Author: Aldous Huxley
Category: Literature
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Mr. Cardan stepped forward. ‘ ”Neat but not gaudy,” ’ he quoted, ‘ ”genteel but not expensive, like the gardener’s dog with a primrose tied to his tail.” Good-morning.’ He took off his hat.
But Miss Elver did not return his salutation. Taken by surprise, she had stood, as though petrified, staring at him with stretched eyes and open mouth while he spoke. At Mr. Cardan’s ‘good-morning,’ which was the first word of his that she had understood, the enchantment of stillness seemed to be lifted from her. She burst into a nervous laugh, covered her blushing face with her hands — for a moment only — then turned and ran down the path, ungainly as an animal moving in an element not its own, to take refuge behind a clump of rank bushes at the end of the garden. Seeing her run, the big dog came bounding after her, joyously barking. One Michaelmas daisy dropped to the ground, then another. In a moment they were all gone and the ribbon with them.
Slowly, cautiously, as though he were stalking a shy bird, and with a reassuring air of being absorbed in anything rather than the pursuit of a runaway, Mr. Cardan walked after Miss Elver down the path. Between the leaves of the bushes he caught glimpses of her bright frock; sometimes, with infinite circumspection, and certain, it was clear, that she was escaping all notice, she peeped at Mr. Cardan round the edge of the bush. Gambolling round her, the dog continued to bark.
Arrived within five or six yards of Miss Elver’s hiding-place, Mr. Cardan halted. ‘Come now,’ he said cajolingly, ‘what’s there so frightening about me? Take a good look at me. I don’t bite. I’m quite tame.’
The leaves of the bushes shook; from behind them came a peal of shrill laughter.
‘I don’t even bark, like your stupid dog,’ Mr. Cardan went on. ‘And if you tied a bunch of flowers on to my tail I should never have the bad manners to get rid of them in the first two minutes like that rude animal.’
There was more laughter.
‘Won’t you come out?’
There was no answer.
‘Oh, very well then,’ said Mr. Cardan, in the tone of one who is deeply offended, ‘I shall go away. Good-bye.’ He retraced his steps for a few yards, then turned off to the right along a little path that led to the garden gate. When he was about three-quarters of the way along it, he heard the sound of hurrying footsteps coming up behind him. He walked on, pretending to notice nothing. There was a touch on his arm.
‘Don’t go. Please.’ Miss Elver’s voice spoke imploringly. He looked round, as though startled. ‘I won’t run away again. But you mustn’t look at me like that.’
‘Like what?’ asked Mr. Cardan.
Miss Elver put up a screening hand and turned away. ‘Like I don’t know what,’ she said.
Mr. Cardan thought he perfectly understood; he pursued the subject no further. ‘Well, if you promise not to run away,’ he said, ‘I won’t go.’
Miss Elver’s face shone with pleasure and gratitude. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Should we go and look at the chickens? They’re round at the back.’
They went round to the back. Mr. Cardan admired the chickens. ‘You like animals?’ he asked.
‘I should think so,’ said Miss Elver rapturously, and nodded.
‘Have you ever had a parrot of your own?’
‘No.’
‘Or a monkey?’
She shook her head.
‘Not even a Shetland pony?’ asked Mr. Cardan on a note of astonishment.
Miss Elver’s voice trembled as she again had to answer ‘No.’ At the thought of all these enchanting things she had never possessed, the tears came into her eyes.
‘In my house,’ said Mr. Cardan, conjuring up fairy palaces as easily as Aladdin, ‘there are hundreds of them. I’ll give you some when you come to stay with me.’
Miss Elver’s face became bright again. ‘Will you?’ she said, ‘Oh, that would be nice, that would be nice. And do you keep bears?’
‘One or two,’ said Mr. Cardan modestly.
‘Well . . .’ Miss Elver looked up at him, her blank bright eyes opened to their fullest extent. She paused, drew a deep breath and let it slowly out again. ‘It must be a nice house,’ she added at last, turning away and nodding slowly at every word, ‘a nice house. That’s all I can say.’
‘You’d like to come and stay?’ asked Mr. Cardan.
‘I should think I would,’ Miss Elver replied decidedly, looking up at him again. Then suddenly she blushed, she put up her hands. ‘No, no, no,’ she protested.
‘Why not?’ asked Mr. Cardan.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’ And she began to laugh.
‘Remember the bears,’ said Mr. Cardan.
