mercaptan played cicerone in a tour of inspection round -the room. They visited the papier mâché writing-desk, the Condor fans, -the Marie Laurencin, the 1914 edition of _Du Côté de chez Swann_, the -Madonna that probably was a fake, the nigger mask, the Chelsea figures, -the Chinese object of art in sculptured crystal, the scale model of -Queen Victoria in wax under a glass bell. Toto, it became clear, had -been no more than a forerunner; the definitive revelation was Mr. -Mercaptan’s. Yes, poor Aunt Aggie! And indeed, when Mr. Mercaptan began -to read her his little middle on the “Droit du Seigneur,” it was poor -everybody. Poor mother, with her absurd, old-fashioned, prudish views; -poor, earnest father, with his Unitarianism, his _Hibbert Journal_, his -letters to the papers about the necessity for a spiritual regeneration. - -“Bravo!” she cried from the depths of Crébillon. She was leaning back in -one corner, languid, serpentine, and at ease, her feet in their mottled -snake’s leather tucked up under her. “Bravo!” she cried as Mr. Mercaptan -finished his reading and looked up for his applause. - -Mr. Mercaptan bowed. - -“You express so exquisitely what we——” and waving her hand in a -comprehensive gesture, she pictured to herself all the other fastidious -ladies, all the marchionesses of fable, reclining, as she herself at -this moment reclined, on upholstery of white satin, “what we all only -feel and aren’t clever enough to say.” - -Mr. Mercaptan was charmed. He got up from before his writing-desk, -crossed the room and sat down beside her on Crébillon. “Feeling,” he -said, “is the im_port_ant thing.” - -Rosie remembered that her father had once remarked, in blank verse: ‘The -things that matter happen in the heart.’ - -“I quite agree,” she said. - -Like movable raisins in the suet of his snouty face, Mr. Mercaptan’s -brown little eyes rolled amorous avowals. He took Rosie’s hand and -kissed it. Crébillon creaked discreetly as he moved a little nearer. - -It was only the evening of the same day. Rosie lay on her sofa—a poor, -hire-purchase thing indeed, compared with Mr. Mercaptan’s grand affair -in white satin and carved and gilded wood, but still a sofa—lay with her -feet on the arm of it and her long suave legs exposed, by the slipping -of the kimono, to the top of her stretched stockings. She was reading -the little vellum-jacketed volume of Crébillon, which Mr. Mercaptan had -given her when he said ‘good-bye’ (or rather, ‘_À bientôt, mon amie_’); -given, not lent, as he had less generously offered at the beginning of -their afternoon; given with the most graceful of allusive dedications -inscribed on the fly-leaf: - - To - - BY-NO-OTHER-NAME-AS-SWEET, - - WITH GRATITUDE, - - FROM - - CRÉBILLON DELIVERED. - -_À bientôt_—she had promised to come again very soon. She thought of the -essay on the “Jus Primæ Noctis”—ah! what we’ve all been feeling and none -of us clever enough to say. We on the sofas, ruthless, lovely and -fastidious.... - -“I am proud to constitute myself”—Mr. Mercaptan had said of -it—“_l’esprit d’escalier des dames galantes_.” - -Rosie was not quite sure what he meant; but it certainly sounded very -witty indeed. - -She read the book slowly. Her French, indeed, wasn’t good enough to -permit her to read it anyhow else. She wished it were better. Perhaps it -if were better she wouldn’t be yawning like this. It was disgraceful: -she pulled herself together. Mr. Mercaptan had said that, it was a -masterpiece. - -In his study, Shearwater was trying to write his paper on the regulative -functions of the kidneys. He was not succeeding. - -Why wouldn’t she see me yesterday? he kept wondering. With anguish he -suspected other lovers; desired her, in consequence, the more. Gumbril -had said something, he remembered, that night they had met her by the -coffee-stall. What was it? He wished now that he had listened more -attentively. - -She’s bored with me. Already. It was obvious. - -Perhaps he was too rustic for her. Shearwater looked at his hands. Yes, -the nails _were_ dirty. He took an orange stick out of his waistcoat -pocket and began to clean them. He had bought a whole packet of orange -sticks that morning. - -Determinedly he took up his pen. “The hydrogen ion concentration in the -blood ...” he began a new paragraph. But he got no further than the -first seven words. - -If, he began thinking with a frightful confusion, if—if—if—— Past -conditionals, hopelessly past. He might have been brought up more -elegantly; his father, for example, might have been a barrister instead -of a barrister’s clerk. He mightn’t have had to work so hard when he was -young; might have been about more, danced more, seen more young women. -If he had met her years ago—during the war, should one say, dressed in -the uniform of a lieutenant in the Guards.... - -He had pretended that he wasn’t interested in women; that they had no -effect on him; that, in fact, he was above that sort of thing. Imbecile! -He might as well have said that he was above having a pair of kidneys. -He had only consented to admit, graciously, that they were a -physiological necessity. - -O God, what a fool he had been! - -And then, what about Rosie? What sort of a life had she been having -while he was being above that sort of thing? Now he came to think of it, -he really knew nothing about her, except that she had been quite -incapable of learning correctly, even by heart, the simplest facts about -the physiology of frogs. Having found that out, he had really given up -exploring further. How could he have been so stupid? - -Rosie had been in love with him, he supposed. Had he been in love with -her? No. He had taken care not to be. On principle. He had married her -as a measure of intimate hygiene; out of protective affection, too, -certainly out of affection; and a little for amusement, as one might buy -a puppy. - -Mrs. Viveash had opened his eyes; seeing her, he had also begun to -notice Rosie. It seemed to him that he had been a loutish cad as well as -an imbecile. - -What should he do about it? He sat for a long time wondering. - -In the end he decided that the best thing would be to go and tell Rosie -all about it, all about everything. - -About Mrs. Viveash too? Yes, about Mrs. Viveash too. He would get over -Mrs. Viveash more easily and more rapidly if he did. And he would begin -to try and find out about Rosie. He would explore her. He would discover -all the other things besides an incapacity to learn physiology that were -in her. He would discover her, he would quicken his affection for her -into something livelier and more urgent. And they would begin again; -more satisfactorily this time; with knowledge and understanding; wise -from their experience. - -Shearwater got up from his chair before the writing-table, lurched -pensively towards the door, bumping into the revolving bookcase and the -arm-chair as he went, and walked down the passage to the drawing-room. -Rosie did not turn her head as he came in, but went on reading without -changing her position, her slippered feet still higher than her head, -her legs still charmingly avowing themselves. - -Shearwater came to a halt in front of the empty fireplace. He stood -there with his back to it, as though warming himself before an imaginary -flame. It was, he felt, the safest, the most strategic point from which -to talk. - -“What are you reading?” he asked. - -“_Le Sopha_,” said Rosie. - -“What’s that?” - -“What’s that?” Rosie scornfully echoed. “Why, it’s one of the great -French classics.” - -“Who by?” - -“Crébillon the younger.” - -“Never heard of him,” said Shearwater. There was a silence. Rosie went -on reading. - -“It just occurred to me,” Shearwater began again in his rather -ponderous, infelicitous way, “that you mightn’t be very happy, Rosie.” - -Rosie looked up at him and laughed. “What put that into your head?” she -asked. “_I_’m perfectly happy.” - -Shearwater was left a little at a loss. “Well, I’m very glad to hear -it,” he said. “I only thought ... that perhaps _you_ might think ... -that _I_ rather neglected you.” - -Rosie laughed again. “What is all this about?” she said. - -“I have it rather on my conscience,” said Shearwater. “I begin to -see ... something has made me see ... that I’ve not.... I don’t treat -you very well....” - -“But I don’t n—notice it, I assure you,” put in Rosie, still smiling. - -“I leave you out too much,” Shearwater went on with a kind of -desperation, running his fingers through his thick brown hair. “We don’t -share enough together. You’re too much outside my life.” - -“But after all,” said Rosie, “we are a civ—vilized couple. We don’t want -to live in one another’s pockets, do we?” - -“No, but we’re really no more than strangers,” said Shearwater. “That -isn’t right. And it’s my fault. I’ve never tried to get into touch with -your life. But you did your best to understand mine ... at the beginning -of our marriage.” - -“Oh, _then—n_!” said Rosie, laughing. “You found out what a little idiot -I was.” - -“Don’t make a joke of it,” said Shearwater. “It isn’t a joke. It’s very -serious. I tell you, I’ve come to see how stupid and inconsiderate and -un-understanding I’ve been with you. I’ve come to see quite suddenly. -The fact is,” he went on with a rush, like an uncorked fountain, “I’ve -been seeing a woman recently whom I like very much, and who doesn’t like -me.” Speaking of Mrs. Viveash, unconsciously he spoke her language. For -Mrs. Viveash people always euphemistically ‘liked’ one another rather a -lot, even when it was a case of the most frightful and excruciating -passion, the most complete abandonments. “And somehow that’s made me see -a lot of things which I’d been blind to before—blind deliberately, I -suppose. It’s made me see, among other things, that I’ve really been to -blame towards you, Rosie.” - -Rosie listened with an astonishment which she perfectly disguised. So -James was embarking on his little affairs, was he? It seemed incredible, -and also, as she looked at her husband’s face—the face behind its -bristlingly manly mask of a harassed baby—also rather pathetically -absurd. She wondered who it could be. But she displayed no curiosity. -She would find out soon enough. - -“I’m sorry you should have been unhappy about it,” she said. - -“It’s finished now.” Shearwater made a decided little gesture. - -“Ah, no!” said Rosie. “You should persevere.” She looked at him, -smiling. - -Shearwater was taken aback by this display of easy detachment. He had -imagined the conversation so very differently, as something so serious, -so painful and, at the same time, so healing and soothing, that he did -not know how to go on. “But I thought,” he said hesitatingly, “that -you ... that we ... after this experience ... I would try to get closer -to you....” (Oh, it sounded ridiculous!) ... “We might start again, from -a different place, so to speak.” - -“But, _cher ami_,” protested Rosie, with the inflection and in the -preferred tongue of Mr. Mercaptan, “you can’t seriously expect us to do -the Darby and Joan business, can you? You’re distressing yourself quite -unnecessarily on my account. I don’t find you neglect me or anything -like it. You have your life—naturally. And I have mine. We don’t get in -one another’s way.” - -“But do you think that’s the ideal sort of married life?” asked -Shearwater. - -“It’s obviously the most civ—vilized,” Rosie answered, laughing. - -Confronted by Rosie’s civilization, Shearwater felt helpless. - -“Well, if you don’t want,” he said. “I’d hoped ... I’d thought....” - -He went back to his study to think things over. The more he thought them -over, the more he blamed himself. And incessantly the memory of Mrs. -Viveash tormented him. - - - - - CHAPTER XIX - - -After leaving Mr. Mercaptan, Lypiatt had gone straight home. The bright -day seemed to deride him. With its shining red omnibuses, its parasols, -its muslin girls, its young-leaved trees, its bands at the street -corners, it was too much of a garden party to be tolerable. He wanted to -be alone. He took a cab back to the studio. He couldn’t afford it, of -course; but what did that matter, what did that matter now? - -The cab drove slowly and as though with reluctance down the dirty mews. -He paid it off, opened his little door between the wide stable doors, -climbed the steep ladder of his stairs and was at home. He sat down and -tried to think. - -“Death, death, death, death,” he kept repeating to himself, moving his -lips as though he were praying. If he said the word often enough, if he -accustomed himself completely to the idea, death would come almost by -itself; he would know it already, while he was still alive, he would -pass almost without noticing out of life into death. Into death, he -thought, into death. Death like a well. The stone falls, falls, second -after second; and at last there is a sound, a far-off, horrible sound of -death and then nothing more. The well at Carisbrooke, with a donkey to -wind the wheel that pulls up the bucket of water, of icy water.... He -thought for a long time of the well of death. - -Outside in the mews a barrel-organ struck up the tune of ‘Where do flies -go in the winter-time?’ Lypiatt lifted his head to listen. He smiled to -himself. ‘Where _do_ flies go?’ The question asked itself with a -dramatic, a tragical appositeness. At the end of everything—the last -ludicrous touch. He saw it all from outside. He pictured himself sitting -there alone, broken. He looked at his hand lying limp on the table in -front of him. It needed only the stigma of the nail to make it the hand -of a dead Christ. - -There, he was making literature of it again. Even now. He buried his -face in his hands. His mind was full of twisted darkness, of an -unspeakable, painful confusion. It was too difficult, too difficult. - -The inkpot, he found when he wanted to begin writing, contained nothing -but a parched black sediment. He had been meaning for days past to get -some more ink; and he had always forgotten. He would have to write in -pencil. - -“Do you remember,” he wrote, “do you remember, Myra, that time we went -down into the country—you remember—under the Hog’s Back at that little -inn they were trying to make pretentious? ‘Hotel Bull’—do you remember? -How we laughed over the Hotel Bull! And how we liked the country outside -its doors! All the world in a few square miles. Chalk-pits and blue -butterflies on the Hog’s Back. And at the foot of the hill, suddenly, -the sand; the hard, yellow sand with those queer caves, dug when and by -what remote villains at the edge of the Pilgrims’ Way? the fine grey -sand on which the heather of Puttenham Common grows. And the flagstaff -and the inscription marking the place where Queen Victoria stood to look -at the view. And the enormous sloping meadows round Compton and the -thick, dark woods. And the lakes, the heaths, the Scotch firs at Cutt -Mill. The forests of Shackleford. There was everything. Do you remember -how we enjoyed it all? I did, in any case. I was happy during those -three days. And I loved you, Myra. And I thought you might, you might -perhaps, some day, love me. You didn’t. And my love has only brought me -unhappiness. Perhaps it has been my fault. Perhaps I ought to have known -how to make you give me happiness. You remember that wonderful sonnet of -Michelangelo’s, where he says that the loved woman is like a block of -marble from which the artist knows how to cut the perfect statue of his -dreams. If the statue turns out a bad one, if it’s death instead of love -that the lover gets—why, the fault lies in the artist and in the lover, -not in the marble, not in the beloved. - - Amor dunque non ha, ne tua beltate, - O fortuna, o durezza, o gran disdegno, - Del mio mal colpa, o mio destino, o sorte. - - Se dentro del tuo cor morte e pietate - Porti in un tempo, e ch’l mio basso ingegno - Non sappia ardendo trarne altro che morte. - -Yes, it was my _basso ingegno_: my low genius which did not know how to -draw love from you, nor beauty from the materials of which art is made. -Ah, now you’ll smile to yourself and say: Poor Casimir, he has come to -admit that at last? Yes, yes, I have come to admit everything. That I -couldn’t paint, I couldn’t write, I couldn’t make music. That I was a -charlatan and a quack. That I was a ridiculous actor of heroic parts who -deserved to be laughed at—and _was_ laughed at. But then every man is -ludicrous if you look at him from outside, without taking into account -what’s going on in his heart and mind. You could turn Hamlet into an -epigrammatic farce with an inimitable scene when he takes his adored -mother in adultery. You could make the wittiest Guy de Maupassant short -story out of the life of Christ, by contrasting the mad rabbi’s -pretensions with his abject fate. It’s a question of the point of view. -Every one’s a walking farce and a walking tragedy at the same time. The -man who slips on a banana-skin and fractures his skull describes against -the sky, as he falls, the most richly comical arabesque. And you, -Myra—what do you suppose the unsympathetic gossips say of you? What sort -of a farce of the Boulevards is your life in their eyes? For me, Myra, -you seem to move all the time through some nameless and incomprehensible -tragedy. For them you are what? Merely any sort of a wanton, with -amusing adventures. And what am I? A charlatan, a quack, a pretentious, -boasting, rhodomontading imbecile, incapable of painting anything but -vermouth posters. (Why did that hurt so terribly? I don’t know. There -was no reason why you shouldn’t think so if you wanted to.) I was all -that,—and grotesquely laughable. And very likely your laughter was -justified, your judgment was true. I don’t know. I can’t tell. Perhaps I -am a charlatan. Perhaps I’m insincere; boasting to others, deceiving -myself. I don’t know, I tell you. Everything is confusion in my mind -now. The whole fabric seems to have tumbled to pieces; it lies in a -horrible chaos. I can make no order within myself. Have I lied to -myself? have I acted and postured the Great Man to persuade myself that -I am one? have I something in me, or nothing? have I ever achieved -anything of worth, anything that rhymed with my conceptions, my dreams -(for those were fine; of that, I _am_ certain)? I look into the chaos -that is my soul and, I tell you, I don’t know, I don’t know. But what I -do know is that I’ve spent nearly twenty years now playing the charlatan -at whom you all laugh. That I’ve suffered, in mind and in body -too—almost from hunger, sometimes—in order to play it. That I’ve -struggled, that I’ve exultantly climbed to the attack, that I’ve been -thrown down—ah, many times!—that I’ve picked myself up and started -again. Well, I suppose all that’s ludicrous, if you like to think of it -that way. It is ludicrous that a man should put himself to prolonged -inconvenience for the sake of something which doesn’t really exist at -all. It’s exquisitely comic, I can see. I can see it in the abstract, so -to speak. But in this particular case, you must remember I’m not a -dispassionate observer. And if I am overcome now, it is not with -laughter. It is with an indescribable unhappiness, with the bitterness -of death itself. Death, death, death. I repeat the word to myself, again -and again. I think of death, I try to imagine it, I hang over it, -looking down, where the stones fall and fall and there is one horrible -noise, and then silence again; looking down into the well of death. It -is so deep that there is no glittering eye of water to be seen at the -bottom. I have no candle to send down. It is horrible, but I do not want -to go on living. Living would be worse than....” - -Lypiatt was reaching out for another sheet of paper when he was startled -to hear the sound of feet on the stairs. He turned towards the door. His -heart beat with violence. He was filled with a strange sense of -apprehension. In terror he awaited the approach of some unknown and -terrible being. The feet of the angel of death were on the stairs. Up, -up, up. Lypiatt felt himself trembling as the sound came nearer. He knew -for certain that in a few seconds he was going to die. The hangmen had -already pinioned him; the soldiers of the firing squad had already -raised their rifles. One, two, ... he thought of Mrs. Viveash standing, -bare-headed, the wind blowing in her hair, at the foot of the flagstaff -from the site of which Queen Victoria had admired the distant view of -Selborne; he thought of her dolorously smiling; he remembered that once -she had taken his head between her two hands and kissed him: ‘Because -you’re such a golden ass,’ she had said, laughing. Three.... There was a -little tap at the door. Lypiatt pressed his hand over his heart. The -door opened. - -A small, bird-like man with a long, sharp nose and eyes as round and -black and shining as buttons stepped into the room. - -“Mr. Lydgate, I presume?” he began. Then looked at a card on which a -name and address were evidently written. “Lypiatt, I mean. A thousand -pardons. Mr. Lypiatt, I presume?” - -Lypiatt leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes. His face was as -white as paper. He breathed hard and his temples were wet with sweat, as -though he had been running. - -“I found the door down below open, so I came straight up. I hope you’ll -excuse....” The stranger smiled apologetically. - -“Who are you?” Lypiatt asked, reopening his eyes. His heart was still -beating hard; after the storm it calmed itself slowly. He drew back from -the brink of the fearful well; the time had not yet come to plunge. - -“My name,” said the stranger, “is Boldero, Herbert Boldero. Our mutual -friend Mr. Gumbril, Mr. Theodore Gumbril, junior,” he made it more -precise, “suggested that I might come and see you about a little matter -in which he and I are interested and in which perhaps you, too, might be -interested.” - -Lypiatt nodded, without saying anything. - -Mr. Boldero, meanwhile, was turning his bright, bird-like eyes about the -studio. Mrs. Viveash’s portrait, all but finished now, was clamped to -the easel. He approached it, a connoisseur. - -“It reminds me very much,” he said, “of Bacosso. Very much indeed, if I -may say so. Also a little of ...” he hesitated, trying to think of the -name of that other fellow Gumbril had talked about. But being unable to -remember the unimpressive syllables of Derain he played for safety and -said—“of Orpen.” Mr. Boldero looked inquiringly at Lypiatt to see if -that was right. - -Lypiatt still spoke no word and seemed, indeed, not to have heard what -had been said. - -Mr. Boldero saw that it wasn’t much good talking about modern art. This -chap, he thought, looked as though something were wrong with him. He -hoped he hadn’t got influenza. There was a lot of the disease about. -“This little affair I was speaking of,” he pursued, in another tone, “is -a little business proposition that Mr. Gumbril and I have gone into -together. A matter of pneumatic trousers,” he waved his hand airily. - -Lypiatt suddenly burst out laughing, an embittered Titan. Where do flies -go? Where do souls go? The barrel-organ, and now pneumatic trousers! -Then, as suddenly, he was silent again. More literature? Another piece -of acting? “Go on,” he said, “I’m sorry.” - -“Not at all, not at all,” said Mr. Boldero indulgently. “I know the idea -does seem a little humorous, if I may say so, at first. But I assure -you, there’s money in it, Mr. Lydgate—Mr. Lypiatt. Money!” Mr. Boldero -paused a moment dramatically. “Well,” he went on, “our idea was to -launch the new product with a good swingeing publicity campaign. Spend a -few thousands in the papers and then get it good and strong into the -Underground and on the hoardings, along with Owbridge’s and John Bull -and the Golden Ballot. Now, for that, Mr. Lypiatt, we shall need, as you -can well imagine, a few good striking pictures. Mr. Gumbril mentioned -your name and suggested I should come and see you to find out if you -would perhaps be agreeable to lending us your talent for this work. And -I may add, Mr. Lypiatt,” he spoke with real warmth, “that having seen -this example of your work”—he pointed to the portrait of Mrs. Viveash—“I -feel that you would be eminently capable of....” - -He did not finish the sentence; for at this moment Lypiatt leapt up from -his chair and, making a shrill, inarticulate, animal noise, rushed on -the financier, seized him with both hands by the throat, shook him, -threw him to the floor, then picked him up again by the coat collar and -pushed him towards the door, kicking him as he went. A final kick sent -Mr. Boldero tobogganing down the steep stairs. Lypiatt ran down after -him; but Mr. Boldero had picked himself up, had opened the front door, -slipped out, slammed it behind him, and was running up the mews before -Lypiatt could get to the bottom of the stairs. - -Lypiatt opened the door and looked out. Mr. Boldero was already far -away, almost at the Piranesian arch. He watched him till he was out of -sight, then went upstairs again and threw himself face downwards on his -bed. - - - - - CHAPTER XX - - -Zoe ended the discussion by driving half an inch of pen-knife into -Coleman’s left arm and running out of the flat, slamming the door behind -her. Coleman was used to this sort of thing; this sort of thing, indeed, -was what he was there for. Carefully he pulled out the pen-knife which -had remained sticking in his