Chapter II.

by Aldous Huxley

　　He took nobody by surprise; there was nobody to take. All wasquiet; Denis wandered from room to empty room, looking withpleasure at the familiar pictures and furniture, at all thelittle untidy signs of life that lay scattered here and there.He was rather glad that they were all out; it was amusing towander through the house as though one were exploring a dead,deserted Pompeii. What sort of life would the excavatorreconstruct from these remains; how would he people these emptychambers? There was the long gallery, with its rows ofrespectable and (though, of course, one couldn't publicly admitit) rather boring Italian primitives, its Chinese sculptures, itsunobtrusive, dateless furniture. There was the panelled drawing-room, where the huge chintz-covered arm-chairs stood, oases ofcomfort among the austere flesh-mortifying antiques. There wasthe morning-room, with its pale lemon walls, its painted Venetianchairs and rococo tables, its mirrors, its modern pictures.There was the library, cool, spacious, and dark, book-lined fromfloor to ceiling, rich in portentous folios. There was thedining-room, solidly, portwinily English, with its great mahoganytable, its eighteenth-century chairs and sideboard, itseighteenth-century pictures--family portraits, meticulous animalpaintings. What could one reconstruct from such data? There wasmuch of Henry Wimbush in the long gallery and the library,something of Anne, perhaps, in the morning-room. That was all.Among the accumulations of ten generations the living had leftbut few traces.Lying on the table in the morning-room he saw his own book ofpoems. What tact! He picked it up and opened it. It was whatthe reviewers call "a slim volume." He read at hazard:"...But silence and the topless darkVault in the lights of Luna Park;And Blackpool from the nightly gloomHollows a bright tumultuous tomb."He put it down again, shook his head, and sighed. "What genius Ihad then!" he reflected, echoing the aged Swift. It was nearlysix months since the book had been published; he was glad tothink he would never write anything of the same sort again. Whocould have been reading it, he wondered? Anne, perhaps; he likedto think so. Perhaps, too, she had at last recognised herself inthe Hamadryad of the poplar sapling; the slim Hamadryad whosemovements were like the swaying of a young tree in the wind."The Woman who was a Tree" was what he had called the poem. Hehad given her the book when it came out, hoping that the poemwould tell her what he hadn't dared to say. She had neverreferred to it.He shut his eyes and saw a vision of her in a red velvet cloak,swaying into the little restaurant where they sometimes dinedtogether in London--three quarters of an hour late, and he at histable, haggard with anxiety, irritation, hunger. Oh, she wasdamnable!It occurred to him that perhaps his hostess might be in herboudoir. It was a possibility; he would go and see. Mrs.Wimbush's boudoir was in the central tower on the garden front.A little staircase cork-screwed up to it from the hall. Denismounted, tapped at the door. "Come in." Ah, she was there; hehad rather hoped she wouldn't be. He opened the door.Priscilla Wimbush was lying on the sofa. A blotting-pad restedon her knees and she was thoughtfully sucking the end of a silverpencil."Hullo," she said, looking up. "I'd forgotten you were coming.""Well, here I am, I'm afraid," said Denis deprecatingly. "I'mawfully sorry."Mrs. Wimbush laughed. Her voice, her laughter, were deep andmasculine. Everything about her was manly. She had a large,square, middle-aged face, with a massive projecting nose andlittle greenish eyes, the whole surmounted by a lofty andelaborate coiffure of a curiously improbable shade of orange.Looking at her, Denis always thought of Wilkie Bard as thecantatrice."That's why I'm going toSing in op'ra, sing in op'ra,Sing in op-pop-pop-pop-pop-popera."Today she was wearing a purple silk dress with a high collar anda row of pearls. The costume, so richly dowagerish, sosuggestive of the Royal Family, made her look more than ever likesomething on the Halls."What have you been doing all this time?" she asked."Well," said Denis, and he hesitated, almost voluptuously. Hehad a tremendously amusing account of London and its doings allripe and ready in his mind. It would be a pleasure to give itutterance. "To begin with," he said...But he was too late. Mrs. Wimbush's question had been what thegrammarians call rhetorical; it asked for no answer. It was alittle conversational flourish, a gambit in the polite game."You find me busy at my horoscopes," she said, without even beingaware that she had interrupted him.A little pained, Denis decided to reserve his story for morereceptive ears. He contented himself, by way of revenge, withsaying "Oh?" rather icily."Did I tell you how I won four hundred on the Grand National thisyear?""Yes," he replied, still frigid and mono-syllabic. She must havetold him at least six times."Wonderful, isn't it? Everything is in the Stars. In the OldDays, before I had the Stars to help me, I used to losethousands. Now"--she paused an instant--"well, look at that fourhundred on the Grand National. That's the Stars."Denis would have liked to hear more about the Old Days. But hewas too discreet and, still more, too shy to ask. There had beensomething of a bust up; that was all he knew. Old Priscilla--notso old then, of course, and sprightlier--had lost a great deal ofmoney, dropped it in handfuls and hatfuls on every race-course inthe country. She had gambled too. The number of thousandsvaried in the different legends, but all put it high. HenryWimbush was forced to sell some of his Primitives--a Taddeo daPoggibonsi, an Amico di