Point Counter Point - Aldous Huxley [155]
‘It’s absurd,’ Elinor was thinking, ‘it’s ridiculous to talk like that.’ It was the protest of her critical intellect against her feelings. For her feelings had been strangely moved. His words, the tone of his voice—so soft, yet with such vibrating latencies of power and passion divinable beneath its softness—had carried her away. When he had said, ‘I’m going to be master,’ it was as though she had taken a gulp of mulled wine—such a warmth had suddenly tingled through her whole body. ‘It’s ridiculous,’ she inwardly repeated, trying to avenge herself on him for his easy conquest, trying to punish the traitors within her own soul who had so easily surrendered. But what had been done could not wholly be undone. The words might be ridiculous; but the fact remained that, while he was uttering them, she had thrilled with sudden admiration, with excitement, with a strange desire to exult and laugh aloud.
The servant changed the plates. They talked of indifferent matters—of her travels, of doings in London while she had been away, of common friends. The coffee was brought, they lit their cigarettes; there was a silence. How would it be broken? Elinor wondered apprehensively. Or rather did not wonder; for she knew and it was this prophetic knowledge that made her apprehensive. Perhaps she could forestall him by breaking the silence herself. Perhaps, if she rattled on, she could keep the conversation insignificant till it was time for her to go. But there seemed suddenly to be nothing to say. She felt as though paralysed by the approach of the inevitable event. She could only sit and wait. And at last the inevitable duly happened.
‘Do you remember,’ he said slowly, without looking up, ‘what I told you before you went away?’
‘I thought we’d agreed not to talk about it again.’
He threw back his head with a little laugh. ‘Well, you thought wrong.’ He looked at her and saw in her eyes an expression of distress and anxiety, an appeal for mercy. But Everard was merciless. He planted his elbows on the table and leaned towards her. She dropped her eyes.
‘You said I hadn’t changed to look at,’ he said in his soft voice with its latencies of violence. ‘Well, my mind hasn’t changed either. It’s still the same, Elinor, still the same as it was when you went away. I love you just as much, Elinor. No, I love you more.’ Her hand lay limp on the table in front of her. He stretched out one of his and took it. ‘Elinor,’ he whispered.
She shook her head, without looking at him.
Softly and passionately he talked on. ‘You don’t know what love can be,’ he said. ‘You don’t know what I can give you. Love that’s desperate and mad, like a forlorn hope. And at the same time tender, like a mother’s love for a sick child. Love that’s violent and gentle, violent like a crime and as gentle as sleep.’
‘Words,’ Elinor was thinking, ‘absurd melodramatic words.’ But they moved her, as his boasting had moved her
‘Please, Everard,’ she said aloud,’ no more.’ She didn’t want to be moved. With an effort she held her glance steady while she looked into his face, into those bright and searching eyes. She essayed a laugh, she shook her head. ‘Because it’s impossible, and you know it.’
‘All I know,’ he said slowly, ‘is that you’re afraid. Afraid of coming to life. Because you’ve been half dead all these years. You haven’t had a chance to come fully alive. And you know I can give it you. And you’re afraid, you’re afraid.’
‘What nonsense!’ she said. It was just ranting and melodrama.
‘And perhaps you’re right, in a way,’ he went on. ‘Being alive, really alive, isn’t entirely a joke. It’s dangerous. But by God,’ he added, and the latent violence in his soft