Chapter IV.

by Aldous Huxley

　　Denis woke up next morning to find the sun shining, the skyserene. He decided to wear white flannel trousers--white flanneltrousers and a black jacket, with a silk shirt and his new peach-coloured tie. And what shoes? White was the obvious choice, butthere was something rather pleasing about the notion of blackpatent leather. He lay in bed for several minutes consideringthe problem.Before he went down--patent leather was his final choice--helooked at himself critically in the glass. His hair might havebeen more golden, he reflected. As it was, its yellowness hadthe hint of a greenish tinge in it. But his forehead was good.His forehead made up in height what his chin lacked inprominence. His nose might have been longer, but it would pass.His eyes might have been blue and not green. But his coat wasvery well cut and, discreetly padded, made him seem robuster thanhe actually was. His legs, in their white casing, were long andelegant. Satisfied, he descended the stairs. Most of the partyhad already finished their breakfast. He found himself alonewith Jenny."I hope you slept well," he said."Yes, isn't it lovely?" Jenny replied, giving two rapid littlenods. "But we had such awful thunderstorms last week."Parallel straight lines, Denis reflected, meet only at infinity.He might talk for ever of care-charmer sleep and she ofmeteorology till the end of time. Did one ever establish contactwith anyone? We are all parallel straight lines. Jenny was onlya little more parallel than most."They are very alarming, these thunderstorms," he said, helpinghimself to porridge. "Don't you think so? Or are you abovebeing frightened?""No. I always go to bed in a storm. One is so much safer lyingdown.""Why?""Because," said Jenny, making a descriptive gesture, "becauselightning goes downwards and not flat ways. When you're lyingdown you're out of the current.""That's very ingenious.""It's true."There was a silence. Denis finished his porridge and helpedhimself to bacon. For lack of anything better to say, andbecause Mr. Scogan's absurd phrase was for some reason running inhis head, he turned to Jenny and asked:"Do you consider yourself a femme superieure?" He had to repeatthe question several times before Jenny got the hang of it."No," she said, rather indignantly, when at last she heard whatDenis was saying. "Certainly not. Has anyone been suggestingthat I am?""No," said Denis. "Mr. Scogan told Mary she was one.""Did he?" Jenny lowered her voice. "Shall I tell you what Ithink of that man? I think he's slightly sinister."Having made this pronouncement, she entered the ivory tower ofher deafness and closed the door. Denis could not induce her tosay anything more, could not induce her even to listen. She justsmiled at him, smiled and occasionally nodded.Denis went out on to the terrace to smoke his after-breakfastpipe and to read his morning paper. An hour later, when Annecame down, she found him still reading. By this time he had gotto the Court Circular and the Forthcoming Weddings. He got up tomeet her as she approached, a Hamadryad in white muslin, acrossthe grass."Why, Denis," she exclaimed, "you look perfectly sweet in yourwhite trousers."Denis was dreadfully taken aback. There was no possible retort."You speak as though I were a child in a new frock," he said,with a show of irritation."But that's how I feel about you, Denis dear.""Then you oughtn't to.""But I can't help it. I'm so much older than you.""I like that," he said. "Four years older.""And if you do look perfectly sweet in your white trousers, whyshouldn't I say so? And why did you put them on, if you didn'tthink you were going to look sweet in them?""Let's go into the garden," said Denis. He was put out; theconversation had taken such a preposterous and unexpected turn.He had planned a very different opening, in which he was to leadoff with, "You look adorable this morning," or something of thekind, and she was to answer, "Do I?" and then there was to be apregnant silence. And now she had got in first with thetrousers. It was provoking; his pride was hurt.That part of the garden that sloped down from the foot of theterrace to the pool had a beauty which did not depend on colourso much as on forms. It was as beautiful by moonlight as in thesun. The silver of water, the dark shapes of yew and ilex treesremained, at all hours and seasons, the dominant features of thescene. It was a landscape in black and white. For colour therewas the flower-garden; it lay to one side of the pool, separatedfrom it by a huge Babylonian wall of yews. You passed through atunnel in the hedge, you opened a wicket in a wall, and you foundyourself, startlingly and suddenly, in the world of colour. TheJuly borders blazed and flared under the sun. Within its highbrick walls the garden was like a great tank of warmth andperfume and colour.Denis held open the little iron gate for his companion. "It'slike passing from a cloister into an Oriental palace," he said,and took a deep breath of the warm, flower-scented air. "'Infragrant volleys they let fly...' How does it go?"'Well shot, ye firemen! Oh how sweetAnd round your equal