Chapter XIII.

by Aldous Huxley

　　Henry Wimbush brought down with him to dinner a budget of printedsheets loosely bound together in a cardboard portfolio."To-day," he said, exhibiting it with a certain solemnity, "to-day I have finished the printing of my 'History of Crome'. Ihelped to set up the type of the last page this evening.""The famous History?" cried Anne. The writing and the printingof this Magnum Opus had been going on as long as she couldremember. All her childhood long Uncle Henry's History had beena vague and fabulous thing, often heard of and never seen."It has taken me nearly thirty years," said Mr. Wimbush."Twenty-five years of writing and nearly four of printing. Andnow it's finished--the whole chronicle, from Sir FerdinandoLapith's birth to the death of my father William Wimbush--morethan three centuries and a half: a history of Crome, written atCrome, and printed at Crome by my own press.""Shall we be allowed to read it now it's finished?" asked Denis.Mr. Wimbush nodded. "Certainly," he said. "And I hope you willnot find it uninteresting," he added modestly. "Our munimentroom is particularly rich in ancient records, and I have somegenuinely new light to throw on the introduction of the three-pronged fork.""And the people?" asked Gombauld. "Sir Ferdinando and the restof them--were they amusing? Were there any crimes or tragediesin the family?""Let me see," Henry Wimbush rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I canonly think of two suicides, one violent death, four or perhapsfive broken hearts, and half a dozen little blots on thescutcheon in the way of misalliances, seductions, naturalchildren, and the like. No, on the whole, it's a placid anduneventful record.""The Wimbushes and the Lapiths were always an unadventurous,respectable crew," said Priscilla, with a note of scorn in hervoice. "If I were to write my family history now! Why, it wouldbe one long continuous blot from beginning to end." She laughedjovially, and helped herself to another glass of wine."If I were to write mine," Mr. Scogan remarked, "it wouldn'texist. After the second generation we Scogans are lost in themists of antiquity.""After dinner," said Henry Wimbush, a little piqued by his wife'sdisparaging comment on the masters of Crome, "I'll read you anepisode from my History that will make you admit that even theLapiths, in their own respectable way, had their tragedies andstrange adventures.""I'm glad to hear it," said Priscilla."Glad to hear what?" asked Jenny, emerging suddenly from herprivate interior world like a cuckoo from a clock. She receivedan explanation, smiled, nodded, cuckooed at last "I see," andpopped back, clapping shut the door behind her.Dinner was eaten; the party had adjourned to the drawing-room."Now," said Henry Wimbush, pulling up a chair to the lamp. Heput on his round pince-nez, rimmed with tortoise-shell, and begancautiously to turn over the pages of his loose and stillfragmentary book. He found his place at last. "Shall I begin?"he asked, looking up."Do," said Priscilla, yawning.In the midst of an attentive silence Mr. Wimbush gave a littlepreliminary cough and started to read."The infant who was destined to become the fourth baronet of thename of Lapith was born in the year 1740. He was a very smallbaby, weighing not more than three pounds at birth, but from thefirst he was sturdy and healthy. In honour of his maternalgrandfather, Sir Hercules Occam of Bishop's Occam, he waschristened Hercules. His mother, like many other mothers, kept anotebook, in which his progress from month to month was recorded.He walked at ten months, and before his second year was out hehad learnt to speak a number of words. At three years he weighedbut twenty-four pounds, and at six, though he could read andwrite perfectly and showed a remarkable aptitude for music, hewas no larger and heavier than a well-grown child of two.Meanwhile, his mother had borne two other children, a boy and agirl, one of whom died of croup during infancy, while the otherwas carried off by smallpox before it reached the age of five.Hercules remained the only surviving child."On his twelfth birthday Hercules was still only three feet andtwo inches in height. His head, which was very handsome andnobly shaped, was too big for his body, but otherwise he wasexquisitely proportioned, and, for his size, of great strengthand agility. His parents, in the hope of making him grow,consulted all the most eminent physicians of the time. Theirvarious prescriptions were followed to the letter, but in vain.One ordered a very plentiful meat diet; another exercise; a thirdconstructed a little rack, modelled on those employed by the HolyInquisition, on which young Hercules was stretched, withexcruciating torments, for half an hour every morning andevening. In the course of the next three years Hercules gainedperhaps two inches. After that his growth stopped completely,and he remained for the rest of his life a pigmy of three feetand four inches. His father, who had built the most extravaganthopes upon his son, planning for him in his imagination amilitary career equal to that of Marlborough, found himself adisappointed man. 