Classic Audiobook Collection - Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley ~ Full Audiobook [comedy]

Episode Date: October 25, 2022

Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley audiobook. Genre: comedy Crome Yellow, published in 1921 was Aldous Huxley’s first novel. In it he satirizes the fads and fashions of the time. It is the witty story of a house party at ‘Crome’ where there is a gathering of bright young things. We hear some of the history of the house from Henry Wimbush, its owner and self appointed historian; Apocalypse is prophesied, virginity is lost, and inspirational aphorisms are gained in a trance. Our hero, Denis, tries to capture it all in poetry and is disappointed in love. The author, Aldous Huxley, was born in 1894 and began writing poetry and short stories in his early twenties; this was his first novel and established his literary reputation. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:07:03) Chapter 2 (00:20:06) Chapter 3 (00:32:10) Chapter 4 (00:44:31) Chapter 5 (00:54:08) Chapter 6 (01:10:59) Chapter 7 (01:20:58) Chapter 8 (01:25:37) Chapter 9 (01:45:05) Chapter 10 (01:51:36) Chapter 11 (02:03:55) Chapter 12 (02:15:16) Chapter 13 (02:47:44) Chapter 14 (02:55:24) Chapter 15 (03:02:43) Chapter 16 (03:08:58) Chapter 17 (03:27:52) Chapter 18 (03:36:10) Chapter 19 (04:08:26) Chapter 20 (04:18:53) Chapter 21 (04:25:46) Chapter 22 (04:43:00) Chapter 23 (04:48:45) Chapter 24 (05:01:07) Chapter 25 (05:12:20) Chapter 26 (05:18:26) Chapter 27 (05:37:33) Chapter 28 (05:47:28) Chapter 29 (05:58:01) Chapter 30 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chrome Yellow by Aldous Huxley Chapter 1 Along this particular stretch of line No express had ever passed. All the trains, the few that there were, stopped at all the stations. Dennis knew the names of those stations by heart. Bowl, Triton, Spavin, Delaware,

nipswich for Timpany, West Bulby, and, finally, Camlet on the water. Camlet was where he always got out, leaving the train to creep indolently onward goodness only knew whither into the green heart of england they were snorting out of west bulbby now it was the next station thank heaven dennis took his chattels off the rack and piled them neatly in the corner opposite his own a futile proceeding but one must have something to do when he had finished he sank back into his seat and closed his eyes it was extremely hot Oh, this journey. It was two hours cut clean out of his life, two hours in which he might have done so much, so much, written the perfect poem, for example, or read the one illuminating book, instead of which his gorge rose at the smell of the dusty cushions against which he was leaning. Two hours, 120 minutes, anything might be done in that time, anything, nothing. Oh, he had had had hundreds of hours, and what had he done with them? wasted them, spilt the precious minutes as though his reservoir were inexhaustible. Dennis groaned in the spirit, condemned himself utterly with all his works,

what right had he to sit in the sunshine, to occupy corner seats in third-class carriages, to be alive. None, none, none. Misery and a nameless, nostalgic distress possessed him. He was 23, and, oh, so agonisingly conscious of the fact. The train came bumpingly to a halt. Here was Camlet at last. Dennis jumped up, crammed his hat over his eyes, deranged his pile of baggage, leaned out of the window and shouted for a porter, seized a bag in either hand, and had to put them down again in order to open the door. When at last he had safely bundled himself and his baggage onto the platform, he ran up the train toward the van.

A bicycle, a bicycle, he said breathlessly to the guard. He felt himself a man of action. The guard paid no attention, but continued methodically to hand out one by one the packages labelled to Camlet. A bicycle, Dennis repeated, a green machine cross-framed name of stone, S-T-O-N-E. All in good time, sir, said the guard soothingly. He was a large, stately man with a naval beard. One pictured him at home, drinking tea, surrounded by a numerous family. It was in that tone that he must have spoken to his children when they were tiresome.

All in good time, sir. Dennis's man of action collapsed, punctured. He left his luggage to be called for later and pushed off on his bicycle. He always took his bicycle when he went into the country. It was part of the theory of exercise. One day one would get up at six o'clock and pedal away to Kenilworth or Stratford-on-Avon, anywhere. And within a radius of 20 miles, there were always normal. churches and tudor mansions to be seen in the course of an afternoon's excursion.

Somehow they never did get seen, but all the same it was nice to feel that the bicycle was there and that one fine morning one really might get up at six. Once at the top of the long hill which led up from Camlet Station, he felt his spirits mounting. The world he found was good. The faraway blue hills, the harvests whitening on the slopes of the ridge, along which his road led him the treeless skylines that changed as he moved. Yes, they were all good. He was overcome by the beauty of those deeply embayed coombs,

scooped in the flanks of the ridge beneath him. Curves, curves! He repeated the word slowly, trying as he did to find some term in which to give expression to his appreciation. Curves. No, that was inadequate. He made a gesture with his hands as though to scoop the achieved expression out of the air, and almost fell off his bicycle. What was the word to describe the curves of those little valleys?

They were as fine as the lines of a human body. They were informed with the subtlety of art. Galb. That was a good word, but it was French. Le Galbe is Vaz des Cés Anche. Had one ever read a French novel in which that phrase didn't occur? Someday he would compile a dictionary for the use of novelists. Galb, gonfle, goulou,

perfume, pow, pervert, potel, pude, virtue volupt. But he really must find that word curves. Curves, those little valleys had the lines of a cup molded round a woman's breast. They seemed the dinted imprints of some huge divine body that had rested on these hills. Cumbrous locutions these, but through them he seemed to be getting nearer to what he wanted. Dinted, dimpled, wimpled, his mind wandered down, echoing corridor. of assonance and alliteration, ever further and further from the point. He was enamoured with the beauty of words. Becoming once more aware of the outer world, he found himself on the crest of a descent. The road plunged down,

steep and straight, into a considerable valley. There, on the opposite slope, a little higher up the valley, stood chrome, his destination. He put on his brakes. This view of chrome was pleasant to linger over. The façade, with its three projecting towers, rose precipitously from among the dark trees of the garden. The house basked in full sunlight. The old brick rosily glowed. How ripe and rich it was. How superbly mellow. And at the same time, how austere.

The hill was becoming steeper and steeper. He was gaining speed in spite of his brakes. He loosed his grip of the levers and, in a moment, was rushing headlong down. Five minutes later he was passing through the gate of the great courtyard. The front door stood hospitably open. He left his bicycle leaning against the wall and walked in. He would take them by surprise. End of chapter.

Chrome Yellow by Aldous Huxley, read for Librivox.org by Martin Clifton. Chapter 2 He took nobody by surprise. There was nobody to take. All was quiet. denis wandered from room to empty room looking with pleasure at the familiar pictures and furniture at all the little untidy signs of life that lay scattered here and there he was rather glad that they were all out it was amusing to wander through the house as though one were exploring a dead deserted pompeii what sort of life would the excavator reconstruct from these remains how would he peopled these empty chambers there was the long gallery with its rows of respectable and though of course one couldn't publicly admit it rather boring italian primitives its chinese sculptures its unobtrusive dateless furniture

there was the panelled drawing-room where the huge chintz covered arm-chairs stood oases of comfort among the austere flesh mortifying antiques there was the morning room with its pale lemon walls its painted venetian chairs and rocococcus tables, its mirrors, its modern pictures. There was the library, cool, spacious and dark, book line from floor to ceiling, rich in portentous folios. There was the dining-room, solidly, port-winerly English, with its great mahogany table, its eighteenth-century chairs and sideboard, its eighteenth-century pictures, family portraits, meticulous animal paintings. What could one reconstruct from such data? There was much of hill, Henry Wimbush in the long gallery and the library, something of Anne, perhaps, in the morning room. That was all. Among the accumulations of ten generations, the living had left but

few traces. Lying on the table in the morning room, he saw his own book of poems. What tact? He picked it up and opened it. It was what the reviewers call a slim volume. He read at hazard. But silence and the topless dark vault in the lights of lunar park, and Blackpool, from the nightly gloom, hollows a bright tumultuous tomb. He put it down again, shook his head and sighed. What genius I had then, he reflected, echoing the aged swift. It was nearly six months since the book had been published. He was glad to think he would never write anything of the same sort again. Who could have been reading it, he wondered, and, perhaps, he liked to think so, perhaps, too, she had at last recognised her seven,

in the hamadryard of the poplar sapling, the slim hamadryard whose movements were like the swaying of a young tree in the wind. The woman who was a tree was what he'd called the poem. He'd given her the book when it came out, hoping that the poem would tell her what he hadn't dared to say. She had never referred to it. He shut his eyes and saw a vision of her in a red velvet cloak, swaying into the little restaurant where they sometimes dined together in London. three-quarters of an hour late, and he was at his table haggard with anxiety, irritation, hunger. Oh, she was damnable. It occurred to him that perhaps his hostess might be in her boudoir.

It was a possibility he would go and see. Mrs. Wimbush Boudoir was in the central tower on the garden front, a little staircase corkscrewed up to it from the hall. Dennis mounted, tapped at the door. Come in? Ah, she was there. He had rather hoped she wouldn't be. He opened the door. Priscilla Wimbush was lying on the sofa,

a blotting pad rested on her knees, and she was thoughtfully sucking the end of a silver pencil. Hello, she said, looking up, I'd forgotten you were coming. Well, here I am, I'm afraid, said Dennis, deprecatingly. I'm awfully sorry. Mrs. Wimbush laughed. Her voice, her laughter, were deep and masculine. Everything about her was manly.

she had a large, square, middle-aged face with a massive projecting nose and little greenish eyes. The whole surmounted by a lofty and elaborate coiffure of a curiously improbable shade of orange. Looking at her, Dennis always thought of Wilkie Bard as the Cantatrice. That's why I'm going to sing in opera, singing opera, sing in opera, sing in opera. Today she was wearing a purple silk dress with a high collar and a row of pearls, the costume so richly dowager as so suggestive of the royal family made her look more than ever like something on the halls what have you been doing all this time she asked well said dennis and he hesitated almost voluptuously he had a tremendously amusing account of london and its doings all ripe and ready in his mind it would be a pleasure to give it utterance to begin with he said but he was too late mrs wimbush's question had been what the grammarians call rhetorical. It asked for no answer.

It was a little conversational flourish, a gambit in the polite game. You find me busy at my horoscopes, she said, without even being aware that she had interrupted him. A little pained. Dennis decided to reserve his story for more receptive ears. He contented himself, by way of revenge, with saying,

Oh, rather icily. Did I tell you how I won 400 on the Grand National this year? "'Yes,' he replied, still frigid and monosyllabic. "'She must have told him at least six times. "'Wonderful, isn't it? "'Everything is in the stars. "'In the old days, before I had the stars to help me, "'I used to lose thousands.

"'Now,' she paused an instant, "'well, look at that 400 on the Grand National. "'That's the stars.' "'Dennis would have liked to hear more about the old days, "'but he was too discreet and still more, too shy to ask. "'There had been something of a bust-up, that was all he knew. Old Priscilla, not so old then, of course, and Sprightlier, had lost a great deal of money, dropped it in handfuls and hatfuls on every racecourse in the country. She had

gambled, too. The number of thousands varied in the different legends, but all put it high. Henry Wimbush was forced to sell some of his primitives, a Tadeo dao da Pogibonzi, an amico de Tadeo and four or five nameless Sienese, to the Americans. There was a crisis. For the first time in his life, Henry asserted himself. And with good effect, it seemed. Priscilla's gay and gadding existence had come to an abrupt end. Nowadays she spent almost all her time at Crom, cultivating a rather ill-defined malady. For consolation, she dallied with new thought and the occult. Her passion for racing still possessed her, and Henry, who was a kind-hearted fellow at bottom, allowed her £40 a month betting money. Most of Priscilla's days were spent in

in casting the horoscopes of horses, and she invested her money scientifically as the stars dictated. She betted on football too and had a large notebook in which she registered the horoscopes of all the players in all the teams of the league. The process of balancing the horoscopes of two elevens, one against the other, was a very delicate and difficult one. A match between the Spurs and the Villa

entailed a conflict in the heavens so vast and so complicated that it was not to be wondered at if she sometimes made a mistake about the outcome. Such a pity you don't believe in these things, Delis. Such a pity, said Mrs. Wimbush in her deep, distinct voice. I can't say I feel it so. Ah, that's because you don't know what it's like to have faith. You've no idea how amusing and exciting life becomes

when you do believe. All that happens means something. Nothing you do is ever insignificant. It makes life so jolly. you know here am i at chrome dull as ditch water you'd think but no i don't find it so i don't regret the old days a bit i have the stars she picked up the sheet of paper that was lying on the blotting-pad inman's horoscope she explained i thought i'd like to have a little fling on the billiards championships this autumn i have the infinite to keep in tune with she waved her hand and then there's the next world and all the spirits and one's aura, and Mrs. Eddie saying you're not ill, and the Christian mysteries and Mrs. Bessent. It's all splendid. One's never dull for a moment. I can't think how I used to get on before,

in the old days. Pleasure, running about, that's all it was, just running about. Lunch, tea, dinner, theatre, supper every day. It was fun, of course, while it lasted, but there wasn't much left of it afterwards. There's rather a good thing about that in Barbecue Smith's new book. Where is it? She sat up and reached for a book that was lying on the little table by the head of the sofa. Do you know him, by the way, she asked? Who? Mr. Barbecue Smith. Dennis knew of him vaguely.

Barbecue Smith was a name in the Sunday papers. He wrote about The Conduct of Life. He might even be the author of What a Young Girl Ought to Know. No, not personally, he said. I've invited him for next weekend. She turned over the pages of the book. Here's the passage I was thinking of. marked it. I always mark things I like. Holding the book almost at arm's length, for she was

somewhat long-sighted, and making suitable gestures with her free hand, she began to read slowly, dramatically. What a thousand pound fur coats, what are quarter-million incomes? She looked up from the page with a histrionic movement of the head. Her orange coiffure nodded portentously. Dennis looked at it fascinated. Was it the real thing? and Hennar? He wondered, or was it one of those complete transformations one sees in the advertisements? What are thrones and sceptres? The orangeous transformation, yes, it must be a transformation, bobbed up again. What are the gaieties of the rich, the splendors of the powerful? What is the pride of the great? What are the gaudy pleasures of high society?

The voice, which had risen in tone, questioningly from sentence to sentence, dropped suddenly and boomed reply, they are nothing, vanity, fluff, dandelion seed in the wind, thin vapours of fever. The things that matter happen in the heart. Seen things are sweet, but those unseen are a thousand times more significant. It is the unseen that counts in life. Mrs. Wimbush lowered the book. Beautiful, isn't it, she said. Dennis preferred not to hazard an opinion, but uttered a non-committal, Hmm. Ah, it's a fine book, it's a beautiful book, said Priscilla,

as she let the pages flick back one by one from under her thumb. And here's the passage about the lotus pool. He compares the soul to a lotus pool, you know. She held up the book again and read, A friend of mine has a lotus pool in his garden. It lies in a little dell, embowered with wild roses and eglantine,

among which the nightingale pours forth its amorous descant all the sun. along. Within the pool the lotus's blossom and the birds of the air come to drink and bathe themselves in its crystal waters. Ah, that reminds me, Priscilla exclaimed, shutting the book with a clap and uttering her big profound laugh. That reminds me of the things that have been going on in our bathing pool since you were here last. We gave the village people leave to come and bathe here in the evenings. You've no idea of the things that happened. She leaned forward speaking in a confidential whisper. Every now and then she uttered a deep gurgle of laughter.

Mixed bathing. Saw them out of my window. Sent for a pair of field glasses to make sure, no doubt of it. The laughter broke out again. Dennis laughed too. Barbecue Smith was tossed on the floor. It's time we went to see if tea's ready, said Priscilla. She hoisted herself up from the sofa and went swishing off across the room, striding beneath the trailing silk. Dennis followed her, faintly humming to himself. That's why I'm going to sing in opera, sing in opera, singing opera, sing in op, pop, bup, opera. And then the little twiddly bit of accompaniment at the end, rah, rah.

End of chapter. Chrome Yellow by Aldous Huxley, read forlibrivox.org by Martin Clifton. Chapter 3. terrace in front of the house was a long, narrow strip of turf, bounded along its outer edge by a graceful stone balustrade. Two little summer houses of brick stood at either end. Below the house, the ground sloped very steeply away, and the terrace was a remarkably high one. From the balusters to the sloping lawn beneath was a drop of thirty feet. Seen from below, the high, unbroken terrace wall, built like the house itself of brick, had the

the almost menacing aspect of a fortification, a castle bastion from whose parapet one looked out across airy depths to distances level with the eye. Below, in the foreground, hedged in by solid masses of sculptured yew trees, lay the stone-brimmed swimming pool. Beyond it stretched the park with its massive elms, its green expanses of grass, and, at the bottom of the valley the gleam of the narrow river. On the farther side of the stream the land rose again in a long slope, checkered with cultivation. Looking up the valley to the right, one saw a line of blue, far off hills.

The tea table had been planted in the shade of one of the little summer houses, and the rest of the party was already assembled about it when Dennis and Priscilla made their appearance. Henry Wimbush had begun to pour the tea. He was one of those angelous, unchanging men on the farther side of fifty, who might be thirty, who might be anything.

Dennis had known him almost as long as he could remember. In all those years his pale, rather handsome face had never grown any older. It was like the pale grey bowler hat which he always wore, winter and summer, unaging, calm, serenely without expression. Next to him, but separated from him and from the rest of the world by the almost impenetrable barriers of her deafness, sat Jenny Mullian. She was perhaps thirty. had a tilted nose and a pink and white complexion,

and wore her brown hair plaited and coiled in two lateral buns over her ears. In the secret tower of her deafness she sat apart, looking down at the world through sharply piercing eyes. What did she think of men and women and things? That was something that Dennis had never been able to discover. In her enigmatic remoteness, Jenny was a little disquieting. Even now some interior jean, jokes seemed to be amusing her, for she was smiling to herself, and her brown eyes were like very

bright round marbles. On his other side the serious, moon-like innocence of Mary Brace-Gurdle's face shone pink and childish. She was nearly 23, but one wouldn't have guessed it. Her short hair, clipped like a pages, hung in a bell of elastic gold about her cheeks. She had large, blue china eyes, whose expression was one of ingenuous and often puzzled earnestness. Next to Mary, a small, gorned man was sitting, rigid and erect in his chair. In appearance, Mr. Skogun was like one of those extinct bird lizards of the tertiary. His nose was beaked, his dark eyes had the shining quickness of a robin's. But there was nothing soft or gracious or feathery about him.

The skin of his wrinkled brown face had a dry and scaly look. His hands were the hands of a crocodile. His movements were marked by the lizard. disconcertingly abrupt clockwork speed. His speech was thin, flutie and dry. Henry Wimbush schoolfellow and exact contemporary Mr. Skogan looked far older and, at the same time, far more youthfully alive than did that gentle aristocrat with a face like a grey bowler. Mr. Skogan might look like an extinct Saurian, but Gombold was altogether and essentially human. In the old-fashioned natural histories of the 30s he might have figured in a steel engraving as a type of homo sapiens,

an honour which at that time commonly fell to Lord Byron. Indeed, with more hair and less colour, Gombold would have been completely Byronic, more than Byronic, even, for Gombold was of Provencal descent, a black-haired young Corsair of thirty, with flashing teas and luminous large eyes. Dennis looked at him enviously. He was jealous of his talent. If only he wrote verse, as well as Gombold painted pictures. Still more, at the moment, he envied Gombold, his looks, his vitality, his easy confidence of manner.

Was it surprising that Anne should like him? Like him? It might even be something worse, Dennis reflected bitterly, as he walked at Priscilla's side down the long grass terrace. Between Gombold and Mr. Skogan, a very much lowered deck chair presented its back to the new arrival. as they advanced towards the tea-table. Gombard was leaning over it. His face moved vivaciously. He smiled, he laughed.