‘Yes. But . . .’ She left the sentence unfinished. The old woman came to the back door and rang the bell for breakfast. Ungainly as a diving-bird on land, Miss Elver scuttled into the house. Her companion followed more slowly. In the dining-room, less tomb-like in the bright morning light, breakfast was waiting. Mr. Cardan found his hostess already eating with passion, as though her life depended on it.
‘I’m so hungry,’ she explained with her mouth full. ‘Phil’s late,’ she added.
‘Well, I’m not surprised,’ said Mr. Cardan, as he sat down and unfolded his napkin.
When he came down at last, it was in the guise of a cleric so obviously unfrocked, so deplorably seedy and broken-down that Mr. Cardan felt almost sorry for him.
‘Nothing like good strong coffee,’ he said cheerfully, as he filled his host’s cup. Mr. Elver looked on, feeling too melancholy and too ill to speak. For a long time he sat motionless in his chair, without moving, lacking the strength to stretch out his hand to his cup.
‘Why don’t you eat, Phil?’ asked his sister, as she decapitated her second egg. ‘You generally eat such a lot.’
Goaded, as though by a taunt, Philip Elver reached for his coffee and swallowed down a gulp. He even took some toast and buttered it; but he could not bring himself to eat.
At half-past ten Mr. Cardan left the house. He told his host that he was going in search of his sculpture; and he comforted Miss Elver, who, seeing him put on his hat and take his walking stick, had begun to whimper, by assuring her that he would be back to luncheon. Following the old woman’s directions, Mr. Cardan soon found himself on the shores of the shallow lake of Massaciuccoli. A mile away, on the further shore, he could see the clustering pink and whitewashed houses of the village in which, he knew, the grocer’s brother lived and kept his treasure. But instead of proceeding directly to the goal of his pilgrimage, Mr. Cardan lighted a cigar and lay down on the grass at the side of the path. It was a bright clear day. Over the mountains floated great clouds, hard-edged against the sky, firm and massive as though carved from marble and seeming more solid than the marble mountains beneath. A breeze stirred the blue water of the lake into innumerable dazzling ripples. It rustled among the leaves of the poplars and the sound was like that of the sea heard from far off. In the midst of the landscape lay Mr. Cardan, pensively smoking his cigar; the smoke of it drifted away along the wind.
Twenty-five thousand pounds, Mr. Cardan was thinking. If one were to invest them in the seven per cent. Hungarian Loan, they would bring in seventeen hundred and fifty a year. And if one lived in Italy that went a long way; one could consider oneself rich on that. A nice house in Siena, or Perugia, or Bologna — Bologna he decided would be the best; there was nothing to compare with Bolognese cooking. A car — one could afford to keep something handsome. Plenty of nice books, nice people to stay with one all the time, jaunts in comfort through Europe. A secure old age; the horrors of decrepitude in poverty for ever averted. The only disadvantage — one’s wife happened to be a harmless idiot. Still, she’d obviously be most devoted; she’d do her best. And one would make her happy, one would even allow her a domesticated bear. In fact, Mr. Cardan assured himself, it was the poor creature’s only chance of happiness. If she stayed with her brother, he’d find some substitute for the inefficient anopheles sooner or later. If she fell
into the hands of an adventurer in need of her money, the chances were that he’d be a great deal more of a scoundrel than Tom Cardan. In fact, Mr. Cardan saw, he could easily make out a case for its being his bounden duty, for the poor girl’s sake, to marry her. That would do very nicely for romantic spirits like Lilian Aldwinkle. For them, he’d be the gallant rescuer, the Perseus, the chivalrous St. George. Less enthusiastic souls might look at the twenty-five thousand and smile. But let them smile. After all, Mr. Cardan asked himself, a grin more or less — what does it matter? No, the real problem, the real difficulty was himself. Could he do it? Wasn’t it, somehow, a bit thick — an idiot? Wasn’t it too — too Russian? Too Stavroginesque?
True, his motive would be different from the Russian’s. He would marry his idiot for comfort and a placid old age — not for the sake of strengthening his moral fibres by hard exercise, not in the voluptuous hope of calling new scruples and finer remorses into existence, or in the religious hope of developing the higher consciousness by leading a low life. But on the other hand, nothing could prevent the life from being, in point of fact, thoroughly low; and he couldn’t guarantee his conscience against the coming of strange qualms. Would seventeen hundred and fifty per annum be a sufficient compensation?
