Point Counter Point - Aldous Huxley [125]
‘Only five,’ the choirboy protested. ‘This is only the fifth.’
‘Five whiskeys, then, and the liturgical colours. Not to mention St. Piran of Perranzabuloe. Do you really believe in that walk to the Scillies?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘And here’s for young Sacramento,’ said the barmaid, pushing his glass across the counter.
The choirboy shook his head as he paid. ‘Blasphemies all round,’ he said. ‘Every word another wound in the Sacred Heart.’ He drank. ‘Another bleeding, agonizing wound.’
‘What fun you have with your Sacred Heart!’
‘Fun?’ said the choirboy indignantly.
‘Staggering from the bar to the altar rails. And from the confessional to the bawdy house. It’s the ideal life. Never a dull moment. I envy you.’
‘Mock on, mock on!’ He spoke like a dying martyr. ‘And if you knew what a tragedy my life has been, you wouldn’t say you envied me.’
The swing-door opened and shut, opened and shut. God-thirsty from the spiritual deserts of the workshop and the office, men came, as to a temple. Bottled and barrelled by Clyde and Liffey, by Thames, Douro and Trent, the mysterious divinity revealed itself to them.
For the Brahmins who pressed and drank the soma, its name was Indra; for the hemp-eating yogis, Siva. The gods of Mexico inhabited the peyotl. The Persian Sufis discovered Allah in the wine of Shiraz, the shamans of the Samoyedes ate toadstools and were filled with the spirit of Num.
‘Another whiskey, Miss,’ said the choirboy, and turning back to Spandrell almost wept over his misfortunes. He had loved, he had married—sacramentally; he insisted on that. He had been happy. They had both been happy.
Spandrell raised his eyebrows.’did she like the smell of whiskey?’
The other shook his head sadly. ‘I had my faults,’ he admitted. ‘I was weak. This accursed drink! Accursed!’ And in a sudden enthusiasm for temperance he poured his whiskey on the floor. ‘There!’ he said triumphantly.
‘Very noble!’ said Spandrell. He beckoned to the barmaid
‘Another whiskey for this gentleman.’
The choirboy protested, but without much warmth. He sighed. ‘It was always my besetting sin,’ he said. ‘But I was always sorry afterwards. Genuinely repentant.’
‘I’m sure you were. Never a dull moment.’
‘If she’d stood by me, I might have cured myself.’
‘A pure woman’s help, what?’ said Spandrell.
‘Exactly,’ the other nodded. ‘That’s exactly it. But she left me. Ran off. Or rather, not ran. She was lured. She wouldn’t have done it on her own. It was that horrible little snake in the grass. That little…’ He ran through the sergeant-major’s brief vocabulary. ‘I’d wring his neck if he were here,’ the choirboy went on. The Lord of Battles had been in his fifth whiskey. ‘Dirty little swine!’ He banged the counter. ‘You know the man who painted those pictures in the Tate; Bidlake? Well, it was that chap’s son. Walter Bidlake.’
Spandrell raised his eyebrows, but made no comment. The choirboy talked on.
At Sbisa’s, Walter was dining with Lucy Tantamount.
‘Why don’t you come to Paris too? ‘ Lucy was saying.
Walter shook his head. ‘I’ve got to work.’
‘I find it’s really impossible to stay in one place more than a couple of months at a time. One gets so stale and wilted, so unutterably bored. The moment I step into the aeroplane at Croydon I feel as though I had been born again—like the Salvation Army.’
‘And how long does the new life last?’
Lucy shrugged her shoulders. ‘As long as the old one. But fortunately there’s an almost unlimited supply of aeroplanes. I’m all for Progress.’
The swing-doors of the temple of the unknown god closed behind them. Spandrell and his companion stepped out into the cold and rainy darkness.
‘Oof!’ said the choirboy, shivering, and turned up the collar of his raincoat. ‘It’s like jumping into a swimming-bath.’
‘It’s like reading Haeckel after Fenelon. You Christians live in such a jolly little public-house of a universe.’
They walked a few yards down the street.
‘Look here,’ said Spandrell,’do you think you can get home on foot? Because you don’t look as though you could.’
Leaning against