Author: Aldous Huxley
Category: Literature
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Mr. Cardan patted him on the shoulder. He was too tactful to offer the philosophical consolation that such suffering is the lot of nine-tenths of the human race. Mr. Elver, he could see, would never have forgiven such a denial of his dolorous uniqueness. ‘You must have courage,’ said Mr. Cardan, and pressing the glass into Mr. Elver’s hand he added: ‘Drink some of this. It’ll do you good.’
Mr. Elver drank and wiped his eyes. ‘But I’ll make them smart for it one day,’ he said, banging the table with his fist. The violent self-pity of a moment ago transformed itself into an equally violent anger. ‘I’ll make them all pay for what I suffered. When I’m rich.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ said Mr. Cardan encouragingly.
‘Thirteen years of it I had,’ Mr. Elver went on. ‘And two and a half years during the war, dressed in uniform and filling up forms in a wooden hut at Leeds; but that was better than touting for advertisements. Thirteen years. Penal servitude with torture. But I’ll pay them, I’ll pay them.’ He banged the table again.
‘Still,’ said Mr. Cardan, ‘you seem to have got out of it now all right. Living here in Italy is a sign of freedom; at least I hope so.’
At these words Mr. Elver’s anger against ‘them’ suddenly dropped. His face took on a mysterious and knowing expression. He smiled to himself what was meant to be a dark, secret and satanic smile, a smile that should be all but imperceptible to the acutest eye. But he found, in his tipsiness, that the smile was growing uncontrollably broader and broader; he wanted to grin, to laugh aloud. Not that what he was secretly thinking about was at all funny; it was not, at any rate when he was sober. But now the whole world seemed to swim in a bubbly sea of hilarity. Moreover, the muscles of his face, when he started to smile satanically, had all at once got out of hand and were insisting on expanding what should have been the expression of Lucifer’s darkest and most fearful thoughts into a bumpkin’s grin. Hastily Mr. Elver extinguished his face in his glass, in the hope of concealing from his guest that rebellious smile. He emerged again choking. Mr. Cardan had to pat him on the back. When it was all over, Mr. Elver reassumed his mysterious expression and nodded significantly. ‘Perhaps,’ he said darkly, not so much in response to anything Mr. Cardan had said as on general principles, so to speak, and to indicate that the whole situation was in the last degree dubious, dark and contingent — contingent on a whole chain of further contingencies.
Mr. Cardan’s curiosity was roused by the spectacle of this queer pantomime; he refilled his host’s glass. ‘Still,’ he insisted, ‘if you hadn’t freed yourself, how would you be staying here—’ in this horrible marsh, he had almost added; but he checked himself and said ‘in Italy’ instead.
The other shook his head. ‘I can’t tell you,’ he said darkly, and again the satanic smile threatened to enlarge itself to imbecility.
Mr. Cardan relapsed into silence, content to wait. From the expression on Mr. Elver’s face he could see that the effort of keeping a secret would be, for his host, intolerably great. The fruit must be left to ripen of itself. He said nothing and looked pensively into one of the dark corners of the tomb-like chamber as though occupied with his own thoughts.
Mr. Elver sat hunched up in his chair, frowning at the table in front of him. Every now and then he took a sip of wine. Tipsily mutable, his mood changed all at once from hilarious to profoundly gloomy. The silence, the darkness funereally tempered by the four unwavering candles, worked on his mind. What a moment since had seemed an uproarious joke now presented itself to his thoughts as appalling. He felt a great need to unburden himself, to transfer responsibilities on to other shoulders, to get advice that should confirm him in his course. Furtively, for a glimpse only, he looked at his guest. How abstractedly and regardlessly he was staring into vacancy! Not a thought, no sympathy for poor Philip Elver. Ah, if he only knew. . . .
He broke silence at last. ‘Tell me,’ he said abruptly, and it seemed to his drunken mind that he was displaying an incredible subtlety in his method of approaching the subject; ‘do you believe in vivisection?’
Mr. Cardan was surprised by the question. ‘Believe in it?’ he echoed. ‘I don’t quite know how one can believe in vivisection. I think it useful, if that’s what you mean.’