Taddeo, and four or five namelessSienese--to the Americans. There was a crisis. For the firsttime in his life Henry asserted himself, and with good effect, itseemed.Priscilla's gay and gadding existence had come to an abrupt end.Nowadays she spent almost all her time at Crome, cultivating arather ill-defined malady. For consolation she dallied with NewThought and the Occult. Her passion for racing still possessedher, and Henry, who was a kind-hearted fellow at bottom, allowedher forty pounds a month betting money. Most of Priscilla's dayswere spent in casting the horoscopes of horses, and she investedher money scientifically, as the stars dictated. She betted onfootball too, and had a large notebook in which she registeredthe horoscopes of all the players in all the teams of the League.The process of balancing the horoscopes of two elevens oneagainst the other was a very delicate and difficult one. A matchbetween the Spurs and the Villa entailed a conflict in theheavens so vast and so complicated that it was not to be wonderedat if she sometimes made a mistake about the outcome."Such a pity you don't believe in these things, Denis, such apity," said Mrs. Wimbush in her deep, distinct voice."I can't say I feel it so.""Ah, that's because you don't know what it's like to have faith.You've no idea how amusing and exciting life becomes when you dobelieve. All that happens means something; nothing you do isever insignificant. It makes life so jolly, you know. Here am Iat Crome. Dull as ditchwater, you'd think; but no, I don't findit so. I don't regret the Old Days a bit. I have the Stars..."She picked up the sheet of paper that was lying on the blotting-pad. "Inman's horoscope," she explained. "(I thought I'd liketo have a little fling on the billiards championship thisautumn.) I have the Infinite to keep in tune with," she wavedher hand. "And then there's the next world and all the spirits,and one's Aura, and Mrs. Eddy and saying you're not ill, and theChristian Mysteries and Mrs. Besant. It's all splendid. One'snever dull for a moment. I can't think how I used to get onbefore--in the Old Days. Pleasure--running about, that's all itwas; just running about. Lunch, tea, dinner, theatre, supperevery day. It was fun, of course, while it lasted. But therewasn't much left of it afterwards. There's rather a good thingabout that in Barbecue-Smith's new book. Where is it?"She sat up and reached for a book that was lying on the littletable by the head of the sofa."Do you know him, by the way?" she asked."Who?""Mr. Barbecue-Smith."Denis knew of him vaguely. Barbecue-Smith was a name in theSunday papers. He wrote about the Conduct of Life. He mighteven be the author of "What a Young Girl Ought to Know"."No, not personally," he said."I've invited him for next week-end." She turned over the pagesof the book. "Here's the passage I was thinking of. I markedit. I always mark the things I like."Holding the book almost at arm's length, for she was somewhatlong-sighted, and making suitable gestures with her free hand,she began to read, slowly, dramatically."'What are thousand pound fur coats, what are quarter millionincomes?'" She looked up from the page with a histrionicmovement of the head; her orange coiffure nodded portentously.Denis looked at it, fascinated. Was it the Real Thing and henna,he wondered, or was it one of those Complete Transformations onesees in the advertisements?"'What are Thrones and Sceptres?'"The orange Transformation--yes, it must be a Transformation--bobbed up again."'What are the gaieties of the Rich, the splendours of thePowerful, what is the pride of the Great, what are the gaudypleasures of High Society?'"The voice, which had risen in tone, questioningly, from sentenceto sentence, dropped suddenly and boomed reply."'They are nothing. Vanity, fluff, dandelion seed in the wind,thin vapours of fever. The things that matter happen in theheart. Seen things are sweet, but those unseen are a thousandtimes more significant. It is the unseen that counts in Life.'"Mrs. Wimbush lowered the book. "Beautiful, isn't it?" she said.Denis preferred not to hazard an opinion, but uttered a non-committal "H'm.""Ah, it's a fine book this, a beautiful book," said Priscilla, asshe let the pages flick back, one by one, from under her thumb."And here's the passage about the Lotus Pool. He compares theSoul to a Lotus Pool, you know." She held up the book again andread. "'A Friend of mine has a Lotus Pool in his garden. Itlies in a little dell embowered with wild roses and eglantine,among which the nightingale pours forth its amorous descant allthe summer long. Within the pool the Lotuses blossom, and thebirds of the air come to drink and bathe themselves in itscrystal waters...' Ah, and that reminds me," Priscillaexclaimed, shutting the book with a clap and uttering her bigprofound laugh--"that reminds me of the things that have beengoing on in our bathing-pool since you were here last. We gavethe village people leave to come and bathe here in the evenings.You've no idea of the things that happened."She leaned forward, speaking in a confidential whisper; every nowand then she uttered a deep gurgle of laughter. "...mixedbathing...saw them out of my window...sent for a pair of field-glasses to make sure...no doubt of it..." The laughter broke outagain. Denis laughed too. Barbecue-Smith was tossed on thefloor.It's time we went to see if tea's ready," said Priscilla. Shehoisted herself up from the sofa and went swishing off across theroom, striding beneath the trailing silk. Denis followed her,faintly humming to himself:"That's why I'm going toSing in op'ra, sing in op'ra,Sing in op-pop-pop-pop-popera."And then the little twiddly bit of accompaniment at the end:"ra-ra."