He made quick gestures with his hands. From the depths of the chair came up a sound of soft, lazy laughter. Dennis started as he heard it. That laughter, how well he knew it, what emotions it evoked in him. He quickened his pace. In her low deck chair Anne was nearer to lying than to sitting, her long, slender body reposed in an attitude.

of listnessness and indolent grace. Within its setting of light brown hair, her face had a pretty regularity that was almost dull-like. And indeed, there were moments when she seemed nothing more than a doll. When the oval face, with its long, lashed, pale blue eyes expressed nothing, when it was no more than a lazy mask of wax. She was Henry Wimbush's own niece, that bowler-like countenance was one of the Wimbush heirlooms. It ran in the family, appearing in its female members as a blank dull face but across this dollish mask like a gay melody dancing over an unchanging fundamental bass past anne's other inheritance quick laughter light ironic amusement and the changing expression of many moods she was smiling now as denis looked down at her her cat's smile he called it for no very good reason the mouth was compressed and on either side of it too tiny rings had formed themselves in her cheeks. An infinity of slightly malicious amusement lurked in those

little folds, in the puckers above the half-closed eyes, in the eyes themselves, bright and laughing between the narrowed lids. The preliminary greeting spoken, Dennis found an empty chair between Gombold and Jenny and sat down. "'How are you, Jenny?' he shouted at her. Jenny nodded and smiled in mysterious silence, as though the subject of her health were a secret that could not be publicly divulged. How's London been since I went away, and inquired from the depth of her chair? The moment had come the tremendously amusing narrative

was waiting for utterance. Well, said Dennis, smiling happily, to begin with, has Priscilla told you of our great antiquarian find, Henry Wimbush leaned forward. The most promising of buds was nipped. To begin with, said Dennis desperately, there was the ballet.

Last week, Mr. Wimbush went on softly and implacably, we dug up 50 yards of oaken drain pipes, just tree trunks with a whole board through the middle. Very interesting indeed. Whether they were laid down by the monks in the 15th century, or whether... Dennis listened gloomily. Extraordinary, he said when Mr. Wimbush had finished. Quite extraordinary. He helped himself to another slice of cake. He didn't even want to tell his tale about London now. He was damped.

For some time past, Mary's grave, blue eyes had been fixed upon him. What have you been writing lately, she asked? It would be nice to have a little literary conversation. Oh, verse and prose, said Dennis, just verse and prose. Prose? Mr. Skogan pounced alarmingly on the word. You've been writing prose? Yes.

Not a novel? Yes. My poor Dennis exclaimed Mr. Skogan. What about? Dennis felt rather uncomfortable. Oh, about the usual things, you know. Of course, Mr. Skogun-Groaned. I'll describe the plot for you.

Little Percy, the hero, was never good at games, but he was always clever. He passes through the usual public school and the usual university and comes to London where he lives among the artists. He is bowed down with melancholy thought. He carries the whole weight of the universe upon his shoulders.

He writes a novel of dazzling brilliance, he dabbles delicately in Amour and disappears, at the end of the book, into the luminous future. Dennis blushed Scarlet. Mr. Skogan had described the plan of his novel with an accuracy that was appalling. He made an effort to laugh. You're entirely wrong, he said. My novel is not in the least like that.

It was a heroic lie. Luckily, he reflected only two chapters were written. He would tear them up that very evening when he unpacked. Mr. Skogan paid no attention to his denial, but went on, Why will you young men continue to write about things that are so entirely uninteresting as the mentality of adolescents and artists? Professional anthropologists might find it interesting to turn sometimes from the beliefs of the Blackfellow to the philosophical preoccupations of the undergraduate,

but you can't expect an ordinary adult man like myself to be much moved by the story of his spiritual troubles. After all, even in England, even in Germany and Russia, there are more adults than adolescence. As for the artist, he is preoccupied with problems that are so utterly unlike those of the ordinary adult man, problems of pure aesthetics which don't so much as present themselves to people like myself, that a description of his mental processes is as boring to the ordinary reader as a piece of pure mathematics. A serious book about artists regarded as artists is unreadable. And a book about artists regarded as lovers, husbands, dipsomaniacs, heroes and the like is really not worth writing again. Jean-Cristoph is the

stock artist of literature. Just as Professor Radium of Comic Cuts is it stockman of science. I'm sorry to hear I'm as uninteresting as all that, said Gombole. Not at all, my dear Gombold, Mr. Skogan hastened to explain. As a lover or a dipsomaniac, I've no doubt of you being a most fascinating specimen. But as a combiner of forms, you must honestly admit it you're a bore. I entirely disagree with you, exclaimed Mary.

She was somehow always out of breath when she talked, and her speech was punctuated by little gasps. I've known a great many artists, and I've always found their mentality very interesting, especially in Paris. Schuplitsky, for example. I saw a great deal of Schuplitsky in Paris this spring. Ah, but then you're an exception, Mary.

You're an exception, said Mr. Skogan. You are a femme superior. A flush of pleasure turned Mary's face into a harvest moon. End of chapter. Chrome Yellow by Aldous Huxley, read for Librevox.org by Martin Clifton.

Chapter 4 Dennis, woke up next morning to find the sun shining, the sky serene. He decided to wear white flannel trousers, white flannel trousers and a black jacket with a silk shirt and his new peach-coloured tie. And what shoes? White was the obvious choice, but there was something rather pleasing about the notion of black patent leather.

He lay in bed for several minutes considering the problem. Before he went down, patent leather was his final choice. looked at himself critically in the glass. His hair might have been more golden, he reflected, as it was its yellowness had the hint of a greenish tinge in it. But his forehead was good. His forehead made up in height what his chin lacked in prominence. His nose might have been longer, but it would pass. His eyes might have been blue and not green. But his coat was very well cut and discreetly padded made him seem robuster than he actually was. His layer of Eggs in their white casing were long and elegant.

Satisfied, he descended the stairs. Most of the party had already finished their breakfast. He found himself alone with Jenny. I hope you slept well, he said. Yes, isn't it lovely, Jenny replied, giving two rapid little nods. But we had such awful thunderstorms last week. Parallel straight lines, Dennis reflected, meet only at infinity. He might talk forever of care, charm, asleep and she of meteorology till the end of time.

Did one ever establish contact with anyone? We are all parallel straight lines. Jenny was only a little more parallel than most. They are very alarming these thunderstorms, he said, helping himself to porridge. Don't you think so? Or are you above being frightened? No, I always go to bed in a storm. One is so much safer lying down.

Why? Because, said Jenny, making a descriptive gesture, because lightning goes downwards and not flatways, when you're lying down, you're out of the current. That's very ingenious. It's true. There was a silence. Dennis finished his porridge and helped himself to bacon.

For lack of anything better to say, and because Mr. Skogan's absurd phrase was, for some reason, running in his head, he turned to Jenny and asked, "'Do you consider yourself a femme superior?' He had to repeat the question several times before Jenny got the hang of it. "'No,' she said rather indignantly, "'when at last she heard what Dennis was saying?

"'Certainly not, has anyone been suggesting that I am?' "'No,' said Dennis. "'Mr. Skogan told Mary she was one.' "'Did he?' Jenny lowered her voice. "'Shall I tell you what I think of that man?' I think he's slightly sinister. Having made this pronouncement, she entered the ivory tower of her deafness

and closed the door. Dennis could not induce her to say anything more, could not induce her even to listen. She just smiled at him, smiled and occasionally nodded. Dennis went out onto the terrace to smoke his after-breakfast pipe and to read his morning paper.

An hour later, when Anne came down, she found him still reading. By this time he had got to the court circular and the forthcoming weddings. He got up to meet her as she approached, a hammer-dryad in white muslin, across the grass. Why, Dennis, she exclaimed, you look perfectly sweet in your white trousers. Dennis was dreadfully taken aback. There was no possible retort. You speak as though I were a child in a new frock, he said, with a show of irritation. But that's how I feel about you,

Dennis, dear. Then you oughtn't to. But I can't help it. I'm so much older than you. I like that, he said, four years older. And if you do look perfectly sweet in your white trousers, why shouldn't I say so? And why did you put them on if you didn't think you were going to look sweet in them? Let's go into the garden, said Dennis. He was put out. The conversation had taken such a preposterous and unexpected turn. He had planned a very different opening, in which he was to lead off with, you look adorable this morning, or something of the kind. And she was to answer, do I? And then there was to be a pregnant silence. And now she had got in first with the trousers, it was provoking, his pride was hurt. That part of the garden that sloped down from the foot of

the terrace to the pool had a beauty which did not depend on colour so much as on form. It was as beautiful by moonlight as in the sun. The silver of water, the dark shapes of yew and alex trees remained at all hours and seasons the dominant features of the scene. It was a landscape in black and white. For colour there was the flower garden. It lay to one side of the pool, separated from it by a huge Babylonian wall of views. You passed through a tunnel in the hedge, you opened a wicket in a wall, and you found yourself, and you found yourself startlingly and suddenly in the world of colour.

The July borders blazed and flared under the sun. Within its high brick walls, the garden was like a great tank of warmth and perfume and colour. Dennis held open the little iron gate for his companion. It's like passing from a cloister into an oriental palace, he said, and took a deep breath of the warm, flower-scented air. In fragrant volleys, there are. let fly, how does it go? Well, shop, ye firemen, oh how sweet and round your equal fires do meet, whose shrill report no ear can tell, but echoes to the eye and smell.

You have a bad habit of quoting, said Anne, as I never know the context or author I find it humiliating. Dennis apologised. It's the fault of one's education, things somehow seem more real and vivid when one can apply somebody else's ready-made phrase about them. And then, there are lots of lovely names and words monophysite, iamblicus, pomponazzi. You bring them out triumphantly, and feel you've clinched the argument with a mere magical sound of them. That's what comes of the higher education. You may regret your education, said Anne. I'm ashamed of my lack of it. Look at those sunflowers, aren't they magnificent? Dark faces and golden crowns. They're the kings of Ethiopia. And I like the way the tits cling to the flowers and pick out the seeds.

while the other loutish birds grubbing dirtily for their food look up in envy from the ground. Do they look up in envy? That's the literary touch, I'm afraid. Education again. It always comes back to that. He was silent. Anne had sat down on a bench that stood in the shade of an old apple tree. I'm listening, she said. He did not sit down but walked backwards and forwards in front of the bench, gesticulating a little as he talked. books he said books one reads so many and one sees so few people and so little of the world great thick books about the universe and the mind and ethics you've no idea how many there are i must have read twenty or thirty tons of them in the last five years twenty tons of ratio sination waited with that one's pushed out into the world he went on walking up and down his voice rose fell was silent a moment and then talked about on. He moved his hands, sometimes he waved his arms. Anne looked and listened quietly, as though she were at a lecture. He was a nice boy, and today he looked charming, charming.

One entered the world, Dennis pursued, having ready-made ideas about everything. One had a philosophy and tried to make life fit into it. One should have lived first and then made one's philosophy to fit life. Life, facts, things were horribly complicated. ideas even the most difficult of them deceptively simple in the world of ideas everything was clear in life all was obscure embroiled was it surprising that one was miserable horribly unhappy denis came to a halt in front of the bench and as he asked this last question he stretched out his arms and stood for an instant in an attitude of crucifixion then let them fall again to his sides my poor denis anne was touched he was really too pathetic as he stood there in front of her in his white flannel trousers but does one suffer about these things it seems very extraordinary you're like skogan cried denis bitterly you regard me as a specimen for an anthropologist well i suppose i am no no she protested and drew in her skirt with a gesture that indicated that he was to sit down beside her he sat down why can't you just take things for granted and as they come she asked it's so much simpler of course it is said denis but it's a lesson to be learned gradually there are twenty tons of ratio'sination to be got rid of first

i've always taken things as they come said anne it seems so obvious when enjoys the pleasant things avoids the nasty ones there's nothing more to be said nothing for you but then you were born a pagan i am trying laboriously to make myself one I can take nothing for granted, I can enjoy nothing as it comes along. Beauty, pleasure, art, women, I have to invent an excuse, a justification for everything that's delightful. Otherwise, I can't enjoy it with an easy conscience. I make up a little story about beauty and pretend that it has something to do with truth and goodness. I have to say that art is the process by which one reconstructs the divine reality out of chaos. pleasure is one of the mystical roads to union with the infinite, the ecstasies of drinking, dancing, love-making.

As for women, I am perpetually assuring myself that they're the broad highway to divinity, and to think that I'm only just beginning to see through the silliness of the whole thing, it's incredible to me that anyone should have escaped these horrors. It's still more incredible to me, said Anne, that anyone should have been a victim to them. I should like to see myself believing that men are the high-weighter divinity. The amused malice of her smile planted two little folds on either side of her mouth,

and through their half-closed lids her eyes shone with laughter. What you need, Dennis, is a nice plump young wife, a fixed income and a little congenial but regular work. What I need is you. That was what he ought to have retorted. That was what he wanted passionately to say. say. He could not say it. His desire fought against his shyness. What I need is you. Mentally, he shouted the words, but not a sound issued from his lips. He looked at her despairingly. Couldn't she see what was going on inside him? Couldn't she understand? What I need is you. He would say it. He would. He would. I think I shall go and bathe, said Anne. It's so hot.

The opportunity had passed. End of chapter. Chrome Yellow by Aldous Huxley, read for Librivox.org by Martin Clifton. Chapter 5 Mr. Wimbush had taken them to see the sights of the home farm, and now they were standing all six of them, Henry Wimbush, Mr. Skogan, Dennis, Gombold, Anne and Mary, by the low wall of the piggery, looking into one of the sties. This is a good sow, said Henry Wimbush.

She had a litter of fourteen. fourteen mary echoed incredulously she turned astonished blue eyes towards mr wimbush then let them fall on to the seething mass of eland vitale that fermented in the sty an immense sow reposed on her side in the middle of the pen her round black belly fringed with a double line of dugs presented itself to the assault of an army of small brownish black swine with a frantic greed they tugged at their mother's flank the old sow stirred sometimes uneasily or uttered a little grunt of pain one small pig the runt the weakling of the litter had been unable to secure a place at the banquet squealing shrilly he ran backwards and forwards trying to push in amongst his stronger brothers or even to climb over their tight little black backs toward the maternal reservoir there are fourteen said mary you're quite right i counted it's extraordinary. The sow next door, Mr. Wimbush went on, has done very badly.

She only had five in her litter. I shall give her another chance. If she doesn't do better next time, I shall fat her up and kill her. There's the bore, he pointed towards a father stye. Fine old beast, isn't he? But he's getting past his prime, he'll have to go too. How cruel, Anne exclaimed.

But how practical, how eminently realistic, said Mr. Skogan. In this farm we have a model of sound paternal government. Make them breed, make them work, and when they're past working or breeding or begetting, slaughter them. Farming seems to be

mostly indecency and cruelty, said Anne. With the feral of his walking stick, Dennis began to scratch the boar's long bristly back. The animal moved a little, so as to bring himself within easier range of the instrument that evoked in him

such delicious sensations. Then he stood stock still, softly grunting his contentment. The mud of years flaked off his sides in a grey, powdery scurf. What a pleasure it is, said Dennis, to do somebody a kindness. I believe I enjoyed scratching this pig

quite as much as he enjoys being scratched. If only one could always be kind with so little expense or trouble. A gate slammed. There was a sound of heavy footsteps. "'Morning Rowley,' said Henry Wimbush. "'Warning, sir,' old Rowley answered. "'He was the most venerable of the labourers on the farm,

"'a tall, solid man, still unbent, "'with grey side-whiskers and a steep, dignified profile. "'Grave, weighty in his manner, "'splendably respectable, "'roly had the air of a great English statesman "'of the mid-ninth century. "'He halted on the outskirts of the group, and, for a moment, they all looked at the pigs in a silence

that was only broken by the sound of grunting or the squelch of a sharp hoof in the mire. Rowley turned at last, slowly and ponderously and nobly, as he did everything, and addressed himself to Henry Wimbush. Look at them, sir, he said, with a motion of his hand towards the wallowing swine, rightly as they called pigs. Rightly indeed, Mr. Wimbush agreed.

i am abashed by that man said mr skogan as old rowley plodded off slowly and with dignity what wisdom what judgment what a sense of values rightly are they called swine yes and i wish i could with as much justice say rightly are we called men they walked on towards the cow-sheds and the stables of the cart-horses five white geese taking the air this fine morning even as they were doing met them in the way they hesitated cackled then, converting their lifted necks into rigid horizontal snakes, they rushed off in disorder, hissing horribly as they went. Red calves paddled in the dung and mud of a spacious yard. In another enclosure stood the bull, massive as a locomotive. He was a very calm bull, and his face wore an expression of melancholy stupidity.

He gazed with reddish-brown eyes at his visitors, chew thoughtfully at the tangible memories of an earth, earlier meal, swallowed and regurgitated, chewed again. His tail lashed savagely from side to side, it seemed to have nothing to do with his impassive bulk. Between his short horns was a triangle of red curls, short and dense. Splendid animal, said Henry Wimbush, pedigree stog, but he's getting a little old, like the bore. Fat him up and slaughter him, Mr. Skogan pronounced, with a delicate old, maidish precision of utterance, "'Couldn't you give the animals a little holiday

"'from producing children?' asked Anne. "'I'm so sorry for the poor things.' "'Mr. Wimbush shook his head. "'Personally,' he said, "'I rather like seeing fourteen pigs grow "'where only one grew before. "'The spectacle of so much crude life is refreshing. "'I'm glad to hear you say so,' Gumbulled, broke in warmly.

"'Lots of life, that's what we want. "'I like pollulation. "'Everything ought to increase and multiply as high. hard as it can. Gombold grew lyrical. Everybody ought to have children, Anne ought to have them, Mary ought to have them, dozens and dozens. He emphasised his point by thumping with his walking stick on the bull's leather flanks.

Mr. Skogan ought to pass on his intelligence to little Skogans and Dennis to little denises. The bull turned his head to see what was happening, regarded the drumming stick for several seconds, then turned back again, satisfied its seemed that nothing was happening. Sterility was odious, unnatural, a sin against life. Life, life, and still more life, the ribs of the placid bull resounded. Standing with his back against the farmyard pump, a little apart, Dennis examined the group.

Gombald, passionate and vivacious, was its centre. The others stood around, listening, Henry Wimbush, calm and polite beneath his grey bowler. Mary, with parted lips and eyes that shone with the indignation of a convinced birth controller. Anne looked on through half-shut eyes, smiling, and beside her stood Mr. Skogan, bolt upright in an attitude of metallic rigidity that contrasted strangely with that fluid grace of hers, which even in stillness suggested a soft movement. Gombold ceased talking, and Mary, flushed and outraged, opened her mouth to her mouth. to refute him. But she was too slow. Before she could utter a word, Mr. Skogan's flutty voice

had pronounced the opening phrases of a discourse. There was no hope of getting so much as a word in edgeways. Mary had, perforce, to resign herself. "'Even your eloquence, my dear Gumbold,' he was saying, "'even your eloquence must prove inadequate to reconvert the world to a belief in the delights of mere multiplication. With the gramophone, the cinema, and the automatic pistol, the goddess of applied science has presented the world with another gift, more precious even than these,

the means of dissociating love from propagation. Eros, for those who wish it, is now an entirely free God. His deplorable association with Lucina may be broken at will. In the course of the next few centuries, who knows? the world may see a more complete severance. I look forward to it optimistically. Where the great Erasmus Darwin and Miss Anna Seward, Swan of Litchfield,

experimented, and, for all their scientific order, failed, our descendants will experiment and succeed, an impersonal generation will take the place of nature's hideous system. In vast state incubators, rows upon rows of gravied bottles will supply the world with the population it requires. The family system will disappear, society, sapped at its very base,

will have to find new foundations, and Eros, beautifully and irresponsibly free, will flit like a gay butterfly from flower to flower through a sunlit world. Sounds lovely, said Anne. The distant future always does. Mary's China Blue Eyes, more serious and more astonished than ever,

were fixed on Mr. Skof. Bottles, she said. Do you really think so? Bottles. End of chapter. Chrome Yellow by Aldous Huxley. Read for Librivox.org by Martin Clifton. Chapter 6 Mr. Barbecue Smith arrived in time for tea on Saturday afternoon. He was a short and corpulent man with a very large head and no neck.