‘You don’t think it’s wrong?’
‘No,’ said Mr. Cardan.
‘You think it doesn’t matter cutting up animals?’
‘Not if the cutting serves some useful human purpose.’
‘You don’t think animals have got rights?’ pursued Mr. Elver with a clarity and tenacity that, in a drunken man, surprised Mr. Cardan. This was a subject, it was clear, on which Mr. Elver must long have meditated. ‘Just like human beings?’
‘No,’ said Mr. Cardan. ‘I’m not one of those fools who think that one life is as good as another, simply because it is a life; that a grasshopper is as good as a dog and a dog as good as a man. You must recognize a hierarchy of existences.’
‘A hierarchy,’ exclaimed Mr. Elver, delighted with the word, ‘a hierarchy — that’s it. That’s exactly it. A hierarchy. And among human beings too?’ he added.
‘Yes, of course,’ Mr. Cardan affirmed. ‘The life of the soldier who killed Archimedes isn’t worth the life of Archimedes. It’s the fundamental fallacy of democracy and humanitarian Christianity to suppose that it is. Though of course,’ Mr. Cardan added pensively, ‘one has no justifying reason for saying so, but only one’s instinctive taste. For the soldier, after all, may have been a good husband and father, may have spent the non-professional, unsoldierly portions of his life in turning the left cheek and making two blades of grass grow where only one grew before. If, like Tolstoy, your tastes run to good fatherhood, left cheeks and agriculture, then you’ll say that the life of the soldier is worth just as much as the life of Archimedes — much more, indeed; for Archimedes was a mere geometrician, who occupied himself with lines and angles, curves and surfaces, instead of with good and evil, husbandry and religion. But if, on the contrary, one’s tastes are of a more intellectual cast, then one will think as I think — that the life of Archimedes is worth the lives of several billion of even the most amiable soldiers. But as for saying which point of view is right—’ Mr. Cardan shrugged his shoulders. ‘Partner, I leave it to you.’
Mr. Elver seemed rather disappointed by the inconclusive turn that his guest’s discourse had taken. ‘But still,’ he insisted, ‘it’s obvious that a wise man’s better than a fool. There is a hierarchy.’
‘Well, I personally should say there was,’ said Mr. Cardan. ‘But I can’t speak for others.’ He saw that he had been carried away by the pleasures of speculation into saying things his host did not want to hear. To almost all men, even when they are sober, a suspense of judgment is extraordinarily distasteful. And Mr. Elver was far from sober; moreover, Mr. Cardan began to suspect, this philosophic conversation was a tortuous introduction to personal confidences. If one wanted the confidences one must agree with the would-be confider’s opinion. That was obvious.
‘Good,’ said Mr. Elver. ‘Then you’ll admit that an intelligent man is worth more than an imbecile, a moron; ha ha, a moron. . . .’ And at this word he burst into violent and savage laughter, which, becoming more and more extravagant as it prolonged itself, turned at last into an uncontrollable screaming and sobbing.
His chair turned sideways to the table, his legs crossed, the fingers of one hand playing caressingly with his wine glass, the other manipulating his cigar, Mr. Cardan looked on, while his host, the tears streaming down his cheeks, his narrow face distorted almost out of recognition, laughed and sobbed, now throwing himself back in his chair, now covering his face with his hands, now bending forward over the table to rest his forehead on his arms, while his whole body shook and shook with the repeated and uncontrollable spasms. A disgusting sight, thought Mr. Cardan; and a disgusting specimen too. He began to have an inkling of what the fellow was up to. Translate ‘intelligent man’ and ‘moron’ into ‘me’ and ‘my sis
ter’ — for the general, the philosophical in any man’s conversation must always be converted into the particular and personal if you want to understand him — interpret in personal terms what he had said about vivisection, animal rights and the human hierarchy, and there appeared, as the plain transliteration of the cipher — what? Something that looked exceedingly villainous, thought Mr. Cardan.
‘Then I suppose,’ he said in a very cool and level voice, when the other had begun to recover from his fit, ‘I suppose it’s your sister who has the liberating cash.’
