Point Counter Point - Aldous Huxley [93]
‘But, my dear Walter!’ She laughed. ‘You’re becoming quite oriental.’
Walter said nothing, but kneeling on the ground beside the couch, he leaned over her. The face that bent to kiss her was set in a kind of desperate madness. The hands that touched her trembled. She shook her head, she shielded her face with her hand.
‘No, no.’
‘But why not?’
‘It wouldn’t do,’ she said.
‘Why not?’
‘It would complicate things too much for you, to begin with.’
‘No, it wouldn’t,’ said Walter. There were no complications. Marjorie had ceased to exist.
‘Besides,’ Lucy went on, ‘you seem to forget me. I don’t want to.’
But his lips were soft, his hands touched lightly. The moth-winged premonitions of pleasure came flutteringly to life under his kisses and caresses. She shut her eyes. His caresses were like a drug, at once intoxicant and opiate. She had only to relax her will; the drug would possess her utterly. She would cease to be herself. She would become nothing but a skin of fluttering pleasure enclosing a void, a warm abysmal darkness.
‘Lucy!’ Her eyelids fluttered and shuddered under his lips. His hand was on her breast. ‘My sweetheart.’ She lay quite still, her eyes still closed.
A sudden and piercing shriek made both of them start, broad awake, out of their timelessness. It was as though a murder had been committed within a few feet of them, but on someone who found the process of being slaughtered rather a joke, as well as painful.
Lucy burst out laughing. ‘It’s Polly.’
Both turned towards the cage. His head cocked a little on one side, the bird was examining them out of one black and circular eye. And while they looked, a shutter of parchment skin passed like a temporary cataract across the bright expressionless regard and was withdrawn. The jocular martyr’s dying shriek was once again repeated.
‘You’ll have to cover his cage with the cloth,’ said Lucy.
Walter turned back towards her and angrily began to kiss her. The parrot yelled again. Lucy’s laughter redoubled.
‘It’s no good,’ she gasped. ‘He won’t stop till you cover him.’
The bird confirmed what she had said with another scream of mirthful agony. Feeling furious, outraged and a fool, Walter got up from his knees and crossed the room. At his approach the bird began to dance excitedly on its perch; its crest rose, the feathers of its head and neck stood apart from one another like the scales of a ripened fir-cone. ‘Good-morning,’ it said in a guttural ventriloquial voice, ‘good-morning, Auntie, good-morning, Auntie, good-morning, Auntie….’ Walter unfolded the pink brocade that lay on the table near the cage and extinguished the creature. A last ‘Good-morning, Auntie’ came out from under the cloth. Then there was silence.
‘He likes his little joke,’ said Lucy, as the parrot disappeared. She had lighted a cigarette.
Walter strode back across the room and without saying anything took the cigarette from between her fingers and threw it into the fireplace. Lucy raised her eyebrows, but he gave her no time to speak. Kneeling down again beside her, he began to kiss her, angrily.
‘Walter,’ she protested. ‘No! What’s come over you?’ She tried to disengage herself, but he was surprisingly strong. ‘You’re like a wild beast.’ His desire was dumb and savage. ‘Walter! I insist.’ Struck by an absurd idea, she suddenly laughed. ‘If you knew how like the movies you were! A great huge grinning close-up.’
But ridicule was as unavailing as protest. And did she really desire it to be anything but unavailing? Why shouldn’t she abandon herself? It was only rather humiliating to be carried away, to be compelled instead of to choose. Her pride, her will resisted him, resisted her own desire. But after all, why not? The drug was potent and delicious. Why not? She shut her eyes. But as she was hesitating, circumstances suddenly decided for her. There was a knock at the door. Lucy opened her eyes again. ‘I’m going to say come in,’ she whispered.
He scrambled to his feet and, as he did so, heard the knock repeated.
‘Come in!’
The door opened. ‘Mr. Illidge to see you, madam,’ said the maid.