arm. He looked at the blade and was -relieved to see that it wasn’t so dirty as might have been expected. He -found some cotton-wool, mopped up the blood as it oozed out, and dabbed -the wound with iodine. Then he set himself to bandage it up. But to tie -a bandage round one’s own left arm is not easy. Coleman found it -impossible to keep the lint in place, impossible to get the bandage -tight enough. At the end of a quarter of an hour he had only succeeded -in smearing himself very copiously with blood, and the wound was still -unbound. He gave up the attempt and contented himself with swabbing up -the blood as it came out. - -“And forthwith came there out blood and water,” he said aloud, and -looked at the red stain on the cotton wool. He repeated the words again -and again, and at the fiftieth repetition burst out laughing. - -The bell in the kitchen suddenly buzzed. Who could it be? He went to the -front door and opened it. On the landing outside stood a tall slender -young woman with slanting Chinese eyes and a wide mouth, elegantly -dressed in a black frock piped with white. Keeping the cotton-wool still -pressed to his bleeding arm, Coleman bowed as gracefully as he could. - -“Do come in,” he said. “You are just in the nick of time. I am on the -point of bleeding to death. And forthwith came there out blood and -water. Enter, enter,” he added, seeing the young woman still standing -irresolutely on the threshold. - -“But I wanted to see Mr. Coleman,” she said, stammering a little and -showing her embarrassment by blushing. - -“I am Mr. Coleman.” He took the cotton-wool for a moment from his arm -and looked with the air of a connoisseur at the blood on it. “But I -shall very soon cease to be that individual unless you come and tie up -my wounds.” - -“But you’re not the Mr. Coleman I thought you were,” said the young -lady, still more embarrassed. “You have a beard, it is true; but....” - -“Then I must resign myself to quit this life, must I?” He made a gesture -of despair, throwing out both hands, “Out, out brief Coleman. Out, -damned spot,” and he made as though to close the door. - -The young lady checked him. “If you really need tying up,” she said, -“I’ll do it of course. I passed my First-Aid Exam, in the war.” - -Coleman reopened the door. “Saved!” he said. “Come in.” - -It had been Rosie’s original intention yesterday to go straight on from -Mr. Mercaptan’s to Toto’s. She would see him at once, she would ask him -what he meant by playing that stupid trick on her. She would give him a -good talking to. She would even tell him that she would never see him -again. But, of course, if he showed himself sufficiently contrite and -reasonably explanatory, she would consent—oh, very reluctantly—to take -him back into favour. In the free, unprejudiced circles in which she now -moved, this sort of joke, she imagined, was a mere trifle. It would be -absurd to quarrel seriously about it. But still, she was determined to -give Toto a lesson. - -When, however, she did finally leave Mr. Mercaptan’s delicious boudoir, -it was too late to think of going all the way to Pimlico, to the address -which Mr. Mercaptan had given her. She decided to put it off till the -next day. - -And so the next day, duly, she had set out for Pimlico—to Pimlico, and -to see a man called Coleman! It seemed rather dull and second-rate after -Sloane Street and Mr. Mercaptan. Poor Toto!—the sparkle of Mr. Mercaptan -had made him look rather tarnished. That essay on the “Jus Primæ -Noctis”—ah! Walking through the unsavoury mazes of Pimlico, she thought -of it, and, thinking of it, smiled. Poor Toto! And also, she mustn’t -forget, stupid, malicious, idiotic Toto! She had made up her mind -exactly what she should say to him; she had even made up her mind what -Toto would say to her. And when the scene was over they would go and -dine at the Café Royal—upstairs, where she had never been. And she would -make him rather jealous by telling him how much she had liked Mr. -Mercaptan; but not too jealous. Silence is golden, as her father used to -say when she used to fly into tempers and wanted to say nasty things to -everybody within range. Silence, about some things, is certainly golden. - -In the rather gloomy little turning off Lupus Street to which she had -been directed, Rosie found the number, found, in the row of bells and -cards, the name. Quickly and decidedly she mounted the stairs. - -“Well,” she was going to say as soon as she saw him, “I thought you were -a civilized being.” Mr. Mercaptan had dropped a hint that Coleman wasn’t -really civilized; a hint was enough for Rosie. “But I see,” she would go -on, “that I was mistaken. I don’t like to associate with boors.” The -fastidious lady had selected him as a young poet, not as a ploughboy. - -Well rehearsed, Rosie rang the bell. And then the door had opened on -this huge bearded Cossack of a man, who smiled, who looked at her with -bright, dangerous eyes, who quoted the Bible and who was bleeding like a -pig. There was blood on his shirt, blood on his trousers, blood on his -hands, bloody finger-marks on his face; even the blond fringe of his -beard, she noticed, was dabbled here and there with blood. It was too -much, at first, even for her aristocratic equanimity. - -In the end, however, she followed him across a little vestibule into a -bright, whitewashed room empty of all furniture but a table, a few -chairs and a large box-spring and mattress, which stood like an island -in the middle of the floor and served as bed or sofa as occasion -required. Over the mantelpiece was pinned a large photographic -reproduction of Leonardo’s study of the anatomy of love. There were no -other pictures on the walls. - -“All the apparatus is here,” said Coleman, and he pointed to the table. -“Lint, bandages, cotton-wool, iodine, gauze, oiled silk. I have them all -ready in preparation for these little accidents.” - -“But do you often manage to cut yourself in the arm?” asked Rosie. She -took off her gloves and began to undo a fresh packet of lint. - -“One gets cut,” Coleman explained. “Little differences of opinion, you -know. If your eye offend you, pluck it out; love your neighbour as -yourself. Argal: if his eye offend you—you see? We live on Christian -principles here.” - -“But who are ‘we’?” asked Rosie, giving the cut a last dressing of -iodine and laying a big square of lint over it. - -“Merely myself and—how shall I put it?—my helpmate,” Coleman answered. -“Ah! you’re wonderfully skilful at this business,” he went on. “You’re -the real hospital nurse type; all maternal instincts. When pain and -anguish wring the brow, an interesting mangle thou, as we used to say in -the good old days when the pun and the Spoonerismus were in fashion.” - -Rosie laughed. “Oh, I don’t spend all my time tying up wounds,” she -said, and turned her eyes for an instant from the bandage. After the -first surprise she was feeling her cool self again. - -“Brava!” cried Coleman. “You make them too, do you? Make them first and -cure them afterwards in the grand old homœopathic way. Delightful! You -see what Leonardo has to say about it.” With his free hand he pointed to -the photograph over the mantelpiece. - -Rosie, who had noticed the picture when she came into the room, -preferred not to look at it too closely a second time. “I think it’s -rather revolting,” she said, and was very busy with the bandage. - -“Ah! but that’s the point, that’s the whole point,” said Coleman, and -his clear blue eyes were alive with dancing lights. “That’s the beauty -of the grand passion. It _is_ revolting. You read what the Fathers of -the Church have to say about love. They’re the men. It was Odo of Cluny, -wasn’t it, who called woman a _saccus stercoris_, a bag of muck. _Si -quis enim considerat quæ intra nares et quæ intra fauces et quæ intra -ventrem lateant, sordes ubique reperiet._” The Latin rumbled like -eloquent thunder in Coleman’s mouth. “_Et si nec extremis digitis flegma -vel stercus tangere patimur, quomodo ipsum stercoris saccum amplecti -desideramus._” He smacked his lips. “Magnificent!” he said. - -“I don’t understand Latin,” said Rosie, “and I’m glad of it. And your -bandage is finished. Look.” - -“Interesting mangle!” Coleman smiled his thanks. “But Bishop Odo, I -fear, wouldn’t even have spared you; not even for your good works. Still -less for your good looks, which would only have provoked him to dwell -with the more insistency on the visceral secrets which they conceal.” - -“Really,” Rosie protested. She would have liked to get up and go away, -but the Cossack’s blue eyes glittered at her with such a strange -expression and he smiled so enigmatically, that she found herself still -sitting where she was, listening with a disgusted pleasure to his quick -talk, his screams of deliberate and appalling laughter. - -“Ah!” he exclaimed, throwing up his hands, “what sensualists these old -fellows were! What a real voluptuous feeling they had for dirt and gloom -and sordidness and boredom, and all the horrors of vice. They pretended -they were trying to dissuade people from vice by enumerating its -horrors. But they were really only making it more spicy by telling the -truth about it. _O esca vermium, O massa pulveris!_ What nauseating -embracements! To conjugate the copulative verb, boringly, with a sack of -tripes—what could be more exquisitely and piercingly and deliriously -vile?” And he threw back his head and laughed; the blood-dabbled tips of -his blond beard shook. Rosie looked at them, fascinated with disgust. - -“There’s blood on your beard,” she felt compelled to say. - -“What of it? Why shouldn’t there be?” Coleman asked. - -Confused, Rosie felt herself blushing. “Only because it’s rather -unpl—leasant. I don’t know why. But it is.” - -“What a reason for immediately falling into my arms!” said Coleman. “To -be kissed by a beard is bad enough at any time. But by a bloody -beard—imagine!” - -Rosie shuddered. - -“After all,” he said, “what interest or amusement is there in doing the -ordinary things in the obvious way? Life _au naturel_.” He shook his -head. “You must have garlic and saffron. Do you believe in God?” - -“Not m—much,” said Rosie, smiling. - -“I pity you. You must find existence dreadfully dull. As soon as you do, -everything becomes a thousand times life-size. Phallic symbols five -hundred feet high,” he lifted his hand. “A row of grinning teeth you -could run the hundred yards on.” He grinned at her through his beard. -“Wounds big enough to let a coach-and-six drive into their purulent -recesses. Every slightest act eternally significant. It’s only when you -believe in God, and especially in hell, that you can really begin -enjoying life. For instance, when in a few moments you surrender -yourself to the importunities of my bloody beard, how prodigiously much -more you’d enjoy it if you could believe you were committing the sin -against the Holy Ghost—if you kept thinking calmly and dispassionately -all the time the affair was going on: All this is not only a horrible -sin, it is also ugly, grotesque, a mere defæcation, a——” - -Rosie held up her hand. “You’re really horrible,” she said. Coleman -smiled at her. Still, she did not go. - -“He who is not with me is against me,” said Coleman. “If you can’t make -up your mind to be with, it’s surely better to be positively against -than merely negatively indifferent.” - -“Nonsense!” exclaimed Rosie feebly. - -“When I call my lover a nymphomaniacal dog, she runs the pen-knife into -my arm.” - -“Well, do you enjoy it?” asked Rosie. - -“Piercingly,” he answered. “It is at once sordid to the last and lowest -degree and infinitely and eternally significant.” - -Coleman was silent and Rosie too said nothing. Futilely she wished it -_had_ been Toto instead of this horrible, dangerous Cossack. Mr. -Mercaptan ought to have warned her. But then, of course, he supposed -that she already knew the creature. She looked up at him and found his -bright eyes fixed upon her; he was silently laughing. - -“Don’t you want to know who I am?” she asked. “And how I got here?” - -Coleman blandly shook his head. “Not in the very least,” he said. - -Rosie felt more helpless, somehow, than ever. “Why not?” she asked as -bravely and impertinently as she could. - -Coleman answered with another question. “Why should I?” - -“It would be natural curiosity.” - -“But I know all I want to know,” he said. “You are a woman, or, at any -rate, you have all the female stigmata. Not too sumptuously -well-developed, let me add. You have no wooden legs. You have eyelids -that flutter up and down over your eyes like a moving shutter in front -of a signalling lamp, spelling out in a familiar code the letters: -A.M.O.R., and not, unless I am very