In his earlier middle age he had been distressed by this absence of neck, but was comforted by reading in Borsack's Louis Lombard that all the world's great men have been marked by the same peculiarity. And for a simple and obvious reason, greatness is nothing more nor less than the harmonious functioning of the faculties of the head and heart. The short of the neck, the more closely these two organs approach one another.

Hager, it was convincing. Mr. Barbecue Smith belonged to the old school of journalists. He sported a lion head, with a greyish black mane of oddly unappetising hair, brushed back from a broad but low forehead. And somehow he always seemed slightly, ever so slightly, soiled. In younger days he had gaily called himself a bohemian. He did so no longer. He was a teacher now, a kind of prophet. Some of his books of comfort and spiritual teaching were in their hundred and twentieth thousand.

Priscilla received him with every mark of esteem. He had never been to Chrome before. She showed him around the house. Mr. Barbecue Smith was full of admiration. So quaint, so old world, he kept repeating. He had a rich, rather unctuous voice. Priscilla praised his latest book. Splendid, I thought it was, she said in her large, jolly way.

I'm happy to think you found it a comfort, said Mr. Barbecue Smith. Oh, tremendously. and the bit about the lotus pool I thought that's so beautiful. I knew you would like that. It came to me, you know, from without. He waved his hand to indicate the astral world. They went out into the garden for tea. Mr. Barbecue Smith was duly introduced.

Mr. Stone, as a writer too, said Priscilla as she introduced Dennis. Indeed, Mr. Barbecue Smith smiled benignly, and looking up at Dennis with an expression of Olympian condescension. and what sort of things do you write? Dennis was furious, and, to make matters worse, he felt himself blushing hotly. Had Priscilla no sense of proportion? She was putting them in the very same category, Barbecue Smith and himself. They were both writers, they both used pen and ink.

To Mr. Barbecue Smith's question, he answered, Oh, nothing much, nothing, and looked away. Mr. Stone is one of our young. poets. It was Anne's voice. He scowled at her and she smiled back exasperatingly. Excellent, excellent, said Mr. Barbecue Smith, and he squeezed Dennis arm encouragingly. The Bards is a noble calling. As soon as tea was over, Mr. Barbecue Smith excused himself. He had to do some writing before dinner. Priscilla quite understood. The prophet retired to his chamber. Mr. Barbecue Smith came down to the drawing-room at ten to eight. He was in a good

humour, and, as he dissented the stairs, he smiled to himself and rubbed his large white hands together. In the drawing-room, someone was playing softly and ramblingly on the piano. He wondered who it could be, one of the young ladies, perhaps. But no, it was only Dennis, who got up hurriedly and with some embarrassment as he came into the room. Do go on, do go on, said Mr. Barbecue Smith. I'm very fond of music. Then I couldn't possibly go on, Dennis replied. I only make noises.

There was a silence. Mr. Barbecue Smith stood with his back to the hearth, warming himself at the memory of last winter's fires. He could not control his interior satisfaction, but still went on smiling to himself. At last he turned to Dennis. You write, he asked, don't you? Well, yes, a little, you know.

How many words do you find you can write in an hour? I don't think I've ever counted. Oh, you ought to, you ought to. It's most important. Dennis exercised his memory. When I'm in good form, he said, I fancy I do a 1200-word review in about four hours, but sometimes it takes much longer. Mr. Barbecue Smith nodded,

Yes, 300 words an hour at your best. he walked out into the middle of the room turned round on his heels and confronted denis again guess how many words i wrote this evening between five and half-past seven i can't imagine no which you must guess between five and half-past seven that's two and a half hours twelve hundred words denis hazarded no no no mr barbkew smith's expanded face shone with gaiety try again fifteen hundred no no I give it up, said Dennis. He found he couldn't summon up much interest in Mr. Barbecue Smith's writing. Well, I'll tell you, 3,800. Dennis opened his eyes. You must get a lot done in a day, he said.

Mr. Barbecue Smith suddenly became extremely confidential. He pulled up a stool to the side of Dennis' armchair, sat down in it, and began to talk softly and rapidly. Listen to me, he said. laying his hand on Dennis sleeve. You want to make your living by writing? You're young, you're inexperienced. Let me give you a little sound advice.

What was the fellow going to do, Dennis wondered, give him an introduction to the editor of John a London's Weekly, or tell him where he could sell a light middle for seven guineas? Mr. Barbecue Smith patted his arm several times and went on, The secret of writing, he said, breathing it into the young man's ear, the secret of writing is inspiration. Dennis looked at him in astonishment.

Inspiration, Mr. Barbecue Smith repeated. You mean the native woodnote business? Mr. Barbecue Smith nodded. Oh, then I entirely agree with you, said Dennis. But what if one hasn't got inspiration? That was precisely the question I was waiting for, said Mr. Barbecue Smith. You ask me what? should do if one hasn't got inspiration. I answer, you have inspiration. Everyone has inspiration.

It's simply a question of getting it to function. The clock struck eight. There was no sign of any of the other guests. Everybody was always late at Chrome. Mr. Barbecue Smith went on. That's my secret, he said. I give it you freely. Dennis made a suitably grateful murmur and grimace. I'll help you to find your inspiration because I don't like to see a nice, steady young man like you, exhausting his vitality and wasting the best years of his life in a grinding intellectual labour that could be completely obviated by inspiration. I did it myself, so I know what it's like. Up to the time I was 38, I was a writer like you, a writer without inspiration. All I wrote I squeezed out of myself by sheer hard work. Why, in those days,

I was never able to do more than six-fifty words an hour, and what's more, I often didn't sell what I wrote, he sighed. We artists, he said, parenthetically, we intellectuals aren't much appreciated here in England. Dennis wondered if there was any method, consistent, of course, with politeness by which he could dissociate himself from Mr. Barbecue Smith's we. There was none, and besides, it was too late now from Mr. Barbecue-Smith's. Smith was once more pursuing the tenor of his discourse. At 38 I was a poor, struggling, tired, overworked, unknown journalist.

Now, at 50, he paused modestly and made a little gesture, moving his fat hands outwards away from one another and expanding his fingers as though in demonstration. He was exhibiting himself. Dennis thought of that advertisement of Nessle's Milk. The two cats on the wall under the moon, one black and thin, the other white, sleek, and fat, before inspiration and after. Inspiration has made the difference, said Mr. Barbecue Smith solemnly.

It came, quite suddenly, like a gentle Jew from heaven. He lifted his hand and let it fall back onto his knee to indicate the descent of the Jew. It was one evening. I was writing my first little book about the conduct of life. Humble heroisms, you may have read it, It has been a comfort, at least I hope and think so, a comfort to many thousands. I was in the middle of the second chapter, and I was stuck, fatigue, overwork. I had only written a hundred words in the last hour, and I could get no further.

I sat biting the end of my pen, and looking at the electric light which hung above my table, a little above and in front of me. He indicated the position of the lamp with elaborate care. Have you ever looked at a bright light in tenor? for a long time, he asked, turning to Dennis. Dennis didn't think he had. You can hypnotize yourself that way, Mr. Barbecue Smith went on. The gong sounded in a terrific crescendo from the hall. Still no sign of the others. Dennis was horribly hungry. That's what happened to me, said Mr. Barbecue Smith.

I was hypnotized. I lost consciousness like that. He snapped his fingers. When I came to, I found that it was past midnight, and I was. I had written four thousand words, four thousand, he repeated, opening his mouth very wide on the ow of thousand. Inspiration had come to me. What a very extraordinary thing, said Dennis. I was afraid of it at first. It didn't seem to me natural. I didn't feel somehow that it was quite right, quite fair, I might almost say, to produce a literary composition unconsciously. Besides, I was afraid I might have written nonsense. And had you written nonsense? And had you written nonsense, Dennis asked. Certainly not, Mr. Barbecue Smith replied, with a trace of annoyance.

Certainly not. It was admirable, just a few spelling mistakes and slips such as they generally are in automatic writing. But the style, the thought, all the essentials were admirable. After that, inspiration came to me regularly. I wrote the whole of humble heroisms like that. It was a great success, and so has everything been that I have written since. He leaned forth. He leaned forward and jabbed at Dennis with his finger. That's my secret, he said. And that's how you could write too if you tried, without effort, fluently well. But how? asked Dennis, trying not to show how deeply he had been insulted by that final well. By cultivating your inspiration, by getting into touch with your subconscious. Have you ever read my little book Pipelines to the Infinite?

Dennis had to confess that that was precisely one of the few, perhaps the only one of Mr. Barbecue Smith's works he had not read. Never mind, never mind, said Mr. Barbecue Smith. It's just a little book about the connection of the subconscious with the infinite. Get into touch with the subconscious, and you're in touch with the universe. Inspiration, in fact. Do you follow me? Perfectly, perfectly, said Dennis. But don't you find that the universe sometimes sends you very irrelevant messages? I don't allow it to, Mr. Barbecue Smith replied.

I canalise it, I bring it down through pipes to work the turbines of my conscious mind. Like Niagara, Dennis suggested. Some of Mr. Barbecue Smith's remarks sounded strangely like quotations. Quotations from his own works, no doubt. Precisely, like Niagara, and this is how I do it. He leaned forward and, with a raised forefinger, marked his points as he made them. beating time, as it were, to his discourse. Before I go off into my trance,

I concentrate on the subject I wish to be inspired about. Let us say I am writing about the humble heroisms. For ten minutes before I go into the trance, I think of nothing but orphans supporting their little brothers and sisters, of dull work well and patiently done, and I focus my mind on such great philosophical truths as the purification and uplifting of the soul by suffering,

and the alchemical transformation of leaden evil into golden good. Dennis again hung up his little festoon of quotation marks. Then I pop off. Two or three hours later I wake up again and find that inspiration has done its work. Thousands of words, comforting, uplifting words, lie before me. I type them out neatly on my machine and they are ready for the printer. It all sounds wonderfully simple, said Dennis.

It is. All great and splendid. and divine things of life are wonderfully simple. Quotation marks again. When I have to do my aphorisms, Mr. Barbecue Smith continued, I prelude my trance by turning over the pages of any dictionary of quotations or Shakespeare calendar that comes to hand. That sets the key, so to speak.

That ensures that the universe shall come flowing in, not in a continuous rush, but in aphorismic drops. Do you see the idea? Dennis nodded. Mr. Barbecue Smith put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a notebook. I did a few in the train today, he said, turning over the pages, just dropped off into a trance in the corner of my carriage. I find the train very conducive to good work.

Here they are. He cleared his throat and read, The mountain road may be steep, but the air is pure up there, and it is from the summit that one gets the view. The things that really matter happen in the... the heart. It was curious, Dennis reflected, the way the infinite sometimes repeated itself. Seeing is believing, yes, but believing is also seeing. If I believe in God, I see God, even in the things that seem to be evil. Mr. Barbecue Smith looked up from his notebook.

That last one, he said, is particularly subtle and beautiful, don't you think? Without inspiration, I could never have hit on that. He re-read the apothein with slower and more solemn utterance. Straight from the infinite, he commented reflectively, then addressed himself to the next aphorism. The flame of a candle gives light, but it also burns. Puzzled wrinkles appeared on Mr. Barbecue Smith's forehead. I don't exactly know what that means, he said.

It's very nomic. One could apply it, of course, to the higher education, illuminating but provoking the lower classes to discontent and revolution. Yes, I suppose that's what it is, but it's nomic. It's nomic. He rubbed his gin thoughtfully. The gong sounded again, clamorously, it seemed imploringly. Dinner was growing cold. It roused Mr. Barbecue Smith from meditation. He turned to Dennis. You understand me now when I advise you to cultivate your inspiration.

Let your subconscious work for you. on the Niagara of the Infinite. There was a sound of feet on the stairs. Mr. Barbecue Smith got up, laid his hand for an instant on Dennis's shoulder and said, No more now, another time, and remember, I rely absolutely on your discretion in this matter. There are intimate, sacred things that one doesn't wish to be generally known.

Of course, said Dennis, I quite understand. End of chapter. Chrome Yellow by Aldous Huxley. for Librevox.org by Martin Clifton. Chapter 7 At Chrome all the beds were ancient hereditary pieces of furniture, huge beds like four-masted ships with furled sails of shining coloured stuff. Beds carved and inlaid, beds painted and gilded,

beds of walnut and oak, of rare exotic woods. Beds of every date and fashion from the time of Sir Ferdinando, who built the house, to the time of his namesake in the late 18th century, the last of the family, but all of them grandiose, magnificent. The finest of all was now Anne's bed. Sir Julius, son to Sir Ferdinando, had had it made in Venice against his wife's first lying in. Early Scento Venice had expended all its extravagant art in the making of it.

The body of the bed was like a great square sarcophagus, clustering roses were carved in high relief on its wooden panels and luscious putty wallowed among the roses. On the black groundwork of the panels the carved reliefs were gilded and burnished. The golden roses twined in spirals up the four pillar-like posts and cherubs seated at the top of each column supported a wooden canopy fretted with the same carved flowers. Anne was reading in bed.

Two candles stood on the little table beside her in their rich light on her face her bare arm and shoulder took on warm hues and a sort of peach-like quality of surface here and there in the canopy above her carved golden petals shone brightly among profound shadows and the soft light falling on the sculptured panel of the bed broke restlessly among the intricate roses lingered in a broad caress on the blown cheeks the dimpled bellies the tight absurd little posterias of the sprawling putty There was a discreet tap at the door. She looked up. Come in, come in. A face round and childish, within its sleek bell of golden hair, peered around the opening door. More childish looking still, a suit of mauve pyjamas made its entrance.

It was Mary. I thought I'd just look in for a moment to say good-night, she said, and sat down on the edge of the bed. Anne closed her book. That was very sweet of you. What are you reading? She looked at the book. Rather second-rate, isn't it? The tone in which Mary pronounced the word second-rate

implied an almost infinite denigration. She was accustomed in London to associate only with first-rate people who liked first-rate things, and she knew that there were very, very few first-rate things in the world, and that those were mostly French. Well, I'm afraid I like it, said Anne.

There was nothing more to be said. The silence that followed was a rather uncomfortable one. Mary fiddled uneasily with the bottom button of her pajama jacket. Leaning back on her mound of heaped up pillows, Anne waited and wondered what was coming. I'm so awfully afraid of repressions, said Mary at last, bursting suddenly and surprisingly into speech. She pronounced the words on the tail end of an expiring breath, and had to gasp for new air almost before the phrase was finished. What's there to be depressed about? I said repressions, not depressions.

Oh, repressions, I see, said Anne. But repressions of what? Mary had to explain. The natural instincts of sex, she began didactically. But Anne cut her short. Yes, yes, perfectly. I understand repressions, old maids and all the rest. But what about them?

That's just it, said Mary. I'm afraid of them. It's always dangerous to repress one's instincts. I'm beginning to detect in myself symptoms like the ones you read of in the books. I constantly dream that I'm falling down wells, and sometimes I even dream that I'm climbing up ladders. It's most disquieting. The symptoms are only too clear. Are they? One may become a nymphomaniac if one's not careful. You've no idea how serious these repressions are if you don't get rid of them in time. It sounds too awful. said Anne, but I don't see that I can do anything to help you. I thought I'd just like to talk it over with you.

Why, of course, I'm only too happy, Mary, darling. Mary coughed and drew deep breath. I presume, she began sententiously, I presume we may take for granted that an intelligent young woman of 23, who has lived in civilised society in the 20th century, has no prejudices. Well, I confess I still have a few. but not about repressions no not many about repressions that's true or rather about getting rid of repression exactly so much for our fundamental postulet said mary solemnity was expressed in every feature of her round young face radiated from her large blue eyes we come next to the desirability of possessing experience

i hope we are agreed that knowledge is desirable and that ignorance is undesirable obedient as one of those complacent disciples from whom socrates could get whatever answer he chose and gave her assent to this proposition and we are equally agreed i hope that marriage is what it is it is good said mary and repressions being what they are exactly there would therefore seem to be only one conclusion But I knew that, Anne exclaimed, before you began. Yes, but now it's been proved, said Mary, one must do things logically. The question is, now, but where does the question come in? You've reached your only possible conclusion logically, which is more than I could have done. All that remains is to impart the information to someone you like, someone you really like rather a lot, someone you're in love with, if I may express myself so badly.

But that's just where the question comes in, Mary exclaimed. I'm not in love with anybody. Then, if I were you, I should wait till you are. But I can't go on dreaming night after night that I'm falling down a well. It's too dangerous. Well, if it really is too dangerous, then, of course, you must do something about it. You must find somebody else. But who?

A thoughtful frown puckered Mary's brow. It must be somebody intelligent, somebody with intellectual interests that I can share. And it must be somebody with a proper respect. for women somebody who's prepared to talk seriously about his work and his ideas and about my work and my ideas it isn't as you see at all easy to find the right person well said anne there are three unattached and intelligent men in the house at the present time there's mr skogan to begin with but perhaps he's rather too much of a genuine antique and there are gombold and dennis shall we say that the choice is limited to the last two mary nodded i think we'd better she said and then hesitated with a certain air of embarrassment what is it i was wondering said mary with a gasp whether they really were unattached i thought that perhaps you might you might it was very nice of you to think of me mary darling said anne smiling the tight cat's smile but as far as i am concerned they are both entirely unattached i am very glad of that said mary looking relieved we are now confronted with the question which of the two i can give no advice it is a matter of your taste it's not a matter of my taste mary pronounced but of their merits we must weigh them and consider them carefully and dispassionately

You must do the weighing yourself, said Anne. There was still the trace of a smile at the corners of her mouth and round the half-closed eyes. I won't run the risk of advising you wrongly. Gombold has more talent, Mary began, but he is less civilised than Dennis. Mary's pronunciation of civilised gave the word a special and additional significance. She uttered it meticulously, in the very front of her mouth, hissing delicately on the opening sibilant. so few people were civilised

and they, like the first-rate works of art, were mostly French. Civilisation is most important, don't you think? Anne held up her hand. I won't advise, she said, you must make the decision. Gombold's family, Mary went on reflectively, comes from Marseilles, rather a dangerous heredity when one thinks of the Latin attitude towards women. But then I sometimes wonder whether Dennis is altogether sick. serious-minded, whether he isn't rather a dilettante. It's very difficult. What do you think?

I'm not listening, said Anne. I refuse to take any responsibility. Mary sighed. Well, she said, I think I better go to bed and think about it. Carefully and dispassionately, said Anne. At the door, Mary turned round. Good night, she said, and wondered as she said the words why Anne was smiling in that curious way. It was probably nothing, she reflected. anne often smiled for no apparent reason it was probably just a habit i hope i shan't dream of falling down wells again to night she added ladders are worse said anne mary nodded yes ladders are much graver end of chapter chrome yellow by aldous huxley read for librivox dot org by martin clifton chapter eight breakfast on sunday morning was an hour later than on weekdays and per seward who usually made no public appearance before luncheon honoured it with her presence dressed in black silk with a ruby cross as well as her customary ring of pearls round her neck she presided an enormous sunday paper concealed all but the extreme pinnacle of her coiffure from the outer world i see surrey has won she said with her mouthful by four wickets the sun is in leo that would account for it

splendid game cricket remarked mr barbbykew smith heartily to know one in particular so thoroughly english jenny who was sitting next to him woke up suddenly with a start what she said what so english repeated mr barbkew smith jenny looked at him surprised english of course i am he was beginning to explain when mrs wimbush veiled her sunday paper and appeared a square mauve powdered face in the midst of the middle of the middle of the middle of the middle of the middle of the middle of the middle of the middle of the orange splendors. I see there's a new series of articles on the next world just beginning, she said to Mr. Barbecue Smith. This one's called Summerland and Gehenna. Summerland, echoed Mr. Barbecue Smith, closing his eyes, Summerland, a beautiful name, beautiful, beautiful. Mary had taken the seat next to Dennis. After a night of careful consideration, she had decided on Dennis. He might have less talent than Gombold. He might be a little lacking in seriousness, but somehow he was safer.