For more than an hour Mr. Cardan lay there, smoking, looking at the bright lake, at the ethereal fantastic mountains and the marbly clouds, listening to the wind among the leaves and the occasional far-away sounds of life, and pondering all the time. In the end he decided that seventeen hundred and fifty, or even the smaller income that would result from investment in something a little safer than seven per cent. Hungarian Loan, was a sufficient compensation. He’d do it. Mr. Cardan got up, threw away the stump of his second cigar and walked slowly back towards the house. As he approached it through the little plantation of poplar trees Miss Elver, who had been on the look-out for his return, came running out of the gate to meet him. The gaudy upholstery material blazed up as she passed out of the shade of the house into the sunlight, her coloured beads flashed. Uttering shrill little cries and laughing, she ran towards him. Mr. Cardan watched her as she came on. He had seen frightened cormorants bobbing their heads in a ludicrous anxiety from side to side. He had seen penguins waving their little flappers, scuttling along, undignified, on their short legs. He had seen vultures with trailing wings hobbling and hopping, ungainly, over the ground. Memories of all these sights appeared before his mind’s eye as he watched Miss Elver’s approach. He sighed profoundly.
‘I’m so glad you’ve come back,’ Miss Elver cried breathlessly, as she approached, ‘I was really afraid you were going right away.’ She shook his hand earnestly and looked up into his face. ‘You’ve not forgotten about the monkeys and the Shetland ponies, have you?’ she added, rather anxiously.
Mr. Cardan smiled. ‘Of course not,’ he answered; and he added gallantly: ‘How could I forget anything that gives you pleasure?’ He squeezed her hand and, bending down, kissed it.
Miss Elver’s face flushed very red, then, the moment after, became exceedingly pale. Her breath came quickly and unsteadily. She shut her eyes. A shuddering ran through her; she wavered on her feet, she seemed on the point of falling. Mr. Cardan caught her by the arm and held her up. This was going to be worse, he thought, than he had imagined; more Stavroginesque. To faint when he kissed her hand — kissed it almost ironically — that was too much. But probably, he reflected, nothing of the kind had ever happened to her before. How many men had ever so much as spoken to her? It was understandable.
‘My good child — really now.’ He slightly shook her arm. ‘Pull yourself together. If you’re going to faint like this I shall never be able to trust you with a bear. Come, come.’
Still, the understanding of a thing does not alter it. It remains what it was when it was still uncomprehended. Seventeen hundred and fifty per annum — but at this rate it looked as though that would hardly be enough.
Miss Elver opened her eyes and looked at him. Into their blankness had come that look of anxious, unhappy love with which a child looks at his mother when he thinks that she is going to leave him. Mr. Cardan could not have felt more remorseful if he had committed a murder.
What every weakness, every vice?
Tom Cardan, all were thine.
All the same, there were certain things the doing of which one felt to be an outrage. Still, one had to think of those seventeen hundred and fifty pounds; one had to think of old age in solitude and poverty.
Leaving Miss Elver to play by herself in the garden, Mr. Cardan went indoors. He found his host sitting behind closed jalousies in a greenish twilight, his head on his hand.
‘Feeling better?’ asked Mr. Cardan cheerfully; and getting no answer, he went on to tell a long, bright story of how he had searched for the grocer’s brother, only to find, at last, that he was away from home and would be away till to-morrow. ‘So I hope you won’t mind,’ he concluded, ‘if I trespass on your charming hospitality for another night. Your sister has most kindly told me that I might.’
Mr. Elver turned on him a glance of concentrated loathing and averted his eyes. He said nothing.
Mr. Cardan drew up a chair and sat down. ‘There’s a most interesting little book,’ he said, looking at his host with a genial twinkling expression, ‘by a certain Mr. W. H. S. Jones called “Malaria: a factor in the history of Greece and Rome,” or some such title. He shows how the disease may quite suddenly obtain a footing in countries hitherto immune and in the course of a few generations bring a whole culture, a powerful empire to the ground. Conversely he shows how it is got rid of. Drainage, quinine, wire-netting . . .’ The other stirred uneasily in his chair; but Mr. Cardan went on ruthlessly. When the bell rang for luncheon he was talking to Mr. Elver about the only way in which the Yellow Peril might be permanently averted.