much mistaken, those others: -C.A.S.T.I.T.A.S. You have a mouth that looks as though it knew how to -taste and how to bite. You....” - -Rosie jumped up. “I’m going away,” she said. - -Coleman leaned back in his chair and hallooed with laughter. “Bite, -bite, bite,” he said. “Thirty-two times.” And he opened and shut his -mouth as fast as he could, so that his teeth clicked against one another -with a little dry, bony noise. “Every mouthful thirty-two times. That’s -what Mr. Gladstone said. And surely Mr. Gladstone”—he rattled his sharp, -white teeth again—“surely Mr. Gladstone should know.” - -“Good-bye,” said Rosie from the door. - -“Good-bye,” Coleman called back; and immediately afterwards jumped to -his feet and made a dash across the room towards her. - -Rosie uttered a cry, slipped through the door and, slamming it behind -her, ran across the vestibule and began fumbling with the latches of the -outer door. It wouldn’t open, it wouldn’t open. She was trembling; fear -made her feel sick. There was a rattling at the door behind her. There -was a whoop of laughter, and then the Cossack’s hands were on her arms, -his face came peering over her shoulder, and the blond beard dabbled -with blood prickled against her neck and face. - -“Oh, don’t, don’t, don’t!” she implored, turning away her head. Then all -at once she began violently crying. - -“Tears!” exclaimed Coleman in rapture, “genuine tears!” He bent eagerly -forward to kiss them away, to drink them as they fell. “What an -intoxication,” he said, looking up to the ceiling like a chicken that -has taken a sip of water; he smacked his lips. - -Sobbing uncontrollably, Rosie had never in all her life felt less like a -great, fastidious lady. - - - - - CHAPTER XXI - - -“Well,” said Gumbril, “here I am again.” - -“Already?” Mrs. Viveash had been reduced, by the violence of her -headache, to coming home after her luncheon with Piers Cotton for a -rest. She had fed her hungry pain on Pyramidon and now she was lying -down on the Dufy-upholstered sofa at the foot of her full-length -portrait by Jacques-Emile Blanche. Her head was not much better, but she -was bored. When the maid had announced Gumbril, she had given word that -he was to be let in. “I’m very ill,” she went on expiringly. “Look at -me,” she pointed to herself, “and me again.” She waved her hand towards -the sizzling brilliance of the portrait. “Before and after. Like the -advertisements, you know. Every picture tells a story.” She laughed -faintly, then made a little grimace and, sucking in the breath between -her lips, she put her hand to her forehead. - -“My poor Myra.” Gumbril pulled up a chair to the sofa and sat there like -a doctor at his patient’s bedside. “But before and after what?” he -asked, almost professionally. - -Mrs. Viveash gave an all but imperceptible shrug. “I don’t know,” she -said. - -“Not influenza, I hope?” - -“No, I don’t think so.” - -“Not love, by any chance?” - -Mrs. Viveash did not venture another laugh; she contented herself with -smiling agonizingly. - -“That would have been a just retribution,” Gumbril went on, “after what -you’ve done to me.” - -“What have I done to you?” Mrs. Viveash asked, opening wide her -pale-blue eyes. - -“Merely wrecked my existence.” - -“But you’re being childish, Theodore. Say what you mean without these -grand, silly phrases.” The dying voice spoke with impatience. - -“Well, what I mean,” said Gumbril, “is merely this. You prevented me -from going to see the only person I ever really wanted to see in my -life. And yesterday, when I tried to see her, she was gone. Vanished. -And here am I left in the vacuum.” - -Mrs. Viveash shut her eyes. “We’re all in the vacuum,” she said. “You’ll -still have plenty of company, you know.” She was silent for a moment. -“Still, I’m sorry,” she added. “Why didn’t you tell me? And why didn’t -you just pay no attention to me and go all the same?” - -“I didn’t tell you,” Gumbril answered, “because, then, I didn’t know. -And I didn’t go because I didn’t want to quarrel with you.” - -“Thank you,” said Mrs. Viveash, and patted his hand, “But what are you -going to do about it now? Not quarrelling with me is only a rather -negative satisfaction, I’m afraid.” - -“I propose to leave the country to-morrow morning,” said Gumbril. - -“Ah, the classical remedy.... But not to shoot big game, I hope?” She -thought of Viveash among the Tikki-tikkis and the tsetses. He was a -charming creature; charming, but ... but what? - -“Good heavens!” exclaimed Gumbril. “What do you take me for? Big game!” -He leaned back in his chair and began to laugh, heartily, for the first -time since he had returned from Robertsbridge, yesterday evening. He had -felt then as though he would never laugh again. “Do you see me in a pith -helmet, with an elephant gun?” - -Mrs. Viveash put her hand to her forehead. “I see you, Theodore,” she -said, “but I try to think you would look quite normal; because of my -head.” - -“I go to Paris first,” said Gumbril. “After that, I don’t know. I shall -go wherever I think people will buy pneumatic trousers. I’m travelling -on business.” - -This time, in spite of her head, Mrs. Viveash laughed. - -“I thought of giving myself a farewell banquet,” Gumbril went on. “We’ll -go round before dinner, if you’re feeling well enough, that is, and -collect a few friends. Then, in profoundest gloom, we’ll eat and drink. -And in the morning, unshaved, exhausted and filled with disgust, I shall -take the train from Victoria, feeling thankful to get out of England.” - -“We’ll do it,” said Mrs. Viveash faintly and indomitably from the sofa -that was almost genuinely a death-bed. “And, meanwhile, we’ll have a -second brew of tea and you shall talk to me.” - -The tannin was brought in. Gumbril settled down to talk and Mrs. Viveash -to listen—to listen and from time to time to dab her brows with -eau-de-Cologne, to take a sniff of hartshorn. - -Gumbril talked. He talked of the marriage ceremonies of octopuses, of -the rites intricately consummated in the submarine green grottos of the -Indian Ocean. Given a total of sixteen arms, how many permutations and -combinations of caresses? And in the middle of each bunch of arms a -mouth like the beak of a macaw. - -On the backside of the moon, his friend Umbilikoff, the mystic, used to -assure him, the souls of the dead in the form of little bladders—like so -much swelled sago—are piled up and piled up till they squash and squeeze -one another with an excruciating and ever-growing pressure. In the -exoteric world this squeezing on the moon’s backside is known, -erroneously, as hell. And as for the constellation, Scorpio—he was the -first of all constellations to have a proper sort of backbone. For by an -effort of the will he ingurgitated his external armour, he compressed -and rebuilt it within his body and so became the first vertebrate. This, -you may well believe, was a notable day in cosmic history. - -The rents in these new buildings in Regent Street and Piccadilly run to -as much as three or four pounds a square foot. Meanwhile, all the beauty -imagined by Nash has departed, and chaos and barbarism once more reign -supreme, even in Regent Street. The ghost of Gumbril Senior stalked -across the room. - -Who lives longer: the man who takes heroin for two years and dies, or -the man who lives on roast beef, water and potatoes till ninety-five? -One passes his twenty-four months in eternity. All the years of the -beef-eater are lived only in time. “I can tell you all about heroin,” -said Mrs. Viveash. - -Lady Capricorn, he understood, was still keeping open bed. How Rubens -would have admired those silk cushions, those gigantic cabbage roses, -those round pink pearls of hers, vaster than those that Captain Nemo -discovered in the immemorial oyster! And the warm dry rustle of flesh -over flesh as she walks, moving first one leg, then advancing the other. - -Talking of octopuses, the swim-bladders of deep-sea fishes are filled -with almost absolutely pure oxygen. _C’est la vie_—Gumbril shrugged his -shoulders. - -In Alpine pastures the grasshoppers start their flight, whizzing like -clockwork grasshoppers. And these brown invisible ones reveal themselves -suddenly as they skim above the flowers—a streak of blue lightning, a -trailing curve of scarlet. Then the overwing shuts down over the -coloured wing below and they are once more invisible fiddlers rubbing -their thighs, like Lady Capricorn, at the foot of the towering flowers. - -Forgers give patina to their mediæval ivories by lending them to stout -young Jewesses to wear for a few months hanging, like an amulet, between -their breasts. - -In Italian cemeteries the family vaults are made of glass and iron, like -greenhouses. - -Sir Henry Griddle has finally married the hog-faced gentlewoman. - -Piero della Francesca’s fresco of the Resurrection at San Sepolcro is -the most beautiful picture in the world, and the hotel there is far from -bad. Scriabine = _le_ Tschaikovsky _de nos jours_. The dullest landscape -painter is Marchand. The best poet.... - -“You bore me,” said Mrs. Viveash. - -“Must I talk of love, then?” asked Gumbril. - -“It looks like it,” Mrs. Viveash answered, and closed her eyes. - -Gumbril told the anecdote about Jo Peters, Connie Asticot and Jim Baum. -The anecdote of Lola Knopf and the Baroness Gnomon. Of Margherita -Radicofani, himself, and the Pastor Meyer. Of Lord Cavey and little Toby -Nobes. When he had finished these, he saw that Mrs. Viveash had gone to -sleep. - -He was not flattered. But a little sleep would do her headache, he -reflected, a world of good. And knowing that if he ceased to speak, she -would probably be woken by the sudden blankness of the silence, he went -on quietly talking to himself. - -“When I’m abroad this time,” he soliloquized, “I shall really begin -writing my autobiography. There’s nothing like a hotel bedroom to work -in.” He scratched his head thoughtfully and even picked his nose, which -was one of his bad habits, when he was alone. “People who know me,” he -went on, “will think that what I write about the governess cart and my -mother and the flowers and so on is written merely because I know in -here,” he scratched his head a little harder to show himself that he -referred to his brain, “that that’s the sort of thing one ought to write -about. They’ll think I’m a sort of dingy Romain Rolland, hopelessly -trying to pretend that I feel the emotions and have the great spiritual -experiences, which the really important people do feel and have. And -perhaps they’ll be right. Perhaps the Life of Gumbril will be as -manifestly an _ersatz_ as the Life of Beethoven. On the other hand, they -may be astonished to find that it’s the genuine article. We shall see.” -Gumbril nodded his head slowly, while he transferred two pennies from -his right-hand trouser pocket to his left-hand trouser pocket. He was -somewhat distressed to find that these coppers had been trespassing -among the silver. Silver was for the right-hand, copper for the left. It -was one of the laws which it was extremely unlucky to infringe. “I have -a premonition,” he went on, “that one of these days I may become a -saint. An unsuccessful flickering sort of saint, like a candle beginning -to go out. As for love—m’yes, m’yes. And as for the people I have met—I -shall point out that I have known most of the eminent men in Europe, and -that I have said of all of them what I said after my first love affair: -Is that all?” - -“Did you really say that about your first love affair?” asked Mrs. -Viveash, who had woken up again. - -“Didn’t you?” - -“No. I said: This _is_ all—everything, the universe. In love, it’s -either all or nothing at all.” She shut her eyes and almost immediately -went to sleep again. - -Gumbril continued his lullaby-soliloquy. - -“‘This charming little book.’... _The Scotsman._ ‘This farrago of -obscenity, slander and false psychology.’... _Darlington Echo._ ‘Mr. -Gumbril’s first cousin is St. Francis Xavier, his second cousin is the -Earl of Rochester, his third cousin is the Man of Feeling, his fourth -cousin is David Hume.’