Author: Aldous Huxley
Category: Literature
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“M. Lanfranc is completely converted to my ideas.”
“My father will do nothing without consulting me, but I shall feel more certain of getting my way if you are my ally.”
“I will be your ally then.”
“Yours is a sensible method,” said M. Hervart. “You may know that I am the keeper of the Greek sculpture at the Louvre. I entered that necropolis at a time when the old system of restoration had begun to be abandoned. They were oscillating between two methods — re-making or doing nothing. The second has prevailed. You will have noticed that our marbles can be divided into two groups: those which have no antiquity but in the name, and those which have no antiquity except in the material. In old days, when they had found a bust, they manufactured a new head for it, new arms and new legs; then they wrote underneath: ‘Artemis (restored), Minerva (restored), Nymph with a bow (restored),’ according to the fancy of the cast-maker or as they were guided by a somnolent archæology. I think that they certainly filled some gaps in this way. If the system had gone on being followed, we should doubtless be in possession at the present time of a complete Olympus; while as it is there are plenty of empty places left in the assembly of our gods. Since we decided to do nothing, our galleries have grown rich in curious anatomical odds and ends — legs and hands that look like those ex-voto offerings that used, as a matter of fact, to hang in Greek sanctuaries; heads that look as though they had, like Orpheus’s head, been rolled by storms among the pebbles of the sea; busts so full of holes that they seem to have served as targets for drunken soldiers. In short nothing comes to us now but fragments — fragments of great archæological interest, but whose value as works of art is almost nothing. Wouldn’t some intermediate method be preferable? By intermediate I mean intelligent. Intelligence is the art of reconciling ideas and producing a harmony. A head of Aphrodite with a broken nose ceases to be a head of Aphrodite. I ask for beauty and they give me a museum specimen. If they want me to admire it, they must make a new nose; if they don’t want to make a new nose, then they must divide up the Louvre into two museums, the æsthetic museum and the archæological museum.”
Having finished speaking, he looked first of all at Rose, thus showing that he had need, before everything else, of her approbation. Rose’s face lit up with happiness. Her eyes answered, “My dear, I admire you. You’re a god.”
These movements were understood by Leonor, who had been trying for some few moments to guess what were the relations between Rose and Hervart.
“They are in love,” he said to himself. “Hervart has a genius for making love. I am twenty-eight, which is my only point of superiority over him. And even that is very illusory, for it is only women who know something about life, whether through experience or through the confidences of some one else, who pay any attention to a man’s age. A woman is as old as her face: a man is as old as his eyes. Hervart has a pair of fine blue eyes, gentle and lively, ardent. But what do I care? I don’t desire the good graces of this innocent.”
While reflecting thus, he had answered M. Hervart, “I quite agree with you. People tend too much to-day to confound the curious, rare or antique with the beautiful. The æsthetic sense has been replaced by a feeling of respect.”
“The process was perhaps inevitable,” said M. Hervart. “In any case it suits a democracy. People have no time to learn to admire, but one can very quickly learn to respect. The intelligence is docile, but taste is recalcitrant.”
“But aren’t there such things,” Rose asked, “as spontaneous admirations?”
“Yes,” said Leonor, “there’s love.”
“Then is admiration the same as love?”
“If they don’t yet love, people come very near loving when they admire.”
“And is love admiration?”
“Not always.”
“Love,” said M. Hervart, “is compatible with almost all other feelings, even with hatred.”
“Yes,” replied Leonor, “that has the appearance of being true, for there are many kinds of love. The love that struggles with hatred can only be a love inspired by interest or sensuality.”
“One never knows. I hold that love, just as it is capable of taking any shape or form, can devour all other feelings and install itself in their place. It comes and it goes, without one’s ever being able to understand the mechanism of its movements. It lasts two hours or a whole life....
“You are mixing up the different species,” said Leonor. “You must, if we are to understand one another, allow words to keep their traditional sense with all its shades of meaning. Love is at the base of all emotions either as a negative or positive principle; one can say that, and when one has said it one is no forwarder. Do you think there’s no point in the way verbal usage employs the words ‘passion, caprice, inclination, taste, curiosity’ and other words of the kind? It would surely be better to create new shades, rather than set one’s wits to work to dissolve all the colours and shades of sensation and emotion into a single hue.”
Like a village musician plunged into the midst of a discussion on counterpoint and orchestration, Rose listened, a little disquieted, a little irritated, but at the same time fascinated. They were speaking of something that filled her heart and set her nerves tingling; she did not understand, she felt. She would have liked to understand.
“Xavier will explain it all to me. How silly I look in the middle of the conversations where I can’t put in a word.”
She pretended to desire a rose out of reach of her hand. M. Hervart darted forward, reached the flower and set to work to strip the branch of its thorns and its superfluous wood and leaves.
“That was not the one I wanted,” said Rose.
M. Hervart began again and the girl looked on, happy at having been able to interrupt a serious conversation by a mere whim.
Leonor examined them with a certain irony. Rose noticed his look, felt herself blushing and slipped away.
