By reading I know a great deal of Caesar Borgia, of St Francis, of Dr Johnson; a few weeks have made me thoroughly acquainted with these interesting characters, and I have been spared the tedious and revolting process of getting to know them by personal contact, which I should have to do if they were living now. How gay and delightful life would be if one could get rid of all the human contacts! Perhaps, in the future, when machines have attained to a state of perfection – for I confess that I am, like Godwin and Shelley, a believer in perfectibility, the perfectibility of machinery – then, perhaps, it will be possible for those who, like myself, desire it, to live in a dignified seclusion, surrounded by the delicate attentions of silent and graceful machines, and entirely secure from any human intrusion. It is a beautiful thought.’
‘Beautiful,’ Denis agreed. ‘But what about the desirable human contacts, like love and friendship?’
The black silhouette against the darkness shook its head. ‘The pleasures even of these contacts are much exaggerated,’ said the polite level voice. ‘It seems to me doubtful whether they are equal to the pleasures of private reading and contemplation. Human contacts have been so highly valued in the past only because reading was not a common accomplishment and because books were scarce and difficult to reproduce. The world, you must remember, is only just becoming literate.
As reading becomes more and more habitual and widespread, an ever-increasing number of people will discover that books will give them all the pleasures of social life and none of its intolerable tedium. At present people in search of pleasure naturally tend to congregate in large herds and to make a noise; in future their natural tendency will be to seek solitude and quiet. The proper study of mankind is books.’
‘I sometimes think that it may be,’ said Denis; he was wondering if Anne and Gombauld were still dancing together.
‘Instead of which,’ said Mr Wimbush, with a sigh, ‘I must go and see if all is well on the dancing-floor.’ They got up and began to walk slowly towards the white glare. ‘If all these people were dead,’ Henry Wimbush went on, ‘this festivity would be extremely agreeable. Nothing would be pleasanter than to read in a well-written book of an open-air ball that took place a century ago. How charming! one would say; how pretty and how amusing! But when the ball takes place today, when one finds oneself involved in it, then one sees the thing in its true light. It turns out to be merely this.’ He waved his hand in the direction of the acetylene flares. ‘In my youth,’ he went on after a pause, ‘I found myself, quite fortuitously, involved in a series of the most phantasmagorical amorous intrigues.
A novelist could have made his fortune out of them, and even if I were to tell you, in my bald style, the details of these adventures, you would be amazed at the romantic tale. But I assure you, while they were happening – these romantic adventures – they seemed to me no more and no less exciting than any other incident of actual life. To climb by night up a rope-ladder to a second-floor window in an old house in Toledo seemed to me, while I was actually performing this rather dangerous feat, an action as obvious, as much to be taken for granted, as – how shall I put it? – as quotidian as catching the 8.52 from Surbiton to go to business on a Monday morning.
Adventures and romance only take on their adventurous and romantic qualities at second-hand. Live them, and they are just a slice of life like the rest. In literature they become as charming as this dismal ball would be if we were celebrating its tercentenary.’ They had come to the entrance of the enclosure and stood there, blinking in the dazzling light. ‘Ah, if only we were!’ Henry Wimbush added.
Anne and Gombauld were still dancing together.
CHAPTER XXIX
IT WAS AFTER ten o’clock. The dancers had already dispersed and the last lights were being put out. Tomorrow the tents would be struck, the dismantled merry-go-round would be packed into waggons and carted away. An expanse of worn grass, a shabby brown patch in the wide green of the park, would be all that remained. Crome Fair was over.
By the edge of the pool two figures lingered.
‘No, no, no,’ Anne was saying in a breathless whisper, leaning backwards, turning her head from side to side in an effort to escape Gombauld’s kisses. ‘No, please. No.’ Her raised voice had become imperative.
Gombauld relaxed his embrace a little. ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘I will.’
