Chapter XII.

by Aldous Huxley

　　Blight, Mildew, and Smut..." Mary was puzzled and distressed.Perhaps her ears had played her false. Perhaps what he hadreally said was, "Squire, Binyon, and Shanks," or "Childe,Blunden, and Earp," or even "Abercrombie, Drinkwater, andRabindranath Tagore." Perhaps. But then her ears never did playher false. "Blight, Mildew, and Smut." The impression wasdistinct and ineffaceable. "Blight, Mildew..." she was forced tothe conclusion, reluctantly, that Denis had indeed pronouncedthose improbable words. He had deliberately repelled herattempts to open a serious discussion. That was horrible. A manwho would not talk seriously to a woman just because she was awoman--oh, impossible! Egeria or nothing. Perhaps Gombauldwould be more satisfactory. True, his meridional heredity was alittle disquieting; but at least he was a serious worker, and itwas with his work that she would associate herself. And Denis?After all, what was Denis? A dilettante, an amateur...Gombauld had annexed for his painting-room a little disusedgranary that stood by itself in a green close beyond the farm-yard. It was a square brick building with a peaked roof andlittle windows set high up in each of its walls. A ladder offour rungs led up to the door; for the granary was perched abovethe ground, and out of reach of the rats, on four massivetoadstools of grey stone. Within, there lingered a faint smellof dust and cobwebs; and the narrow shaft of sunlight that cameslanting in at every hour of the day through one of the littlewindows was always alive with silvery motes. Here Gombauldworked, with a kind of concentrated ferocity, during six or sevenhours of each day. He was pursuing something new, somethingterrific, if only he could catch it.During the last eight years, nearly half of which had been spentin the process of winning the war, he had worked his wayindustriously through cubism. Now he had come out on the otherside. He had begun by painting a formalised nature; then, littleby little, he had risen from nature into the world of pure form,till in the end he was painting nothing but his own thoughts,externalised in the abstract geometrical forms of the mind'sdevising. He found the process arduous and exhilarating. Andthen, quite suddenly, he grew dissatisfied; he felt himselfcramped and confined within intolerably narrow limitations. Hewas humiliated to find how few and crude and uninteresting werethe forms he could invent; the inventions of nature were withoutnumber, inconceivably subtle and elaborate. He had done withcubism. He was out on the other side. But the cubist disciplinepreserved him from falling into excesses of nature worship. Hetook from nature its rich, subtle, elaborate forms, but his aimwas always to work them into a whole that should have thethrilling simplicity and formality of an idea; to combineprodigious realism with prodigious simplification. Memories ofCaravaggio's portentous achievements haunted him. Forms of abreathing, living reality emerged from darkness, built themselvesup into compositions as luminously simple and single as amathematical idea. He thought of the "Call of Matthew," of"Peter Crucified," of the "Lute players," of "Magdalen." He hadthe secret, that astonishing ruffian, he had the secret! And nowGombauld was after it, in hot pursuit. Yes, it would besomething terrific, if only he could catch it.For a long time an idea had been stirring and spreading,yeastily, in his mind. He had made a portfolio full of studies,he had drawn a cartoon; and now the idea was taking shape oncanvas. A man fallen from a horse. The huge animal, a gauntwhite cart-horse, filled the upper half of the picture with itsgreat body. Its head, lowered towards the ground, was in shadow;the immense bony body was what arrested the eye, the body and thelegs, which came down on either side of the picture like thepillars of an arch. On the ground, between the legs of thetowering beast, lay the foreshortened figure of a man, the headin the extreme foreground, the arms flung wide to right and left.A white, relentless light poured down from a point in the rightforeground. The beast, the fallen man, were sharply illuminated;round them, beyond and behind them, was the night. They werealone in the darkness, a universe in themselves. The horse'sbody filled the upper part of the picture; the legs, the greathoofs, frozen to stillness in the midst of their trampling,limited it on either side. And beneath lay the man, hisforeshortened face at the focal point in the centre, his armsoutstretched towards the sides of the picture. Under the arch ofthe horse's belly, between his legs, the eye looked through intoan intense darkness; below, the space was closed in by the figureof the prostrate man. A central gulf of darkness surrounded byluminous forms...The picture was more than half finished. Gombauld had been atwork all the morning on the figure of the man, and now he wastaking a rest--the time to smoke a cigarette. Tilting back hischair till it touched the wall, he looked thoughtfully at hiscanvas. He was pleased, and at the