Antic Hay, Aldous Huxley [whitelam books .txt] 📗

very ordinarily bad,” answered Mr. Mallard.

The young assistant listened appalled. In a business like this, how was it possible to make good?

“All the same,” said Mr. Clew courageously, “I like that bowl of roses in the window with the landscape behind. Number twenty-nine.” He looked in the catalogue. “And there’s a really charming little verse about it:

‘O beauty of the rose,
Goodness as well as perfume exhaling!
Who gazes on these flowers,
On this blue hill and ripening field⁠—he knows
Where duty leads and that the nameless Powers
In a rose can speak their will.’

Really charming!” Mr. Clew made another mark with his pencil.

“But commonplace, commonplace.” Mr. Mallard shook his head. “And in any case a verse can’t justify a bad picture. What an unsubtle harmony of colour! And how uninteresting the composition is! That receding diagonal⁠—it’s been worked to death.” He too made a mark in his catalogue⁠—a cross and a little circle, arranged like the skull and crossbones on a pirate’s flag. Mr. Mallard’s catalogues were always covered with these little marks: they were his symbols of condemnation.

Mr. Albemarle, meanwhile, had moved away to greet the new arrivals. To the critic of the Daily Cinema he had to explain that there were no portraits of celebrities. The reporter from the Evening Planet had to be told which were the best pictures.

“Mr. Lypiatt,” he dictated, “is a poet and philosopher as well as a painter. His catalogue is a⁠—h’m⁠—declaration of faith.”

The reporter took it down in shorthand. “And very nice too,” he said. “I’m most grateful to you, sir, most grateful.” And he hurried away, to get to the Cattle Show before the King should arrive. Mr. Albemarle affably addressed himself to the critic of the Morning Globe.

“I always regard this gallery,” said a loud and cheerful voice, full of bulls and canaries in chorus, “as positively a mauvais lieu. Such exhibitions!” And Mr. Mercaptan shrugged his shoulders expressively. He halted to wait for his companion.

Mrs. Viveash had lagged behind, reading the catalogue as she slowly walked along. “It’s a complete book,” she said, “full of poems and essays and short stories even, so far as I can see.”

“Oh, the usual cracker mottoes.” Mr. Mercaptan laughed. “I know the sort of thing. ‘Look after the past and the future will look after itself.’ ‘God squared minus Man squared equals Art-plus-life times Art-minus-Life.’ ‘The Higher the Art the fewer the morals’⁠—only that’s too nearly good sense to have been invented by Lypiatt. But I know the sort of thing. I could go on like that forever.” Mr. Mercaptan was delighted with himself.

“I’ll read you one of them,” said Mrs. Viveash. “ ‘A picture is a chemical combination of plastic form and spiritual significance.’ ”

“Crikey!” said Mr. Mercaptan.

“ ‘Those who think that a picture is a matter of nothing but plastic form are like those who imagine that water is made of nothing but hydrogen.’ ”

Mr. Mercaptan made a grimace. “What writing!” he exclaimed; “le style c’est l’homme. Lypiatt hasn’t got a style. Argal⁠—inexorable conclusion⁠—Lypiatt doesn’t exist. My word, though. Look at those horrible great nudes there. Like Carracis with cubical muscles.”

“Sampson and Delilah,” said Mrs. Viveash. “Would you like me to read about them?”

“Certainly not.”

Mrs. Viveash did not press the matter. Casimir, she thought, must have been thinking of her when he wrote this little poem about Poets and Women, crossed genius, torments, the sweating of masterpieces. She sighed. “Those leopards are rather nice,” she said, and looked at the catalogue again. “ ‘An animal is a symbol and its form is significant. In the long process of adaptation, evolution has refined and simplified and shaped, till every part of the animal expresses one desire, a single idea. Man, who has become what he is, not by specialization, but by generalization, symbolizes with his body no one thing. He is a symbol of everything from the most hideous and ferocious bestiality to godhead.’ ”

“Dear me,” said Mr. Mercaptan.

A canvas of mountains and enormous clouds like nascent sculptures presented itself.

“ ‘Aerial Alps’ ” Mrs. Viveash began to read.

“ ‘Aerial Alps of amber and of snow,
Junonian flesh, and bosomy alabaster
Carved by the wind’s uncertain hands.⁠ ⁠…’ ”

Mr. Mercaptan stopped his ears. “Please, please,” he begged.

“Number seventeen,” said Mrs. Viveash, “is called Woman on a Cosmic Background,” A female figure stood leaning against a pillar on a hilltop, and beyond was a blue night with stars. “Underneath is written: ‘For one at least, she is more than the starry universe.’ ” Mrs. Viveash remembered that Lypiatt had once said very much that sort of thing to her. “So many of Casimir’s things remind me,” she said, “of those Italian vermouth advertisements. You know⁠—Cinzano, Bonomelli and all these. I wish they didn’t. This woman in white with her head in the Great Bear.⁠ ⁠…” She shook her head. “Poor Casimir.”

Mr. Mercaptan roared and squealed with laughter. “Bonomelli,” he said; “that’s precisely it. What a critic, Myra! I take off my hat.” They moved on. “And what’s this grand transformation scene?” he asked.

Mrs. Viveash looked at the catalogue. “It’s called ‘The Sermon on the Mount,’ ” she said. “And really, do you know, I rather like it. All that crowd of figures slanting up the hill and the single figure on the top⁠—it seems to me very dramatic.”

“My dear,” protested Mr. Mercaptan.

“And in spite of everything,” said Mrs. Viveash, feeling suddenly and uncomfortably that she had somehow been betraying the man, “he’s really very nice, you know. Very nice, indeed.” Her expiring voice sounded very decidedly.

“Ah, ces femmes,” exclaimed Mr. Mercaptan, “ces femmes! They’re all Pasiphaes and Ledas. They all in their hearts prefer beasts to men, savages to civilized beings. Even you, Myra, I really believe.” He shook his head.

Mrs. Viveash ignored the outburst. “Very nice,” she repeated thoughtfully. “Only rather a bore.⁠ ⁠…” Her voice expired altogether.

They continued their round of the gallery.

VIII

Critically, in the glasses of Mr. Bojanus’s fitting-room, Gumbril examined his profile, his back view. Inflated, the Patent Small-Clothes bulged, bulged decidedly, though with a certain gracious opulence that might, in a person of the other sex, have seemed only deliciously natural. In him, however, Gumbril had to admit, the