Sinister Street by Compton Mackenzie (great books to read TXT) 📕

man as higher than a frog, as less repulsive than⁠—ugh! it makes me shudder⁠—but oh, my son, doesn’t it make me laugh.⁠ ⁠…” She rocked herself with extravagant mirth for a moment. Then she began again, staring out in front of her intensely, fiercely, speaking with the monotonous voice of a visionary. “So I worship woman, and in this nightmare city, in this nightmare life, Lily was always beautiful; only beautiful, mind you. I don’t want to worship anything but beauty. I don’t care about purity or uprightness, but I must have beauty. And you came blundering along and kidnapped my lovely girl. You came along, thinking you were going to regenerate her, and you can’t understand that I’m only able to see you in the shape of a frog. It does amuse me to hear you talking to me so solemnly and so earnestly and so nobly⁠ ⁠… and all the time I can only see a clumsy frog.”

“But what has all this to do with Petronius? There’s nothing in that romance particularly complimentary to women,” Michael argued.

“It’s the nightmare effect of it that I adore,” Sylvia exclaimed. “It’s the sensation of being hopelessly plunged into a maze of streets from which there’s no escape. I was plunged just like that into London. It is gloriously and sometimes horribly mad, and that’s all I want in my reading now. I want to be given the sensation of other people having been mad before me⁠ ⁠… years ago in a nightmare. Besides, think of the truth, the truth of a work of art that seems ignorant of goodness. Not one moderately decent person all through.”

“And you will take Lily back?” Michael asked.

“Yes, yes, of course I will. But not because you ask me, mind. Don’t for heaven’s sake, puff yourself up with the idea that I’m doing anything except gratify myself in this matter.”

“I don’t want you to do it for any other reason,” he said. “I shall feel more secure with that pledge than with any you could think of. By the way, tell me about a man called Walker. Ronald Walker⁠—a painter. He had an affair with Lily, didn’t he?”

“Ronnie Walker? He painted her; that was all. There was never anything more.”

“And Lonsdale? Arthur Lonsdale?”

“Who? The Honorable Arthur?”

Michael nodded.

“Yes, we met him first at Covent Garden, and went to Brighton with him and another boy⁠—Clarehaven⁠—Lord Clarehaven.”

“Oh, I remember him at the House,” said Michael.

“Money is necessary sometimes, you know,” Sylvia laughed.

“Of course it is. Look here. Will you in future, whenever you feel you’re in a nightmare⁠—will you write to me and let me send money?” he asked. “I know you despise me and of course⁠ ⁠… I understand; but I can’t bear to think of anyone being haunted as you must be haunted sometimes. Don’t be proud about this, because I’ve got no pride left. I’m only terribly anxious to be of service to somebody. There’s really no reason for you to be proud. You see, I should always be so very much more anxious to help than you would to be helped. And it really isn’t only because of Lily that I say this. I’ve got a good many books you’d enjoy, and I think I’ll send them to you. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye,” she said, looking at him curiously.

Michael turned away from her down the gravel-path, and a moment later slammed the door. He had only gone a few steps away, when he heard Sylvia calling after him.

“You stupid!” she said. “You never told me Lily’s address.”

“I’ll give you a card.”

“Mr. Michael Fane,” she read, “1 Ararat House, Island Road.” She looked at him and raised her eyebrows.

“You see, I expected to live there myself,” Michael explained. “I told a friend of mine, Maurice Avery, to clear up everything. The furniture can all be sold. If you want anything for here, take it of course; but I think most of the things will be too large for Mulberry Cottage.”

“And what shall I say to Lily?” she asked.

“Oh, I don’t think I should say anything about me.”

“Who was the man?”

“I never saw him,” said Michael. “I only saw his hat.”

She pulled him to her and kissed him.

“How many women have done that suddenly like that?” she demanded.

“One⁠—well, perhaps two.” He was wondering if Mrs. Smith’s kiss ought to count in the comparison.

“I never have to any man,” she said, and vanished through the door in the wall.

Michael hoped that Sylvia intended to imply by that kiss that his offer of help was accepted. Fancy her having read Petronius! He could send her his Adlington’s Apuleius. She would enjoy reading that, and he would write in it: I’ve eaten rose-leaves and I am no longer a golden ass. Perhaps he would also send her his Shelton’s Don Quixote.

When Michael turned out of Tinderbox Lane into the Fulham Road, each person of humanity he passed upon the pavement seemed to him strange with unrevealed secrets. The people of London were somehow transfigured, and he longed to see their souls, if it were only in the lucid flashes of a nightmare. Yet for nearly a year he had been peering into the souls of people. Had he, indeed. Had he not rather been peering to see in their souls the reflection of his own? He was moved by the thought of Sylvia in London, and suddenly he was swept from his feet by the surging against him of the thoughts of all the passersby and, struggling in the trough of these thoughts, he was more and more conscious that unless he fought for himself he would be lost. The illusion fled on the instant of its creation; and the people were themselves again⁠—dull, quick, slow, ordinary, depressed, gay; political busybodies, political fools, political slaves, political animals. How they huddled together, each one of them afraid to stand for himself. It was political passion that made them animals, each dependent in turn on the mimicry of his neighbor. Each was solicitous or jealous or fond or envious