Are you writing much poetry here in the country, she asked, with a bright gravity? None, said Dennis curtly. I haven't brought my typewriter. But do you mean to say you can't write without a typewriter? Dennis shook his head. He hated talking at breakfast, and besides he wanted to hear what Mr. Skogan was saying at the other end of the table. My scheme for dealing with the church, Mr. Skogan was saying, is beautifully simple. At the present time the Anglican clergy wear their collars the wrong way round. I would compel them to wear not only their collars, but all their clothes turned back to front,

coat, waistcoat, trousers, boots, so that every clergyman should present to the world a smooth facade, unbroken by stud, button or lace. The enforcement of such a livery would act as a wholesome deterrent to those intending to enter the church. At the same time, it would enormously enhance what archbishop lord so rightly insisted on the beauty of holiness in the few incorrigibles who could not be deterred in hell it seems said priscilla reading in her sunday paper the children amuse themselves by flaying lambs alive ah but dear lady that's only a symbol exclaimed mr barbkew smith a material symbol of a spiritual truce lambs signify then there are military uniforms mr skogan went on when scarlet and pipe clay were abandoned for khaki there were some who trembled for the future of war but then finding how elegant the new tunic was how closely it clipped the waist how voluptuously with the lateral bustles of the pockets it exaggerated the hips When they realised the brilliant potentialities of britches and top boots, they were reassured. Abolish these military elegancies, standardise a uniform of sackcloth and Macintosh.

You will very soon find that... Is anyone coming to church with me this morning? asked Henry Wimbush. No one responded. He baited his bare invitation. I read the lessons, you know, and there's Mr. Boddigham. His sermons are sometimes worth hearing. Thank you, thank you, said Barbecue Smith. I, for one, prefer to worship.

in the infinite church of nature. How does our Shakespeare put it? Sermons in books, stones in running brooks. He waved his arm in a fine gesture towards the window, and even as he did so, he became vaguely, but nonetheless insistently, nonetheless uncomfortably aware, that something had gone wrong with a quotation, something, what could it be, sermons, stones, books?

End of chapter. Chrome Yellow by Alders Huxley, read for Librivox. by Martin Clifton. Chapter 9 Mr. Boddiham was sitting in his study at the rectory. The 19th century Gothic windows, narrow and pointed, admitted the light grudgingly.

In spite of the brilliant July weather, the room was sombre. Brown, varnished bookshelves lined the walls, filled with row upon row of those thick, heavy theological works which the second-hand booksellers generally sell by weight. The mantelpiece, the overmantle, a towering structure of spindly pillars and little shells, were brown and varnished. The writing desk was brown and varnished, so were the chairs, so was the door. A dark, red-brown carpet with patterns covered the floor. Everything was brown in the room, and there was a curious, brownish smell. In the midst of this brown bloom, Mr. Bodiham sat at his desk.

He was the man in the iron mask, a grey, matriam. metallic face with iron cheekbones and a narrow iron brow. Iron folds hard and unchanging ran perpendicularly down his cheeks. His nose was the iron beak of some thin, delicate bird of rapine. He had brown eyes set in sockets rimmed with iron. Round them the skin was dark as though it had been charred. Dense, wiry hair covered his skull. It had been black, it was turning grey.

His ears were very small. and fine, his jaws, his chin, his upper lip were dark, iron dark, where he had shaved. His voice, when he spoke, and especially when he raised it in preaching, was harsh, like the grating of iron hinges when a seldom-used door is opened. It was nearly half-past twelve. He had just come back from church, hoarse and weary with preaching. He preached with fury, with passion, an iron man beating with a flail upon the souls of his congregation. But the souls of the faithful at Chrome were made of India rubber, solid rubber, the flail rebounded.

They were used to Mr. Bodium at Chrome, the flail thumped on India rubber, and, as often as not, the rubber slept. That morning he had preached, as he had often preached before, on the nature of God. He had tried to make them understand about God what a fearful thing it was to fall into his hands. God, they thought of something soft and merciful. They blinded themselves to facts. Still more, they blinded themselves to the Bible. The passengers on the Titanic sang, Nearer my God to thee, as the ship was going down.

Did they realise what they were asking to be brought nearer to, a white fire of righteousness, an angry fire? When Savonarola preached, men sobbed and groaned aloud. Nothing broke the polite silence with which crombed. listened to Mr. Boddigham, only an occasional cough, and sometimes the sound of heavy breathing. In the front pew sat Henry Wombush, calm, well-bred, beautifully dressed. There were times when Mr. Bodhom wanted to jump down from the pulpit and shake him into life, times when he would have liked to beat and kill his whole congregation. He sat at his desk dejectedly. Outside the

gothic windows the earth was warm and marvellously calm. Everything was as a bit of a little bit of it had always been, and yet, and yet, it was nearly four years now since he had preached that sermon on Matthew 24-7, for nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in divers places. It was nearly four years. He had had the sermon printed, it was so terribly, so vitally important that all the world should know what he had to say. A copy of the little pamphlet lay on his desk. A copy of the little pamphlet lay on his desk, eight small grey pages, printed by a phantom type that had grown blunt, like an old dog's teeth by the endless champing and champing of the press. He opened it, and began to read it yet once

again, for nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in divers places. Nineteen centuries have elapsed since our Lord gave utterance to those words, and not a single one of them has been without wars, plagues, famines and earthquakes. Mighty empires have crashed in ruin to the ground. Diseases have unpeopled half the globe. There have been vast natural cataclysms in which thousands have been overwhelmed by flood and fire and whirlwind. Time and again in the course of these 19th centuries, such things have happened, but they have not brought Christ back to earth. They were signs of the times inasmuch as they were signs of God's wrath against the chronic wickedness of

mankind. But they were not signs of the times in connection with the second coming. If earnest Christians have regarded the present war as a true sign of the Lord's approaching return, it is not merely because it happens to be a great war involving the lives of millions of people. Not merely because famine is tightening its grip on every country in Europe. not merely because disease of every kind, from syphilis to spotted fever, is rife among the warring nations. No, it is not for these reasons that we regard this war as a true sign of the times, but because in its origin and its progress it is marked by certain characteristics which seem to connect it almost beyond a doubt with the predictions in Christian prophecy

relating to the second coming of the Lord. Let me enumerate the features of the present war, which most clearly suggest that it is assigned for telling the near approach of the Second Advent. Our Lord said that this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come. Although it would be presumptuous for us to say what degree of evangelization will be regarded by God as sufficient, we may at least confidently hope that a century of unflagging missionary work has brought the fulfillment of this condition at any rate near. True, the larger number of the world's inhabitants have remained deaf to the preaching of the true religion,

but that does not vitiate the fact that the gospel has been preached. For a witness to all unbelievers from the papist to the Zulu, the responsibility for the continued prevalence of unbelief lies not with the preachers but with those preached too. Again, it has been generally recognized that the drying up of the waters of the Great River Euphrates, mentioned in the 16th chapter of Revelation, refers to the decay and extinction of Turkish power

and is a sign of the near approaching end of the world as we know it. The capture of Jerusalem and the successes in Mesopotamia are great strides forward in the destruction of the Ottoman Empire, though it must be admitted that the gallipoli episode proved that the turk still possesses a notable horn of strength historically speaking this drying up of ottoman power has been going on for the past century the last two years have witnessed a great acceleration of the process and there can be no doubt that complete desiccation is within sight closely following on the words concerning the drying up of the euphrates comes the prophecy of armageddon that world war with which the second coming is to be so closely associated. Once begun, the World War can end only with the return of Christ, and his coming will be sudden and unexpected, like that of a thief in the night.

Let us examine the facts. In history, exactly as in St Paul's Gospel, the World War is immediately preceded by the drying up of the Euphrates, or the decay of Turkish power. This fact alone would be enough to connect the present conflict, with the Armageddon of Revelation, and therefore to point to the near approach of the Second Advent, but further evidence of an even more solid and convincing nature can be adduced. Armageddon is brought about by the activities of three unclean spirits,

as it were toads which come out of the mouths of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet. If we can identify these three powers of evil, much light will clearly be thrown on the whole question. The dragon, the beast and the false prophet can all be identified in history. Satan, who can only work through human agency, has used these three powers in the long war against Christ, which has filled the last 19th centuries with religious strife. The dragon, it has been sufficiently established, is pagan Rome, and the spirit issuing from its mouth is the spirit of infidelity. The beast, alternatively symbolized as a woman, is undoubtedly the papal power, and popery is the

spirit which it spews forth. There is only one power which answers to the description of the false prophet, the wolf in sheep's clothing, the agent of the devil working in the guise of the lamb, and that power is the so-called society of Jesus, the spirit that issues from the mouth of the false prophet is the spirit of false morality. We may assume then that the three evil spirits are infidelity, popery, and false morality. Have these three influences been the real cause of the present conflict? The answer is clear. The spirit of infidelity is the very spirit of German criticism. The higher criticism, as it is mockingly called, denies the possibility of miracles, prediction

and real inspiration, and attempt to account for the Bible as a natural development. Slowly but surely, during the last 80 years, the spirit of infidelity has been robbing the Germans of their Bible and their faith, so that Germany is today a nation of unbelievers. Higher criticism has thus made the war possible, for it would be absolutely impossible for any Christian nation to wage war as Germany is waging it. We come next to the spirit of popery, whose influence in causing the war was quite as great as that of infidelity, though not perhaps so immediately obvious. Since the Franco-Prussian war, the papal power has steadily declined in France, while in Germany it has steadily increased.

Today, France is an anti-Papal state, while Germany possesses a powerful Roman Catholic minority, two papally controlled states, Germany and Austria, are at war with six anti-papal states, England, France, Italy, Russia, Serbia and Portugal. Belgium is, of course, a thoroughly papal state, and there can be little doubt that the presence on the Allies side of an element so essentially hostile has done much to hamper the righteous cause and is responsible for our comparative ill success. that the spirit of popery is behind the war is thus seen clearly enough in the grouping of the opposed powers

while the rebellion in the Roman Catholic parts of Ireland has merely confirmed a conclusion already obvious to any unbiased mind. The spirit of false morality has played as greater part in this war as the two other evil spirits. The scrap of paper incident is the nearest and most obvious example

of Germany's adherence to this essentially unchristian or Jesuitical morality. The end is German world power, and in the attainment of this end, any means are justifiable. It is the true principle of Jesuitary applied to international politics. The identification is now complete. As was predicted in Revelation, the three evil spirits have gone forth just as the decay of the Ottoman power was nearing complete. and have joined together to make the world war. The warning, behold, I come as a thief, is therefore meant for the present period,

for you and me and all the world. This war will lead on inevitably to the war of Armageddon and will only be brought to an end by the Lord's personal return. And when he returns, what will happen? Those who are in Christ, St John tells us, will be called to the supper of the Lamb. Those who are found fighting against him will be called to the supper of the great God, that grim banquet where they shall not feast, but be feasted on.

For, as St. John says, I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried in a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, come and gather yourselves together into the supper of the great God, that ye may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on and the flesh of all men both free and bound, both small and great. All the enemies of Christ will be slain with the sword of him that sits upon the horse, and all the fowls will be filled with their flesh.

That is the supper of the great God. It may be soon, or it may, as men reckon time, be long, but sooner or later, inevitably, the Lord will come and deliver the world from its present troubles, and woe unto them who are called, not to the supper of the land, but to the supper of the great God. They will realize then, but too late, that God is a God of wrath, as well as a God of forgiveness. The God who sent bears to devour the mockers of Elisha, the God who smote the Egyptians for their stubborn wickedness, will assuredly smite them too, unless they make haste to repent. But perhaps it is already too late. Who knows but that

tomorrow, in a moment even, Christ may be upon us unawares like a thief, in a little while, who knows? The angel, standing in the sun, may be summoning the ravens and vultures from their crannies in the rocks, to feed upon the putrifying flesh of the millions of unrighteous, whom God's wrath has destroyed. Be ready, then. The coming of the Lord is at hand. May it be for all of you an object of hope, not a moment to look forward to with terror and trembling. Mr. Bodium closed the little pamphlet and leaned back in his chair. The argument was sound, absolutely compelling, and yet it was four years since he had preached that sermon. Four years and England was at peace. The sun shone, the people of Chrome, were as wicked and indifferent as ever,

more so, indeed, if that were possible. If only he could understand, if the heavens would but make a sign. But his questionings remained unanswered. Seated there in his brown, varnished chair under the Ruskinian window, he could have screamed aloud. He gripped the arms of his chair, gripping, gripping for control. The knuckles of his hands whitened. He bit his lip. In a few seconds he was able to relax the tension. He began to rebuke himself for his rebellious impatience. Four years, he reflected. What were four years after all? It must inevitably take a long time for Armageddon to ripen to yeast itself up. The episode of 1914 had been a preliminary skirmish,

and as for the war having come to an end, why that of course was illusory. It was still going on, smouldering away in Silesia, in Ireland, in Anatolia. The discontent in Egypt and India was preparing the way, perhaps, for a great extension of the slaughter among the heathen peoples. The Chinese boycott of Japan and the right of the war. of that country in America in the Pacific might be breeding a great new war in the East. The prospect, Mr. Bodium, tried to assure himself, was hopeful. The real, the genuine Armageddon might soon begin, and then, like a thief in the night,

but in spite of all his comfortable reasoning, he remained unhappy, dissatisfied. Four years ago he had been so confident. God's intention seemed then so plain, and now he did well to be angry, and the... now he suffered too. Sudden and silent as a phantom, Mrs. Bodium appeared, gliding noiselessly across the room. Above her black dress, her face was pale with an opaque whiteness. Her eyes were pale as water in a glass,

and her straw hair was almost colourless. She held a large envelope in her hand. This came for you by the post, she said softly. The envelope was unsealed. Mechanically, Mr. Bodium tore it open. It contained a pamphlet, larger than his own and more elegant in appearance. The House of Sheenie, clerical outfit as Birmingham. He turned over the pages.

The catalogue was tastefully and ecclesiastically printed in antique characters with illuminated Gothic initials. Red marginal lines crossed at the corners after the manner of an Oxford picture frame enclosed each page of type. Little red crosses took the place of full stops. Mr Boddiam turned the pages. Sutan in Best Black Marino, ready to wear in all sizes. Clerical frock coats from nine guineas.

A dressy garment tailored by our own experienced ecclesiastical cutters. Half-tone illustrations represented young curates, some dapper, some rugbyan and muscular, some with ascetic faces and large, ecstatic eyes, dressed in jackets, in frockcoats, in surpluses, in clerical evening dress in black Norfolk suitings. A large assortment of chassables, rope girdles. Sheen is special skirt cassocks, tied by a string about the waist, when worn under a surplus presents an appearance indistinguishable from that of a complete cassock, recommended for summerware and hot climates.

With a gesture of horror and disgust Mr. Bodhium threw the catalogue into the waste paper basket. Mrs. Boddyham looked at him her payers. glaucus eyes reflected his action without comment the village she said in her quiet voice the village grows worse and worse every day what has happened now asked mr Boddham feeling suddenly very weary I'll tell you she pulled up a brown varnished chair and sat down in the village of Chrome it seemed Sodom and Gomorrah had come to a second birth end of chapter chrome yellow by Aldous Huxley read for Librivox dot org by martin clifton chapter ten dennis did not dance but when ragtime came squirting out of the pianola in gushes of treacle and hot perfume in jets of bengal light then things began to dance inside him

little black nigger corpuscles jigged and drummed in his arteries he became a cage of movement a walking palais de dance it was very uncomfortable like the preliminary symptoms of a disease he sat in one of the window seats glumly pretending to read at the pianola henry wimbush smoking a long cigar through a tunne pillar of amber trod out the shattering dance music with serene patience locked together gombold and anne moved with a harmoniousness that made them seem a single creature two-headed and four-legged mr skogan solemnly buffoonish shuffled round the room with mary jenny sat in the shadow behind the piano scribbling so it seemed in a big red notebook in arm-chairs by the fireplace priscilla and mr barbkew smith discussed higher things without apparently being disturbed by the noise on the lower plane optimism said mr barbkew smith with a tone of finality speaking through the strains of the wild wild women optimism is the opening of the soul towards the light it is an expansion towards and into god it is a spiritual self unification with the infinite how true sighed priscilla nodding the baleful splendors of her coiffure pessimism on the other hand is the contraction of the soul toward darkness it is a focusing of the self upon a point in the lower plane it is a spiritual slavery to mere facts to gross physical phenomena "'They're making a wild man of me. The refrain sang itself over in Dennis's mind.

"'Yes, they were, damn them a wild man, but not wild enough, that was the trouble. "'Wild inside, raging, writhing, yes, writhing was the word, writhing with desire. "'But outwardly he was hopelessly tame, outwardly, bar, bar, bar.' "'There they were, Anne and Gombold moving together as though they were a single, supple creature. "'The beast with two backs. and he sat in a corner pretending to read, pretending he didn't want to dance, pretending he rather despised dancing. Why? It was the bar-bar business again. Why was he born with a different face? Why was he? Gombold had a face of brass, one of those old brazen rams that thumped against the walls of cities till they fell.

He was born with a different face, a woolly face. The music stopped, the sing-and-a-since. The music stopped, the sing-and-a-since, single harmonious creature broke into two, flushed a little breathless and swayed across the room to the pianola, laid her hand on Mr. Wimbush's shoulder. A waltz this time, please, Uncle Henry, she said. A walt, he repeated, and turned to the cabinet where the rolls were kept. He trod off the old roll and trod on the new, a slave at the mill, uncomplainingly and beautifully well-bred. Rum, tom, rum-tit-tie, tum, tum, a melody, walled,

flowed oozingly along like a ship moving forward over a sleek and oily swell the four-legged creature more graceful more harmonious in its movements than ever slid across the floor oh why was he born with a different face what are you reading he looked up startled it was mary she had broken from the uncomfortable embrace of mr skogan who had now seized on jenny for his victim what are you reading i don't know said dennis truthfully he looked at the title page the book was called the stock-breeders varde makeham i think you're so sensible to sit and read quietly said mary fixing him with her china eyes i don't know why one dances it's so boring Dennis made no reply. She exacerbated him. From the armchair by the fireplace, he heard Priscilla's deep voice. Tell me, Mr. Barbecue Smith. You know all about science. I know. A deprecating noise came from Mr. Barbecue Smith's chair. This Einstein theory, it seems to upset the whole starry universe. It makes me so worried about my horoscopes. You see, Mary renewed her attack. Which are the contemporary poets do you like best, she asked. Dennis was filled with fury.

Why couldn't this pest of a girl leave him alone? He wanted to listen to the horrible music, to watch them dancing, oh, with what grace as though they had been made for one another, to savour his misery in peace. And she came and put him through this absurd catechism. She was like Mangold's questions. What are the three diseases of wheat?