... _Court Journal._” Gumbril was already tired of -this joke. “When I consider how my light is spent,” he went on, “when I -consider!... Herr Jesu, as Fraulein Nimmernein used to exclaim at the -critical moment. Consider, dear cow, consider. This is not the time of -year for grass to grow. Consider, dear cow, consider, consider.” He got -up from his chair and tiptoed across the room to the writing-table. An -Indian dagger lay next to the blotting-pad; Mrs. Viveash used it as a -paper-knife. Gumbril picked it up, executed several passes with it. -“Thumb on the blade,” he said, “and strike upwards. On guard. Lunge. To -the hilt it penetrates. Poniard at the tip”—he ran the blade between his -fingers—“caress by the time it reaches the hilt. Z—zip.” He put down the -knife and stopping for a moment to make a grimace at himself in the -mirror over the mantelpiece, he went back to his chair. - -At seven o’clock Mrs. Viveash woke up. She shook her head to feel if the -pain were still rolling about loose inside her skull. - -“I really believe I’m all right,” she said. She jumped up. “Come on,” -she cried. “I feel ready for anything.” - -“And I feel like so much food for worms,” said Gumbril. “Still, -_Versiam’ a tazza piena il generoso umor_.” He hummed the Drinking Song -out of _Robert the Devil_, and to that ingenuously jolly melody they -left the house. - -Their taxi that evening cost them several pounds. They made the man -drive back and forth, like a shuttle, from one end of London to the -other. Every time they passed through Piccadilly Circus Mrs. Viveash -leant out of the window to look at the sky signs dancing their unceasing -St. Vitus’s dance above the monument to the Earl of Shaftesbury. - -“How I adore them!” she said the first time they passed them. “Those -wheels that whizz round till the sparks fly out from under them: that -rushing motor, and that lovely bottle of port filling the glass and then -disappearing and reappearing and filling it again. Too lovely.” - -“Too revolting,” Gumbril corrected her. “These things are the epileptic -symbol of all that’s most bestial and idiotic in contemporary life. Look -at those beastly things and then look at that.” He pointed to the County -Fire Office on the northern side of the Circus. “There stands decency, -dignity, beauty, repose. And there flickers, there gibbers and -twitches—what? Restlessness, distraction, refusal to think, anything for -an unquiet life....” - -“What a delicious pedant you are!” She turned away from the window, put -her hands on his shoulders and looked at him. “Too exquisitely -ridiculous!” And she kissed him. - -“You won’t force me to change my opinion.” Gumbril smiled at her. -“_Eppur’ si muove_—I stick to my guns like Galileo. They move and -they’re horrible.” - -“They’re me,” said Mrs. Viveash emphatically. “Those things are me.” - -They drove first to Lypiatt’s mews. Under the Piranesian arch. The -clothes-lines looped from window to window across the street might have -been those ropes which form so essential and so mysterious a part of the -furniture of the Prisons. The place smelt, the children were shouting; -the hyena-like laughter of the flappers reverberated between the -close-set walls. All Gumbril’s sense of social responsibility was -aroused in a moment. - -Shut up in his room all day, Lypiatt had been writing—writing his whole -life, all his ideas and ideals, all for Myra. The pile of scribbled -sheets grew higher and higher. Towards evening he made an end; he had -written all that he wanted to write. He ate the remains of yesterday’s -loaf of bread and drank some water; for he realized suddenly that he had -been fasting the whole day. Then he composed himself to think; he -stretched himself out on the brink of the well and looked down into the -eyeless darkness. - -He still had his Service revolver. Taking it out of the drawer in which -it was kept, he loaded it, he laid it on the packing-case which served -him as a table at his bed’s head, and stretched himself out on the bed. -He lay quite still, his muscles all relaxed, hardly breathing. He -imagined himself dead. Derision! there was still the plunge into the -well. - -He picked up the pistol, looked down the barrel. Black and deep as the -well. The muzzle against his forehead was a cold mouth. - -There was nothing new to be thought about death. There was not even the -possibility of a new thought. Only the old thoughts, the horrible old -questions returned. - -The cold mouth to his forehead, his finger pressing on the trigger. -Already he would be falling, falling. And the annihilating crash would -be the same as the far-away sound of death at the bottom of the well. -And after that, in the silence? The old question was still the same. - -After that, he would lie bleeding. The flies would drink his blood as -though it were red honey. In the end the people would come and fetch him -away, and the coroner’s jury would look at him in the mortuary and -pronounce him temporarily insane. Then he would be buried in a black -hole, would be buried and decay. - -And meanwhile, would there be anything else? There was nothing new to be -thought or asked. And there was still no answer. - -In the room it began to grow dark; colours vanished, forms ran together. -The easel and Myra’s portrait were now a single black silhouette against -the window. Near and far were fused, become one and continuous in the -darkness, became a part of the darkness. Outside the window the pale -twilight grew more sombre. The children shouted shrilly, playing their -games under the green gas lamps. The mirthless, ferocious laughter of -young girls mocked and invited. Lypiatt stretched out his hand and -fingered the pistol. - -Down below, at his door, he heard a sharp knocking. He lifted his head -and listened, caught the sound of two voices, a man’s and a woman’s. -Myra’s voice he recognized at once; the other, he supposed, was -Gumbril’s. - -“Hideous to think that people actually live in places like this,” -Gumbril was saying. “Look at those children. It ought to be punishable -by law to produce children in this street.” - -“They always take me for the Pied Piper,” said Mrs. Viveash. Lypiatt got -up and crept to the window. He could hear all they said. - -“I wonder if Lypiatt’s in. I don’t see any sign of a light.” - -“But he has heavy curtains,” said Mrs. Viveash, “and I know for a fact -that he always composes his poetry in the dark. He may be composing -poetry.” - -Gumbril laughed. - -“Knock again,” said Mrs. Viveash. “Poets are always absorbed, you know. -And Casimir’s always the poet.” - -“_Il Poeta_—capital P. Like d’Annunzio in the Italian papers,” said -Gumbril. “Did you know that d’Annunzio has books printed on mackintosh -for his bath?” He rapped again at the door. “I saw it in the _Corriere -della Sera_ the other day at the club. He reads the _Little Flowers of -St. Francis_ by preference in his bath. And he has a fountain pen with -waterproof ink in the soap-dish, so that he can add a few Fioretti of -his own whenever he feels like it. We might suggest that to Casimir.” - -Lypiatt stood with folded arms by the window, listening. How lightly -they threw his life, his heart, from hand to hand, as though it were a -ball and they were playing a game! He thought suddenly of all the times -he had spoken lightly and maliciously of other people. His own person -had always seemed, on those occasions, sacred. One knew in theory very -well that others spoke of one contemptuously—as one spoke of them. In -practice—it was hard to believe. - -“Poor Casimir!” said Mrs. Viveash. “I’m afraid his show was a failure.” - -“I know it was,” said Gumbril. “Complete and absolute. I told my tame -capitalist that he ought to employ Lypiatt for our advertisements. He’d -be excellent for those. And it would mean some genuine money in his -pocket.” - -“But the worst of it is,” said Mrs. Viveash, “that he’ll only feel -insulted by the suggestion.” She looked up at the window. - -“I don’t know why,” she went on, “this house looks most horribly dead. I -hope nothing’s happened to poor Casimir. I have a most disagreeable -feeling that it may have.” - -“Ah, this famous feminine intuition,” laughed Gumbril. He knocked again. - -“I can’t help feeling that he may be lying there dead, or delirious, or -something.” - -“And I can’t help feeling that he must have gone out to dinner. We shall -have to give him up, I’m afraid. It’s a pity. He’s so good with -Mercaptan. Like bear and mastiff. Or rather, like bear and poodle, bear -and King Charles’s spaniel—or whatever those little dogs are that you -see ladies in eighteenth-century French engravings taking to bed with -them. Let’s go.” - -“Just knock once again,” said Mrs. Viveash. “He might really be -preoccupied, or asleep, or ill.” Gumbril knocked. “Now listen. Hush.” - -They were silent; the children still went on hallooing in the distance. -There was a great clop-clopping of horse’s feet as a van was backed into -a stable door near by. Lypiatt stood motionless, his arms still crossed, -his chin on his breast. The seconds passed. - -“Not a sound,” said Gumbril. “He must have gone out.” - -“I suppose so,” said Mrs. Viveash. - -“Come on, then. We’ll go and look for Mercaptan.” - -He heard their steps in the street below, heard the slamming of the taxi -door. The engine was started up. Loud on the first gear, less loud on -the second, whisperingly on the third, it moved away, gathering speed. -The noise of it was merged with the general noise of the town. They were -gone. - -Lypiatt walked slowly back to his bed. He wished suddenly that he had -gone down to answer the last knock. These voices—at the well’s edge he -had turned to listen to them; at the well’s extreme verge. He lay quite -still in the darkness; and it seemed to him at last that he had floated -away from the earth, that he was alone, no longer in a narrow dark room, -but in an illimitable darkness outside and beyond. His mind grew calmer; -he began to think of himself, of all that he had known, remotely, as -though from a great way off. - -“Adorable lights!” said Mrs. Viveash, as they drove once more through -Piccadilly Circus. - -Gumbril said nothing. He had said all that he had to say last time. - -“And there’s another,” exclaimed Mrs. Viveash, as they passed, near -Burlington House, a fountain of Sandeman’s port. “If only they had an -automatic jazz band attached to the same mechanism!” she said -regretfully. - -The Green Park remained solitary and remote under the moon. “Wasted on -us,” said Gumbril, as they passed. “One should be happily in love to -enjoy a summer night under the trees.” He wondered where Emily could be -now. They sat in silence; the cab drove on. - -Mr. Mercaptan, it seemed, had left London. His housekeeper had a long -story to tell. A regular Bolshevik had come yesterday, pushing in. And -she had heard him shouting at Mr. Mercaptan in his own room. And then, -luckily, a lady had come and the Bolshevik had gone away again. And this -morning Mr. Mercaptan had decided, quite sudden like, to go away for two -or three days. And it wouldn’t surprise her at all if it had something -to do with that horrible Bolshevik fellow. Though of course Master -Paster hadn’t said anything about it. Still, as she’d known him when he -was so high and seen him grow up like, she thought she could say she -knew him well enough to guess why he did things. It was only brutally -that they contrived to tear themselves away. - -Secure, meanwhile, behind a whole troop of butlers and footmen, Mr. -Mercaptan was dining comfortably at Oxhanger with the most faithful of -his friends and admirers, Mrs. Speegle. It was to Mrs. Speegle that he -had dedicated his coruscating little ‘Loves of the Pachyderms’; for Mrs. -Speegle it was who had suggested, casually one day at luncheon, that the -human race ought to be classified in two main species—the Pachyderms, -and those whose skin, like her own, like Mr. Mercaptan’s and a few -others’, was fine and ‘responsive,’ as Mr. Mercaptan himself put it, ‘to -all caresses, including those of pure reason.’ Mr. Mercaptan had taken -the casual hint and had developed it, richly. The barbarous Pachyderms -he divided up into a number of subspecies: steatocephali, acephali, -theolaters, industrious Judæorhynci—busy, compact and hard as -dung-beetles—Peabodies, Russians and so on. It was all very witty and -delicately savage. Mr. Mercaptan had a standing invitation at Oxhanger. -With dangerous pachyderms like Lypiatt ranging loose about the town, he -thought it best to avail himself of it. Mrs. Speegle, he knew, would be -delighted to see him. And indeed she was. He arrived just at lunch-time. -Mrs. Speegle and Maisie Furlonger were already at the fish. - -“Mercaptan!” Mrs. Speegle’s soul seemed to be in the name. “Sit down,” -she went on, cooing as she talked, like a ring-dove. There seemed to be -singing in every word she spoke. She pointed to a chair next to hers. -“N’you’re n’just in time to tell us all about _n’your_ Lesbian -experiences.” - -And Mercaptan, giving vent to his fully orchestrated laugh—squeal and -roar together—had sat down and, speaking in French partly, he nodded -towards the butler and the footman, ‘_à cause des valets_,’ and partly -because the language lent itself more deliciously to this kind of -confidences, he had begun there and then, interrupted and spurred on by -the cooing of Mrs. Speegle and the happy shrieks of Maisie Furlonger, to -recount at length and with all the wit in the world his experience among -the Isles of Greece. How delicious it was, he said to himself, to be -with really civilized people! In this happy house it seemed scarcely -possible to believe that such a thing as a pachyderm existed. - -But Lypiatt still lay, face upwards, on his bed, floating, it seemed to -himself, far out into the dark emptinesses between the stars. From those -distant abstract spaces he seemed to be looking impersonally down upon -his own body stretched out by the brink of the hideous well; to be -looking back over his own history. Everything, even his own unhappiness, -seemed very small and beautiful; every frightful convulsion had become -no more than a ripple, and only the fine musical ghost of sound came up -to him from all the shouting. - -“We have no luck,” said Gumbril, as they climbed once more into the cab. - -“I’m not sure,” said Mrs. Viveash, “that we haven’t really had a great -deal. Did you genuinely want very much to see Mercaptan?” - -“Not in the least,” said Gumbril. “But do you genuinely want to see me?” - -Mrs. Viveash drew the corners of her mouth down into a painful smile and -did not answer. “Aren’t we going to pass through Piccadilly Circus -again?” she asked. “I should like to see the lights again. They give one -temporarily the illusion of being cheerful.” - -“No, no,” said Gumbril, “we are going straight to Victoria.” - -“We couldn’t tell the driver to...?” - -“Certainly not.” - -“Ah, well,” said Mrs. Viveash. “Perhaps one’s better without stimulants. -I remember when I was very young, when I first began to go about at all, -how proud I was of having discovered champagne. It seemed to me -wonderful to get rather tipsy. Something to be exceedingly proud of. -And, at the same time, how much I really disliked wine! Loathed the -taste of it. Sometimes, when Calliope and I used to dine quietly -together, _tête-à-tête_, with no awful men about, and no appearances to -keep up, we used to treat ourselves to the luxury of a large -lemon-squash, or even raspberry syrup and soda. Ah, I wish I could -recapture the deliciousness of raspberry syrup.” - -Coleman was at home. After a brief delay he appeared himself at the -door. He was wearing pyjamas, and his face was covered with red-brown -smears, the tips of his beard were clotted with the same dried pigment. - -“What have you been doing to yourself?” asked Mrs. Viveash. - -“Merely washing in the blood of the Lamb,” Coleman answered, smiling, -and his eyes sparkling blue fire, like an electric machine. - -The door on the opposite side of the little vestibule was open. Looking -over Coleman’s shoulder, Gumbril could see through the opening a -brightly lighted room and, in the middle of it, like a large rectangular -island, a wide divan. Reclining on the divan an odalisque by Ingres—but -slimmer, more serpentine, more like a lithe pink length of boa—presented -her back. That big, brown mole on the right shoulder was surely -familiar. But when, startled by the loudness of the voices behind her, -the odalisque turned round—to see in a horribly embarrassing instant -that the Cossack had left the door open and that people could look in, -were looking in, indeed—the slanting eyes beneath their heavy white -lids, the fine aquiline nose, the wide, full-lipped mouth, though they -presented themselves for only the fraction of a second, were still more -recognizable and familiar. For only the fraction of a second did the -odalisque reveal herself definitely as Rosie. Then a hand pulled -feverishly at the counterpane, the section of buff-coloured boa wriggled -and rolled; and, in a moment, where an odalisque had been, lay only a -long packet under a white sheet, like a jockey with a fractured skull -when they carry him from the course. - -Well, really.... Gumbril felt positively indignant; not jealous, but -astonished and righteously indignant. - -“Well, when you’ve finished bathing,” said Mrs. Viveash, “I hope you’ll -come and have dinner with us.” Coleman was standing between her and the -farther door; Mrs. Viveash had seen nothing in the room beyond the -vestibule. - -“I’m busy,” said Coleman. - -“So I see.” Gumbril spoke as sarcastically as he could. - -“Do you see?” asked Coleman, and looked round. “So you do!” He stepped -back and closed the door. - -“It’s Theodore’s last dinner,” pleaded Mrs. Viveash. - -“Not even if it were his last supper,” said Coleman, enchanted to have -been given the opportunity to blaspheme a little. “Is he going to be -crucified? Or what?” - -“Merely going abroad,” said Gumbril. - -“He has a broken heart,” Mrs. Viveash explained. - -“Ah, the genuine platonic towsers?” Coleman uttered his artificial -demon’s laugh. - -“That’s just about it,” said Gumbril, grimly. - -Relieved by the shutting of the door from her immediate embarrassment, -Rosie threw back a corner of the counterpane and extruded her head, one -arm and the shoulder with the mole on it. She looked about her, opening -her slanting eyes as wide as she could. She listened with parted lips to -the voices that came, muffled now, through the door. It seemed to her as -though she were waking up; as though now, for the first time, she were -hearing that shattering laugh, were looking now for the first time on -these blank, white walls and the one lovely and horrifying picture. -Where was she? What did it all mean? Rosie put her hand to her forehead, -tried to think. Her thinking was always a series of pictures; one after -another the pictures swam up before her eyes, melted again in an -instant. - -Her mother taking off her pince-nez to wipe them—and at once her eyes -were tremulous and vague and helpless. “You should always let the -gentleman get over the stile first,” she said, and put on her glasses -again. Behind the glasses her eyes immediately became clear, piercing, -steady and efficient. Rather formidable eyes. They had seen Rosie -getting over the stile in front of Willie Hoskyns, and there was too -much leg. - -James reading at his desk; his heavy, round head propped on his hand. -She came up behind him and threw her arms round his neck. Very gently, -and without turning his eyes from the page, he undid her embrace and, -with a little push that was no more than a hint, an implication, -signified that he didn’t want her. She had gone to her pink room, and -cried. - -Another time James shook his head and smiled patiently under his -moustache. ‘You’ll never learn,’ he said. She had gone to her room and -cried that time too. - -Another time they were lying in bed together, in the pink bed; only you -couldn’t see it was pink because there was no light. They were lying -very quietly. Warm and happy and remote she felt. Sometimes as it were -the physical memory of pleasure plucked at her nerves, making her start, -making her suddenly shiver. James was breathing as though he were -asleep. All at once he stirred. He patted her shoulder two or three -times in a kindly and business-like way. “I know what that means,” she -said, “when you pat me like that.” And she patted him—pat-pat-pat, very -quickly. “It means you’re going to bed.” “How do you know?” he asked. -“Do you think I don’t know you after all this time? I know that pat by -heart.” And suddenly all her warm, quiet happiness evaporated; it was -all gone. “I’m only a machine for going to bed with,” she said. “That’s -all I am for you.” She felt she would like to cry. But James only -laughed and said, “Nonsense!” and pulled his arm clumsily from -underneath her. “You go to sleep,” he said, and kissed her on the -forehead. Then he got out of bed, and she heard him bumping clumsily -about in the darkness. “Damn!” he said once. Then he found the door, -opened, and was gone. - -She thought of those long stories she used to make up when she went -shopping. The fastidious lady; the poets; all the adventures. - -Toto’s hands were wonderful. - -She saw, she heard Mr. Mercaptan reading his essay. Poor father, reading -aloud from the _Hibbert Journal_! - -And now the Cossack, covered with blood. He, too, might read aloud from -the _Hibbert Journal_—only backwards, so to speak. She had a bruise on -her arm. “You think there’s nothing inherently wrong and disgusting in -it?” he had asked. “There is, I tell you.” He had laughed and kissed her -and stripped off her clothes and caressed her. And she had cried, she -had struggled, she had tried to turn away; and in the end she had been -overcome by a pleasure more piercing and agonizing than anything she had -ever felt before. And all the time Coleman had hung over her, with his -blood-stained beard, smiling into her face, and whispering, “Horrible, -horrible, infamous and shameful.” She lay in a kind of stupor. Then, -suddenly there had been that ringing. The Cossack had left her. And now -she was awake again, and it was horrible, it was shameful. She -shuddered; she jumped out of bed and began as quickly as she could to -put on her clothes. - -“Really, really, won’t you come?” Mrs. Viveash was insisting. She was -not used to people saying no when she asked, when she insisted. She -didn’t like it. - -“No.” Coleman shook his head. “You may be having the last supper. But I -have a date here with the Magdalen.” - -“Oh, a woman,” said Viveash. “But why didn’t you say so before?” - -“Well, as I’d left the door open,” said Coleman, “I thought it was -unnecessary.” - -“Fie,” said Mrs. Viveash. “I find this very repulsive. Let’s go away.” -She plucked Gumbril by the sleeve. - -“Good-bye,” said Coleman, politely. He shut the door after them and -turned back across the little hall. - -“What! Not thinking of going?” he exclaimed, as he came in. Rosie was -sitting down on the edge of the bed pulling on her shoes. - -“Go away,” she said. “You disgust me.” - -“But that’s splendid,” Coleman declared. “That’s all as it should be, -all as I intended.” He sat down beside her on the divan. “Really,” he -said, admiringly, “what exquisite legs!” - -Rosie would have given anything in the world to be back again in Bloxam -Gardens. Even if James did live in his books all the time.... Anything -in the world. - -“This time,” said Mrs. Viveash, “we simply must go through Piccadilly -Circus.” - -“It’ll only be about two miles farther.” - -“Well, that isn’t much.” - -Gumbril leaned out and gave the word to the driver. - -“And besides, I like driving about like this,” said Mrs. Viveash. “I -like driving for driving’s sake. It’s like the Last Ride Together. Dear -Theodore!” She laid her hand on his. - -“Thank you,” said Gumbril, and kissed it. - -The little cab buzzed along down the empty Mall. They were silent. -Through the thick air one could see the brightest of the stars. It was -one of those evenings when men feel that truth, goodness and beauty are -one. In the morning, when they commit their discovery to paper, when -others read it written there, it looks wholly ridiculous. It was one of -those evenings when love is once more invented for the first time. That, -too, seems a little ridiculous, sometimes, in the morning. - -“Here are the lights again,” said Mrs. Viveash. “Hop, twitch, flick—yes, -genuinely an illusion of jollity, Theodore. Genuinely.” - -Gumbril stopped the cab. “It’s after half-past eight,” he said. “At this -rate we shall never get anything to eat. Wait a minute.” - -He ran into Appenrodt’s, and came back in a moment with a packet of -smoked salmon sandwiches, a bottle of white wine and a glass. - -“We have a long way to go,” he explained, as he got into the taxi. - -They ate their sandwiches, they drank their wine. The taxi drove on and -on. - -“This is positively exhilarating,” said Mrs. Viveash, as they turned -into the Edgware Road. - -Polished by the wheels and shining like an old and precious bronze, the -road stretched before them, reflecting the lamps. It had the inviting -air of a road which goes on for ever. - -“They used to have such good peep-shows in this street,” Gumbril -tenderly remembered: “Little back shops where you paid twopence to see -the genuine mermaid, which turned out to be a stuffed walrus, and the -tattooed lady, and the dwarf, and the living statuary, which one always -hoped, as a boy, was really going to be rather naked and thrilling, but -which was always the most pathetic of unemployed barmaids, dressed in -the thickest of pink Jaeger.” - -“Do you think there’d be any of those now?” asked Mrs. Viveash. - -Gumbril shook his head. “They’ve moved on with the march of -civilization. But where?” He spread out his hands interrogatively. “I -don’t know which direction civilization marches—whether north towards -Kilburn and Golders