'I have brought an abortion into the world,'he would say, and he took so violent a dislike to his son thatthe boy dared scarcely come into his presence. His temper, whichhad been serene, was turned by disappointment to moroseness andsavagery. He avoided all company (being, as he said, ashamed toshow himself, the father of a lusus naturae, among normal,healthy human beings), and took to solitary drinking, whichcarried him very rapidly to his grave; for the year beforeHercules came of age his father was taken off by an apoplexy.His mother, whose love for him had increased with the growth ofhis father's unkindness, did not long survive, but little morethan a year after her husband's death succumbed, after eating twodozen of oysters, to an attack of typhoid fever."Hercules thus found himself at the age of twenty-one alone inthe world, and master of a considerable fortune, including theestate and mansion of Crome. The beauty and intelligence of hischildhood had survived into his manly age, and, but for hisdwarfish stature, he would have taken his place among thehandsomest and most accomplished young men of his time. He waswell read in the Greek and Latin authors, as well as in all themoderns of any merit who had written in English, French, orItalian. He had a good ear for music, and was no indifferentperformer on the violin, which he used to play like a bass viol,seated on a chair with the instrument between his legs. To themusic of the harpsichord and clavichord he was extremely partial,but the smallness of his hands made it impossible for him ever toperform upon these instruments. He had a small ivory flute madefor him, on which, whenever he was melancholy, he used to play asimple country air or jig, affirming that this rustic music hadmore power to clear and raise the spirits than the mostartificial productions of the masters. From an early age hepractised the composition of poetry, but, though conscious of hisgreat powers in this art, he would never publish any specimen ofhis writing. 'My stature,' he would say, 'is reflected in myverses; if the public were to read them it would not be because Iam a poet, but because I am a dwarf.' Several MS. books of SirHercules's poems survive. A single specimen will suffice toillustrate his qualities as a poet."'In ancient days, while yet the world was young,Ere Abram fed his flocks or Homer sung;When blacksmith Tubal tamed creative fire,And Jabal dwelt in tents and Jubal struck the lyre;Flesh grown corrupt brought forth a monstrous birthAnd obscene giants trod the shrinking earth,Till God, impatient of their sinful brood,Gave rein to wrath and drown'd them in the Flood.Teeming again, repeopled Tellus boreThe lubber Hero and the Man of War;Huge towers of Brawn, topp'd with an empty Skull,Witlessly bold, heroically dull.Long ages pass'd and Man grown more refin'd,Slighter in muscle but of vaster Mind,Smiled at his grandsire's broadsword, bow and bill,And learn'd to wield the Pencil and the Quill.The glowing canvas and the written pageImmortaliz'd his name from age to age,His name emblazon'd on Fame's temple wall;For Art grew great as Humankind grew small.Thus man's long progress step by step we trace;The Giant dies, the hero takes his place;The Giant vile, the dull heroic Block:At one we shudder and at one we mock.Man last appears. In him the Soul's pure flameBurns brightlier in a not inord'nate frame.Of old when Heroes fought and Giants swarmed,Men were huge mounds of matter scarce inform'd;Wearied by leavening so vast a mass,The spirit slept and all the mind was crass.The smaller carcase of these later daysIs soon inform'd; the Soul unwearied playsAnd like a Pharos darts abroad her mental rays.But can we think that Providence will stayMan's footsteps here upon the upward way?Mankind in understanding and in graceAdvanc'd so far beyond the Giants' race?Hence impious thought! Still led by God's own Hand,Mankind proceeds towards the Promised Land.A time will come (prophetic, I descryRemoter dawns along the gloomy sky),When happy mortals of a Golden AgeWill backward turn the dark historic page,And in our vaunted race of Men beholdA form as gross, a Mind as dead and cold,As we in Giants see, in warriors of old.A time will come, wherein the soul shall beFrom all superfluous matter wholly free;When the light body, agile as a fawn's,Shall sport with grace along the velvet lawns.Nature's most delicate and final birth,Mankind perfected shall possess the earth.But ah, not yet! For still the Giants' race,Huge, though diminish'd, tramps the Earth's fair face;Gross and repulsive, yet perversely proud,Men of their imperfections boast aloud.Vain of their