Which are the contemporary poets do you like best? Blight Mildewan smut, he replied, with the laconism of one who is absolutely certain of his own mind. It was several hours before Dennis managed to go to sleep that night, vague but agonising miseries possessed his mind. It was not only Anne who made him miserable, he was wretched about himself, the future, life in general, the universe. This adolescence business, he repeated to himself every now and then, is horribly boring, but the fact that he knew his disease did not help him to cure it. after kicking all the clothes off his bed he got up and sought relief in composition he wanted to imprison his nameless misery in words at the end of an hour nine more or less complete lines emerged from among the blots and scratchings i do not know what i desire when summer nights are dark and still when the winds many-voiced choir sleeps among the muffled branches i long and know not what i will and not a sound of life or laughter stanches times blackish's blackish's blackish's blackish's blackish's and silent flow. I do not know what I desire. I do not know. He read it through aloud,

then threw the scribbled sheet into the waste paper basket and got into bed again. In a very few minutes he was asleep. End of chapter. Chrome Yellow by Aldous Huxley. Read for Librivox.org by Martin Clifton. Chapter 11. Mr. Barbecue Smith was gone. The motor heard whirled him away to the station, a faint smell of burning oil commemorated his recent departure. A considerable detachment had come into the courtyard to speed him on his way, and now they were walking back round the side of the house towards the terrace in the garden. They walked in silence. Nobody had yet ventured to comment on the departed guest. Well, said Anne at last, turning with raised inquiring eyebrows to Dennis.

Well, it was time for someone to begin. Dennis declined the invitation. He passed it on to Mr. Skogan. Well, he said. Mr. Skogan did not respond. He only repeated the question. Well? It was left for Henry Wimbush to make a pronouncement.

A very agreeable adjunct to the weekend, he said. His tone was obituary. They had descended, without paying much attention to where they were going, the steep U-Walk that went down under the flanker, of the terrace to the pool. The house towered above them immensely tall, with the whole height of the built-up terrace added to its own 70 feet of brick facade.

The perpendicular lines of the three towers soared up uninterrupted, enhancing the impression of height until it became overwhelming. They paused at the edge of the pool to look back. The man who built this house knew his business, said Dennis. He was an architect.

Was he, said Henry Wimbush reflectively? I doubted. The builder of this house was Sir Ferdinando Lapith, who flourished during the reign of Elizabeth. He inherited the estate from his father, to whom it had been granted at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries. For Crome was originally a cloister of monks, and this swimming pool their fish pond. Sir Ferdinando was not content merely to adapt the old monastic buildings to his own purposes,

but using them as a stone quarry for his barns and buyers and outhouses, he built for himself a grand new house of brick, the house you see now. He waved his hand in the direction of the house and was silent. Severe, imposing, almost menacing, chrome loomed down on them. The great thing about chrome, said Mr. Skogan, seizing the opportunity to speak, is the fact that it's so unmistakably and aggressively a work of art. It makes no compromise with nature, but affronts it and rebels against it. it has no likeness to shelley's tower in the epicycidian which if i remember rightly seems not now a work of human art but as it were titanic in the heart of earth having assumed its form and grown out of the mountain from the living stone lifting itself in cavern's light and high

no no there isn't any nonsense of that sort about chrome that the hovels of the peasantry should look as though they'd grown out of the earth to which their inmates are attached is right no doubt and suitable but the house of an intelligent civilised and sophisticated man should never seem to have sprouted from the clods it should rather be an expression of his grand unnatural remoteness from the cloddish life since the days of william morris that's a fact which we in england have been unable to comprehend civilized and sophisticated men have solemnly played at being peasants hence quaintness arts and crafts cottage architecture and all the rest of it in the suburbs of our cities you may see reduplicated in endless rows studdedly quaint imitations and adaptations of the village hovel poverty ignorance and a limited range of materials produce the hovel which possesses undoubtedly in suitable surroundings its own as it were titanic charm we now employ our wealth our technical knowledge our rich variety of materials for the purpose of building millions of imitation hovels in totally unsuitable surroundings could imbecility go further henry wimbush took up the thread of his interrupted discourse all that you say my dear scogan he began is certainly very just very true but whether sir ferdinando shared your views about architecture or if indeed he had any views about architecture at all or if indeed he had any views about architecture at all I very much doubt. In building this house, Sir Ferdinando was, as a matter of fact,

preoccupied by only one thought, the proper placing of his privies. Sanitation was the one great interest of his life. In 1573 he even published on this subject a little book, now extremely scarce, called Certain Privy Councils, by one of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Councils, F.L. Knight, in which the whole matter is treated with great learning and elegance.

His guiding principle in arranging the sanitation of a house was to secure that the greatest possible distance should separate the privy from the sewage arrangements. Hence it followed inevitably that the privies were to be placed at the top of the house being connected by vertical shafts with pits or channels in the ground. It must not be thought that Sir Ferdinando was moved only by material and merely sanitary considerations, for the placing of his privies in an exalted position he had also certain excellent spiritual reasons for he argues in the third chapter of his privy councils the necessities of nature are so base and brutish that in obeying them we are apt to forget that we are the noblest creatures of the universe

to counteract these degrading effects he advised that the privy should be in every house the room nearest to heaven that it should be well provided with windows commanding an extensive and noble prospect and that the walls of the chamber should be lined with bookshelves containing all the ripest products of human wisdom, such as the Proverbs of Solomon, Bethius' consolations of philosophy, the Apathems of Epictatus, and Marcus Aurelius, the Enchiridion of Erasmus and all other works ancient or modern, which testify to the nobility of the human soul.

In Chrome, he was able to put his theories into practice. At the top of each of the three projecting towers, he placed a privy. From these a shaft went down the whole height of the house, that is to say, more than 70 feet, through the cellars and into a series of conduits provided with flowing water, tunnelled in the ground on a level with the base of the raised terrace. These conduits emptied themselves into the stream several hundred yards below the fish bond. The total depth of the shafts from the top of the towers to their subterranean conduits was 102 feet. the 18th century with its passion for modernisation, swept away these monuments of sanitary ingenuity.

Were it not for tradition and the explicit account of them left by Sir Ferdinando, we should be unaware that these noble privies had ever existed. We should even suppose that Sir Ferdinando built his house after this strange and splendid model for merely aesthetic reasons. The contemplation of the glories of the past always evoked in Henry Wimbush a certain enthusiasm. Under the grey bowler his face worked and glowed as he spoke. The thought of these vanished privies moved him profoundly. He ceased to speak.

The light gradually died out of his face, and it became once more the replica of the grave, polite hat which shaded it. There was a long silence, the same, gently melancholy thoughts seemed to possess the mind of each of them. Permanence, transients. Sir Ferdinando and his privies were gone. chrome still stood how brightly the sun shone and how inevitable was death the ways of god were strange the ways of men were stranger still it does one's heart good exclaimed mr skogan at last to hear of these fantastic english aristocrats to have a theory about privies and to build an immense and splendid house in order to put it into practice it's magnificent beautiful i like to think of them all the eccentric milor's rolling across europe in ponderous carriages bound on extraordinary errands one is going to venice to buy la bianchi's larynx he won't get it till she's dead of course but no matter he's prepared to wait he has a collection pickled in glass bottles of the throats of famous opera singers

and the instruments of renowned virtuosi he goes in for them too he will try to bribe paganini to part with his little guarnario but he has small hope of success paganini won't sell his fiddle, but perhaps he might sacrifice one of his guitars. Others are bound on crusades, one to die miserably among the savage Greeks, another in his white top hat to lead Italians against their oppressors. Others have no business at all. They are just giving their oddity a continental airing. At home, they cultivate themselves at leisure and with greater elaboration. Beckford builds towers, Portland digs holes in the ground, Cavendish, the millionaire, lives in a stable, eats nothing but modern, and amuses himself, oh, solely for his private delectation, by anticipating the electrical discoveries of half a century.

Glorious eccentrics. Every age is enlivened by their presence. Someday, my dear Dennis, said Mr. Skogan, turning a beady bright regard in his direction, someday you must become their biographer. The lives of queer men. What a subject. I should like to undertake it myself. Mr. Skogan paused, looked up. once more at the towering house, then murmured the word eccentricity, two or three times. Accentricity. It's the justification of all aristocracies. It justifies leisureed classes and inherited wealth and privilege and endowments and all the other injustices of that sort. If you ought to do anything reasonable in this world, you must have a class of people who are

secure, safe from public opinion, safe from poverty, leisureed, not compelled to waste their time in the imbecile routines that go by the name of honest work. You must have a class of which the members can think and, within the obvious limits, do what they please. You must have a class in which people who have eccentricities can indulge them, and in which eccentricity in general will be tolerated and understood. That's the important thing about an aristocracy. Not only is it eccentric itself, often grandiosly so, it also tolerates and even encourages eccentricity. in others. The eccentricities of the artist and the newfangled thinker

don't inspire it with that fear, loathing and disgust which the Burgesses instinctively feel towards them. It is a sort of red-Indian reservation planted in the midst of a vast horde of poor whites, colonials at that. Within its boundaries, wild men disport themselves. Often it must be admitted a little grossly, a little too flamboyantly, and when kindred spirits are,

born outside the pale, it offers them some sort of refuge from the hatred which the poor whites, en bon bon-bourshoire, lavish on anything that is wild or out of the ordinary. After the social revolution, there will be no reservations. The redskins will be drowned in the great sea of poor whites. What then? Will they suffer you to go on writing Villanelles, my good Dennis? Will you, unhappy Henry, be allowed to live in this house of the splendid privies to continue your quiet delving in the minds of futile knowledge? Will Anne? And you, said Anne, interrupting him, will you be allowed to go on talking? You may rest assured, Mr. Skogan replied that I shall not. I shall have some honest work to do.

End of chapter. Chrome Yellow by Alders Huxley, read forlibrivox.org by Martin Clifton. Chapter 12 Blight, mildew and smut. mary was puzzled and distressed perhaps her ears had played her false perhaps what he had really said was squire binion and shanks or child blundon and erb or even abercrombie drink water and robindranath to gore perhaps but then her ears never did play her false blight mildew and smut the impression was distinct and ineffaceable blight mildew she was forced to the conclusion reluctantly that denis had indeed pronounced those improbable words. He had deliberately repelled her attempts to open a serious discussion. That was horrible. A man who had not talked seriously to a woman just because she was a

woman. Oh, impossible. Egeria or nothing. Perhaps Gombold would be more satisfactory. True, his meridional heredity was a little disquieting, but at least he was a serious worker, and it was with his work that she should associate herself. And, Dennis, after all, what was Dennis, a dilettante, an amateur? Gombold had annexed for his painting room a little disused granary that stood by itself in a green close beyond the farmyard. It was a square brick building with a peaked roof and little windows set high up in each of its walls. A ladder of four rungs led up to the door, for the granary was perched above the ground and out of the reach of the rats on four massive toadstles of grey stone. within there lingered a faint smell of dust and cobwebs and the narrow shaft of sunlight that came slanting in at every hour of the day through one of the little windows was always alive with silvery moats

here gombold worked with a kind of concentrated ferocity during six or seven hours of each day he was pursuing something new something terrific if only he could catch it during the last eight years nearly half of which had been spent in the process of winning the war, he had worked his way industriously through cubism. Now he had come out on the other side. He had begun by painting of formalised nature. Then, little by little, he had risen from nature into the world of pure form, till, in the end he was painting nothing but his own thoughts, externalised in the abstract geometrical forms of the mind's devising. He found the process arduous and exhilarating,

and then, quite suddenly he grew dissatisfied. He felt himself cramped and confined within intolerably narrow limitations. He was humiliated to find how few and crude and uninteresting were the forms he could invent. The inventions of nature were without number inconceivably subtle and elaborate. He had done with cubism. He was out on the other side. But the cubist discipline preserved him from falling into excesses of nature worship. He took from nature its rich, subtle, elaborate forms,

but his aim was always to work them into a hole that should have the thrilling simplicity and formality of an idea to combine prodigious realism with prodigious simplification. Memories of Caravaggio's portentous achievements haunted him. Forms of breathing, living reality emerged from darkness, built themselves up into compositions as luminously simple and single as a mathematical idea. He thought of the call of Matthew,

of Peter crucified, of the lute players of Magdalene. He had the secret, that astonishing ruffian. He had the secret. And now Gombold was after it, in hot pursuit. Yes, it would be something terrific, if only he could catch it. For a long time, an idea had been stirring

and spreading yeasterly in his mind. He had made a portfolio full of studies, he had drawn a cartoon, and now the idea was taking shape on canvas. A man fallen from a horse. The huge animal, a gaunt, white cart-horse, filled the upper half of the picture with its great body. Its head lowered towards the ground was in shadow.

The immense bony body was what arrested the eye, the body and the legs which came down on either side of the picture like the pillars of an arch. On the ground between the legs of the towering beast lay the foreshortened figure of a man. The head in the extreme foreground, the arms flung wide to right and left. A white relentless light poured down from a point in the right foreground. The beast, the fallen man, were sharply illuminated.

Round them, beyond and behind them, was the night. They were alone in the darkness, a universe in themselves. The horse's body filled the upper part of the picture. The legs, the great hoofs, frozen to stillness in the midst of their trampling, limited it on either side. and beneath lay the man his foreshortened face at the focal point in the centre his arms outstretched towards the sides of the picture under the arch of the horse's belly between his legs the eye looked through into an intense darkness below the space was closed in by the figure of the prostrate man a central gulf of darkness surrounded by luminous forms the picture was more than half finished gombole had been at work all morning on the figure of the man and now he was taking a rest the time to smoke a cigarette tilting back his chair till it touched the wall he looked thoughtfully at his canvas he was pleased and at the same time he was desolated

in itself the thing was good he knew it but that's something he was after that's something that would be so terrific if only he could catch it had he caught it would he ever catch it three little taps rat tat tat surprised gumbull turned his eyes towards the door nobody ever disturbed him while he was at work it was one of the unwritten laws come in he called the door which was ajar swung open revealing from the waist upwards the form of mary she had only dared to mount half-way up the ladder if he didn't want her retreat would be easier and more dignified than if she climbed to the top may i come in she asked certainly she skipped up the remaining two rungs and was over the threshold in an instant a letter came for you by second post she said i thought it might be important so i brought it out to you her eyes her childish face were luminously candid as she handed in the letter there had never been a flimsyer pretext gombold looked at the envelope and put it in his pocket unopened luckily he said it isn't at all important thanks very much all the same there was a silence Mary felt a little uncomfortable. May I have a look at what you're painting? She had the courage to say at last.

Gombold had only half smoked his cigarette. In any case, he wouldn't begin work again until he had finished. He would give her the five minutes that separated him from the bitter end. This is the best place to see it from, he said. Mary looked at the picture for some time without saying anything. Indeed, she didn't know what to say. She was taken aback. She was at a loss.

She had expected a cubist masterpiece, and here was a picture of a man and a horse, not only recognisable as such, but even aggressively in drawing. Trombley, there was no other word to describe the delineation of that foreshortened figure under the trampling feet of the horse. What was she to think? What was she to say? Her orientations were gone. One could admire representationism in the old masters, obviously, but in a modern, At 18 she might have done so, but now, after five years of schooling among the best judges,

her instinctive reaction to a contemporary piece of representation was contempt, an outburst of laughing disparagement. What could Gumbold be up to? She had felt so safe in admiring his work before, but now she didn't know what to think it was very difficult. Very difficult. There's rather a lot of kioskuro, isn't there? She ventured at last, and inwardly congratulated herself on having found a critical formula so gentle and at the same time so penetrating. There is, Gumbold agreed. Mary was pleased. He accepted her criticism. It was a serious discussion.

She put her head on one side and screwed up her eyes. I think it's awfully fine, she said, but of course it's a little too, too trompley for my taste. She looked at Gombold, who made no response but continued to smoke. gazing meditatively all the time at his picture. Mary went on gaspingly. When I was in Paris this spring, I saw a lot of Chauplinsky. I admire his work so tremendously. Of course, it's frightfully abstract now,

frightfully abstract and frightfully intellectual. He just throws a few oblongs onto his canvas, quite flat, you know, and painted in pure primary colours. But his design is wonderful. He's getting more and more abstract every day. He'd given up the third dimension, when I was there and was just thinking of giving up the second. Soon, he says, there'll be just a blank canvas.

That's the logical conclusion, complete abstraction. Painting's finished. He's finishing it. When he's reached pure abstraction, he's going to take up architecture. He says it's more intellectual than painting. Do you agree, she asked, with a final gasp? Gombold dropped his cigarette end and trod on it. Schuplitsky's finished painting, he said. I've finished my cigarette, but I'm going on, painting.

and, advancing towards her, he put his arm round her shoulders and turned her round away from the picture. Mary looked at him, her hair swung back a soundless bell of gold. Her eyes were serene, she smiled. So the moment had come. His arm was round her. He moved slowly, almost imperceptibly, and she moved with him. It was a peripatetic embrace.

Do you agree with him, she repeated? The moment might have come, but she was. would not cease to be intellectual, serious. I don't know, I shall have to think about it. Gombled loosened his embrace. His hand dropped from her shoulder. Be careful going down the ladder, he added, solicitously. Mary looked round, startled.

They were in front of the open door. She remained standing there for a moment in bewilderment. The hand that had rested on her shoulders made itself felt lowered down her back. It administered three or four kindly little smacks. replying automatically to its stimulus she moved forward be careful going down the ladder said gombold once more she was careful the door closed behind her and she was alone in the little green close she walked slowly back through the farm yard she was pensive end of chapter chrome yellow by aldous huxley read for librivox dot org by martin clifton chapter thirteen Henry Wimbush brought down with him to dinner a budget of printed sheets, loosely bound together in a cardboard portfolio. Today, he said, exhibiting it with a certain solemnity,

today I have finished the printing of my history of Chrome. I helped to set up the type of the last page this evening. The famous history cried Anne. The writing and printing of this magnum opus had been going on as long as she could remember. All her childhood long, Uncle Henry's history. had been a vague and fabulous thing, often heard of and never seen. It has taken me nearly 30 years, said Mr. Wimbush, 25 years of writing and nearly four of printing.

And now it's finished. A whole chronicle from Sir Ferdinando Lapith's birth to the death of my father William Wimbush more than three centuries and a half, a history of chrome, written at chrome, and printed at chrome by my own press. Shall we be allowed to read it? finished, asked Dennis. Mr. Wimbush nodded. Certainly, he said, and I hope you will not find it

uninteresting, he added modestly. Our munement room is particularly rich in ancient records, and I have some genuinely new light to throw on the introduction of the three-pronged fork. And the people, asked Gombold, Sir Ferdinando, and the rest of them? Were they amusing? Were there any crimes or tragedies in the family? Let me see. Henry Wimbush rubbed his chin thoughtfully. i can only think of two suicides one violent death four or perhaps five broken hearts and half a dozen little blots on the scutcheon in the way of misalliances seductions natural children and the like no on the whole it's a placid and uneventful record the wimbushes and the lapiths were always an unadventurous respectable crew said priscilla with a note of scorn in her voice if i were to write my family history now why it would be one long continuous blot from beginning to end She laughed jovially and helped herself to another glass of wine. If I were to write mine, Mr. Skogan remarked, it wouldn't exist.

After the second generations, we Skogans are lost in the mists of antiquity. After dinner, said Henry Wimbush a little piqued by his wife's disparaging comment on the Masters of Chrome, I'll read you an episode from my history that will make you admit that even the Lapiths, in their own respectable way, had their tragedies and strange adventures. "'I'm glad to hear it,' said Priscilla. "'Glad to hear what?' asked Jenny, emerging suddenly from her private interior world, like a cuckoo from a clock. She received an explanation, smiled, nodded, cuckooed at last, I see, and popped back, clapping shut the door behind her.

