The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake [279]
Bellgrove snarled.
‘And why is the mind diseased?’ He took hold of Bellgrove’s gown just below that gentleman’s left shoulder and, with his face raised, scrutinized the big head above him.
‘Your mouth is twitching,’ he said. ‘Interesting … very … interesting. You probably do not know it, but there was bad blood in your mother. Very bad blood. Or alternatively, you dream of stoats. But no matter, no matter. To return. Where were we? Yes, yes, your teeth – the symbols, we have said – haven’t we? of a diseased mind. Now what kind of disease? That is the point. What kind of disease of the mind would affect your teeth like this? Open your mouth, sir …’
But Bellgrove, a fresh twinge undermining his scant reserves of patience and decorum, lifted his huge boot the size of a tray and brought it down with a blind relish upon Mr Shred’s feet. It covered them both and must have been excruciatingly painful, for Mr Shred’s brow coloured and contracted; but he made no sound save to remark, ‘Interesting, very interesting … probably your mother.’
Opus Fluke’s body-laughter did everything except break him in half or find vent in a sound.
By now several other Professors had infiltrated through the smoke from the direction of the door. There was Shrivell, Shred’s friend, or follower, for he held all Shred’s opinions in the reverse direction. But for sheer discipleship Mr Shrivell was a rebel compared to the three gentlemen who, moving in a solid huddle, their three mortar-boards forming between them a practically unbroken surface, had seated themselves in a far corner, like conspirators. They owed allegiance, those three, to no member of the staff, or to any such abstraction as the ‘staff’ itself, but to an ancient savant, a bearded figure of no specific occupation but whose view of Death, Eternity, Pain (and its non-existence), Truth, or, indeed, anything of a philosophic nature, was like fire in their ears.
In holding the views of their Master on such enormous themes they had developed a fear of their colleagues and a prickliness of disposition which, as Perch-Prism had cruelly pointed out to them more than once, was inconsistent with their theory of non-existence. ‘Why are you so prickly,’ he used to say, ‘when there ain’t no pain or prickles?’ At which the three, Spiregrain, Splint and Throd, would all at once become a single black tent as they shot into conference with the speed of suction. How they longed at times for their bearded Leader to be with them! He knew all the answers to impertinent questions.
They were unhappy men, these three. Not with native melancholy, but in views of their theories. And there they sat: the smoke wreaths coiling round them, their eyes moving suspiciously from one face to another of their heretic brethren, in jealous fear of a challenge to their faith.
Who else had entered? Only Cutflower, the dandy; Crust, the sponger; and the choleric Mulefire.
Meanwhile The Fly had been standing in the corridor with his knuckles between his teeth, and had been emitting the shrillest of whistles. Whether they caused the sudden appearance of the few stragglers at the end of the corridor or whether these characters were in any case on their way to the Common-room, there was no doubt that The Fly’s shrill music added speed to their steps.
Smoke hung above them as they approached the door, for they had no desire