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

love with the woman. It was a waste of time and there were other things far more important to be done, to be thought about. Other things. They loomed up enormously behind the distracting bustle of life, silently on the further side of the noise and chatter. But what were they? What was their form, their name, their meaning? Through the fluttering veil of movement it was impossible to do more than dimly guess; one might as well try to look at the stars through the London smoke. If one could stop the movement, or get away from it, then surely one would be able to see clearly the large and silent things beyond. But there was no stopping the movement and there was, somehow, no escaping from it. To check it was impossible; and the gesture of escape was ludicrous. The only sensible thing to do was to go on in the usual way and ignore the things outside the world of noise. That was what Calamy tried to do. But he was conscious, none the less, that the things were still there. They were still calmly and immutably there, however much he might agitate himself and distractedly pretend to ignore them. Mutely they claimed attention. They had claimed it, of late, with a most irritating persistence. Calamy’s response had been to make love to Mary Thriplow. That was something which ought to keep him well occupied. And up to a point it did. Up to a point. The best indoor sport, old Cardan had called it; but one demanded something better. Could he go on like this? Or if not, what should he do? The questions exasperated him. It was because the things were there, outside the tumult, that he had to ask them. They forced themselves on him, those questions. But it was intolerable to be bullied. He refused to let himself be bullied. He’d do what he damned well liked. But then, did he really like philandering with Mary Thriplow? In a way, no doubt, up to a point. But the real answer was no; frankly, no. But yes, yes, he insisted with another part of his mind. He did like it. And even if he didn’t, he’d damned well say that he did. And if necessary he’d damned well do what he didn’t like⁠—just because he chose to. He’d do what he didn’t like; and that was the end of it. He worked himself up into a kind of fury.

“What are you thinking about?” Miss Thriplow suddenly asked.

“You,” he said; and there was a savage exasperation in his voice, as though he passionately resented the fact that he was thinking about Mary Thriplow.

“Tiens!” she said on a note of polite curiosity.

“What would you say if I told you I was in love with you?” he asked.

“I should say that I didn’t believe you.”

“Do you want me to compel you to believe?”

“I’d be most interested to know, at any rate, how you proposed to set about it.”

Calamy halted, put his hand on Mary Thriplow’s shoulder and turned her round towards him. “By force, if necessary,” he said, looking into her face.

Miss Thriplow returned his stare. He looked insolent still, still arrogantly conscious of power; but all the drowsiness and indolence that had veiled his look were now fallen away, leaving his face bare, as it were, and burning with a formidable and satanic beauty. At the sight of this strange and sudden transformation Miss Thriplow felt at once exhilarated and rather frightened. She had never seen that expression on a man’s face before. She had aroused passions, but never a passion so violent, so dangerous as this seemed to be.

“By force?” By the tone of her voice, by the mockery of her smile she tried to exasperate him into yet fiercer passion.

Calamy tightened his grip on her shoulder. Under his hand the bones felt small and fragile. When he spoke, he found that he had been clenching his teeth. “By force,” he said. “Like this.” And taking her head between his two hands he bent down and kissed her, angrily, again and again. Why do I do this? he was thinking. This is a folly. There are other things, important things. “Do you believe me now?” he asked.

Mary Thriplow’s face was flushed. “You’re insufferable,” she said. But she was not really angry with him.

IV

“Why have you been so funny all vese days?” Lord Hovenden had at last brought himself to put the long-premeditated question.

“Funny?” Irene echoed on another note, trying to make a joke of it, as though she didn’t understand what he meant. But of course she did understand, perfectly well.

They were sitting in the thin luminous shadow of the olive trees. The bright sky looked down at them between the sparse twi-coloured leaves. On the parched grass about the roots of the trees the sunlight scattered an innumerable golden mintage. They were sitting at the edge of a little terrace scooped out of the steep slope, their legs dangling, their backs propped against the trunk of a hoary tree.

“You know,” said Hovenden. “Why did you suddenly avoid me?”

“Did I?”

“You know you did.”

Irene was silent for a moment before she admitted: “Yes, perhaps I did.”

“But why,” he insisted, “why?”

“I don’t know,” she answered unhappily. She couldn’t tell him about Aunt Lilian.

Her tone emboldened Lord Hovenden to become more insistent. “You don’t know?” he repeated sarcastically, as though he were a lawyer carrying out a cross-examination. “Perhaps you were walking in your sleep all ve time.”

“Don’t be stupid,” she said in a weary little voice.

“At any rate, I’m not too stupid to see vat you were running after vat fellow Chelifer.” Lord Hovenden became quite red in the face as he spoke. For the sake of his manly dignity, it was a pity that his th’s should sound quite so childish.

Irene said nothing, but sat quite still, her head bent, looking down at the slanting grove of olives. Framed