Dinner was eaten, the party had adjourned to the drawing-room. "'Now,' said Henry Wimbush, pulling up a chair to the lamp, He put on his round Pansinay, rimmed with tortoiseshell, and began cautiously to turn over the pages of his loose and still fragmentary book. He found his place at last. Shall I begin, he asked, looking up. Do, said Priscilla, yawning. In the midst of an attentive silence, Mr. Wimbush gave a little preliminary cough and started to read. The infant who was destined to become the fourth baronet of the name of Lapith was,

born in the year 1740. He was a very small baby, weighing not more than three pounds at birth, but from the first he was sturdy and healthy. In honour of his maternal grandfather, Sir Hercules Ockham, of Bishop's Occam, he was christened Hercules. His mother, like many other mothers, kept a notebook in which his progress from month to month was recorded. He walked at ten months, before his second year was out he had learned to speak a number of words. At three years he weighed but twenty-four pounds, and at six, though he could read and write perfectly and showed a remarkable aptitude for music, he was no larger and heavier than a well-grown child of two. Meanwhile, his mother had born two other children, a boy and a girl, one of whom died of croup during infancy,

while the other was carried off by smallpox before it reached the age of five. Hercules remained the only surviving child. On his 12th birthday, Hercules was still only three feet and two inches in height. His head, which was very handsome and nobly shaped, was too big for his body, but otherwise he was exquisitely proportioned, and for his size of great strength and agility. His parents, in the hope of making him grow, consulted all the most eminent physicians of the time. Their various prescriptions were followed to the letter, but in vain. One order, at a very plentiful meat diet, another exercise, a third constructed a little rack modelled on those employed by the Holy Inquisition, to which Hercules was stretched

with excruciating torments for half an hour every morning and evening. In the course of the next three years Hercules gained perhaps two inches. After that his growth stopped completely, and he remained for the rest of his life a pygmy of three feet and four inches. His father, who had built the most extravagant hopes upon his son, planning for him in his imagination a military career equal to that of Marlborough, found himself a disappointed man. I have brought an abortion into the world, he would say, and he took so violent a dislike to his son that the boy dared scarcely come into his presence. His temper, which had been serene, was turned by disappointment to moroseness and savagery. He avoided all company,

being, as he said, ashamed to show himself the father of a lusus Natchari amongst normal healthy human beings, and took to solitary drinking, which carried him very rapidly to his grave, for the year before Hercules came of age, his father was taken off by an apoplexy. His mother, whose love for him had increased with the growth of his father's unkindness, did not long survive, but little more than a year after her husband's death succumbed, after eating two dozen of oysters to an attack of typhoid fever. Hercules thus found himself at the age of 21 alone in the world, and master of a considerable fortune, including the estate and mansion of chrome.

The beauty and intelligence of his childhood had survived into his manly age, and but for his dwarfish stature he would have taken his place among the handsomest and most accomplished young men of his time. He was well-read in the Greek and Latin author, as well as in all the moderns of any merit who had written in English, French or Italian. He had a good ear for music, and was no indifferent performer on the violin, which he used to play like a bass vial, seated on a chair with the instrument between his legs. To the music of the harpsichord and clavichord he was extremely partial,

but the smallest of his hands made it impossible for him ever to perform upon these instruments. He had a small ivory flute made for him, on which, whenever he was melancholy, he used to play a simple country air or jig, affirming that this rustic music had more power to clear and raise the spirits than the most artificial productions of the masters. From an early age he practised the composition of poetry, but, though conscious of his great powers in this art, he would never publish any specimen of his writing.

My stature, he would say, is reflected in my verses. If the public were to read them, it would not be because I am a poet, but because I am a dwarf. several manuscript books of sir hercules poems survive a single specimen will suffice to illustrate his qualities as a poet in ancient days while yet the world was young ere abram fed his flocks or homer sung when blacksmith tubal tamed creative fire and jabal dwelt in tents and jubles struck the liar flesh grown corrupt brought forth a monstrous birth and obscene giants trod the shrinking earth till god impatient of their sinful brood, gave rain to wrath and drowned them in the flood. Teeming again re-peopleed Tellus bore the lubber hero and the man of war. Huge towers of brawn topped with an empty skull, witlessly bold, heroically dull. Long ages passed, and man grown more refined,

slighter in muscle but of vast a mind, smiled at his grandsire's broadsword, bow and bill, and learned to wield the pencil and the quill. The glowing canvas and the written page immortalized his name from age to age. His name emblazoned on fame's temple wall, for art grew great as humankind grew small. Thus man's long progress step by step we trace, the giant dies, the hero takes his place, the giant vile, the dull heroic block, at one we shudder and at one we mock. Man last appears, in him the soul's pure flame burns brightly in a not inordinate frame. Of old when heroes fought and giants swarmed, men were huge mounds of matter scarce informed, wearied by leavening so vast a mass the spirit slept, and all the mind was crass.

The smaller carcass of these latter days is soon informed, the sole unwearied plays, and like a pharaoh's darts abroad her mental rays. But can we think that providence will stay man's footsteps here upon the upward way? mankind in understanding and in grace advanced so far beyond the giant's race? Hence, empires thought, still, led by God's own hand, mankind proceeds towards the promised land. A time will come, prophetic, I describe remoter dawns along the gloomy sky, when happy mortals of a golden age will backwards turn the dark historic page, and, in our vaunted race of men, behold a form as gross, a mind as dead as dead,

and cold as we in giants see in warriors of old. A time will come when in the soul shall be from all superfluous matter wholly free, when the light body, agile as a fawns, shall sport with grace along the velvet lawns. Nature's most delicate and final birth, mankind, perfected, shall possess the earth. But are, not yet, for still the giant's race, huge, though diminished, tramps the earth's fair face, gross and repulsive. yet perversely proud, men of their imperfections boast aloud, vain of their bulk, of all they still retain of giant ugliness, absurdly vain. At all that small they point their stupid scorn,

and, monsters, think themselves divinely born. Sad is the fate of those, are sad indeed, the rare precursors of the nobler breed, who come man's golden glory to foretell, but pointing heavenwards live themselves in hell. as soon as he came into the estate sir hercules set about remodelling his household for though by no means ashamed of his deformity indeed if we may judge from the poem quoted above he regarded himself as being in many ways superior to the ordinary race of man he found the presence of full-grown men and women embarrassing realizing too that he must abandon all ambitions in the great world he determined to retire absolutely from it and to create as it were at chrome a private world of his own, in which all should be proportionable to himself.

Accordingly, he discharged all the old servants of the house and replaced them gradually, as he was able to find suitable successors by others of dwarfish stature. In the course of a few years he had assembled about himself, a numerous household, no member of which was above four feet high, and the smallest among them scarcely two feet and six inches. His father's dogs, such as setters, mastiffs, greyhounds, and a pack of beagles, he sold or gave away as too large and too boisterous for his house, replacing them by pugs and King Charles Spaniels and whatever other breeds of dog were the smallest. His father's stable was also sold. For his own use, whether riding or driving, he had six black Shetland ponies, with four very choice piebald animals of new forest breed. having thus settled his household entirely to his own satisfaction, it only remained for him to find some suitable companion with whom to share his paradise.

Sir Hercules had a susceptible heart, and had more than once, between the ages of 16 and 20, felt what it was to love. But here his deformity had been a source of the most bitter humiliation, for having once dared to declare himself to a young lady of his choice, he had been received with laughter. On his persisting she had picked him up and shaken him like an importunate child, telling him to run away and plague her no more. The story soon got about. Indeed, the young lady herself used to tell it as a particularly pleasant anecdote. And the taunts and mockery at occasioned were a source of the most acute distress to Hercules.

From the poems written at this period, we gather that he meditated taking his own life. In course of time, however, he lived down this human human. but never again, though he often fell in love, and that very passionately did he dare to make any advances to those in whom he was interested. After coming to the estate and finding that he was in a position to create his own world as he desired it, he saw that if he was to have a wife, which he very much desired, being of an affectionate and indeed amorous temper, he must choose her as he had chosen his servants, from among the race of dwarfs. But to find a suitable wife was he found a matter of some difficulty, for he would marry none who was not distinguished by beauty and gentle birth.

The dwarfish daughter of Lord Bembra he refused on the ground that besides being a pygmy she was hunchbacked, while another young lady, an orphan belonging to a very good family in Hampshire, was rejected by him because her face, like that of so many dwarfs, was wizened and repulsive. Finally, when he was almost despairing of success, he heard from a reliable source, that Count Titimolo, a Venetian nobleman, possessed a daughter of exquisite beauty and great accomplishments, who was by three feet in height. Setting out at once for Venice,

he went immediately on his arrival to pay his respects to the Count, whom he found living with his wife and five children in a very mean apartment in one of the poorer quarters of town. Indeed, the Count was so far reduced in his circumstances that he was even negotiating, so it was rumoured, with a travelling company of clowns and acrobats who had had the misfortune to lose their performing dwarf for the sale of his diminutive daughter philomena sir her arrived in time to save her from this untoward fate for he was so much charmed by philomena's grace and beauty that at the end of three days courtship he made her a formal offer of marriage which was accepted by her no less joyfully than by her father who perceived in an english son-in-law a rich and unfailing source of revenue. After an unostentatious marriage, at which the English ambassador acted as one of the

witnesses, Sir Hercules and his bride returned by sea to England, where they settled down, as it proved, to a life of uneventful happiness. Crome and its household of dwarfs delighted Philomena, who felt herself now for the first time to be a free woman living among her equals in a friendly world. She had many tastes in common with her husband, especially that of music. She had a beautiful voice of a power surprising in one so small, and could touch A in Alt without effort. Accompanied by her husband on his fine Cromona Fiddle, which he played, as we have noted before, as one plays the bass vial, she would sing all the liveliest and tenderest airs from the operas and cantatas of her native country. Seated together at the harpsichord,

they found that they could, with their four hands, play all the music written for two hands of ordinary size, a circumstance which gave Sir Hercules unfailing pleasure. When they were not making music or reading together, which they often did, both in English and Italian, they spent their time in healthful outdoor exercises, sometimes rowing in a little boat on the lake, but more often riding or driving, occupations in which, because they were entirely new to her, Philomena especially delighted. When she had become a perfectly proficient rider, Philomena and her husband used often to go hunting in the park, at that time very much more extensive than it is now. They hunted not foxes, nor hares, but rabbits,

using a pack of about thirty black and fawn-coloured pugs, a kind of dog which, when not overfed, can cause a rabbit as well as any of the smaller breeds. Four dwarf grooms dressed in scarlet liveries and mounted on white Exmoor ponies hunted the pack, while their master's and mistress in green habits followed either on the black Shetlands or on the piebald New Forest ponies. A picture of the whole hunt, dogs, horses, grooms and masters was painted by William Stubbs, whose work Sir Hercules admired so much that he invited him, though a man of ordinary stature, to come and stay at the mansion for the purpose of executing this picture. Stubbs likewise painted a portrait of Sir Hercules and his lady,

driving in their green enameled calash drawn by four black Shetlands. Sir Hercules wears a plum-coloured velvet coat and white breeches. Filomena is dressed in flowered muslin and a very large hat with pink feathers. The two figures in their gay carriage stand out sharply against a dark background of trees. But to the left of the picture the trees fall away and disappear so that the four black ponies are seen against a pale and strangely, a lurid sky that has the golden brown colour of thunder clouds, lighted up by the sun. In this way, four years passed happily by.

At the end of that time, Philomena found herself great with child. Sir Hercules was overjoyed. If God is good, he wrote in his daybook, the name of Lapith will be preserved, and our rarer and more delicate race transmitted through the generations, until, in the fullness of time, the world shall recognise the superiority, of those beings who now it uses to make mock of.

On his wife being brought to bed of a son, he wrote a poem to the same effect. The child was christened Ferdinando in memory of the builder of the house. With the passage of the months, a certain sense of disquiet began to invade the minds of Sir Hercules and his lady, for the child was growing with an extraordinary rapidity.

At a year he weighed as much as Hercules had weighed when he was three. Ferdinando grows crescendo, wrote Philomena in her diary. It seems not natural. At 18 months the baby was almost as tall as their smallest jockey, who was a man of 36. Could it be that Ferdinando was destined to become a man of the normal, gigantic dimensions? It was a thought to which neither of his parents dared yet give open utterance, but in the secrecy of their respective diaries, they brooded over it in terror and dismay. On his third birthday, Ferdinando was taller than his mother, and not more than a couple of inches short of his father's height. Today, for the first time, wrote Sir Hercules, we discussed the situation.

The hideous truth can be concealed no longer. Ferdinando is not one of us. On this his third birthday, a day when we should have been rejoicing at the health, the strength and beauty of our child, we we wept together over the ruin of our happiness. God give us strength to bear this cross. At the age of eight, Ferdinando was so large and so exuberantly healthy that his parents decided, though reluctantly, to send him to school. He was packed off to Eaton at the beginning of the next half.

A profound peace settled upon the house. Ferdinando returned for the summer holidays larger and stronger than ever. One day he knocked down the butler and broke his arm. He is rough, inconsiderate, unamenable to persuasion. wrote his father. The only thing that will teach him manners is corporal chastisement. Ferdinando, who, at this age, was already 17 inches taller than his father, received no corporal chastisement. One summer holidays, about three years later, Ferdinando returned to Chrome, accompanied by a very large, mastiff dog. He'd bought it from an old man at Windsor who had found the beast too expensive to feed.

It was a savage, unreliable animal, hardly had it ever. enter the house when it attacked one of Sir Hercules' favourite pugs, seizing the creature in its jaws and shaking it till it was nearly dead. Extremely put out by this occurrence, Sir Hercules ordered that the beast should be chained up in the stable yard. Ferdinando sullenly answered that the dog was his, and he would keep it where he pleased. His father, growing angry,

bade him take the animal out of the house at once, on pain of his utmost displeasure. Ferdinando refused to move. His mother at this moment, coming into the room, the dog flew at her, knocked her down, and in a twinkling had very severely mauled her arm and shoulder. In another instant it must infallibly have had her by the throat, had not Sir Hercules drawn his sword and stabbed the animal to the heart.

Turning on his son, he ordered him to leave the room immediately, as being unfit to remain in the same place with the mother whom he had nearly murdered. So awe-inspiring was the spectacle of Sir Hercules standing with one foot on the carcass of the giant dog, his sword drawn and still bloody, so commanding with his voice, his gestures and the expression of his face that Ferdinando slunk out of the room in terror, and behaved himself for all the rest of the vacation in an entirely exemplary fashion. His mother soon recovered from the bites of the mastiff, but the effect on her mind of this adventure was ineradicable. From that time forth she lived always among imaginary terrors.

The two years which Ferdinando spent on the continent making the grand tour were a period of happy repose for his parents. But even now the thought of the future haunted them, nor were they able to solace themselves with all the diversions of their younger days. The Lady Philomena had lost her voice, and Sir Hercules was grown too rheumatical to play the violin. He, it is true, still rode after his pugs, but his wife felt herself too old and, since the episode of the Mastiff, too nervous for such sports. At most, to please her husband, she would follow the hunt at a distance in a little gig, drawn by the safest and oldest of the Shetlands.

The day fixed for Ferdinando's return came round. Philomena, sick with vague dreads and presentiments, retired to her chamber and her bed. Sir Hercules received his son alone. A giant in a brown travelling suit entered the room. Welcome home, my son, said Sir Hercules in a voice that trembled a little. I hope I see you well, sir, Ferdinando bent down to shake hands, then straightened himself up again, the top of his father's head reached to the level of his hip. Ferdinando had not come alone.

Two friends whose own age accompanied him. and each of the young men had brought a servant. Not for thirty years had Crom been desecrated by the presence of so many members of the common race of men. Sir Hercules was appalled and indignant, but the laws of hospitality had to be obeyed. He received the young gentleman with grave politeness and sent the servants to the kitchen,

with orders that they should be well cared for. The old family dining-table was dragged out into the light and dusted. Sir Hercules and his lady were accustomed to dine at a small table 20 inches high. Simon, the aged butler, who could only just look over the edge of the big table, was helped at supper by the three servants brought by Ferdinando and his guests. Sir Hercules presided, and, with his usual grace, supported a conversation on the pleasures of foreign travel, the beauties of art and nature to be met with abroad, the opera at Venice, the singing of the orphans in the churches of the same city, and on other

topics of similar nature. The young men were not particularly attentive to his discourses. They were occupied in watching the efforts of the butler to change the plates and replenish the glasses. They covered their laughter by violent and repeated fits of coughing or choking. Sir Hercules affected not to notice, but changed the subject of the conversation to sport. Upon this one of the young men asked whether it was true, as he had heard, that he used to hunt the rabbit with a pack of pug dogs. Sir Hercules replied that it was and proceeded to describe the chase in some detail. The young men groored with laughter. When supper was over, Sir Hercules climbed down from his chair and, giving as his excuse that he must see how his lady did,

bade them good-night. The sound of laughter followed him up the stairs. Philomena was not to sleep. She had been lying on her bed, listening to the sound of enormous laughter and the tread of strangely heavy feet, on the stairs and along the corridors. Sir Hercules drew a chair to her bedside and sat there for a long time in silence, holding his wife's hand and sometimes gently squeezing it. At about ten o'clock they were startled by a violent noise. There was a breaking of glass, a stamping of feet, with an outburst of shouts and laughter. The uproar, continuing for several minutes, Sir Hercules rose to his feet and, in spite of his wife's entreaties, prepared to go and see what was happening. There was no light on the staircase, and

Sir Hercules groped his way down cautiously, luring himself from stare to stare, and standing for a moment on each tread before adventuring on a new step. The noise was louder here, the shouting articulated itself into recognisable words and phrases. A line of light was visible under the dining room door. Sir Hercules tiptoed across the hall towards it. Just as he approached the door there was another terrific crash of breaking glass and jangled metal.

What could they be doing? Standing on tipto he managed to look through the keyhole. In the middle of the ravaged table, old Simon, the butler so primed with drink that he could scarcely keep his balance, was dancing a jig. His feet crunched and tinkled among the broken glass and his shoes were wet with spilt wine.

The three young men sat round, thumping the table with their hands or with the empty wine bottles, shouting and laughing encouragement. The three servants, leaning against the wall, laughed too. Ferdinando suddenly threw a handful of walnuts at the dancer's head, which so dazed and surprised the little man that he staggered and fell down on his back, upsetting a decanter and several glasses. They raised him up, gave him himself. and brandy to drink, thumped him on the back. The old man smiled and hiccoughed.

"'Tomorrow,' said Ferdinando, "'we'll have a concerted ballet of the whole household, "'with Father Hercules wearing his club and lion's skin,' added one of his companions, "'and all three roared with laughter. "'Sir Hercules would look and listen no further. He crossed the hall once more "'and began to climb the stairs, lifting his knees painfully high at each degree. "'This was the end. There was no place for him now, in the world, no place for him and Ferdinando together. His wife was still awake. To her questioning glance, he answered, they're making a mock of old Simon. Tomorrow it will be our turn. They were silent for a time.

At last, Philomena said, I do not want to see tomorrow. It is better not, said Sir Hercules. Going into his closet, he wrote in his daybook a full and particular account of all the events of the evening. While he was still engaged in this task, he ran. for a servant and ordered hot water and a bath to be made ready for him at eleven o'clock. When he had finished writing he went into his wife's room, and, preparing a dose of opium twenty times as strong as that which she was accustomed to take when she could not sleep, he brought it into her saying, Here is your sleeping draft. Philomena took the glass and lay for a little time, but did not drink immediately.

The tears came into her eyes. Do you remember the songs we used to sing? out there, Sula Terraza, in the summertime. She began singing softly in her ghost of a cracked voice, a few bars from Stradella's Amour Amour Don't Dormier Pue. And you playing the violin, it seems such a short time ago, and yet so long, long, long, long. Adieu, Amore, Arivederti. She drank off the draught, and, lying back on the pillow, closed her eyes. Sir Hercules kissed her hand and, tiptoed away, as though he were afraid of waking her. He returned to his closet, and, having

recorded his wife's last words to him, he poured into his bath, the water that had been brought up in accordance with his orders. The water being too hot for him to get into the bath at once, he took down from the shelf his copy of Suetonius. He wished to read how Seneca had died. He opened the book at random. But dwarfs, he read, he held. He held. in abhorrence as being Lucis Naturai and of ill omen. He winced as though he had been struck. This same Augustus, he remembered, had exhibited in the amphitheatre a young man called Lucius, of good family, who was not quite two feet in height and weighed seventeen pounds, but had a stentorian voice. He turned over the pages, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, it was a tale of growing horror.