Green, or over the river to the Elephant, to Clapham -and Sydenham and all those other mysterious places. But, in any case, -high rents have marched up here; there are no more genuine mermaids in -the Edgware Road. What stories we shall be able to tell our children!” - -“Do you think we shall ever have any?” Mrs. Viveash asked. - -“One can never tell.” - -“I should have thought one could,” said Mrs. Viveash. Children—that -would be the most desperate experiment of all. The most desperate, and -perhaps the only one having any chance of being successful. History -recorded cases.... On the other hand, it recorded other cases that -proved the opposite. She had often thought of this experiment. There -were so many obvious reasons for not making it. But some day, -perhaps—she always put it off, like that. - -The cab had turned off the main road into quieter and darker streets. - -“Where are we now?” asked Mrs. Viveash. - -“Penetrating into Maida Vale. We shall soon be there. Poor old -Shearwater!” He laughed. Other people in love were always absurd. - -“Shall we find him in, I wonder?” It would be fun to see Shearwater -again. She liked to hear him talking, learnedly, and like a child. But -when the child is six feet high and three feet wide and two feet thick, -when it tries to plunge head first into your life—then, really, no.... -“But what did you want with me?” he had asked. “Just to look at you,” -she answered. Just to look; that was all. Music hall, not boudoir. - -“Here we are.” Gumbril got out and rang the second floor bell. - -The door was opened by an impertinent-looking little maid. - -“Mr. Shearwater’s at the lavatory,” she said, in answer to Gumbril’s -question. - -“Laboratory?” he suggested. - -“At the ’ospital.” That made it clear. - -“And is Mrs. Shearwater at home?” he asked maliciously. - -The little maid shook her head. “I expected ’er, but she didn’t come -back to dinner.” - -“Would you mind giving her a message when she does come in,” said -Gumbril. “Tell her that Mr. Toto was very sorry he hadn’t time to speak -to her when he saw her this evening in Pimlico.” - -“Mr. who?” - -“Mr. Toto.” - -“Mr. Toto is sorry ’e ’adn’t the time to speak to Mrs. Shearwater when -’e saw ’er in Pimlico this evening. Very well, sir.” - -“You won’t forget?” said Gumbril. - -“No, I won’t forget.” - -He went back to the cab and explained that they had drawn blank once -more. - -“I’m rather glad,” said Mrs. Viveash. “If we ever did find anybody, it -would mean the end of this Last-Ride-Together feeling. And that would be -sad. And it’s a lovely night. And really, for the moment, I feel I can -do without my lights. Suppose we just drove for a bit now.” - -But Gumbril would not allow that. “We haven’t had enough to eat yet,” he -said, and he gave the cabman Gumbril Senior’s address. - -Gumbril Senior was sitting on his little iron balcony among the -dried-out pots that had once held geraniums, smoking his pipe and -looking earnestly out into the darkness in front of him. Clustered in -the fourteen plane trees of the square, the starlings were already -asleep. There was no sound but the rustling of the leaves. But -sometimes, every hour or so, the birds would wake up. Something—perhaps -it might be a stronger gust of wind, perhaps some happy dream of worms, -some nightmare of cats simultaneously dreamed by all the flock -together—would suddenly rouse them. And then they would all start to -talk at once, at the tops of their shrill voices—for perhaps half a -minute. Then in an instant they all went to sleep again and there was -once more no sound but the rustling of the shaken leaves. At these -moments Mr. Gumbril would lean forward, would strain his eyes and his -ears in the hope of seeing, of hearing something—something significant, -explanatory, satisfying. He never did, of course; but that in no way -diminished his happiness. - -Mr. Gumbril received them on his balcony with courtesy. - -“I was just thinking of going in to work,” he said. “And now you come -and give me a good excuse for sitting out here a little longer. I’m -delighted.” - -Gumbril Junior went downstairs to see what he could find in the way of -food. While he was gone, his father explained to Mrs. Viveash the -secrets of the birds. Enthusiastically, his light floss of grey hair -floating up and falling again about his head as he pointed and -gesticulated, he told her; the great flocks assembled—goodness only knew -where!—they flew across the golden sky, detaching here a little troop, -there a whole legion, they flew until at last all had found their -appointed resting-places and there were no more to fly. He made this -nightly flight sound epical, as though it were a migration of peoples, a -passage of armies. - -“And it’s my firm belief,” said Gumbril Senior, adding notes to his -epic, “that they make use of some sort of telepathy, some kind of direct -mind-to-mind communication between themselves. You can’t watch them -without coming to that conclusion.” - -“A charming conclusion,” said Mrs. Viveash. - -“It’s a faculty,” Gumbril Senior went on, “we all possess, I believe. -All we animals.” He made a gesture which included himself, Mrs. Viveash -and the invisible birds among the plane trees. “Why don’t we use it -more? You may well ask. For the simple reason, my dear young lady, that -half our existence is spent in dealing with things that have no -mind—things with which it is impossible to hold telepathic -communication. Hence the development of the five senses. I have eyes -that preserve me from running into the lamp-post, ears that warn me I’m -in the neighbourhood of Niagara. And having made these instruments very -efficient, I use them even in holding converse with other beings having -a mind. I let my telepathic faculty lie idle, preferring to employ an -elaborate and cumbrous arrangement of symbols in order to make my -thought known to you through your senses. In certain individuals, -however, the faculty is naturally so well-developed—like the musical, or -the mathematical, or the chess-playing faculties in other people—that -they cannot help entering into direct communication with other minds, -whether they want to or not. If we knew a good method of educating and -drawing out the latent faculty, most of us could make ourselves -moderately efficient telepaths; just as most of us can make ourselves -into moderate musicians, chess players and mathematicians. There would -also be a few, no doubt, who could never communicate directly. Just as -there are a few who cannot recognize ‘Rule Britannia’ or Bach’s Concerto -in D minor for two violins, and a few who cannot comprehend the nature -of an algebraical symbol. Look at the general development of the -mathematical and musical faculties only within the last two hundred -years. By the twenty-first century, I believe, we shall all be -telepaths. Meanwhile, these delightful birds have forestalled us. Not -having the wit to invent a language or an expressive pantomime, they -contrive to communicate such simple thoughts as they have, directly and -instantaneously. They all go to sleep at once, wake at once, say the -same thing at once; they turn all at once when they’re flying. Without a -leader, without a word of command, they do everything together, in -complete unison. Sitting here in the evenings, I sometimes fancy I can -feel their thoughts striking against my own. It has happened to me once -or twice: that I have known a second before it actually happened, that -the birds were going to wake up and begin their half-minute of chatter -in the dark. Wait! Hush.” Gumbril Senior threw back his head, pressed -his hand over his mouth, as though by commanding silence on himself he -could command it on the whole world. “I believe they’re going to wake -now. I feel it.” - -He was silent. Mrs. Viveash looked towards the dark trees and listened. -A full minute passed. Then the old gentleman burst out happily laughing. - -“Completely wrong!” he said. “They’ve never been more soundly asleep.” -Mrs. Viveash laughed too. “Perhaps they all changed their minds, just as -they were waking up,” she suggested. - -Gumbril Junior reappeared; glasses clinked as he walked, and there was a -little rattle of crockery. He was carrying a tray. - -“Cold beef,” he said, “and salad and a bit of a cold apple-pie. It might -be worse.” - -They drew up chairs to Gumbril Senior’s work-table, and there, among the -letters and the unpaid bills and the sketchy elevations of archiducal -palaces, they ate the beef and the apple-pie, and drank the -one-and-ninepenny _vin ordinaire_ of the house. Gumbril Senior, who had -already supped, looked on at them from the balcony. - -“Did I tell you,” said Gumbril Junior, “that we saw Mr. Porteous’s son -the other evening—very drunk?” - -Gumbril Senior threw up his hands. “If you knew the calamities that -young imbecile has been the cause of!” - -“What’s he done?” - -“Gambled away I don’t know how much borrowed money. And poor Porteous -can’t afford anything—even now.” Mr. Gumbril shook his head and clutched -and combed his beard. “It’s a fearful blow, but of course, Porteous is -very steadfast and serene and.... There!” Gumbril Senior interrupted -himself, holding up his hand. “Listen!” - -In the fourteen plane trees the starlings had suddenly woken up. - -There was a wild outburst, like a stormy sitting in the Italian -Parliament. Then all was silent. Gumbril Senior listened, enchanted. His -face, as he turned back towards the light, revealed itself all smiles. -His hair seemed to have blown loose of its own accord, from within, so -to speak; he pushed it into place. - -“You heard them?” he asked Mrs. Viveash. “What can they have to say to -one another, I wonder, at this time of night?” - -“And did you feel they were going to wake up?” Mrs. Viveash inquired. - -“No,” said Gumbril Senior with candour. - -“When we’ve finished,” Gumbril Junior spoke with his mouth full, “you -must show Myra your model of London. She’d adore it—except that it has -no electric sky-signs.” - -His father looked all of a sudden very much embarrassed. “I don’t think -it would interest Mrs. Viveash much,” he said. - -“Oh, yes it would. Really,” she declared. - -“Well, as a matter of fact it isn’t here.” Gumbril Senior pulled with -fury at his beard. - -“Not here? But what’s happened to it?” - -Gumbril Senior wouldn’t explain. He just ignored his son’s question and -began to talk once more about the starlings. Later on, however, when -Gumbril and Mrs. Viveash were preparing to go, the old man drew him -apart into a corner and began to whisper the explanation. - -“I didn’t want to blare it about in front of strangers,” he said, as -though it were a question of the housemaid’s illegitimate baby or a -repair to the water-closet. “But the fact is, I’ve sold it. The Victoria -and Albert had wind that I was making it; they’ve been wanting it all -the time. And I’ve let them have it.” - -“But why?” Gumbril Junior asked in a tone of astonishment. He knew with -what a paternal affection—no, more than paternal; for he was sure that -his father was more whole-heartedly attached to his models than his -son—with what pride he regarded these children of his spirit. - -Gumbril Senior sighed. “It’s all that young imbecile,” he said. - -“What young imbecile?” - -“Porteous’s son, of course. You see, poor Porteous has had to sell his -library, among other things. You don’t know what that means to him. All -these precious books. And collected at the price of such hardships. I -thought I’d like to buy a few of the best ones back for him. They gave -me quite a good price at the Museum.” He came out of his corner and -hurried across the room to help Mrs. Viveash with her cloak. “Allow me, -allow me,” he said. - -Slowly and pensively Gumbril Junior followed him. Beyond good and evil? -Below good and evil? The name of earwig.... The tubby pony trotted. The -wild columbines suspended, among the shadows of the hazel copse, hooked -spurs, helmets of aerial purple. The twelfth sonata of Mozart was -insecticide; no earwigs could crawl through that music. Emily’s breasts -were firm and pointed and she had slept at last without a tremor. In the -starlight, good, true and beautiful became one. Write the discovery in -books—in books _quos_, in the morning, _legimus cacantes_. They -descended the stairs. The cab was waiting outside. - -“The Last Ride again,” said Mrs. Viveash. - -“Golgotha Hospital, Southwark,” said Gumbril to the driver and followed -her into the cab. - -“Drive, drive, drive,” repeated Mrs. Viveash. “I like your father, -Theodore. One of these days he’ll fly away with the birds. And how nice -it is of those starlings to wake themselves up like that in the middle -of the night, merely to