Point Counter Point - Aldous Huxley [88]
Walter blushed, as though he had been guilty of some nasty solecism. ‘Those are the only facts we know,’ he said self-excusingly.
‘But there is an insight that sees deeper than the mere facts.’ ‘Deeper insight’ was Burlap’s pet name for his own opinion. ‘He was realizing the new life, he was gaining the Kingdom of Heaven.’
‘It’s a hypothesis,’ said Walter, wishing uncomfortably that Burlap had never read the New Testament.
‘For me,’ retorted Burlap, ‘it’s a certainty. An absolute certainty.’ He spoke very emphatically, he wagged his head with violence. ‘A complete and absolute certainty,’ he repeated, hypnotizing himself by the reiteration of the phrase into a fictitious passion of conviction. ‘Complete and absolute.’ He was silent; but within, he continued to lash himself into mystical fury. He thought of Rimbaud until he himself was Rimbaud. And then suddenly his devil popped out its grinning face and whispered, ‘A stone and a half of gold round his loins.’ Burlap exorcised the creature by changing the subject. ‘Have you seen the new books for review?’ he said, pointing to a double pile of volumes on the corner of the table. ‘Yards of contemporary literature.’ He became humorously exasperated. ‘Why can’t authors stop? It’s a disease. It’s a bloody flux, like what the poor lady suffered from in the Bible, if you remember.’
What Walter chiefly remembered was the fact that the joke was Philip Quarles’s.
Burlap got up and began to look through the books. ‘Pity the poor reviewer!’ he said with a sigh.
The poor reviewer—wasn’t that the cue for his little speech about salary? Walter nerved himself, focussed his will. ‘I was wondering,’ he began.
But Burlap had almost simultaneously begun on his own account. ‘I’ll get Beatrice to come in,’ he said and pressed the bell-push three times. ‘Sorry. What were you saying?’
‘Nothing.’ The demand would have to be postponed. It couldn’t be made in public, particularly when the public was Beatrice. Damn Beatrice! he thought unjustly. What business had she to do subediting and Shorter Notices for nothing? Just because she had a private income and adored Burlap.
Walter had once complained to her, jokingly, of his miserable six pounds a week.
‘But the World’s worth making sacrifices for,’ she rapped out. ‘After all, one has a responsibility towards people; one ought to do something for them.’ Echoed in her clear rapping voice, Burlap’s Christian sentiments sounded, Walter thought, particularly odd. ‘The World does do something; one ought to help.’
The obvious retort was that his own private income was very small and that he wasn’t in love with Burlap. He didn’t make it, however, but suffered himself to be pecked. Damn her, all the same!
Beatrice entered, a neat, plumply well-made little figure, very erect and business-like. ‘Morning, Walter,’ she said, and every word she uttered was like a sharp little rap with an ivory mallet over the knuckles. She examined him with her bright, rather protuberant brown eyes. ‘You look tired,’ she went on. ‘Worn out, as though you’d been on the tiles last night.’ Peck after peck. ‘Were you?’
Walter blushed. ‘I slept badly,’ he mumbled and engrossed himself in a book.
They sorted out the volumes for the various reviewers. A little heap for the scientific expert, another for the accredited metaphysician, a whole mass for the fiction specialist. The largest pile was of Tripe. Tripe wasn’t reviewed, or only got a Shorter Notice.
‘Here’s a book about Polynesia for you, Walter,’ said Burlap generously. ‘And a new anthology of French verse. No, on second thoughts, I think I’ll do that.’ On second thoughts he generally did keep the most interesting books for himself.
‘_The Life of St. Francis re-toldfor the Children by Bella Jukes_. Theology or tripe?’ asked Beatrice.
‘Tripe,’ said Walter looking over her shoulder.
‘But I’d rather like an excuse to do a little article on St. Francis,’ said Burlap. In the intervals