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

opulence seemed a little misplaced and paradoxical. Still, if one has to suffer in order to be beautiful, one must also expect to be ugly in order not to suffer. Practically, the trousers were a tremendous success. He sat down heavily on the hard wooden bench of the fitting-room and was received as though on a lap of bounding resiliency; the Patent Small-Clothes, there was no doubt, would be proof even against marble. And the coat, he comforted himself, would mask with its skirts the too decided bulge. Or if it didn’t, well, there was no help for it. One must resign oneself to bulging, that was all.

“Very nice,” he declared at last.

Mr. Bojanus, who had been watching his client in silence and with a polite but also, Gumbril could not help feeling, a somewhat ironical smile, coughed. “It depends,” he said, “precisely what you mean by ‘nice.’ ” He cocked his head on one side, and the fine waxed end of his moustache was like a pointer aimed up at some remote star.

Gumbril said nothing, but catching sight once more of his own side view, nodded a dubious agreement.

“If by nice,” continued Mr. Bojanus, “you mean comfortable, well and good. If, however, you mean elegant, then, Mr. Gumbril, I fear I must disagree.”

“But elegance,” said Gumbril, feebly playing the philosopher, “is only relative, Mr. Bojanus. There are certain African negroes, among whom it is considered elegant to pierce the lips and distend them with wooden plates, until the mouth looks like a pelican’s beak.”

Mr. Bojanus placed his hand in his bosom and slightly bowed. “Very possibly, Mr. Gumbril,” he replied. “But if you’ll pardon my saying so, we are not African negroes.”

Gumbril was crushed, deservedly. He looked at himself again in the mirrors. “Do you object,” he asked after a pause, “to all eccentricities in dress, Mr. Bojanus? Would you put us all into your elegant uniform?”

“Certainly not,” replied Mr. Bojanus. “There are certain walks of life in which eccentricity in appearance is positively a sine qua non, Mr. Gumbril, and I might almost say de rigueur.”

“And which walks of life, Mr. Bojanus, may I ask? You refer, perhaps, to the artistic walks? Sombreros and Byronic collars and possibly velveteen trousers? Though all that sort of thing is surely a little out of date, nowadays.”

Enigmatically Mr. Bojanus smiled, a playful Sphinx. He thrust his right hand deeper into his bosom and with his left twisted to a finer needle the point of his moustache. “Not artists, Mr. Gumbril.” He shook his head. “In practice they may show themselves a little eccentric and negleejay. But they have no need to look unusual on principle. It’s only the politicians who need do it on principle. It’s only de rigueur, as one might say, in the political walks, Mr. Gumbril.”

“You surprise me,” said Gumbril. “I should have thought that it was to the politician’s interest to look respectable and normal.”

“But it is still more to his interest as a leader of men to look distinguished,” Mr. Bojanus replied. “Well, not precisely distinguished,” he corrected himself, “because that implies that politicians look distangay, which I regret to say, Mr. Gumbril, they very often don’t. Distinguishable, is more what I mean.”

“Eccentricity is their badge of office?” suggested Gumbril. He sat down luxuriously on the Patent Small-Clothes.

“That’s more like it,” said Mr. Bojanus, tilting his moustaches. “The leader has got to look different from the other ones. In the good old days they always wore their official badges. The leader ’ad his livery, like everyone else, to show who he was. That was sensible, Mr. Gumbril. Nowadays he has no badge⁠—at least not for ordinary occasions⁠—for I don’t count Privy Councillors’ uniforms and all that sort of once-a-year fancy dress. ’E’s reduced to dressing in some eccentric way or making the most of the peculiarities of ’is personal appearance. A very ’apazard method of doing things, Mr. Gumbril, very ’apazard.”

Gumbril agreed.

Mr. Bojanus went on, making small, neat gestures as he spoke. “Some of them,” he said, “wear ’uge collars, like Mr. Gladstone. Some wear orchids and eyeglasses, like Joe Chamberlain. Some let their ’air grow, like Lloyd George. Some wear curious ’ats, like Winston Churchill. Some put on black shirts, like this Mussolini, and some put on red ones, like Garibaldi. Some turn up their moustaches, like the German Emperor. Some turn them down, like Clemenceau. Some grow whiskers, like Tirpitz. I don’t speak of all the uniforms, orders, ornaments, ’ead-dresses, feathers, crowns, buttons, tattooings, earrings, sashes, swords, trains, tiaras, urims, thummims and whatnot, Mr. Gumbril, that ’ave been used in the past and in other parts of the world to distinguish the leader. We, ’oo know our ’istory, Mr. Gumbril, we know all about that.”

Gumbril made a deprecating gesture. “You speak for yourself, Mr. Bojanus,” he said.

Mr. Bojanus bowed.

“Pray continue,” said Gumbril.

Mr. Bojanus bowed again. “Well, Mr. Gumbril,” he said, “the point of all these things, as I’ve already remarked, is to make the leader look different, so that ’e can be recognized at the first coop d’oil, as you might say, by the ’erd ’e ’appens to be leading. For the ’uman ’erd, Mr. Gumbril, is an ’erd which can’t do without a leader. Sheep, for example: I never noticed that they ’ad a leader; nor rooks. Bees, on the other ’and, I take it, ’ave. At least when they’re swarming. Correct me, Mr. Gumbril, if I’m wrong. Natural ’istory was never, as you might say, my forty.”

“Nor mine,” protested Gumbril.

“As for elephants and wolves, Mr. Gumbril, I can’t pretend to speak of them with first-’and knowledge. Nor llamas, nor locusts, nor squab pigeons, nor lemmings. But ’uman beings, Mr. Gumbril, those I can claim to talk of with authority, if I may say so in all modesty, and not as the scribes. I ’ave made a special study of them, Mr. Gumbril. And my profession ’as brought me into contact with very numerous specimens.”

Gumbril could not help wondering where precisely in Mr. Bojanus’s museum he himself had his place.

“The ’uman ’erd,” Mr. Bojanus went on, “must have a leader. And a leader must have something to distinguish him from the