Seneca his preceptor he forced to kill himself and there was Pretoriae who had called his friends about him at the last bidding them to talk to him not of the consolations of philosophy but of love and gallantry while the life was ebbing away through his open veins dipping his pen once more in the ink he wrote on the last page of his diary he died a Roman death then putting the toes of one foot into the water and finding that it was not too hot he threw off his dress dressing-gown and, taking a razor in his hand, sat down in the bath. With one deep cut he

severed the artery in his left wrist, then lay back and composed his mind to meditation. The blood oozed out, floating through the water in dissolving wreaths and spirals. In a little while the whole bath was tinged with pink. The colour deepened, Sir Hercules felt himself mastered by an invincible drowsiness. He was sinking from vague dream to dream. Soon he was sound asleep. There was not much blood in his small body. End of chapter.

Chrome Yellow by Aldous Huxley read for Librivox.org by Martin Clifton. Chapter 14 For there after lunch and coffee the party generally adjourned to the library. Its windows looked east and at this hour of the day it was the coolest place in the whole house. It was a large room, fitted during the 18th century,

with white painted shelves of an elegant design. In the middle of one wall, a door, ingeniously upholstered with rows of dummy books, gave access to a deep cupboard, where, among a pile of letter files and old newspapers, the mummy case of an Egyptian lady, brought back by the second Sir Ferdinando on his return from the Grand Tour, moulded in the darkness. from ten yards away and at first glance one might almost have mistaken this secret door for a section of shelving filled with genuine books coffee-cup in hand mr skogan was standing in front of the dummy bookshelf between the sips he discoursed the bottom shelf he was saying is taken up by an encyclopaedia in fourteen volumes useful but a little dull as is also caprimulge's dictionary of the finnish language the biographical dictionary looks more promising, biography of men who were born great, biography of men who achieved greatness, biography of men who had greatness thrust upon them, and biography of men who were never great at all.

Then there are ten volumes of Tom's works and wanderings, while the wild goose chase and novel by an anonymous author fills no less than six. But what's this? What's this? Mr. Skogan stood on tiptoe and peered up seven volumes of the tales of Gnock and Spotch. The Tales of Knock and Spotch, he repeated. Ah, my dear Henry, he said, turning round. These are your best books. I would willingly give all the rest of your library for them. The happy possessor of a multitude of first editions, Mr. Wimbush, could afford to smile indulgently. Is it possible, Mr. Skogan went on, that they possess nothing more than a back and a title? He opened the cupboard door and peaked inside, as though he hoped to find the rest

of the books behind it. "'Fu!' he said, and shut the door again. It smells of dust and mildew. How symbolical! One comes to the great masterpieces of the past, expecting some miraculous illumination, and one finds, on opening them, only darkness and dust and a faint smell of decay.

After all, what is reading but a vice, like drink or venery, or any other form of excessive self-indulgence? One reads to tickle and amuse one's mind. one reads, above all, to prevent oneself thinking. Still, the tales of knock and spotch. He paused and thoughtfully drummed with his fingers on the backs of the non-existent, unattainable books.

But I disagree with you about reading, said Mary, about serious reading, I mean. Quite right, Mary, quite right, Mr. Skogan answered. I had forgotten there were any serious people in the room. I like the idea of biographies, said Dennis. There's room for us all within the scheme. It's comprehensive. Yes, the biographies are good, the biographies are excellent, Mr. Skogan agreed.

I imagine them written in a very elegant regency style. Brighton pavilion in words, perhaps by the greatest de l'ompriere himself. You know his classical dictionary? Ah, Mr. Skogan raised his hand and let it limply fall again in a gesture which implied that words failed him. Read his biography of Helen, read how Jupiter, disguised as a swan, was enabled to avail himself of the situation. vis-à-vis to Leda, and to think that he may have, must have written these biographies of the great. What a work, Henry, and owing to the idiotic arrangement of your library, it can't be read. I prefer the wild goose-chase, said Anne, a novel in six volumes, it must be restful.

Restful, Mr. Skogen repeated, you've hit on the right word, a wild goose-chase is sound, but a bit old-fashioned, pictures of clerical life in the 50s, you know, specimens of the landed gentry, peasants for pathos and comedy, and in the background, always the picturesque beauties of nature soberly described. All very good and solid, but like certain puddings, just a little dull. Personally, I like much better the notion of Tom's works and wanderings. The eccentric Mr. Tom of Tom's Hill, old Tom Tom Tom Tom, as his intimates used to call him. He spent ten years in Tibet, organizing the clarified butter industry on modern Europe,

lines, and was able to retire at 36 with a handsome fortune. The rest of his life he devoted to travel and ratiocination. Here is the result. Mr. Skogan tapped the dummy books, and now we come to the tales of Knock and Spotch. What a masterpiece, and what a great man! Knock and Spotch knew how to write fiction. Ah, Dennis, if you could only read Knock and Spotch, you wouldn't be writing a novel about the wearisome development of a young man's character. you wouldn't be describing in endless, fastidious detail, cultured life in Chelsea and Bloomsbury and Hampstead. You would be trying to write a readable book.

But then, alas, owing to the peculiar arrangement of our hosts' library, you will never read Knock and Spotch. Nobody could regret the fact more than I do, said Dennis. It was Knock and Spotch, Mr. Skokin'n, continued, the great Nockonspodge, who delivered us from the dreary tyranny of the realistic novel. My life, Nock and Spotch said, is not a good one. so long that I can afford to spend precious hours writing or reading descriptions of middle-class interiors. He said again, I am tired of seeing the human mind bogged in a social plenum. I prefer to paint it in a vacuum, freely and sportively bombinating. I say, said Gomboldt. Knock and Spotch was a little obscure sometimes, wasn't he?

He was, Mr. Skogan replied, and with intention it made him seem even profounder than he actually was. But it was only in his aphorisms that he was. was so dark and oracular. In his tales he was always luminous. Oh, those tales, those tales! How shall I describe them? Fabulous characters shoot across his pages like gaily dressed performers on the trapeze. There are extraordinary adventures and still more extraordinary speculations. Intelligence and emotions, relieved of all the imbecile preoccupations of civilised life, move in intricate and subtle dances, crossing and recrossing, advancing, retreating, impinging. An immense erudition and an immense fancy go hand in hand.

All the ideas of the present and of the past on every possible subject bob up among the tales, smile gravely or grimace at a caricature of themselves, then disappear to make place for something new. The verbal surface of his writing is rich and fantastically diversified. The wit is incessant that— But couldn't you give us a specimen, Dennis broke in? A concrete example? Alas, Mr. Skogan replied.

Nockenspot's great book is like the sword excalibur. It remains stuck fast in this door, awaiting the coming of a writer with genius enough to draw it forth. I am not even a writer. I am not so much as qualified to attempt the task. The extraction of Knock and Spot from this wooden prison, I leave, my dear Dennis, to you. Thank you, said Dennis. End of chapter. in Clifton. Chapter 15. In the time of the amiable brantome, Mr. Skogan was saying, every debutante at the French court was invited to dine at the King's Table, where she was served with wine in a handsome

silver cup of Italian workmanship. It was no ordinary cup, this goblet of the debutants, for, inside it had been most curiously and ingeniously engraved, with a series of very lively, amorous scenes. With each draft that the young lady swallowed, these engravings became increasingly visible, and the court looked on with interest every time she put her nose in the cup, to see whether she blushed at what the ebbing wine revealed. If the debutante blushed, they laughed at her for her innocence. If she did not, she was laughed at for being too knowing. Do you propose, asked Anne, that the custom should be revived at Buckingham Palace? I do not, said Mr. Skogan. I merely quoted the anecdote as an illustration of the custom, so genially frank of the 16th century.

I might have quoted other anecdotes to show that the customs of the 17th and 18th of the 15th and 14th centuries, and indeed every other century from the time of Hammerabee onwards, were equally genial and equally frank. The only century in which customs were not characterized by the same cheerful openness was the 19th of blessed memory. It was the astonishing exception, and yet, with what one must suppose was a deliberate disregard of history, it looked upon its horribly pregnant silences as normal and natural and right. The frankness of the previous 15 or 20,000 years was considered abnormal and perverse. It was a curious phenomenon. I entirely agree, Mary panted with excitement in her effort to bring out what she had to say.

Havelock Ellis says, Mr. Skogan, like a policeman, arresting the flow of traffic, held up his hand. He does, I know, and that brings me to my next point, the nature of the reaction. Havlock Ellis, the reaction, when it came, and we may say roughly that it set in a little before the beginning of this century, the reaction was to openness, but not to the same openness as had reigned in the earlier ages. It was to a scientific openness, not to the jovial frankness of the past that we returned. The whole question of Amour became a terribly serious way. Ernest Young Men wrote in the public prints that from this time forth it would be impossible ever again to make a joke of any sexual matter. Professors wrote thick books in which sex was sterilised and dissected.

It has become customary for serious young women, like Mary, to discuss with philosophic calm, matters of which the merest hint would have sufficed to throw the youth of the 60s into a delirium of amorous excitement. It is all very estimable, no doubt. But still, Mr. Skogan sighed, I, for one, should like to see, mingled with this scientific ardour, a little more of the jovial spirit of Rabelais and Shorcer. I entirely disagree with you, said Mary. Sex isn't a laughing matter, it's serious. Perhaps, answered Mr. Skogan, perhaps I'm an obscene old man, for I must confess that I cannot

always regard it as wholly serious. But I tell you, began Mary furiously, her face had flushed with excitement, her cheeks were the cheeks of a great ripe peach. Indeed, Mr. Skogan continued, it seems to me one of few permanently and everlastingly amusing subjects that exist. A more is the one human activity of any importance in which laughter and pleasure preponderate,

if ever so slightly, over misery and pain. I entirely disagree, said Mary. There was a silence. Anne looked at her watch. Nearly a quarter to eight, she said. I wonder when either will turn up. she got up from her deck-chair and leaning her elbows on the balustrade of the terrace looked out over the valley and towards the farther hills under the level evening sun the architecture of the land revealed itself the deep shadows the bright contrasting lights gave the hills a new solidity irregularities of the surface unsuspected before were picked out with light and shade the grass the corn the foliage of trees were stippled with intricate shadows the surface of things had taken on a marvellous enrichment

look said anne suddenly and pointed on the opposite side of the valley at the crest of the ridge a cloud of dust flushed by the sunlight to rosy gold was moving rapidly along the sky-line it's either one can tell by the speed the dust-cloud dismalade The cloud descended into the valley and was lost. A horn, with the voice of a sea lion, made itself heard, approaching. A minute later, Iva came leaping around the corner of the house, his hair waved in the wind of his own speed. He laughed as he saw them. And, darling, he cried, and embraced her, embraced Mary, very nearly embraced Mr. Skogan. Well, here I am. I've come with incredulous speed.

Iva's vocabulary was rich, but a little erratic. I'm not late for dinner, am I? He hoisted himself up onto the balustrade and sat there, kicking his heels. With one arm he embraced a large stone flower-pot, leaning his head sideways against its hard and likeness flanks in an attitude of trustful affection.

He had brown, wavy hair, and his eyes were of a very brilliant, pale, improbable blue. His head was narrow, his face thin and rather long, his nose aquiline. In old age, though it was difficult to imagine either old, he might grow to have an iron ducal grimness. But now, at 26, it was not the structure of his face that impressed one, it was its expression. That was charming and vivacious, and his smile was an irradiation. He was forever moving, restlessly and rapidly, but with an engaging gracefulness.

His frail and slender body seemed to be fed by a spring of inexhaustible energy. "'No, you're not late.' "'You're in time to answer a question,' said Mr. Skogan. "'We were arguing whether Amor were a serious matter or no. "'What do you think? Is it serious?' "'Serious, echoed Iver, most certainly.' "'I told you so,' cried Mary triumphantly. "'But in what sense, serious?' Mr. Skogan asked.

"'I mean, as an occupation, one can go on with it without ever getting bored.' "'I see,' said Mr. Skogan, perfectly. "'One can occupy oneself with it. it, I've continued, always and everywhere. Women are always wonderfully the same. Shapes vary a little, that's all. In Spain, with his free hand, he described a series of ample curves. One can't pass them on the stairs. In England, he put the tip of his forefinger against the tip of his thumb, and, lowering his hand, drew out this circle into an imaginary cylinder. In England, they're tubular, but their sentiments are always the same. At least I've always found it so.

I'm delighted to hear it, said Mr. Skogan. End of chapter. Chrome Yellow by Aldous Huxley, read for Librivox.org by Martin Clifton. Chapter 16 The ladies had left the room and the port was circulating. Mr. Skogan filled his glass, passed on the decanter and, leaning back in his chair, looked about him for a moment in silence. The conversation rippled idly around him, but he disregarded it.

He was smiling at some private joke. "'Gombold noticed his smile. "'What's amusing you?' he asked. "'I was just looking at you all sitting around this table,' said Mr. Skogan. "'Are we as comic as all that?' "'Not at all,' Mr. Skogan answered politely. "'I was merely amused by my own speculations.' "'And what were they?

"'The idlest, the most academic of speculations. "'I was looking at you one by one "'and trying to imagine which of the first six Caesars "'you would each resemble, "'if you were given the opportunity of behaving like a Caesar.' The Caesars are one of my touchstones, Mr. Skogan explained. They are characters functioning, so to speak, in the void. They are human beings developed to their logical conclusions.

Hence, their unequaled value as a touchstone, a standard. When I meet someone for the first time, I asked myself this question. Given the Caesarian environment, which of the Caesars would this person resemble? Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero. I take each trait of character, each, mental and emotional bias, each little oddity, and magnify them a thousand times, the resulting image gives me his Caesarian formula. And which of the Caesars do you resemble, asked Gombold.

I'm potentially all of them, Mr. Skogan replied, all with the possible exception of Claudius, who was much too stupid to be a development of anything in my character. The seeds of Julius' courage and compelling energy, of Augustus prudence, of the libidinousness and cruelty of Tiberius, of Caligulous folly, of Nero's artistic genius and enormous vanity, are all within me. Given the opportunities I might have been something fabulous. But circumstances were against me.

I was born and brought up in a country rectory. I passed my youth doing a great deal of utterly senseless hard work for a very little money. The result is that now, in middle age, I am the poor thing that I am. But perhaps it is as well. Perhaps, too, it's as well that Dennis hasn't been permitted to flower into a little Nero. and that Iva remains only potentially a colligula. Yes, it's better so, no doubt. But it would have been more amusing, as a spectacle,

if they had had the chance to develop untrammeled the full horror of their potentialities. It would have been pleasant and interesting to watch their ticks and foibles and little vices swelling and burgeoning and blossoming into enormous and fantastic flowers of cruelty and pride and lewdness and avarice. The Caesarian environment makes the Caesar,

as the special food and the queenly cell make the queen bee we differ from the bees in so far that given the proper food they can be sure of making a queen every time with us there is no such certainty out of every ten men placed in the caesarian environment one will be temperamentally good or intelligent or great the rest will blossom into caesar's he will not Seventy and 80 years ago simple-minded people, reading of the exploits of the Bourbons in South Italy, cried out in amazement, to think that such things could be happening in the 19th century. And a few years since we too were astonished to find that in our still more astonishing 20th century, unhappy blackermores on the Congo and the Amazon were being treated as English serfs were treated in the time of Stephen. Today we are no longer surprised at these things. The Black and Tans, Harry Island, the Poles maltreat the Silesians, the bold fascistie slaughter their poorer countrymen. We take it all for granted.

Since the war, we wonder at nothing. We have created a Caesarian environment, and a host of Little Caesars has sprung up. What could be more natural. Mr. Skogan drank off what was left of his port and refilled the glass. At this very moment he went up. on, the most frightful horrors are taking place in every corner of the world. People are being crushed, slashed, disemboweled, mangled. Their dead bodies rot and their eyes decay with the rest. Screams

of pain and fear go pulsing through the air at the rate of 1100 feet per second. After travelling for three seconds, they are perfectly inaudible. These are the distressing facts. But do we enjoy life any less because of them? Most certainly we do not. We feel sympathy, no doubt. we represent to ourselves imaginatively the suffering of nations and individuals and we deplore them but after all what are sympathy and imagination precious little unless the person for whom we feel sympathy happens to be closely involved in our affections and even then they don't go very far and a good thing too for if one had an imagination vivid enough and a sympathy sufficiently sensitive really to comprehend and to feel the sufferings of other people one would never have never have to have a sympathy sufficiently sensitive really to comprehend and to feel the sufferings of other people one would never have to have a very much for a good thing for a moment's peace of mind. A really sympathetic race would not so much as know the meaning of happiness. But luckily, as I've already said, we aren't a sympathetic race. At the beginning of the war, I used to think I really suffered through imagination and sympathy with those who physically suffered.

But after a month or two, I had to admit that, honestly, I didn't. And yet I think I have a more vivid imagination than most. One is always alone in suffering. The fact is depressing when one happens to be the sufferer, but it makes pleasure possible for the rest of the world. There was a pause. Henry Wimbush pushed back his chair. I think perhaps we ought to go and join the ladies, he said. So do I, said Iver, jumping up with illacrity. He turned to Mr. Skogan.

Fortunately, he said, we can share our pleasures. We are not always condemned to be happy alone. End of chapter. Chrome Yellow by Alders Huxley, read for Librival. box.org by Martin Clifton. Chapter 17 Iver brought his hands down with a bang onto the final chord of his rhapsody. There was just a hint in that triumphant harmony that the seventh had been struck along with the octave by the thumb of the left hand,

but the general effect of splendid noise emerged clearly enough. Small details matter little, so long as the general effect is good, and, besides that hint of the seventh, was decidedly modern. He turned round in his seat and tossed the hair back out of his eyes. There, he said, that's the best I can do for you, I'm afraid. Murmurs of applause and gratitude were heard, and Mary, her large China eyes fixed on the performer, cried out aloud, wonderful, and gasped for new breath, as though she were suffocating.

Nature and fortune had vied with one another in heaping on Iver Lombard all their choicest gifts. He had wealth, and he was perfectly independent. He was good-looking, possessed an irresistible charm of manner, and was the hero of more amorous successes than he could well remember. His accomplishments were extraordinary for their number and variety. He had a beautiful, untrained tenor voice. He could improvise with a startling brilliance rapidly and loudly on the piano.

He was a good amateur, medium and telepathist, and had a considerable first-hand knowledge of the world. He could write rind verses with an extraordinary rapidity. For painting symbolical pictures, he had a dashing style, and if the drawing was sometimes a little weak, the colour was always pyrotechnical. He excelled in amateur theatricals, and, when occasion offered, he could cook with genius. He resembled Shakespeare in knowing little Latin and less Greek. For a mind like his, education seems supererogatory. Training would only have destroyed his natural aptitudes.

Let's go out into the garden, Iver suggested. It's a wonderful night. thank you said mr skogan but i for one prefer these still more wonderful arm-chairs his pipe had begun to bubble oozzily every time he pulled at it he was perfectly happy henry wimbush was also happy he looked for a moment over his pince-nez in iva's direction and then without saying anything returned to the grimy little sixteenth-century account books which were now his favourite reading he knew more about sir ferdinando's household expenses than about his own the outdoor party enrolled under iva's banner consisted of anne mary denis and rather unexpectedly jenny outside it was warm and dark there was no moon they walked up and down the terrace and iva sang a neapolitan song stretti streti close close with something about the little spanish girl to follow the atmosphere began to palpitate iva put his arm round anne's waist dropped his head sideways on to her shoulder and in that position walked on, singing as he walked. It seemed the easiest, the most natural thing in the world.

Dennis wondered why he had never done it. He hated Iver. Let's go down to the pool, said Iva. He disengaged his embrace and turned round to shepherd his little flock. They made their way along the side of the house to the entrance of the yew tree walk that led down to the lower garden. Between the blank precipitous wall of the house and the tall yew trees, the path was a chasm of impenetrable gloom.

