Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry [85]
"I was just looking."
At, for God's sake, A Treatise of Sulphur: written by Michall Sandivogius i.e. anagramatically Divi Leschi Genus Amo; at The Hermetical Triumph or the Victorious Philosophical Stone, a Treatise more compleat and more intelligible than any has been yet, concerning the Hermetical Magistery; at The Secrets Revealed or an Open Entrance to the Sub-Palace of the King, containing the greatest Treasure in Chymistry never yet so plainly discovered, composed by a most famous Englishman styling himself Anonymus or Eyraeneus Philaletha Cosmopolita who by inspiration and reading attained to the Philosopher's Stone at his age of twenty-three years Anno Domini 1645; at The Musaeum Hermeticum, Reformatum et Amplificatum, Omnes Sopho-Spagyricae artis Discipulos fidelissime erudiens, quo pacto Summa ilia vera que Lapidis Philosophici Medicina, qua res omnes qualemcunque defectum patientes, instaurantur, inveniri haberi queat, Continens.Trattatus Chimicos xxi Francofurti, Apud Hermannum a Sande CID IDC LXXVIII; at Sub-Mundanes, or the Elementaries of the Cabbala, reprinted from the text of the Abbi de Villars: Physio-Astro-Mystic: with an Illustrative Appendix from the work Demoniality, wherein is asserted that there are in existence on earth rational creatures besides men...
"Are there?" Hugh said, holding in his hand this last extraordinary old book--from which emanated a venerable and remote smell--and reflecting: "Jewish knowledge!" while a sudden absurd vision of Mr Bolowski in another life, in a caftan, with a long white beard, and skull-cap, and passionate intent look, standing at a stall in a sort of medieval New Compton Street, reading a sheet of music in which the notes were Hebrew letters, was conjured to his mind.
"Erekia, the one who tears asunder; and they who shriek with a long-drawn cry, Illirikim; Apelki, the misleaders or turners aside; and those who attack their prey by tremulous motion, Dresop; ah, and the distressful painbringing ones, Arekesoli; and one must not forget, either, Burasin, the destroyers by stifling smoky breath; nor Glesi, the one who glistens horribly like an insect; nor Effrigis, the one who quivers in a horrible manner, you'd like Effrigis... nor yet the Mames, those who move by backward motion, nor the movers with a particular creeping motion, Ramisen..." the Consul was saying. "The flesh in-clothed and the evil questioners. Perhaps you would not call them precisely rational. But all these at one time or another have visited my bed."
They had all of them in a tremendous hurry and the friendliest of humours set off for Tomalín. Hugh, himself somewhat aware of his drinks, was listening in a dream to the Consul's voice rambling on--Hitler, he pursued, as they stepped out into the Calle Nicaragua--which might have been a story right down his alley, if only he'd shown any interest before--merely wished to annihilate the Jews in order to obtain just such arcana as could be found behind them in his bookshelves--when suddenly in the house the telephone rang.
"No, let it ring," the Consul said as Hugh started back. It went on ringing (for Concepta had gone out), the tintinnabulation beating around the empty rooms like a trapped bird; then it stopped.
As they moved on Yvonne said:
"Why no, Geoff, don't keep bothering about me, I feel quite rested. But if Tomalín's too far for either of you, why don't we go to the zoo?" She looked at them both darkly and directly and beautifully with her candid eyes under the broad brow, eyes with which she did not quite return Hugh's smile, though her mouth suggested one. Perhaps she seriously interpreted Geoff's flow of conversation as a good sign. And perhaps it was! Qualifying it with loyal interest, or at a quick preoccupied tangent with observations upon impersonal change or decay, serapes or carbon or ice, the weather--where was the wind now? they might have a nice calm day after all without too much dust--Yvonne, apparently revived by her swim and taking in everything about her afresh with an objective eye, walked with swiftness and grace and independence, and as though really not tired; yet it struck Hugh she walked by herself. Poor darling Yvonne! Greeting her when she was ready had been like meeting her once again after long absence, but it was also like parting. For Hugh's usefulness was exhausted, their "plot" subtly lamed by small circumstances, of which not the least was his own continued presence. It would seem impossible now as their old passion to seek without imposture to be alone with her, even with Geoff's interest at heart. Hugh cast a longing glance down the hill, the way they'd gone this morning. Now they were hastening in the opposite direction. This morning might have been already far in the past, like childhood or the days before the last war; the future was beginning to unwind, the euchred stupid bloody terrific guitar-playing future. Unsuitably girded against it, Hugh felt, noted with a reporter's measure, Yvonne, barelegged, was wearing instead of her yellow slacks a white tailored sharkskin suit with one button at the waist, and beneath it a brilliant high-necked blouse, like a detail in a Rousseau; the heels of her red shoes clicking laconically on the broken stones appeared neither flat nor high, and she carried a bright red bag. Passing her one would not have suspected agony. One would not have noticed lack of faith, nor questioned that she knew where she was going, nor wondered if she were walking in her sleep. How happy and pretty she looks, one would say. Probably she is going to meet her lover in the Bella Vista!--Women of medium height, slenderly built, mostly divorced, passionate but envious of the male--angel to him as he is bright or dark, yet unconscious destructive succubus of his ambitions--American women, with that rather graceful swift way of walking, with the clean scrubbed tanned faces of children, the skin finely textured with a satin sheen, their hair clean and shining as though just washed, and looking like that, but carelessly done, the slim brown hands that do not rock the cradle, the slender feet--how many centuries of oppression have produced them? They do not care who is losing the Battle of the Ebro, for it is too soon for them to outsnort Job's warhorse. They see no significance in it, only fools going to death for a--