bulk, of all they still retainOf giant ugliness absurdly vain;At all that's small they point their stupid scornAnd, monsters, think themselves divinely born.Sad is the Fate of those, ah, sad indeed,The rare precursors of the nobler breed!Who come man's golden glory to foretell,But pointing Heav'nwards live themselves in Hell.'"As soon as he came into the estate, Sir Hercules set aboutremodelling his household. For though by no means ashamed of hisdeformity--indeed, if we may judge from the poem quoted above, heregarded himself as being in many ways superior to the ordinaryrace of man--he found the presence of full-grown men and womenembarrassing. Realising, too, that he must abandon all ambitionsin the great world, he determined to retire absolutely from itand to create, as it were, at Crome a private world of his own,in which all should be proportionable to himself. Accordingly,he discharged all the old servants of the house and replaced themgradually, as he was able to find suitable successors, by othersof dwarfish stature. In the course of a few years he hadassembled about himself a numerous household, no member of whichwas above four feet high and the smallest among them scarcely twofeet and six inches. His father's dogs, such as setters,mastiffs, greyhounds, and a pack of beagles, he sold or gave awayas too large and too boisterous for his house, replacing them bypugs and King Charles spaniels and whatever other breeds of dogwere the smallest. His father's stable was also sold. For hisown use, whether riding or driving, he had six black Shetlandponies, with four very choice piebald animals of New Forestbreed."Having thus settled his household entirely to his ownsatisfaction, it only remained for him to find some suitablecompanion with whom to share his paradise. Sir Hercules had asusceptible heart, and had more than once, between the ages ofsixteen and twenty, felt what it was to love. But here hisdeformity had been a source of the most bitter humiliation, for,having once dared to declare himself to a young lady of hischoice, he had been received with laughter. On his persisting,she had picked him up and shaken him like an importunate child,telling him to run away and plague her no more. The story soongot about--indeed, the young lady herself used to tell it as aparticularly pleasant anecdote--and the taunts and mockery itoccasioned were a source of the most acute distress to Hercules.From the poems written at this period we gather that he meditatedtaking his own life. In course of time, however, he lived downthis humiliation; but never again, though he often fell in love,and that very passionately, did he dare to make any advances tothose in whom he was interested. After coming to the estate andfinding that he was in a position to create his own world as hedesired it, he saw that, if he was to have a wife--which he verymuch desired, being of an affectionate and, indeed, amoroustemper--he must choose her as he had chosen his servants--fromamong the race of dwarfs. But to find a suitable wife was, hefound, a matter of some difficulty; for he would marry none whowas not distinguished by beauty and gentle birth. The dwarfishdaughter of Lord Bemboro he refused on the ground that besidesbeing a pigmy she was hunchbacked; while another young lady, anorphan belonging to a very good family in Hampshire, was rejectedby him because her face, like that of so many dwarfs, was wizenedand repulsive. Finally, when he was almost despairing ofsuccess, he heard from a reliable source that Count Titimalo, aVenetian nobleman, possessed a daughter of exquisite beauty andgreat accomplishments, who was by three feet in height. Settingout at once for Venice, he went immediately on his arrival to payhis respects to the count, whom he found living with his wife andfive children in a very mean apartment in one of the poorerquarters of the town. Indeed, the count was so far reduced inhis circumstances that he was even then negotiating (so it wasrumoured) with a travelling company of clowns and acrobats, whohad had the misfortune to lose their performing dwarf, for thesale of his diminutive daughter Filomena. Sir Hercules arrivedin time to save her from this untoward fate, for he was so muchcharmed by Filomena's grace and beauty, that at the end of threedays' courtship he made her a formal offer of marriage, which wasaccepted by her no less joyfully than by her father, whoperceived in an English son-in-law a rich and unfailing source ofrevenue. After an unostentatious marriage, at which the Englishambassador acted as one of the witnesses, Sir Hercules and hisbride returned by sea to England, where they settled down, as itproved, to a life of uneventful happiness."Crome and its household of dwarfs delighted Filomena, who feltherself now for the first time to be a free woman living amongher equals in a friendly world. She had many tastes in commonwith her