Mr. Elver glanced at him, with an expression of surprise, almost of alarm, on his face. His eyes wavered away from Mr. Cardan’s steady, genial gaze. He took refuge in his tumbler. ‘Yes,’ he said, when he had taken a gulp. ‘How did you guess?’
Mr. Cardan shrugged his shoulders. ‘Purely at random,’ he said.
‘After my father died,’ Mr. Elver explained, ‘she went to live with her godmother, who was the old lady at the big house in our parish. A nasty old woman she was. But she took to Grace, she kind of adopted her. When the old bird died at the beginning of this year, Grace found she’d been left twenty-five thousand.’
For all comment, Mr. Cardan clicked his tongue against his palate and slightly raised his eyebrows.
‘Twenty-five thousand,’ the other repeated. ‘A half-wit, a moron! What can she do with it?’
‘She can take you to Italy,’ Mr. Cardan suggested.
‘Oh, of course we can live on the interest all right,’ said Mr. Elver contemptuously. ‘But when I think how I could multiply it.’ He leaned forward eagerly, looking into Mr. Cardan’s face for a second, then the shifty grey eyes moved away and fixed themselves on one of the buttons of Mr. Cardan’s coat, from which they would occasionally dart upwards again to reconnoitre and return. ‘I’ve worked it out, you see,’ he began, talking so quickly that the words tumbled over one another and became almost incoherent. ‘The Trade Cycle. . . . I can prophesy exactly what’ll happen at any given moment. For instance . . .’ He rambled on in a series of complicated explanations.
‘Well, if you’re as certain as all that,’ said Mr. Cardan when he had finished, ‘why don’t you get your sister to lend you the money?’
‘Why not?’ Mr. Elver repeated gloomily and leaned back again in his chair. ‘Because that blasted old hag had the capital tied up. It can’t be touched.’
‘Perhaps she lacked faith in the Trade Cycle,’ Mr. Cardan suggested.
‘God rot her!’ said the other fervently. ‘And when I think of what I’d do with the money when I’d made really a lot. Science, art . . .’
‘Not to mention revenge on your old acquaintances,’ said Mr. Cardan, cutting him short. ‘You’ve worked out the whole programme?’
‘Everything,’ said Mr. Elver. ‘There’d never have been anything like it. And now this damned fool of an old woman goes and gives the money to her pet moron and makes it impossible for me to touch it.’ He ground his teeth with rage and disgust.
‘But if your sister were to die unmarried,’ said Mr. Cardan, ‘the money, I suppose, would be yours.’
The other nodded.
‘It’s a very hierarchical question, certainly,’ said Mr. Cardan. In the vault-like room there was a prolonged silence.
Mr. Elver had reached the final stage of intoxication. Almost suddenly he began to feel weak, profoundly weary and rather ill. Anger, hilarity, the sense of satanic power — all had left him. He desired only to go to bed as soon as possible; at the same time he doubted his capacity to get there. He shut his eyes.
Mr. Cardan looked at the limp and sodden figure with an expert’s eye, scientifically observing it. It was clear to him that the creature would volunteer no more; that it had come to a state when it could hardly think of anything but the gradually mounting nausea within it. It was time to change tactics. He leaned forward, and tapping his host’s arm launched a direct attack.
‘So you brought the poor girl here to get rid of her,’ he said.
Mr. Elver opened his eyes and flashed at his tormentor a hunted and terrified look. His face became very pale. He turned away. ‘No, no, not that.’ His voice had sunk to an unsteady whisper.
‘Not that?’ Mr. Cardan echoed scornfully. ‘But it’s obvious. And you’ve as good as been telling me so for the last half-hour.’
Mr. Elver could only go on whispering: ‘No.’
Mr. Cardan ignored the denial. ‘How did you propose to do it?’ he asked. ‘It’s always risky, whatever way you choose, and I shouldn’t put you down as being particularly courageous. How, how?’
The other shook his head.
Mr. Cardan insisted, ruthlessly. ‘Ratsbane?’ he queried. ‘Steel? — no, you wouldn’t have the guts for that. Or did you mean that she should tumble by accident into one of those convenient ditches?’
‘No, no. No.’