amuse him. Considering how unpleasant it is to -be woken in the night. Where are we going?” - -“We’re going to look at Shearwater in his laboratory.” - -“Is that a long way away?” - -“Immensely,” said Gumbril. - -“Thank God for that,” Mrs. Viveash piously and expiringly breathed. - - - - - CHAPTER XXII - - -Shearwater sat on his stationary bicycle, pedalling unceasingly like a -man in a nightmare. The pedals were geared to a little wheel under the -saddle and the rim of the wheel rubbed, as it revolved against a brake, -carefully adjusted to make the work of the pedaller hard, but not -impossibly hard. From a pipe which came up through the floor issued a -little jet of water which played on the brake and kept it cool. But no -jet of water played on Shearwater. It was his business to get hot. He -did get hot. - -From time to time his dog-faced young friend, Lancing, came and looked -through the window of the experimenting chamber to see how he was -getting on. Inside that little wooden house, which might have reminded -Lancing, if he had had a literary turn of mind, of the Box in which -Gulliver left Brobdingnag, the scenes of intimate life were the same -every time he looked in. Shearwater was always at his post on the saddle -of the nightmare bicycle, pedalling, pedalling. The water trickled over -the brake. And Shearwater sweated. Great drops of sweat came oozing out -from under his hair, ran down over his forehead, hung beaded on his -eyebrows, ran into his eyes, down his nose, along his cheeks, fell like -raindrops. His thick bull-neck was wet; his whole naked body, his arms -and legs streamed and shone. The sweat poured off him and was caught as -it rained down in a waterproof sheet, to trickle down its sloping folds -into a large glass receptacle which stood under a hole in the centre of -the sheet at the focal point where all its slopes converged. The -automatically controlled heating apparatus in the basement kept the -temperature in the box high and steady. Peering through the damp-dimmed -panes of the window. Lancing noticed with satisfaction that the mercury -stood unchangingly at twenty-seven point five Centigrade. The -ventilators at the side and top of the box were open; Shearwater had air -enough. Another time, Lancing reflected, they’d make the box air-tight -and see the effect of a little carbon dioxide poisoning on top of -excessive sweating. It might be very interesting, but to-day they were -concerned with sweating only. After seeing that the thermometer was -steady, that the ventilators were properly open, the water was still -trickling over the brake, Lancing would tap at the window. And -Shearwater, who kept his eyes fixed straight before him, as he pedalled -slowly and unremittingly along his nightmare road, would turn his head -at the sound. - -“All right?” Lancing’s lips moved and his eyebrows went up inquiringly. - -Shearwater would nod his big, round head, and the sweatdrops, suspended -on his eyebrows and his moustache, would fall like little liquid fruits -shaken suddenly by the wind. - -“Good,” and Lancing would go back to his thick German book under the -reading-lamp at the other end of the laboratory. - -Constant as the thermometer Shearwater pedalled steadily and slowly on. -With a few brief halts for food and rest, he had been pedalling ever -since lunch-time. At eleven he would go to bed on a shake-down in the -laboratory and at nine to-morrow morning he would re-enter the box and -start pedalling again. He would go on all to-morrow and the day after; -and after that, as long as he could stand it. One, two, three, four. -Pedal, pedal, pedal.... He must have travelled the equivalent of sixty -or seventy miles this afternoon. He would be getting on for Swindon. He -would be nearly at Portsmouth. He would be past Cambridge, past Oxford. -He would be nearly at Harwich, pedalling through the green and golden -valleys where Constable used to paint. He would be at Winchester by the -bright stream. He would have ridden through the beech woods of Arundel -out into the sea.... - -In any case he was far away, he was escaping. And Mrs. Viveash followed, -walking swayingly along on feet that seemed to tread between two -abysses, at her leisure. Pedal, pedal. The hydrogen ion concentration in -the blood.... Formidably, calmly, her eyes regarded. The lids cut off an -arc of those pale circles. When she smiled, it was a crucifixion. The -coils of her hair were copper serpents. Her small gestures loosened -enormous fragments of the universe and at the faint dying sound of her -voice they had fallen in ruins about him. His world was no longer safe, -it had ceased to stand on its foundations. Mrs. Viveash walked among his -ruins and did not even notice them. He must build up again. Pedal, -pedal. He was not merely escaping; he was working a building machine. It -must be built with proportion; with proportion, the old man had said. -The old man appeared in the middle of the nightmare road in front of -him, clutching his beard. Proportion, proportion. There were first a lot -of dirty rocks lying about; then there was St. Paul’s. These bits of his -life had to be built up proportionably. - -There was work. And there was talk about work and ideas. And there were -men who could talk about work and ideas. But so far as he had been -concerned that was about all they could do. He would have to find out -what else they did; it was interesting. And he would have to find out -what other men did; men who couldn’t talk about work and not much about -ideas. They had as good kidneys as any one else. - -And then there were women. - -On the nightmare road he remained stationary. The pedals went round and -round under his driving feet; the sweat ran off him. He was escaping, -and yet he was also drawing nearer. He would have to draw nearer. -“Woman, what have I to do with you?” Not enough; too much. - -Not enough—he was building her in, a great pillar next to the pillar of -work. - -Too much—he was escaping. If he had not caged himself here in this hot -box, he would have run out after her, to throw himself—all in fragments, -all dissipated and useless—in front of her. And she wanted none of him. -But perhaps it would be worse, perhaps it would be far, far worse if she -did. - -The old man stood in the road before him, clutching his beard, crying -out, “Proportion, proportion.” He trod and trod at his building machine, -working up the pieces of his life, steadily, unremittingly working them -into a proportionable whole, into a dome that should hang, light, -spacious and high, as though by a miracle, on the empty air. He trod and -trod, escaping, mile after mile into fatigue, into wisdom. He was at -Dover now, pedalling across the Channel. He was crossing a dividing gulf -and there would be safety on the other side; the cliffs of Dover were -already behind him. He turned his head as though to look back at them; -the drops of sweat were shaken from his eyebrows, from the shaggy -fringes of his moustache. He turned his head from the blank wooden wall -in front of him over his left shoulder. A face was looking through the -observation window behind him—a woman’s face. - -It was the face of Mrs. Viveash. - -Shearwater uttered a cry and at once turned back again. He redoubled his -pedalling. One, two, three, four—furiously he rushed along the nightmare -road. She was haunting him now in hallucinations. She was pursuing and -she was gaining on him. Will, wisdom, resolution and understanding were -of no avail, then? But there was always fatigue. The sweat poured down -his face, streamed down the indented runnel of his spine, along the seam -at the meeting-place of the ribs. His loin-cloth was wringing wet. The -drops pattered continuously on the waterproof sheet. His calves and the -muscles of his thighs ached with pedalling. One, two, three, four—he -trod round a hundred times with either foot. After that he ventured to -turn his head once more. He was relieved, and at the same time he was -disappointed, to see that there was now no face at the window. He had -exorcised the hallucination. He settled down to a more leisurely -pedalling. - -In the annexe of the laboratory the animals devoted to the service of -physiology were woken by the sudden opening of the door, the sudden -irruption of light. The albino guinea-pigs peered through the meshes of -their hutch and their red eyes were like the rear-lights of bicycles. -The pregnant she-rabbits lolloped out and shook their ears and pointed -their tremulous noses towards the door. The cock into which Shearwater -had engrafted an ovary came out, not knowing whether to crow or cluck. - -“When he’s with hens,” Lancing explained to his visitors, “he thinks -he’s a cock. When he’s with a cock, he’s convinced he’s a pullet.” - -The rats who were being fed on milk from a London dairy came tumbling -from their nest with an anxious hungry squeaking. They were getting -thinner and thinner every day; in a few days they would be dead. But the -old rat, whose diet was Grade A milk from the country, hardly took the -trouble to move. He was as fat and sleek as a brown furry fruit, ripe to -bursting. No skim and chalky water, no dried dung and tubercle bacilli -for him. He was in clover. Next week, however, the fates were plotting -to give him diabetes artificially. - -In their glass pagoda the little black axolotls crawled, the heraldry of -Mexico, among a scanty herbage. The beetles, who had had their heads cut -off and replaced by the heads of other beetles, darted uncertainly -about, some obeying their heads, some their genital organs. A -fifteen-year-old monkey, rejuvenated by the Steinach process, was -discovered by the light of Lancing’s electric torch, shaking the bars -that separated him from the green-furred, bald-rumped, bearded young -beauty in the next cage. He was gnashing his teeth with thwarted -passion. - -Lancing expounded to the visitors all the secrets. The vast, -unbelievable, fantastic world opened out as he spoke. There were -tropics, there were cold seas busy with living beings, there were -forests full of horrible trees, silence and darkness. There were -ferments and infinitesimal poisons floating in the air. There were -leviathans suckling their young, there were flies and worms, there were -men, living in cities, thinking, knowing good and evil. And all were -changing continuously, moment by moment, and each remained all the time -itself by virtue of some unimaginable enchantment. They were all alive. -And on the other side of the courtyard beyond the shed in which the -animals slept or uneasily stirred, in the huge hospital that went up -sheer like a windowed cliff into the air, men and women were ceasing to -be themselves, or were struggling to remain themselves. They were dying, -they were struggling to live. The other windows looked on to the river. -The lights of London Bridge were on the right, of Blackfriars to the -left. On the opposite shore, St. Paul’s floated up as though -self-supported in the moonlight. Like time the river flowed, silent and -black. Gumbril and Mrs. Viveash leaned their elbows on the sill and -looked out. Like time the river flowed, stanchlessly, as though from a -wound in the world’s side. For a long time they were silent. They looked -out, without speaking, across the flow of time, at the stars, at the -human symbol hanging miraculously in the moonlight. Lancing had gone -back to his German book; he had no time to waste looking out of windows. - -“To-morrow,” said Gumbril at last, meditatively. - -“To-morrow,” Mrs. Viveash interrupted him, “will be as awful as to-day.” -She breathed it like a truth from beyond the grave prematurely revealed, -expiringly from her death-bed within. - -“Come, come,” protested Gumbril. - -In his hot box Shearwater sweated and pedalled. He was across the -Channel now; he felt himself safe. Still he trod on; he would be at -Amiens by midnight if he went on at this rate. He was escaping, he had -escaped. He was building up his strong light dome of life. Proportion, -cried the old man, proportion! And it hung there, proportioned and -beautiful in the dark, confused horror of his desires, solid and strong -and durable among his broken thoughts. Time flowed darkly past. - -“And now,” said Mrs. Viveash, straightening herself up, and giving -herself a little shake, “now we’ll drive to Hampstead and have a look at -Piers Cotton.” - - - PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LTD., EDINBURGH - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES - - - 1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. - 2. Anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as - printed. - 3. 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