husband, especially that of music. She had a beautifulvoice, of a power surprising in one so small, and could touch Ain alt without effort. Accompanied by her husband on his fineCremona fiddle, which he played, as we have noted before, as oneplays a bass viol, she would sing all the liveliest and tenderestairs from the operas and cantatas of her native country. Seatedtogether at the harpsichord, they found that they could withtheir four hands play all the music written for two hands ofordinary size, a circumstance which gave Sir Hercules unfailingpleasure."When they were not making music or reading together, which theyoften did, both in English and Italian, they spent their time inhealthful outdoor exercises, sometimes rowing in a little boat onthe lake, but more often riding or driving, occupations in which,because they were entirely new to her, Filomena especiallydelighted. When she had become a perfectly proficient rider,Filomena and her husband used often to go hunting in the park, atthat time very much more extensive than it is now. They huntednot foxes nor hares, but rabbits, using a pack of about thirtyblack and fawn-coloured pugs, a kind of dog which, when notoverfed, can course a rabbit as well as any of the smallerbreeds. Four dwarf grooms, dressed in scarlet liveries andmounted on white Exmoor ponies, hunted the pack, while theirmaster and mistress, in green habits, followed either on theblack Shetlands or on the piebald New Forest ponies. A pictureof the whole hunt--dogs, horses, grooms, and masters--was paintedby William Stubbs, whose work Sir Hercules admired so much thathe invited him, though a man of ordinary stature, to come andstay at the mansion for the purpose of executing this picture.Stubbs likewise painted a portrait of Sir Hercules and his ladydriving in their green enamelled calash drawn by four blackShetlands. Sir Hercules wears a plum-coloured velvet coat andwhite breeches; Filomena is dressed in flowered muslin and a verylarge hat with pink feathers. The two figures in their gaycarriage stand out sharply against a dark background of trees;but to the left of the picture the trees fall away and disappear,so that the four black ponies are seen against a pale andstrangely lurid sky that has the golden-brown colour of thunder-clouds lighted up by the sun."In this way four years passed happily by. At the end of thattime Filomena found herself great with child. Sir Hercules wasoverjoyed. 'If God is good,' he wrote in his day-book, 'the nameof Lapith will be preserved and our rarer and more delicate racetransmitted through the generations until in the fullness of timethe world shall recognise the superiority of those beings whomnow it uses to make mock of.' On his wife's being brought to bedof a son he wrote a poem to the same effect. The child waschristened Ferdinando in memory of the builder of the house."With the passage of the months a certain sense of disquiet beganto invade the minds of Sir Hercules and his lady. For the childwas growing with an extraordinary rapidity. At a year he weighedas much as Hercules had weighed when he was three. 'Ferdinandogoes crescendo,' wrote Filomena in her diary. 'It seems notnatural.' At eighteen months the baby was almost as tall astheir smallest jockey, who was a man of thirty-six. Could it bethat Ferdinando was destined to become a man of the normal,gigantic dimensions? It was a thought to which neither of hisparents dared yet give open utterance, but in the secrecy oftheir respective diaries they brooded over it in terror anddismay."On his third birthday Ferdinando was taller than his mother andnot more than a couple of inches short of his father's height.'To-day for the first time' wrote Sir Hercules, 'we discussed thesituation. The hideous truth can be concealed no longer:Ferdinando is not one of us. On this, his third birthday, a daywhen we should have been rejoicing at the health, the strength,and beauty of our child, we wept together over the ruin of ourhappiness. God give us strength to bear this cross.'"At the age of eight Ferdinando was so large and so exuberantlyhealthy that his parents decided, though reluctantly, to send himto school. He was packed off to Eton at the beginning of thenext half. A profound peace settled upon the house. Ferdinandoreturned for the summer holidays larger and stronger than ever.One day he knocked down the butler and broke his arm. 'He isrough, inconsiderate, unamenable to persuasion,' wrote hisfather. 