‘But I insist on being told,’ said Mr. Cardan truculently, and he thumped the table till the reflections of the candles in the brimming glasses quivered and rocked.
Mr. Elver put his face in his hands and burst into tears. ‘You’re a bully,’ he sobbed, ‘a dirty bully, like all the rest.’
‘Come, come,’ Mr. Cardan protested encouragingly. ‘Don’t take it so hardly. I’m sorry I upset you. You mustn’t think,’ he added, ‘that I have any of the vulgar prejudices about this affair. I’m not condemning you. Far from it. I don’t want to use your answers against you. I merely ask out of curiosity — pure curiosity. Cheer up, cheer up. Try a little more wine.’
But Mr. Elver was feeling too deplorably sick to be able to think of wine without horror. He refused it, shuddering. ‘I didn’t mean to do anything,’ he whispered. ‘I meant it just to happen.’
‘Just to happen? Yours must be a very hopeful nature,’ said Mr. Cardan.
‘It’s in Dante, you know. My father brought us up on Dante; I loathed the stuff,’ he added, as though it had been castor oil. ‘But things stuck in my mind. Do you remember the woman who tells how she died: “Siena mi fe’, disfecemi Maremma”? Her husband shut her up in a castle in the Maremma and she died of fever. Do you remember?’
Mr. Cardan nodded.
‘That was the idea. I had the quinine: I’ve been taking ten grains a day ever since I arrived — for safety’s sake. But there doesn’t seem to be any fever here nowadays,’ Mr. Elver added. ‘We’ve been here nine weeks. . . .’
‘And nothing’s happened!’ Mr. Cardan leaned back in his chair and roared with laughter. ‘Well, the moral of that,’ he added, when he had breath enough to begin talking again, ‘the moral of that is: See that your authorities are up to date.’
But Mr. Elver was past seeing a joke. He got up from his chair and stood unsteadily, supporting himself with a hand on the table. ‘Would you mind helping me to my room?’ he faintly begged. ‘I don’t feel very well.’
Mr. Cardan helped him first into the garden. ‘You ought to learn to carry your liquor more securely,’ he said, when the worst was over. ‘That’s another of the evening’s morals.’
When he had lighted his host to bed, Mr. Cardan went to his appointed room and undressed. It was a long time before he fell asleep. The mosquitoes, partly, and partly his own busy thoughts, were responsible for his wakefulness.
CHAPTER VIII
NEXT MORNING MR. Cardan was down early. The first thing he saw in the desolate garden before the house was Miss Elver. She was dressed in a frock cut on the same sack-like lines as her last night’s dress, but made of a gaudy, large-patterned material that looked as though it had been designed for the upholstery of chairs and sofas, not of the human figure. Her beads were more numerous and more brilliant than before. She carried a parasol of brightly flowered silk.
Emerging from the house, Mr. Cardan found her in the act of tying a bunch of Michaelmas daisies to the tail of a large white maremman dog that stood, its mouth open, its pink tongue lolling out and its large brown eyes fixed, so it seemed, meditatively on the further horizon,
waiting for Miss Elver to have finished the operation. But Miss Elver was very slow and clumsy. The fingers of her stubby little hands seemed to find the process of tying a bow in a piece of ribbon extraordinarily difficult. Once or twice the dog looked round with a mild curiosity to see what was happening at the far end of its anatomy. It did not seem in the least to resent the liberties Miss Elver was taking with its tail, but stood quite still, resigned and waiting. Mr. Cardan was reminded of that enormous tolerance displayed by dogs and cats of even the most fiendish children. Perhaps, in a flash of Bergsonian intuition, the beast had realized the childish essence of Miss Elver’s character, had recognized the infant under the disguise of the full-grown woman. Dogs are good Bergsonians, thought Mr. Cardan. Men, on the other hand, are better Kantians. He approached softly.
Miss Elver had at last succeeded in tying the bow to her satisfaction; the dog’s white tail was tipped with a rosette of purple flowers. She straightened herself up and looked admiringly at her handiwork. ‘There!’ she said at last, addressing herself to the dog. ‘Now you can run away. Now you look lovely.’
The dog took the hint and trotted off, waving his flower-tipped tail.