M. Hervart and Leonor continued their stroll and their chat; but they talked no more about love.
CHAPTER IX
LUNCHEON PASSED AGREEABLY for Rose. She was the centre of looks, desires and conversation. M. Lanfranc gallanted without bad taste. She would laugh and then, with sudden seriousness, accept the contact of some gesture of M. Hervart’s, who was sitting next to her. Leonor confined himself to a few curt phrases, which were meant to sum up the more ingenuous remarks of his fellow guests. He had thought he could treat this girl with contempt, but her eyes, he found, excited him. By dint of trying to seem a superior being, he succeeded in looking like a thoroughly disagreeable one. Rose was frightened of him.
“How cold he is,” she thought. “One could never talk or play with a man so sure of all his movements. He would always win.”
Several times, with innocent unconsciousness, she looked at M. Hervart.
“How well I have chosen! Here is a man who is younger than he, nearer my own age, and yet each of his words and gestures brings me closer to Xavier. I feel that it will be always like that. Who can compete with him? Xavier, I love you.”
She leaned forward to reach a jug and as she did so whispered full in M. Hervart’s face, “Xavier, I love you.”
M. Hervart pretended to choke. His redness of face was put down to a cherry stone; Lanfranc gave vent to some feeble joking on the subject.
As luncheon was nearing its end, she said with a perverse frankness:
“M. Hervart, will you come with me and see if everything’s all right down in the garden?”
“I am having coffee served out of doors,” Mme. Des Boys explained.
Lanfranc expatiated on the beauties of this country custom.
As soon as they were hidden from view behind the shrubbery, Rose, without a word, took M. Hervart by the shoulders and offered him her lips. It was a long kiss. Xavier clasped the girl in his arms and with a passion in which there was much amorous art, drank in her soul.
When he lifted his head, he felt confused:
“I have bee
n giving the kiss of a happy lover, when what was asked for was a betrothal kiss. What will she think of me?”
Rose was already looking at the rustic table. When M. Hervart rejoined her, she greeted him with the sweetest of smiles.
“Was that what she wanted then?” M. Hervart wondered.
“Rose,” he said aloud, “I love you, I love you.”
“I hope you do,” she replied.
“Oh, how I should like to be alone with you now!”
“I wouldn’t. I should be afraid.”
This answer set M. Hervart thinking: “Does she know as much about it as all that? Is it an invitation?”
His thought lost itself in a tangle of vain desires. But for the very reason that the moment was not propitious, he let himself go among the most audacious fancies. His eyes wandered towards the dark wood, as though in search of some favourable retreat. He made movements which he never finished. Raising himself from his chair, he let himself fall back, fidgeted with an empty cup, searched vainly for a match to light his absent cigarette. The arrival of Leonor calmed him. His fate that day was to embark on futile discussions with this young man, and he accepted his destiny.
Every one was once more assembled. The conversation was resumed on the tone it had kept up at luncheon; but Rose was dreaming, and M. Hervart had a headache. It was all so spiritless, despite the enticements of M. Lanfranc, that M. Des Boys lost no time in proposing a walk.
“If you want us,” said Leonor, “to draw up a plan for the transformation of your property, you must show it to us in some detail. Is this wood to be a part of your projected park? And what’s beyond it? Another estate, or meadows, or ploughed fields? What are the rights of way? Do you want a single avenue towards Couville? One could equally well have one joining the St. Martin road....
“Do you intend to lay waste this wood?” asked Rose. “It’s so beautiful and wild.”
“My dear young lady,” said Leonor, “I intend to do nothing; that is to say, I only intend to please you....”
“Do what my daughter wants,” said M. Des Boys. “You’re here for her sake.”
“For her sake,” Mme. Des Boys repeated.
“Oh, well,” said Leonor, “we shall get on very well then.”
“So I hope,” said Rose.
“I am at your orders,” said Leonor.
“Come on then,” said Rose.
With these words she got up, throwing M. Hervart a look which was understood. But as M. Hervart rose to his feet, Mme. Des Boys approached him:
“I have something very interesting to tell you.”
M. Hervart had to let Rose and Leonor plunge alone into the wood in which he had, during these last few days, experienced such delightful emotions. Mme. Des Boys took him into the garden.
“I have a question to ask you,” she said. “First of all, is architecture a serious profession?”
“Very,” said M. Hervart.
“But do people make really a lot of money at it?”
“Lanfranc, who was a beggar when I first knew him, is probably richer than you are to-day. Leonor will go even further, I should think, for he seems an intelligent fellow and knows a lot about his business.”
“You’re not speaking out of mere friendship for him?”
“Not at all. Far from it; to tell you the truth I’m not very fond of either of them.”
“But they’re thorough gentlemen and very good company.”
“Certainly, Lanfranc especially.”
“Isn’t he amusing? His nephew is more severe, but I prefer it.”
“So do I.”
“I’m glad to see that you agree with me.”
She continued after a moment’s reflection. “He would be an excellent husband for Rose.”
Hervart did not reply. He had grown pale and his heart had begun beating violently. His thoughts were in confusion; his head whirled.
“What do you think of the idea?” Mme. Des Boys insisted.
