Point Counter Point - Aldous Huxley [206]
Philip nodded. ‘I see.’
‘I’ve been jotting them down for a long time past,’ said Mr. Quarles. ‘Memories and Reflections of Fifty Yahs—that might be a good title. There’s a lot in my notebooks. And these last days I’ve been recording on this.’ He tapped the dictaphone. ‘When one’s ill, you know, one thinks a lot.’ He sighed. ‘Syahriously.’
‘Of course,’ Philip agreed.
‘If you’d care to listen…’ he indicated the dictaphone.
Philip nodded. Mr. Quarles prepared the machine. ‘It’ll give you an idyah of the kind of thing. Thoughts and memories. Hyah.’ He pushed the machine across the table and, pushing, sent a piece of paper fluttering to the ground. It lay there on the carpet, chequered, a puzzle. ‘This is where you listen.’
Philip listened. After a moment of scratchy roaring, the Punch and Judy parody of his father’s voice said, ‘The key to the problem of sex:—passion is sacred, a manifestation of the divinitah.’ And then, without stop or transition, but in a slightly different tone: ‘The wahrst thing about politics is the frivolitah of politicians. Meeting Asquith one evening at dinner, I forget now where, I took the opportunitah of ahrging on him the necessitah of abolishing capital punishment. One of the most syahrious questions of modern life. But he myahrly suggested that we should go and play bridge. Unit of measure seven letters long: Verchok. Fastidious men do not live in pigsties, nor can they long remain in politics or business. There are nature’s Greeks and nature’s Mrs. Grundies. I never shared the mob’s high opinion of Lloyd George. Every man is born with a natural right to be happy; but what ferocious repression when anybody tried to claim his right! Brazilian stork, six letters: jabiru. True greatness is invarsely proportional to myahr immediate success. Ah, hyah you…!’ The scratchy roar supervened.
‘Yes, I see the style of the thing,’ said Philip, looking up. ‘How does one stop this affair? Ah, that’s it.’ He stopped it.
‘So many thoughts occur to me as I lie hyah,’ said Mr. Quarles, aimed upwards, as though speaking against aircraft. ‘Such a wealth! I could never record them all but for the machine. It’s wonderful. Ryahly wonderful! ‘
CHAPTER XXXIII
Elinor had had time to telegraph from Euston. On her arrival, she found the car waiting for her at the station. ‘How is he?’ she asked the chauffeur. But Paxton was vague, didn’t rightly know. Privately, he thought it was one of these ridiculous fusses about nothing, such as the rich are always making, particularly where their children are concerned. They drove up to Gattenden and the landscape of the Chilterns in the ripe evening light was so serenely beautiful, that Elinor began to feel less anxious and even half wished that she had stayed till the last train. She would have been able in that case to see Webley. But hadn’t she decided that she was really almost glad not to be seeing him? One can be glad and sorry at the same time. Passing the north entrance to the Park, she had a glimpse through the bars of Lord Gattenden’s bath-chair standing just inside the gate. The ass had stopped and was eating grass at the side of the road, the reins hung loose and the marquess was too deeply absorbed in a thick red morocco quarto to be able to think of driving. The car hurried on; but that second’s glimpse of the old man sitting with his book behind the grey donkey, as she had so often seen him sitting and reading; that brief revelation of life living itself regularly, unvaryingly in the same old familiar way, was as reassuring as the calm loveliness of beech-trees and bracken, of greengolden foreground and violet distances.
And there at last was the Hall! The old house seemed to doze in the westering sun like a basking animal; you could almost fancy that it purred. And the lawn was like the most expensive green velvet; and in the windless air the huge Wellingtonia had all the dignified gravity of an old gentleman who sits down to meditate after an enormous meal. There could be nothing much wrong here. She jumped out of the car and ran straight upstairs to the nursery. Phil was lying in bed, quite still and with closed eyes. Miss Fulkes, who was sitting beside him, turned as she entered, rose and came to meet her. One glance at her face was enough to convince Elinor that the blue and golden tranquillity of the landscape, the dozing house, the marquess and his ass had been lying comforters.