‘First,’ he said, laying the forefinger of his right hand against the thumb of his left, ‘first you must introduce malaria into Japan. Japan’s immune, so far; it’s a crying scandal. You must start by remedying that. And secondly,’ he moved on to the index, ‘you must see that the Chinese never have a chance to stamp out the disease in their country. Four hundred million malarial Chinamen may be viewed with equanimity. But four hundred million healthy ones — that’s a very different matter. The spread of malaria among the yellow races — there’s a cause,’ said Mr. Cardan, rising from his chair, ‘a cause to which some good European might profitably devote himself. You, who take so much interest in the subject, Mr. Elver, you might find a much worse vocation. Shall we go into lunch?’ Mr. Elver rose, totteringly. ‘I have a tremendous appetite,’ his guest went on, patting him on his bent back. ‘I hope you have too.’
Mr. Elver at last broke silence. ‘You’re a damned bully,’ he whispered in a passion of misery and futile rage, ‘a damned stinking bully.’
‘Come, come,’ said Mr. Cardan. ‘I protest against “stinking.” ’
CHAPTER IX
EARLY THE NEXT morning Mr. Cardan and his hostess left the house and walked rapidly away through the fields in the direction of the lake. They had told the old woman that they would be back to a late breakfast. Mr. Elver was not yet awake; Mr. Cardan had left instructions that he was not to be called before half-past nine.
The ground was still wet with dew when they set out; the poplar trees threw shadows longer than themselves. The air was cool; it was a pleasure to walk. Mr. Cardan strode along at four miles an hour; and like a diver out of water, like a soaring bird reduced to walk the earth, Miss Elver trotted along at his side, rolling and hopping as she walked, as though she were mounted, not on feet, but on a set of eccentric wheels of different diameters. Her face seemed to shine with happiness; every now and then she looked at Mr. Cardan with shy adoration, and if she happened to catch his eye she would blush, turn away her head and laugh. Mr. Cardan was almost appalled by the extent of his success and the ease with which it had been obtained. He might make a slave of the poor creature, might keep her sh
ut up in a rabbit-hutch, and, provided he showed himself now and again to be worshipped, she would be perfectly happy. The thought made Mr. Cardan feel strangely guilty.
‘When we’re married,’ said Miss Elver suddenly, ‘shall we have some children?’
Mr. Cardan smiled rather grimly. ‘The trouble about children,’ he said, ’is that the bears might eat them. You can never be quite sure of bears. Remember Elisha’s bears and those bad children.’
Miss Elver’s face became thoughtful. She walked on for a long time in silence.
They came to the lake, lying placid and very bright under the pale early-morning sky. At the sight of it Miss Elver clapped her hands with pleasure; she forgot in an instant all her troubles. The fatal incompatibility between bears and children ceased to preoccupy her. ‘What lovely water!’ she cried, and bending down she picked up a pebble from the path and threw it into the lake.
But Mr. Cardan did not permit her to linger. ‘There’s no time to lose,’ he said, and taking her arm he hurried her on.
‘Where are we going to?’ asked Miss Elver.
He pointed to the village on the further shore of the lake. ‘From there,’ he said, ‘we’ll take some sort of cab or cart.’
The prospect of driving in a cart entirely reconciled Miss Elver to parting at such short notice with the lake. ‘That’ll be lovely,’ she declared, and trotted on so fast that Mr. Cardan had to quicken his pace in order to keep up with her.
While the little carriage was being made ready and the horse put in and harnessed — hastelessly, as these things are always done in Italy, with dignity and at leisure — Mr. Cardan went to visit the grocer’s brother. Now that he had come so far it would be foolish to miss the opportunity of seeing the treasure. The grocer’s brother was himself a grocer, and so like his relative that Mr. Cardan could almost fancy it was Miss Thriplow’s virtuous and simple friend from the hill-top to whom he was now speaking in the plain. When Mr. Cardan explained his business the man bowed, wreathed himself in smiles, laughed and blew acetylene into his face just as his brother had done. He expatiated on the beauty and the antiquity of his treasure, and when Mr. Cardan begged him to make haste and show him the sculpture, he would not suffer himself to be interrupted, but went on lyrically with his description, repeating the same phrases again and again and gesticulating until he began to sweat. At last, when he considered Mr. Cardan worked up to a due state of preliminary enthusiasm, the grocer opened the door at the back of the shop and mysteriously beckoned to his visitor to follow him. They walked down a dark passage, through a kitchen full of tumbling children on whom one had to be careful not to tread, across a little yard and into a mouldering out-house. The grocer led the way, walking all the time on tip-toe and speaking only in a whisper — for what reason Mr. Cardan could not imagine, unless it was to impress him with the profound importance of the affair, and perhaps to suggest that the beauty and antiquity of the work of art were such that it was only barefoot and in silence that it should be approached.