same time he was desolated.In itself, the thing was good; he knew it. But that something hewas after, that something that would be so terrific if only hecould catch it--had he caught it? Would he ever catch it?Three little taps--rat, tat, tat! Surprised, Gombauld turned hiseyes towards the door. Nobody ever disturbed him while he was atwork; it was one of the unwritten laws. "Come in!" he called.The door, which was ajar, swung open, revealing, from the waistupwards, the form of Mary. She had only dared to mount half-wayup the ladder. If he didn't want her, retreat would be easierand more dignified than if she climbed to the top."May I come in?" she asked."Certainly."She skipped up the remaining two rungs and was over the thresholdin an instant. "A letter came for you by the second post," shesaid. "I thought it might be important, so I brought it out toyou." Her eyes, her childish face were luminously candid as shehanded him the letter. There had never been a flimsier pretext.Gombauld looked at the envelope and put it in his pocketunopened. "Luckily," he said, "it isn't at all important.Thanks very much all the same."There was a silence; Mary felt a little uncomfortable. "May Ihave a look at what you've been painting?" she had the courage tosay at last.Gombauld had only half smoked his cigarette; in any case hewouldn't begin work again till he had finished. He would giveher the five minutes that separated him from the bitter end."This is the best place to see it from," he said.Mary looked at the picture for some time without saying anything.Indeed, she didn't know what to say; she was taken aback, she wasat a loss. She had expected a cubist masterpiece, and here was apicture of a man and a horse, not only recognisable as such, buteven aggressively in drawing. Trompe-l'oeil--there was no otherword to describe the delineation of that foreshortened figureunder the trampling feet of the horse. What was she to think,what was she to say? Her orientations were gone. One couldadmire representationalism in the Old Masters. Obviously. Butin a modern...? At eighteen she might have done so. But now,after five years of schooling among the best judges, herinstinctive reaction to a contemporary piece of representationwas contempt--an outburst of laughing disparagement. What couldGombauld be up to? She had felt so safe in admiring his workbefore. But now--she didn't know what to think. It was verydifficult, very difficult."There's rather a lot of chiaroscuro, isn't there?" she venturedat last, and inwardly congratulated herself on having found acritical formula so gentle and at the same time so penetrating."There is," Gombauld agreed.Mary was pleased; he accepted her criticism; it was a seriousdiscussion. She put her head on one side and screwed up hereyes. "I think it's awfully fine," she said. "But of courseit's a little too...too...trompe-l'oeil for my taste." Shelooked at Gombauld, who made no response, but continued to smoke,gazing meditatively all the time at his picture. Mary went ongaspingly. "When I was in Paris this spring I saw a lot ofTschuplitski. I admire his work so tremendously. Of course,it's frightfully abstract now--frightfully abstract andfrightfully intellectual. He just throws a few oblongs on to hiscanvas--quite flat, you know, and painted in pure primarycolours. But his design is wonderful. He's getting more andmore abstract every day. He'd given up the third dimension whenI was there and was just thinking of giving up the second. Soon,he says, there'll be just the blank canvas. That's the logicalconclusion. Complete abstraction. Painting's finished; he'sfinishing it. When he's reached pure abstraction he's going totake up architecture. He says it's more intellectual thanpainting. Do you agree?" she asked, with a final gasp.Gombauld dropped his cigarette end and trod on it."Tschuplitski's finished painting," he said. "I've finished mycigarette. But I'm going on painting." And, advancing towardsher, he put his arm round her shoulders and turned her round,away from the picture.Mary looked up at him; her hair swung back, a soundless bell ofgold. Her eyes were serene; she smiled. So the moment had come.His arm was round her. He moved slowly, almost imperceptibly,and she moved with him. It was a peripatetic embracement. "Doyou agree with him?" she repeated. The moment might have come,but she would not cease to be intellectual, serious."I don't know. I shall have to think about it." Gombauldloosened his embrace, his hand dropped from her shoulder. "Becareful going down the ladder," he added solicitously.Mary looked round, startled. They were in front of the opendoor. She remained standing there for a moment in bewilderment.The hand that had rested on her shoulder made itself felt lowerdown her back; it administered three or four kindly littlesmacks. Replying automatically to its stimulus, she movedforward."Be careful going down the ladder," said Gombauld once more.She was careful. The door closed behind her and she was alone inthe little green close. She walked slowly back through thefarmyard; she was pensive.