Point Counter Point - Aldous Huxley [161]
CHAPTER XXIII
The writing table was under the window. Dimmed by the smoky air of Sheffield, a shaft of yellow, viscous-looking sunlight lit up a corner of the table and a patch of red and flowered carpet. Everard Webley was writing a letter. His pen rushed over the paper. Whatever he did was done with rapidity and decision.
‘Dearest Elinor,’ he wrote. ‘_De profundis clamavi_, from the depths of this repulsive hotel bedroom and the even lower depths of this political tour of the North, I call to you.’ (He wrote his I’s as though they were pillars—a strong straight shaft and two little transverse strokes at top and bottom for capital and base. The crosses on his t’s were firm and uncompromising.) ‘But I don’t suppose you listen. I’ve always felt such sympathy for the savages who give their gods a good beating when they don’t answer prayers or respond to sacrifices. England expects that every god this day will do his duty. And if he doesn’t—well, so much the worse for him; he’ll get a taste of the cat-o’-nine-tails. The modern worship of a remote Ineffable, whose acts one doesn’t criticize, seems to me very unsatisfactory. What’s the good of making a contract with somebody who can break it at will and against whom one has no redress? Women have gone the same way as the gods. They mayn’t be questioned. You’re not allowed to compel them to do their duty by their worshippers or fulfil their part in the natural contract between the sexes. I write, I implore. But, like the newfangled god of modern philosophies and broad theologies, you don’t listen. And one’s not allowed to take reprisals; it’s bad form to beat the defaulting god. It isn’t done. All the same, I warn you: one of these days I’ll try the good old methods. I’ll do a slight Rape of the Sabines and then where will your ineffable remote superiority be? How I hate you really for compelling me to love you so much! It’s such a damnable injustice—getting so much passion and longing out of me and giving nothing in return. And you not here to receive the punishment you deserve! I have to take a vicarious revenge on the ruffians who disturb my meetings. I had a terrific battle last night. Howls, booing, organized singing of the International. But I fought them down. Literally at one moment. I had to give one of the ringleaders a black eye. Poor devil! He was only paying for your misdeeds. He was your scapegoat. For it was really you I was fighting. If it hadn’t been for you I wouldn’t have been half so savage. I probably wouldn’t have won. So indirectly I owe you my victory. For which I’m duly grateful. But another time there won’t be any Communists to vent my rage on. The next fight will be against the real enemy—against you. So be careful, my dear. I’ll try to stop short of black eyes; but in the heat of the moment one never knows. But seriously, Elinor, seriously. Why are you so cold and aloof and dead? Why do you shut yourself off from me? I think of you so incessantly, so insistently. The thought of you is always there. It lies hidden, a latency, in the most unlikely things and places, ready at the command of some chance association to jump out at me from its ambush. Haunting, like a guilty conscience. If I…’
There was a knock at the door. It was Hugo Brockle who came in. Everard looked at his watch, then at Hugo. The expression on his face was menacing.