With a sudden effort Anne freed herself. ‘You won’t,’ she retorted. ‘You’ve tried to take the most unfair advantage of me.’
‘Unfair advantage?’ echoed Gombauld in genuine surprise.
‘Yes, unfair advantage. You attack me after I’ve been dancing for two hours, while I’m still reeling drunk with the movement, when I’ve lost my head, when I’ve got no mind left but only a rhythmical body! It’s as bad as making love to someone you’ve drugged or intoxicated.’
Gombauld laughed angrily. ‘Call me a White Slaver and have done with it.’
‘Luckily,’ said Anne, ‘I am now completely sobered, and if you try and kiss me again I shall box your ears. Shall we take a few turns round the pool?’ she added. ‘The night is delicious.’
For answer Gombauld made an irritated noise. They paced off slowly, side by side.
‘What I like about the painting of Degas . . .’ Anne began in her most detached and conversational tone.
‘Oh, damn Degas!’ Gombauld was almost shouting.
From where he stood, leaning in an attitude of despair against the parapet of the terrace, Denis had seen them, the two pale figures in a patch of moonlight, far down by the pool’s edge. He had seen the beginning of what promised to be an endlessly passionate embracement, and at the sight he had fled. It was too much; he couldn’t stand it. In another moment, he felt, he would have burst into irrepressible tears.
Dashing blindly into the house, he almost ran into Mr Scogan, who was walking up and down the hall smoking a final pipe.
‘Hullo!’ said Mr Scogan, catching him by the arm; dazed and hardly conscious of what he was doing or where he was, Denis stood there for a moment like a somnambulist. ‘What’s the matter?’ Mr Scogan went on. ‘You look disturbed, distressed, depressed.’
Denis shook his head without replying.
‘Worried about the cosmos, eh?’ Mr Scogan patted him on the arm. ‘I know the feeling,’ he said. ‘It’s a most distressing symptom. “What’s the point of it all? All is vanity. What’s the good of continuing to function if one’s doomed to be snuffed out at last along with everything else?” Yes, yes. I know exactly how you feel. It’s most distressing if one allows oneself to be distressed. But then why allow oneself to be distressed? After all, we all know that there’s no ultimate point. But what difference does that make?’
At this point the somnambulist suddenly woke up. ‘What?’ he said, blinking and frowning at his interlocutor. ‘What?’ Then breaking away he dashed up the stairs, two steps at a time.
Mr Scogan ran to the foot of the stairs and called up after him. ‘It makes no difference, none whatever. Life is gay all the same, always, under whatever circumstances – under whatever circumstances,’ he added, raising his voice to a shout. But Denis was already far out of hearing, and even if he had not been, his mind tonight was proof against all the consolations of philosophy. Mr Scogan replaced his pipe between his teeth and resumed his meditative pacing. ‘Under any circumstances,’ he repeated to himself. It was ungrammatical to begin with; was it true? And is life really its own reward? He wondered. When his pipe had burned itself to its stinking conclusion he took a drink of gin and went to bed. In ten minutes he was deeply, innocently asleep.
Denis had mechanically undressed and, clad in those flowered silk pyjamas of which he was so justly proud, was lying face downwards on his bed. Time passed. When at last he looked up, the candle which he had left alight at his bedside had burned down almost to the socket. He looked at his watch; it was nearly half-past one. His head ached, his dry, sleepless eyes felt as though they had been bruised from behind, and the blood was beating within his ears a loud arterial drum. He got up, opened the door, tiptoed noiselessly along the passage, and began to mount the stairs towards the higher floors. Arrived at the servants’ quarters under the roof, he hesitated, then turning to the right he opened a little door at the end of the corridor.
Within was a pitch-dark cupboard-like boxroom, hot, stuffy, and smelling of dust and old leather. He advanced cautiously into the blackness, groping with his hands. It was from this den that the ladder went up to the leads of the western tower. He found the ladder, and set his feet on the rungs; noiselessly,