fires do meet;Whose shrill report no ear can tell,But echoes to the eye and smell...'""You have a bad habit of quoting," said Anne. "As I never knowthe context or author, I find it humiliating."Denis apologized. "It's the fault of one's education. Thingssomehow seem more real and vivid when one can apply somebodyelse's ready-made phrase about them. And then there are lots oflovely names and words--Monophysite, Iamblichus, Pomponazzi; youbring them out triumphantly, and feel you've clinched theargument with the mere magical sound of them. That's what comesof the higher education.""You may regret your education," said Anne; "I'm ashamed of mylack of it. Look at those sunflowers! Aren't they magnificent?""Dark faces and golden crowns--they're kings of Ethiopia. And Ilike the way the tits cling to the flowers and pick out theseeds, while the other loutish birds, grubbing dirtily for theirfood, look up in envy from the ground. Do they look up in envy?That's the literary touch, I'm afraid. Education again. Italways comes back to that." He was silent.Anne had sat down on a bench that stood in the shade of an oldapple tree. "I'm listening," she said.He did not sit down, but walked backwards and forwards in frontof the bench, gesticulating a little as he talked. "Books," hesaid--"books. One reads so many, and one sees so few people andso little of the world. Great thick books about the universe andthe mind and ethics. You've no idea how many there are. I musthave read twenty or thirty tons of them in the last five years.Twenty tons of ratiocination. Weighted with that, one's pushedout into the world."He went on walking up and down. His voice rose, fell, was silenta moment, and then talked on. He moved his hands, sometimes hewaved his arms. Anne looked and listened quietly, as though shewere at a lecture. He was a nice boy, and to-day he lookedcharming--charming!One entered the world, Denis pursued, having ready-made ideasabout everything. One had a philosophy and tried to make lifefit into it. One should have lived first and then made one'sphilosophy to fit life...Life, facts, things were horriblycomplicated; ideas, even the most difficult of them, deceptivelysimple. In the world of ideas everything was clear; in life allwas obscure, embroiled. Was it surprising that one wasmiserable, horribly unhappy? Denis came to a halt in front ofthe bench, and as he asked this last question he stretched outhis arms and stood for an instant in an attitude of crucifixion,then let them fall again to his sides."My poor Denis!" Anne was touched. He was really too patheticas he stood there in front of her in his white flannel trousers."But does one suffer about these things? It seems veryextraordinary.""You're like Scogan," cried Denis bitterly. "You regard me as aspecimen for an anthropologist. Well, I suppose I am.""No, no," she protested, and drew in her skirt with a gesturethat indicated that he was to sit down beside her. He sat down."Why can't you just take things for granted and as they come?"she asked. "It's so much simpler.""Of course it is," said Denis. "But it's a lesson to be learntgradually. There are the twenty tons of ratiocination to be gotrid of first.""I've always taken things as they come," said Anne. "It seems soobvious. One enjoys the pleasant things, avoids the nasty ones.There's nothing more to be said.""Nothing--for you. But, then, you were born a pagan; I am tryinglaboriously to make myself one. I can take nothing for granted,I can enjoy nothing as it comes along. Beauty, pleasure, art,women--I have to invent an excuse, a justification for everythingthat's delightful. Otherwise I can't enjoy it with an easyconscience. I make up a little story about beauty and pretendthat it has something to do with truth and goodness. I have tosay that art is the process by which one reconstructs the divinereality out of chaos. Pleasure is one of the mystical roads tounion with the infinite--the ecstasies of drinking, dancing,love-making. As for women, I am perpetually assuring myself thatthey're the broad highway to divinity. And to think that I'monly just beginning to see through the silliness of the wholething! It's incredible to me that anyone should have escapedthese horrors.""It's still more incredible to me," said Anne, "that anyoneshould have been a victim to them. I should like to see myselfbelieving that men are the highway to divinity." The amusedmalice of her smile planted two little folds on either side ofher mouth, and through their half-closed lids her eyes shone withlaughter. "What you need, Denis, is a nice plump young wife, afixed income, and a little congenial but regular work.""What I need is you." That was what he ought to have retorted,that was what he wanted passionately to say. He could not sayit. His desire fought against his shyness. "What I need isyou." Mentally he shouted the words, but not a sound issued fromhis lips. He looked at her despairingly. Couldn't she see whatwas going on inside him? Couldn't she understand? "What I needis you." He would say it, he would--he would."I think I shall go and bathe," said Anne. "It's so hot." Theopportunity had passed.