Those Barren Leaves by Aldous Huxley (100 books to read txt) 📕

anything much to talk about. “But one hears odd stories of his amorous tastes, you know.” The party halted at the door of Mrs. Aldwinkle’s room. “Perhaps that was one of the reasons,” she went on mysteriously, “why he went travelling all that time⁠—right away from civilization.⁠ ⁠…” On such a theme a conversation might surely be almost indefinitely protracted; the moment for uttering the final, fatal good night had not yet come.

Downstairs in the great saloon the three men were sitting over their red wine. Mr. Cardan had already twice refilled his glass. Calamy was within sight of the bottom of his first tumbler; young Lord Hovenden’s was still more than half full. He was not a very accomplished drinker and was afraid of being sick if he swallowed too much of this young and generous brew.

“Bored, you’re just bored. That’s all it is,” Mr. Cardan was saying. He looked at Calamy over the top of his glass and took another sip, as though to his health. “You haven’t met anyone of late who took your fancy; that’s all. Unless, of course, it’s a case of catarrh in the bile ducts.”

“It’s neither,” said Calamy, smiling.

“Or perhaps it’s the first great climacteric. You don’t happen to be thirty-five, I suppose? Five times seven⁠—a most formidable age. Though not quite so serious as sixty-three. That’s the grand climacteric.” Mr. Cardan shook his head. “Thank the Lord, I got past it without dying, or joining the Church of Rome, or getting married. Thank the Lord; but you?”

“I’m thirty-three,” said Calamy.

“A most harmless time of life. Then it’s just boredom. You’ll meet some little ravishment and all the zest will return.”

Young Lord Hovenden laughed in a very ventriloquial, man-of-the-worldly fashion.

Calamy shook his head. “But I don’t really want it to return,” he said. “I don’t want to succumb to any more little ravishments. It’s too stupid; it’s too childish. I used to think that there was something rather admirable and enviable about being an homme à bonnes fortunes. Don Juan has an honoured place in literature; it’s thought only natural that a Casanova should complacently boast of his successes. I accepted the current view, and when I was lucky in love⁠—and I’ve always been only too deplorably fortunate⁠—I used to think the more highly of myself.”

“We have all thought the same,” said Mr. Cardan. “The weakness is a pardonable one.”

Lord Hovenden nodded and took a sip of wine to show that he entirely agreed with the last speaker.

“Pardonable, no doubt,” said Calamy. “But when one comes to think it over, not very reasonable. For, after all, there’s nothing really to be very proud of, there’s nothing very much to boast about. Consider first of all the other heroes who have had the same sort of successes⁠—more notable, very probably, and more numerous than one’s own. Consider them. What do you see? Rows of insolent grooms and pugilists; leather-faced ruffians and disgusting old satyrs; louts with curly hair and no brains, and cunning little pimps like weasels; soft-palmed young epicenes and hairy gladiators⁠—a vast army composed of the most odious specimens of humanity. Is one to be proud of belonging to their numbers?”

“Why not?” asked Mr. Cardan. “One should always thank God for whatever native talents one possesses. If your talent happens to lie in the direction of higher mathematics, praise God; and if in the direction of seduction, praise God just the same. And thanking God, when one comes to examine the process a little closely, is very much the same as boasting or being proud. I see no harm in boasting a little of one’s Casanovesque capacities. You young men are always so damned intolerant. You won’t allow anyone to go to heaven, or hell, or nowhere, whichever the case may be, by any road except the one you happen to approve of.⁠ ⁠… You should take a leaf out of the Indians’ book. The Indians calculate that there are eighty-four thousand different types of human beings, each with its own way of getting through life. They probably underestimate.”

Calamy laughed. “I only speak for my type,” he said.

“And Hovenden and I for ours,” said Mr. Cardan. “Don’t we, Hovenden?”

“Oh yes. Yes, of course,” Lord Hovenden answered; and for some reason he blushed.

“Proceed,” said Mr. Cardan, refilling his glass.

“Well then,” Calamy went on, “belonging to the species I do belong to, I can’t take much satisfaction in these successes. The more so when I consider their nature. For either you’re in love with the woman or you aren’t; either you’re carried away by your inflamed imagination (for, after all, the person you’re really violently in love with is always your own invention and the wildest of fancies) or by your senses and your intellectual curiosity. If you aren’t in love, it’s a mere experiment in applied physiology, with a few psychological investigations thrown in to make it a little more interesting. But if you are, it means that you become enslaved, involved, dependent on another human being in a way that’s positively disgraceful, and the more disgraceful the more there is in you to be enslaved and involved.”

“It wasn’t Browning’s opinion,” said Mr. Cardan.

“The woman yonder, there’s no use in life
But just to obtain her.”

“Browning was a fool,” said Calamy.

But Lord Hovenden was silently of opinion that Browning was quite right. He thought of Irene’s face, looking out of the little window in the copper bell.

“Browning belonged to another species,” Mr. Cardan corrected.

“A foolish species, I insist,” said Calamy.

“Well, to tell the truth,” Mr. Cardan admitted, closing his winking eye a little further, “I secretly agree with you about that. I’m not really as entirely tolerant as I should like to be.”

Calamy was frowning pensively over his own affairs, and without discussing the greater or less degree of Mr. Cardan’s tolerance he went on. “The question is, at the end of it all: what’s the way out? what’s to be done about it? For it’s obvious, as you say, that the little ravishments will turn up again. And appetite grows with fasting. And philosophy,