Point Counter Point - Aldous Huxley [106]
Time flowed. The island vanished; the air was if possible hotter.
‘I’m worried about Walter,’ said Elinor, who had been ruminating the contents of that last batch of letters she had received just before leaving Bombay.
‘He’s a fool,’ Philip answered. ‘After committing one stupidity with that Carling female, he ought to have had the sense not to start again with Lucy.’
‘Of course he ought,’ said Elinor irritably. ‘But the point is that he hasn’t had the sense. It’s a question of thinking of a remedy.’
‘Well, it’s no good thinking about it five thousand miles away.’
‘I’m afraid he may suddenly rush off and leave poor Marorie in the lurch. With a baby on the way, too. She’s a dreary woman. But he mustn’t be allowed to treat her like that.’
‘No,’ Philip agreed. There was a pause. The sparse procession of exercise lovers marched past. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he went on reflectively, ‘that it would make an excellent subject.’
‘What?’
‘This business of Walter’s.’
‘You don’t propose to exploit poor Walter as copy?’ Elinor was indignant. ‘No really, I won’t have it. Botanizing on his grave—or at any rate his heart.’
‘But of course not!’ Philip protested.
‘_Mais je vous assure_,’ one of the Frenchwomen was shouting so loud that he had to abandon the attempt to continue, ‘ aux Galeries Lafayette les camisoles en flanelle pour enfant ne coutent que…’
‘_Camisoles enflanelle_,’ repeated Philip. ‘Phew!’
‘But seriously, Phil…’
‘But, my dear, I never intended to use more than the situation. The young man who tries to make his life rhyme with his idealizing books and imagines he’s having a great spiritual love, only to discover that he’s got hold of a bore whom he really doesn’t like at all.’
‘Poor Marjorie! But why can’t she keep her face better powdered? And those artistic beads and earrings she always wears…’
‘And who then goes down like a ninepin,’ Philip continued, ‘at the mere sight of a Siren. It’s the situation that appealed to me. Not the individuals. After all, there are plenty of other nice young men besides Walter. And Marjorie isn’t the only bore. Nor Lucy the only man-eater.’
‘Well, if it’s only the situation,’ Elinor grudgingly allowed.
‘And besides,’ he went on, ‘it isn’t written and probably never will be. So there’s nothing to get upset about, I assure you.’
‘All right. I won’t say anything more till I see the book.’
There was another pause.
‘.. such a wonderful time at Gulmerg last summer,’ the young lady was saying to her four attentive cavaliers. ‘There was golf, and dancing every evening, and…’
‘And in any case,’ Philip began again in a meditative tone, ‘ the situation would only be a kind of…’
‘_Mais je lui ai dit, les hommes sont comme ca. Une jeune fille bien elevee doit…’
‘…a kind of excuse,’ bawled Philip. ‘It’s like trying to talk in the parrot-house at the Zoo,’ he added with parenthetic irritation. ‘A kind of excuse, as I was saying, for a new way of looking at things that I want to experiment with.’
‘I wish you’d begin by looking at me in a new way,’ said Elinor with a little laugh. ‘A more human way.’
‘But seriously, Elinor…’
‘Seriously,’ she mocked. ‘Being human isn’t serious. Only being clever.’
‘Oh, well,’ he shrugged his shoulders, ‘if you don’t want to listen, I’ll shut up.’
‘No, no, Phil. Please.’ She laid her hand on his. ‘Please.’
‘I don’t want to bore you.’ He was huffy and dignified.
‘I’m sorry, Phil. But you do look so comic when you’re more in sorrow than in anger. Do you remember those camels at Bikaner—what an extraordinarily superior expression? But do go on!’
‘This year,’ one female missionary was saying to the other, as they passed by, ‘ the Bishop of Kuala Lumpur ordained six Chinese deacons and two Malays. And the Bishop of British North Borneo…’ The quiet voices faded into inaudibility.
Philip forgot his dignity and burst out laughing. ‘Perhaps he ordained some Orang-utans.’
‘But do you remember the wife of the Bishop of Thursday Island?’ asked