'The only thing that will teach him manners is corporalchastisement.' Ferdinando, who at this age was already seventeeninches taller than his father, received no corporal chastisement."One summer holidays about three years later Ferdinando returnedto Crome accompanied by a very large mastiff dog. He had boughtit from an old man at Windsor who had found the beast tooexpensive to feed. It was a savage, unreliable animal; hardlyhad it entered the house when it attacked one of Sir Hercules'sfavourite pugs, seizing the creature in its jaws and shaking ittill it was nearly dead. Extremely put out by this occurrence,Sir Hercules ordered that the beast should be chained up in thestable-yard. Ferdinando sullenly answered that the dog was his,and he would keep it where he pleased. His father, growingangry, bade him take the animal out of the house at once, on painof his utmost displeasure. Ferdinando refused to move. Hismother at this moment coming into the room, the dog flew at her,knocked her down, and in a twinkling had very severely mauled herarm and shoulder; in another instant it must infallibly have hadher by the throat, had not Sir Hercules drawn his sword andstabbed the animal to the heart. Turning on his son, he orderedhim to leave the room immediately, as being unfit to remain inthe same place with the mother whom he had nearly murdered. Soawe-inspiring was the spectacle of Sir Hercules standing with onefoot on the carcase of the gigantic dog, his sword drawn andstill bloody, so commanding were his voice, his gestures, and theexpression of his face that Ferdinando slunk out of the room interror and behaved himself for all the rest of the vacation in anentirely exemplary fashion. His mother soon recovered from thebites of the mastiff, but the effect on her mind of thisadventure was ineradicable; from that time forth she lived alwaysamong imaginary terrors."The two years which Ferdinando spent on the Continent, makingthe Grand Tour, were a period of happy repose for his parents.But even now the thought of the future haunted them; nor werethey able to solace themselves with all the diversions of theiryounger days. The Lady Filomena had lost her voice and SirHercules was grown too rheumatical to play the violin. He, it istrue, still rode after his pugs, but his wife felt herself tooold and, since the episode of the mastiff, too nervous for suchsports. At most, to please her husband, she would follow thehunt at a distance in a little gig drawn by the safest and oldestof the Shetlands."The day fixed for Ferdinando's return came round. Filomena,sick with vague dreads and presentiments, retired to her chamberand her bed. Sir Hercules received his son alone. A giant in abrown travelling-suit entered the room. 'Welcome home, my son,'said Sir Hercules in a voice that trembled a little."'I hope I see you well, sir.' Ferdinando bent down to shakehands, then straightened himself up again. The top of hisfather's head reached to the level of his hip."Ferdinando had not come alone. Two friends of his own ageaccompanied him, and each of the young men had brought a servant.Not for thirty years had Crome been desecrated by the presence ofso many members of the common race of men. Sir Hercules wasappalled and indignant, but the laws of hospitality had to beobeyed. He received the young gentlemen with grave politenessand sent the servants to the kitchen, with orders that theyshould be well cared for."The old family dining-table was dragged out into the light anddusted (Sir Hercules and his lady were accustomed to dine at asmall table twenty inches high). Simon, the aged butler, whocould only just look over the edge of the big table, was helpedat supper by the three servants brought by Ferdinando and hisguests."Sir Hercules presided, and with his usual grace supported aconversation on the pleasures of foreign travel, the beauties ofart and nature to be met with abroad, the opera at Venice, thesinging of the orphans in the churches of the same city, and onother topics of a similar nature. The young men were notparticularly attentive to his discourses; they were occupied inwatching the efforts of the butler to change the plates andreplenish the glasses. They covered their laughter by violentand repeated fits of coughing or choking. Sir Hercules affectednot to notice, but changed the subject of the conversation tosport. Upon this one of the young men asked whether it was true,as he had heard, that he used to hunt the rabbit with a pack ofpug dogs. Sir Hercules replied that it was, and proceeded todescribe the chase in some detail. The young men roared withlaughter."When supper was over, Sir Hercules climbed down from his chairand, giving as his excuse that he must see how his lady did, badethem good-night. The sound of laughter followed him up thestairs. Filomena was not asleep; she had been lying on her bedlistening to the sound of enormous laughter and the tread ofstrangely heavy feet on the stairs and along the corridors. SirHercules drew a chair to her bedside and sat there for a longtime in silence, holding his wife's hand and sometimes gentlysqueezing it. At about ten o'clock they were startled by aviolent noise. There was a breaking of glass, a stamping offeet, with an outburst of shouts and laughter. The uproarcontinuing for several minutes, Sir Hercules rose to his feetand, in spite of his