Chapter XXI.

by Aldous Huxley

　　Perched on its four stone mushrooms, the little granary stood twoor three feet above the grass of the green close. Beneath itthere was a perpetual shade and a damp growth of long, luxuriantgrasses. Here, in the shadow, in the green dampness, a family ofwhite ducks had sought shelter from the afternoon sun. Somestood, preening themselves, some reposed with their long belliespressed to the ground, as though the cool grass were water.Little social noises burst fitfully forth, and from time to timesome pointed tail would execute a brilliant Lisztian tremolo.Suddenly their jovial repose was shattered. A prodigious thumpshook the wooden flooring above their heads; the whole granarytrembled, little fragments of dirt and crumbled wood rained downamong them. With a loud, continuous quacking the ducks rushedout from beneath this nameless menace, and did not stay theirflight till they were safely in the farmyard."Don't lose your temper," Anne was saying. "Listen! You'vefrightened the ducks. Poor dears! no wonder." She was sittingsideways in a low, wooden chair. Her right elbow rested on theback of the chair and she supported her cheek on her hand. Herlong, slender body drooped into curves of a lazy grace. She wassmiling, and she looked at Gombauld through half-closed eyes."Damn you!" Gombauld repeated, and stamped his foot again. Heglared at her round the half-finished portrait on the easel."Poor ducks!" Anne repeated. The sound of their quacking wasfaint in the distance; it was inaudible."Can't you see you make me lose my time?" he asked. "I can'twork with you dangling about distractingly like this.""You'd lose less time if you stopped talking and stamping yourfeet and did a little painting for a change. After all, what amI dangling about for, except to be painted?"Gombauld made a noise like a growl. "You're awful," he said,with conviction. "Why do you ask me to come and stay here? Whydo you tell me you'd like me to paint your portrait?""For the simple reasons that I like you--at least, when you're ina good temper--and that I think you're a good painter.""For the simple reason"--Gombauld mimicked her voice--"that youwant me to make love to you and, when I do, to have the amusementof running away."Anne threw back her head and laughed. "So you think it amuses meto have to evade your advances! So like a man! If you only knewhow gross and awful and boring men are when they try to make loveand you don't want them to make love! If you could only seeyourselves through our eyes!"Gombauld picked up his palette and brushes and attacked hiscanvas with the ardour of irritation. "I suppose you'll besaying next that you didn't start the game, that it was I whomade the first advances, and that you were the innocent victimwho sat still and never did anything that could invite or allureme on.""So like a man again!" said Anne. "It's always the same oldstory about the woman tempting the man. The woman lures,fascinates, invites; and man--noble man, innocent man--falls avictim. My poor Gombauld! Surely you're not going to sing thatold song again. It's so unintelligent, and I always thought youwere a man of sense.""Thanks," said Gombauld."Be a little objective," Anne went on. "Can't you see thatyou're simply externalising your own emotions? That's what youmen are always doing; it's so barbarously naive. You feel one ofyour loose desires for some woman, and because you desire herstrongly you immediately accuse her of luring you on, ofdeliberately provoking and inviting the desire. You have thementality of savages. You might just as well say that a plate ofstrawberries and cream deliberately lures you on to feel greedy.In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred women are as passive andinnocent as the strawberries and cream.""Well, all I can say is that this must be the hundredth case,"said Gombauld, without looking up.Anne shrugged her shoulders and gave vent to a sigh. "I'm at aloss to know whether you're more silly or more rude."After painting for a little time in silence Gombauld began tospeak again. "And then there's Denis," he said, renewing theconversation as though it had only just been broken off. "You'replaying the same game with him. Why can't you leave thatwretched young man in peace?"Anne flushed with a sudden and uncontrollable anger. "It'sperfectly untrue about Denis," she said indignantly. "I neverdreamt of playing what you beautifully call the same game withhim." Recovering her calm, she added in her ordinary cooingvoice and with her exacerbating smile, "You've become veryprotective towards poor Denis all of a sudden.""I have," Gombauld replied, with a gravity that was somehow alittle too solemn. "I don't like to see a young man...""...being whirled along the road to ruin," said Anne, continuinghis sentence for him. I admire your sentiments and, believe me,I share them."She was curiously irritated at what Gombauld had said aboutDenis. It happened to be so completely untrue. Gombauld mighthave some slight ground for his reproaches. But Denis--no, shehad never flirted with Denis. Poor boy! He was very sweet. Shebecame somewhat pensive.Gombauld painted on with fury. The restlessness of anunsatisfied desire, which, before, had distracted his mind,making work impossible, seemed now to have converted itself intoa kind of feverish energy. When it was finished, he toldhimself, the portrait would be diabolic. He was painting her inthe pose she had naturally adopted at the first sitting. Seatedsideways, her elbow on the back of the chair, her head andshoulders turned at an angle from the rest of her body, towardsthe front, she had fallen into an attitude of indolentabandonment. He had emphasised the lazy curves of her body; thelines sagged as they crossed the canvas, the grace of the paintedfigure seemed to be melting into a kind of soft decay. The handthat lay along the knee was as limp as a glove. He was at workon the face now; it had begun to emerge on the canvas, doll-likein its regularity and listlessness. It was Anne's face--but herface as it would be, utterly unillumined by the inward lights ofthought and emotion. It was the lazy, expressionless mask whichwas sometimes her face. The portrait was terribly like; and atthe same time it was the most malicious of lies. Yes, it wouldbe diabolic when it was finished, Gombauld decided; he wonderedwhat she would think of it.