He withheld his answer, for he knew that his voice would seem quite changed. He murmured; “Hum,” or something of the sort, something that simply meant that he had heard the question.
But bit by bit he recovered. The happy idea came to him that time. Des Boys was a nullity in the family and had little influence over her daughter.
“Nothing that she says has any importance. I’ll agree with her.”
“I entirely agree with you,” he pronounced,
“My daughter’s a curious creature,” went on Mme. Des Boys, “but your approbation will perhaps be enough to convince her. You have a great deal of influence over her.”
“I?”
“She’s very fond of you. It’s obvious.”
“I’m such an old friend,” said M. Hervart courageously.
His cowardice made him blush.
“Why shouldn’t I confess? Why not say, ‘Yes, she does like me, and I like her, why not?’ Isn’t my desire evident? Can I go away, leave her, do without her?...” But to all these intimate questions M. Hervart did not dare to give a definite answer.
“What I should like is that the present moment should go on for ever....”
“They have hardly spoken to one another, and yet,” Mme. Des Boys continued, “I seem to see between them the beginnings of ... what?... how shall I put it?...”
“The beginnings of an understanding,” prompted M. Hervart with ironic charity. “Why not love? There’s such a thing as love at first sight.”
“Oh, Rose is much too well bred.”
The silliness of this woman, so reasonable and natural, none the less, in her rôle of mother, exasperated M. Hervart even more than the insinuations to which he had been obliged to listen. Ceasing, not to hesitate, but to reflect, he said abruptly:
“I shall be very sorry to see her married.”
Mme. Des Boys pressed his hand:
“Dear friend! yes, it will make a big difference in our home.”
She went on, after a moment’s hesitation:
“Not a word about all this, dear Hervart; you understand. And now I think that the tête-a-tête has perhaps gone on long enough; it would be very nice of you if you’d go and join them.”
M. Hervart, impatient though he was, made his way slowly through the meanders of the little copse. Like Panurge, he kept repeating to himself, “Marry her? or not marry her?”
His head was a clock in which a pendulum swung indefatigably. He sat down on the little bench where, for the first time, he had fell the girl’s head coming gently to rest on his shoulder. He wanted to think.
“I must come to a decision,” he said to himself.
Leonor had noticed that, from the moment their walk had begun, Rose was on the alert at the slightest noise.
“She expects him. That means he’ll come. So much the better. I care very little about this schoolgirl. We’re alone now; no more compliments. I’m simply a landscape gardener at the orders of Mlle. Rose Des Boys. What a name!...”
He looked at the girl.
“After all, the name isn’t so ridiculous as one might think. She is so fresh, she looks so pure. How curious they are, these innocent beings who go through life with the grace of a flower blossoming by the wayside.... But let’s get on with our job....
“The taste of the day, mademoiselle, inclines towards the French style of garden. Some compromise, at least, is necessary between the sham naturalness of the English park and the rigidity of geometrical designs....
“Tell me what your compromise is.”
“But I don’t know the ground yet.”
“It isn’t big, you know. In a quarter of an hour you will have an idea of the place as a whole.”
Leonor continued his dissertation on the art of the garden for a little, but he was perfectly aware that he was not being listened to. Finally he said:
“Nature must obey man; but a reasonable man only asks of her that she should allow herself to be admired or to be loved. Those who wish to admire are inclined to impose certain sacri
fices upon her. Those who love ask less and are content, provided they find an easy access to the sites that please them. But I should imagine that women demand more. They want nature to be tamer, they want to see her utterly conquered; they want landscapes in which you can see the mark of their power....”
“What a curious conversation,” Rose said to herself. “Here’s an architect who would get on my nerves if I had to pass my life in his company....”
This idea made her think more urgently of M. Hervart. She turned her head, questioning the narrow alleys where the sunlight filtered through in little drops.
“She’s thinking of her dear Xavier,” thought Leonor. “What subject can I think of to hold her attention? Obviously, my remarks have so far interested her very little.”
A man, however cold he may voluntarily make himself, however self-controlled he may be by nature, is scarcely capable of going for a walk alone with a young woman without wishing to please. He is equally incapable of keeping his presence of mind sufficiently to be able to look at himself acting and not to make mistakes. But how can one please? Can it be done by rule, particularly with a young girl? Women are hardly capable of anything but total impressions. They do not distinguish, for instance, between cleverness and intelligence, between facility and real power, between real and apparent youthfulness. If one pleases them, one pleases in one’s entirety, and as soon as one does please them, one becomes their sacred animal. Leonor had an inspiration. Instead of expounding his own ideas on gardens, he set to work to repeat, in different terms, what Rose had said that morning:
“What I have been expounding,” he said, “doesn’t seem to interest you much. But you see, I must do my job, which is to back up M. Lanfranc. Personally, I agree with you. If there are weak spots in your house, the nearest mason can put on the necessary plaster, stone and mortar. As for the garden and the wood, I should do nothing except make a few paths so that I might walk without fear of dew or brambles.”
“Now you’re being sensible. Very well then, I shall tell my father that I shall make arrangements with you alone. You will come back here and we will do nothing, almost nothing.”