wife's entreaties, prepared to go and seewhat was happening. There was no light on the staircase, and SirHercules groped his way down cautiously, lowering himself fromstair to stair and standing for a moment on each tread beforeadventuring on a new step. The noise was louder here; theshouting articulated itself into recognisable words and phrases.A line of light was visible under the dining-room door. SirHercules tiptoed across the hall towards it. Just as heapproached the door there was another terrific crash of breakingglass and jangled metal. What could they be doing? Standing ontiptoe he managed to look through the keyhole. In the middle ofthe ravaged table old Simon, the butler, so primed with drinkthat he could scarcely keep his balance, was dancing a jig. Hisfeet crunched and tinkled among the broken glass, and his shoeswere wet with spilt wine. The three young men sat round,thumping the table with their hands or with the empty winebottles, shouting and laughing encouragement. The three servantsleaning against the wall laughed too. Ferdinando suddenly threwa handful of walnuts at the dancer's head, which so dazed andsurprised the little man that he staggered and fell down on hisback, upsetting a decanter and several glasses. They raised himup, gave him some brandy to drink, thumped him on the back. Theold man smiled and hiccoughed. 'To-morrow,' said Ferdinando,'we'll have a concerted ballet of the whole household.' 'Withfather Hercules wearing his club and lion-skin,' added one of hiscompanions, and all three roared with laughter."Sir Hercules would look and listen no further. He crossed thehall once more and began to climb the stairs, lifting his kneespainfully high at each degree. This was the end; there was noplace for him now in the world, no place for him and Ferdinandotogether."His wife was still awake; to her questioning glance he answered,'They are making mock of old Simon. To-morrow it will be ourturn.' They were silent for a time."At last Filomena said, 'I do not want to see to-morrow.'"'It is better not,' said Sir Hercules. Going into his closet hewrote in his day-book a full and particular account of all theevents of the evening. While he was still engaged in this taskhe rang for a servant and ordered hot water and a bath to be madeready for him at eleven o'clock. When he had finished writing hewent into his wife's room, and preparing a dose of opium twentytimes as strong as that which she was accustomed to take when shecould not sleep, he brought it to her, saying, 'Here is yoursleeping-draught.'"Filomena took the glass and lay for a little time, but did notdrink immediately. The tears came into her eyes. 'Do youremember the songs we used to sing, sitting out there sullaterrazza in the summer-time?' She began singing softly in herghost of a cracked voice a few bars from Stradella's 'Amor amor,non dormir piu.' 'And you playing on the violin, it seems such ashort time ago, and yet so long, long, long. Addio, amore, arivederti.' She drank off the draught and, lying back on thepillow, closed her eyes. Sir Hercules kissed her hand andtiptoed away, as though he were afraid of waking her. Hereturned to his closet, and having recorded his wife's last wordsto him, he poured into his bath the water that had been broughtup in accordance with his orders. The water being too hot forhim to get into the bath at once, he took down from the shelf hiscopy of Suetonius. He wished to read how Seneca had died. Heopened the book at random. 'But dwarfs,' he read, 'he held inabhorrence as being lusus naturae and of evil omen.' He wincedas though he had been struck. This same Augustus, he remembered,had exhibited in the amphitheatre a young man called Lucius, ofgood family, who was not quite two feet in height and weighedseventeen pounds, but had a stentorian voice. He turned over thepages. Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero: it was a tale ofgrowing horror. 'Seneca his preceptor, he forced to killhimself.' And there was Petronius, who had called his friendsabout him at the last, bidding them talk to him, not of theconsolations of philosophy, but of love and gallantry, while thelife was ebbing away through his opened veins. Dipping his penonce more in the ink he wrote on the last page of his diary: 'Hedied a Roman death.' Then, putting the toes of one foot into thewater and finding that it was not too hot, he threw off hisdressing-gown and, taking a razor in his hand, sat down in thebath. With one deep cut he severed the artery in his left wrist,then lay back and composed his mind to meditation. The bloodoozed out, floating through the water in dissolving wreaths andspirals. In a little while the whole bath was tinged with pink.The colour deepened; Sir Hercules felt himself mastered by aninvincible drowsiness; he was sinking from vague dream to dream.Soon he was sound asleep. There was not much blood in his smallbody."