Point Counter Point - Aldous Huxley [243]
The music began again. But something new and marvellous had happened in its Lydian heaven. The speed of the slow melody was doubled; its outlines became clearer and more definite; an inner part began to harp insistently on a throbbing phrase. It was as though heaven had suddenly and impossibly become more heavenly, had passed from achieved perfection into perfection yet more deeper and more absolute. The ineffable peace persisted; but it was no longer the peace of convalescence and passivity. It quivered, it was alive, it seemed to grow and intensify itself, it became an active calm, an almost passionate serenity. The miraculous paradox of eternal life and eternal repose was musically realized.
They listened, almost holding their breaths. Spandrell looked exultantly at his guest. His own doubts had vanished. How could one fail to believe in something which was there, which manifestly existed? Mark Rampion nodded. ‘Almost thou persuadest me,’ he whispered. ‘But it’s too good.’
‘How can anything be too good?’
‘Not human. If it lasted, you’d cease to be a man. You’d die.’
They were silent again. The music played on, leading from heaven to heaven, from bliss to deeper bliss. Spandrell sighed and shut his eyes. His face was grave and serene, as though it had been smoothed by sleep or death. Yes, dead, thought Rampion as he looked at him. ‘He refuses to be a man. Not a man—either a demon or a dead angel. Now he’s dead.’ A touch of discord in the Lydian harmonies gave an almost unbearable poignancy to the beatitude. Spandrell sighed again. There was a knocking at the door. He looked up. The lines of mockery came back into his face, the corners of the mouth became once more ironic.
‘There, he’s the demon again,’ thought Rampion. ‘He’s come to life and he’s the demon.’
‘There they are,’ Spandrell was saying and without answering Mary’s question, ‘Who?’ he walked out of the room.
Rampion and Mary remained by the gramophone, listening to the revelation of heaven. A deafening explosion, a shout, another explosion and another, suddenly shattered the paradise of sound.
They jumped up and ran to the door. In the passage three men in the green uniform of British Freemen were looking down at Spandrell’s body. They held pistols in their hands. Another revolver lay on the floor beside the dying man. There was a hole in the side of his head and a patch of blood on his shirt. His hands opened and shut, opened again and shut, scratching the boards.
‘What has…?’ began Rampion.
‘He fired first,’ one of the men interrupted.
There was a little silence. Through the open door came the sound of music. The passion had begun to fade from the celestial melody. Heaven, in those longdrawn notes, became once more the place of absolute rest, of still and blissful convalescence. Long notes, a chord repeated, protracted, bright and pure, hanging, floating, effortlessly soaring on and on. And then suddenly there was no more music; only the scratching of the needle on the revolving disc.
The afternoon was fine. Burlap walked home. He was feeling pleased with himself and the world at large. ‘I accept the Universe,’ was how, only an hour before, he had concluded his next week’s leader. ‘I accept the Universe.’ He had every reason for accepting it. Mrs. Betterton had given him an excellent lunch and much flattery. The Broad Christian’s Monthly of Chicago had offered him three thousand dollars for the serial rights of his St. Francis and the Modern Psyche. He had cabled back demanding three thousand five hundred. The Broad Christian’s answer had arrived that afternoon; his terms were accepted. Then there were the Affiliated Ethical Societies of the North of England. They had invited him to deliver four lectures each in Manchester, Bradford,