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By Root 1493 0

lay a mossy ill-kept garden hidden by a wing of the building from the well-kept gardens in front. It was hemmed in by dark green cypresses and pines. Small paths and hedges were arranged round a square half-stagnant pond with a broken sundial in the middle. The whole place fascinated him with a sense of sluggish malignant life. The hedges were half withered by the grasses pushing up among them; the grasses grew lank and unhealthy in the shadows of the hedges. With more fibrous limbs than the millipede has legs various plants struggled in the poor soil, fighting with blind deliberation to suffocate or strangle each other. Between the roots moved insects, maggots and tiny crustaceans: jointed things with stings and pincers, soft pursy things with hard voracious mouths, hard-backed leggy things with multiple eyes and feelers, all gnawing holes and laying eggs and squirting poisons in the plants and each other. In the corruption of the garden he sensed something friendly to his own malign fantasies. Convulsively, he wrenched off the other shoe, undressed and got into bed. Miss Maclaglan brought in a hot-water bottle and asked if he would like anything to read. He said no, he had his own books. Ruth brought up a meal on a tray. He ate, then lay and masturbated. Ten minutes later he masturbated again. After that he had no weapons to use against the asthma at all.

The garden behind the hotel was overlooked by a dusty porch containing a massive table and some chairs too worn for use inside. Next day he sat there with books and painting tools. Breathing heavily, he made pencil drawings, emphasized the best ones with India ink and tinted the result with watercolours. While he worked the asthma came to bother him less, and as he had hardly slept the night before he shut his eyes, leaned over the table and rested his brow upon clenched fists. He could hear the air lightly stirring the branches of the trees, the infrequent call of a bird and a wasp buzzing in the corner of the porch, but he listened most intently to a murmuring in his own head, a vague remote sound like the conversation of two people in an adjacent room. One speaker was excited and raised his voice so much above the steady drone of the other that Thaw almost heard the words: “… ferns and grass what’s wonderful about grass …”

An external sound made him look up. The minister stood on the sunlit path beyond the shadow of the porch watching him in an interested way. His buttoned-up black figure was as Thaw remembered, but smaller, and the face more kindly. He said, “They tell me you are not well.”

“I’m a lot better this morning, thanks.”

The minister stepped into the porch and looked at a drawing. “And who is this fellow?”

“Moses on Sinai.”

“What a wild wee man he looks among all that rock and thunder. So you are illustrating the bible.”

Thaw spoke tonelessly to keep the note of pride out of his voice. “No. I’m illustrating a lecture I’m to give to the school debating society. It’s called ‘A Personal View of History.’ The pictures will be enlarged onto a screen by epedaiescope.”

“And what place has Moses in your view of history?”

“He’s the first lawyer.”

The minister laughed and said, “In a sense, yes, no doubt, Duncan; but then again, in a sense, no. What’s this you are reading?” He picked up a thin book with a glossy cover.

“Professor Hoyle’s lectures on continuous creation.”

The minister sat down on a chair with his hands on the umbrella handle and his chin resting on his hands. “And what does Professor Hoyle tell us about the creation?”

“Well, most astronomers think all the material in the universe was once compressed in a single gigantic atom, which exploded, and all the stars and galaxies in the universe are bits of that old atom. You know that all the galaxies in the universe are rushing away from each other, don’t you?”

“I have heard rumours to that effect.”

“It’s more than rumour, Dr. McPhedron, it’s proved fact. Well, Professor Hoyle thinks all the material of the universe is made out of hydrogen, because the hydrogen atom is the simplest form of