Somewhere there were steps down to the right, a gap in the U-Hedge. Dennis, who headed the party, groped his way cautiously. In this darkness one had an irrational fear of yawning precipices of horrible spiked obstructions. Suddenly, from behind him, he had a shrill, startled, oh! And then a sharp, dry concussion

that might have been the sound of a slap. After that, Jenny's voice was heard pronouncing, I'm going back to the house. Her tone was decided, and even as she pronounced the words, she was melting away into the darkness. The incident, whatever it had been, was closed. Dennis resumed his forward groping. From somewhere behind, Iver began to sing again softly. Felice, plus averred than to tendre, no ganon, ryan, a refuse, a jeur exigiae silvandre tr, tron mutton for a um baize the melody dropped and climbed again with a kind of easy languor the warm darkness seemed to pulse like blood about them the long-demand new fere for l'herbergerre le troque fubon here are the steps cried dennis he guided his companions over the danger and in a moment they had the turf of the yew-tree walk under their feet it was lighter here or at least it was just perceptibly less dark for the ewe

was wider than the path that had led them under the lee of the house. Looking up, they could see between the high black hedges, a strip of sky and a few stars. Carri L'Obtain de la Bergerre went on either, and then interrupted himself to shout, I'm going to run down, and he was off, full speed, down the invisible slope, singing unevenly as he went,

tron bayser per a mutant. The others followed. Dennis shambled in the rear, vainly exhorting everyone to caution. The slope was steep, one might break one's neck. What was wrong with these people, he wondered. They had become like young kittens after a dose of catnip. He himself felt a certain kittenishness sporting within him,

but it was, like all his emotions, rather a theoretical feeling. It did not overmasteringly seek to express itself in a practical demonstration of kittenishness. Be careful, he shouted once more, and hardly were the words out of his mouth when, Thump! There was the sound of a heavy forward. in front of him, followed by the long

of a breath indrawn with pain, and afterwards by a very sincere, ooh! Dennis was almost pleased. He had told them so, the idiots, and they wouldn't listen. He trotted down the slope towards the unseen sufferer.

Mary came down the hill like a runaway steam engine. It was tremendously exciting this blind rush through the dark. She felt she would never stop. But the ground grew level beneath her feet, her speed, insensibly slackened, and suddenly she was caught by an extended arm and brought to an abrupt halt. Well, said Iva as he tightened his embrace. You're caught now, Anne. She made an effort to release herself. It's not Anne, it's Mary. Iver burst into a peal of amused laughter. So it is, he exclaimed.

I seem to be making nothing but floaters this evening. I've already made one with Jenny. He laughed again, and there was something so jolly about his laughter that Mary could not help laughing too. He did not remove his encircling arm, and somehow it was all so amusing and natural that Mary made no further attempt to escape from it. They walked along by the side of the pool interlaced. Mary was too short for him to be able with any comfort to lay his head on her shoulder. He rubbed his cheek, caressed and caressing against the thick, sleek mass of her hair. In a little while he began to sing again. The night trembled amorously to the sound of his voice.

when he had finished he kissed her anne or mary mary or anne it didn't seem to make much difference which it was there were differences in detail of course but the general effect was the same and after all the general effect was the important thing dennis made his way down the hill any damage done he called out is that you dennis i've hurt my ankle so and my knee and my hand i'm all in pieces my poor anne he said but then he couldn't help adding it was silly to start running down hill in the dark "'Ass!' she retorted, in a tone of tearful irritation. "'Of course it was!' He sat down beside her on the grass, and found himself breathing the faint, delicious atmosphere of perfume that she carried always with her. "'Light a match,' she commanded,

"'I want to look at my wounds.' He felt in his pockets for the match-box. The light spurted and then grew steady. Magically, a little universe had been created a world of colours and forms. Anne's face, the shimmering orange of her dress, her white bare arms, a patch of green turf, and roundabout to darkness that had become solid and utterly blind.

Anne held out her hands. Both were green and earthy with her fall, and the left exhibited two or three red abrasions. Not so bad, she said, but Dennis was terribly distressed, and his emotion was intensified when, looking up at her face, he saw that the trace of tears, involuntary tears of pain, lingered on her eyelashes. He pulled out his handkerchief and began to wipe away the dirt from the wounded hand.

The match went out. It was not worthwhile to light another, Anne allowed herself to be attended to, meekly and gratefully. Thank you, she said, when he'd finished cleaning and bandaging her hand. And there was something in her tone that made him feel that she had lost her superiority over him, that she was younger than he,

had become suddenly almost a child. He felt tremendously large and protective. The feeling was so strong that instinctively he put his arm about her. She drew closer, leaned against him, and so they sat in silence. Then, from below, soft but wonderfully clear through the still darkness, they heard the sound of Iva's singing. He was going on with his half-finished song. Berger, few o'erreuse to

him rector to be there was a rather prolonged pause. It was

as though time were being allowed for the giving and receiving of a few

of those 30 kisses. Then the voice sang on. Le domen Felice

Pusage would Mouton and Chien for a beze that Levelage

Alizette Donne for Rien. The last note died away into an

uninterrupted silence. Are you better? Dennis whispered. Are you comfortable like this? She nodded a yes to both questions. Tron-Muton for a besee, the sheep, the woolly button, bar, bar, or the shepherd. Yes, decidedly, he felt himself to be the shepherd now. He was the master, the protector.

A wave of courage swelled through him warm as wine. He turned his head and began to kiss her face. at first, rather randomly, then, with more precision on the mouth. Anne averted her head. He kissed the ear, the smooth nape that his movements presented to him. No, she protested, no, Dennis. Why not? It spoils our friendship, and that was so jolly. Bosch, said Dennis.

She tried to explain, can't you see, she said, it isn't our stunt at all. It was true. Somehow she had never thought of Dennis in the light of a man who might make love. She had never so much as conceived the possibilities of an amorous relationship with him. He was so absurdly young, so she couldn't find the adjective, but she knew what she meant. Why isn't it, asked, Stunt, asked Dennis, and by the way, that's a horrible and inappropriate expression. Because it isn't. But if I say it is, it makes no difference.

I say it isn't. I shall make you say it is. All right, Dennis, but you must do it another time. I must go in and get my ankle into hot water. it's beginning to swell. Reasons of health could not be gainsaid. Dennis got up reluctantly and helped his companion to her feet. She took a cautious step.

Ooh, she halted, and leaned heavily on his arm. I'll carry you, Dennis offered. He had never tried to carry a woman, but on the cinema it always looked an easy piece of heroism. You couldn't, said Anne. Of course I can. He felt larger and more protective than ever. Put your arms round my neck, he ordered. She did so, Anne, stooping, he picked her up under the knees and lifted her from the ground.

Good heavens, what a wait! He took five staggering steps up the slope, then almost lost his equilibrium, and had to deposit his burden suddenly with something of a bump. Anne was shaking with laughter. I said you couldn't, my poor Dennis. I can, said Dennis without conviction. I'll try again. It's perfectly sweet of you to offer, but I'd rather walk, thanks. She laid her hand on his shoulder and, thus supported, began to limp slowly up the hill. My poor Dennis, she repeated and laughed again. Humiliated, he was silent.

It seemed incredible that only two minutes ago he should have been holding her in his embrace kissing her. Incredible. She was helpless then, a child. Now she had regained all her superiority. She was once more the far-off being, desired and unassailable. Why had he been such a fool? as to suggest that carrying stunt. He reached the house in a state of the profoundest depression. He helped Anne upstairs, left her in the hands of a maid, and came down again into the drawing-room.

He was surprised to find them all sitting just where he had left them. He had expected that, somehow, everything would be quite different. It seemed such a prodigious time since he went away. All silent and all damned, he reflected as he looked at them. Mr. Skogan-spoken. pipe still weased? That was the only sound. Henry Wimbush was still deep in his account books. He had just made the discovery that Sir Ferdinando was in the habit of eating oysters the whole summer through, regardless of the absence of the justifying R. Gombold in Horn-rimmed spectacles was reading. Jenny was mysteriously scribbling in her red notebook, and, seated in her favourite armchair at the corner of the hearth, Priscilla was looking through a pile of drawings.

One by one she held them out at arm's length, and throwing back her mountainous orange head looked long and attentively through half-closed eyelids. She wore a pale sea-green dress, on the slope of her mauve-powder decolletage diamonds twinkled. An immensely long cigarette-holder projected at an angle from her face. Diamonds were embedded in her high-piled coiffure. They glittered every time she moved. It was a batch of Ivers drawings, sketches of spirit life made in the course of tranced tours through the other world. On the back of each sheet, descriptive titles were written. Portrait of an Angel, 15th of March, 20.

Astral beings at play, 3rd of December 19. A party of souls on their way to a higher sphere, 21st of May, 21. Before examining the drawings on the obverse of each sheet, she took. turned it over to read the title. Try as she could, and she tried hard, Priscilla had never seen a vision or succeeded in establishing any communication with the spirit world. She had to be content with the reported experiences of others. What have you done with the rest of your party, she asked, looking up as Dennis entered the room. He explained, Anne had gone to bed, Iver and Mary were still in the garden. He selected a book and a comfortable chair, and tried as far as the

disturbed state of his mind would permit him to compose himself for an evening's reading. The lamplight was utterly serene. There was no movement, save the stir of Priscilla among her papers. All silent and all damned, Dennis repeated himself. All silent and all damned. It was nearly an hour later when Iva and Mary made their appearance. We waited to see the moon rise, said Iva. It was gibbis, you know, Mary explained, very technical and scientific. It was so beautiful down in the garden, the trees, the centre of the flowers, the stars. Iva waved his arms, and when the moon came up it was really too much. It made me burst into tears. He sat down at the piano and opened the lid. There were a great many

meteorites, said Mary, to anyone who would listen. The earth must just be coming into the summer shower of them in July and August, but Iva had already begun to strike the keys. He played the garden, the stars, the scent of the flowers, the rising moon. He even put in a nightingale that was not there. Mary looked on and listened with parted lips. The others pursued their occupations without appearing to be seriously disturbed. On this very July day, exactly 350 years ago, Sir Ferdinando had eaten seven dozen oysters. The discovery of this fact gave Henry Wimbush a peculiar pleasure. He had a natural piety which made him delight in the celebration of memorial feasts. Three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the seven dozen oysters.

He wish he'd known before dinner he would have ordered champagne. On her way to bed Mary paid a call. The light was out in Anne's room, but she was not yet asleep. Why didn't you come down to the garden with us, Mary asked. I fell down and twisted my ankle. Dennis helped me home. Mary was full of sympathy. Inwardly, too, she was relieved to find Anne's non-appearance so simply accounted for. She had been vaguely suspicious down there in the garden, suspicious of what she hardly knew,

but there had seemed to be something a little lusche in the way she had suddenly found herself alone with Iver. Not that she minded, of course, far from it, but she didn't like the idea that perhaps she was the victim of a put-up job. I do hope you'll be better tomorrow, she said, and she committed. miserated with Anne on all she had missed, the garden, the stars, the scent of the flowers, the meteorites through whose summer shower the earth was now passing, the rising moon and its gibbosity. And then they had such interesting conversation. What about? About almost everything, nature, art, science, poetry, the stars, spiritualism, the relations of the sexes, music, religion, either, she thought, had an interesting mind. The two ladies'

hearted affectionately. End of chapter. Chrome Yellow by Aldous Huxley. Read for Librivox.org by Martin Clifton. Chapter 18 The nearest Roman Catholic Church was upwards of 20 miles away, either who was punctilious in his devotions, came down early to breakfast and had his car at the door

ready to start by a quarter to ten. It was a smart, expensive-looking machine, enameled, pure lemon yellow and upholstered in emerald green leather. There were two seats, three if you squeezed tightly enough, and their occupants were protected from wind, dust and weather by a glazed sedan that rose an elegant 18th century hump from the midst of the body of the car. Mary had never been to a Roman Catholic service, thought it would be an interesting experience, and when the car moved off through the great gates of the courtyard, she was occupied. occupying the spare seat in the sedan. The sea lion horn roared, faintlier, faintlier,

and they were gone. In the parish church of Chrome, Mr. Bodium preached on one, Kings, six, eighteen, and the cedar of the house within was carved with knobs. A sermon of immediately local interest. For the past two years, the problem of the war memorial had exercised the minds of all those in Chrome, who had enough leisure or mental energy or party spirit to think of such things. Henry Wimbush was all for a library, a library of local literature, stocked with county histories, old maps of the district, monographs on the local antiquities, dialect dictionaries, handbooks of the local geology and natural history. He liked to think of the villagers inspired by such reading, making up parties of a Sunday afternoon to look for fossils and flint

arrowheads. The villagers themselves favoured the idea of a memorial reservoir and water supply. But the busiest and most articulate party followed Mr. Bodium in demanding something religious in character, a second lich gate, for example, a stained glass window, a monument of marble, or, if possible, all three. So far, however, nothing had been done, partly because the Memorial Committee had never been able to agree, partly for the more cogent reason that too little money had been subscribed to carry out any of the proposed schemes. Every three or four months, Mr. Bodium preached a sermon on the subject. His last had been delivered in March. It was high time that his congregation had a fresh reminder. And the cedar of the house within was carved

with nops? Mr. Boddiam touched lightly on Solomon's Temple. From thence he passed to temples and churches in general. What were the characteristics of these buildings dedicated to God? Obviously, the fact of their, from the human point of view, complete uselessness. They were unpractical buildings carved with knobs. Solomon might have built a library, indeed, what could be more to the taste of the world's wisest man? He might have dug a reservoir.

What more useful in a parched city like Jerusalem? He did neither. He built a house all carved with not useless and unpractical. Why? Because he was dedicating the work to God. There had been much talk in Chrome about the proposed war memorial. A war memorial was, in its very nature, a work dedicated to God. It was a token of thankfulness that the first stage in the culminating world war had been crowned by the triumph of righteousness.

It was at the same time a visibly embodied supplication that God might not long delay the Advent, which alone could bring the final peace. A library, a reservoir, Mr. Bodium scornfully and indignantly condemned the idea. These were works dedicated to man, not to God. As a war memorial, they were totally unsuitable. A lich gate had been suggested. This was an object which answered perfectly to the definition of a war memorial, a useless work dedicated to God and carved with knots.

One lich gate, it was true, already existed, but nothing would be easier than to make a second entrance into the courtyard, and a second entrance would need a second gate. Other suggestions had been made, stained-glass window, a monument of marble. Both these were admirable, especially the latter. It was high time that the war memorial was erected. It might soon be too late. At any moment, like a thief in the night, God might come. Meanwhile, a difficulty stood in the way. Funds were inadequate. All should subscribe according to their means. Those who had lost relations in the war might reasonably be expected to subscribe a sum equal to that which they would have had to pay in funeral expenses

if the relative had died while at home. Further delay was disastrous. The war memorial must be built at once. He appealed to the patriotism and the Christian sentiments of all his hearers. Henry Wimbush walked home, thinking of the books he would present to the War Memorial Library, if ever it came into existence. He took the path through the fields, it was pleasanter than the road. At the first style, a group of village boys, loutish young fellows, all dressed in the hideous, ill-fitting black, which makes a funeral of every English Sunday and holiday, were assembled drearily guffoying as they smoke their cigarettes. They made way for Henry Wimbush, touching their caps as he passed. He returned their salute. His bowler and face were one in their

unruffled gravity. In Sir Ferdinando's time, he reflected in the time of his son, Sir Julius, these young men would have had their Sunday diversions, even at chrome, remote and rustic chrome. There would have been archery, skittles, dancing, social amusements in which they would have partaken as members of a conscious community. Now they had nothing. Nothing except Mr. Bodhis for bidding boys club, and the rare dances and concerts organised by himself. Boredom, or the urban pleasures of the county metropolis, were the alternatives that presented themselves to these poor youths. Country pleasures were no more. They had been stamped out by the Puritans. In Manningham's diary for 1600, there was a queer passage, he remembered,

a very queer passage. Certain magistrates in Berkshire, Puritan magistrates, had had wind of a scandal. one moonlit summer night they had ridden out with their posse and there among the hills they had come upon a company of men and women dancing stark naked among the sheep-cuts the magistrates and their men had ridden their horses into the crowd how self-conscious the poor people must suddenly have felt how helpless without their clothes against armed and booted horsemen the dancers were arrested whipped jailed set in the stocks the moonlight dance was never danced together What old, earthy, panic right came to extinction here, he wondered. Who knows? Perhaps their ancestors had danced like this in the moonlight ages before Adam and Eve was so much as thought of. He liked to think so.

And now it was no more. These weary young men, if they wanted to dance, would have to bicycle six miles to the town. The country was desolate, without life of its own, without indigenous pleasures. The pious magistrates had snuffed out forever a little happy flame that had burned from the beginning of time. And as on Tullia's tomb one lamp burned clear, unchanged for fifteen hundred year, he repeated the lines to himself, and was desolated to think of all the murdered past. End of chapter. in Clifton.

Chapter 19. Henry Wimbush Long Cigar burned aromatically. The history of Chrome lay on his knee. Slowly he turned over the pages. I can't decide what episode to read to you tonight, he said thoughtfully. Sir Ferdinando's voyages are not without interest. Then, of course, this is son, Sir Julius. It was he who suffered from the delusion that his perspiration engendered flies. It drove him finally to suicide. Or there's Sir Cyprian. He turned the pages more rapidly, or Sir Henry or Sir George. No, I'm inclined to think that I won't read about any of these. But you must read something, insisted Mr. Skogan, taking his pipe out of his mouth. I think I shall read about my grandfather, said Henry Wimbush, and the events that led up to

his marriage with the eldest daughter of the last Sir Ferdinando. Good, said Mr. Skokin, we're listening. Before I begin reading, said Henry Wimbush, looking up from the book and taking off the Pansne which he had just fitted to his nose, before we begin, I must say a few preliminary words about Sir Ferdinando, the last of the lapiths. At the death of the virtuous and unfortunate Sir Hercules,

Ferdinando found himself in possession of the family fortune, not a little increased by his father's temperance and thrift. He applied himself forth. with to the task of spending it, which he did in an ample and jovial fashion. By the time he was forty he had eaten and above all drunk and loved away about half his capital, and would infallibly have soon got rid of the rest in the same manner, if he had not had the good fortune to become so madly enamoured of the rector's daughter as to make a proposal of marriage. The young lady accepted him, and in less than a year, had become the absolute mistress of Crome and her husband.

an extraordinary reformation made itself apparent in sir ferdinando's character he grew regular and economical in his habits he even became temperate rarely drinking more than a bottle and a half of porter to sitting the waning fortune of the lapiths began once more to wax and that in despite of the hard times for sir ferdinando married in eighteen o nine in the height of the napoleonic wars a prosperous and dignified old age cheered by the spectacle of his children's growth and happiness, for Lady Lapith had already borne him three daughters, and there seemed no good reason why she should not bear many more of them, and sons as well, a patriarchal decline into the family vault seemed now to be Sir Ferdinando's enviable destiny. But Providence willed otherwise. To Napoleon, cause already of such infinite mischief was due, though perhaps indirectly, the untimely and violent death which put a period to this reformed existence.

Sir Ferdinando, who was above all things a patriot, had adopted from the earliest days of the conflict with the French his own peculiar method of celebrating our victories. When the happy news reached London, it was his custom to purchase immediately a large store of liquor and, taking a place on whichever of the outgoing coaches he happened to light upon first, to drive through the country, proclaiming the good news to all he met on the road and dispensing it, along with the liquor,

at every stopping place to all who cared to listen or drink. Thus, after the Nile, he had driven as far as Edinburgh, and later when the coaches wreathed with Laurel for triumph, with Cyprus for mourning, were setting out with the news of Nelson's victory and death, he sat through all a chilly October night on the box of the Norwich Meteor, with a nautical keg of rum on his knees

and two cases of old brandy under the seat. This genial custom was one of the many habits which he abandoned on his marriage, The victories in the peninsula, the retreat from Moscow, Leipzig, and the abdication of the tyrant, all went uncelebrated. It so happened, however, that in the summer of 1815, Sir Ferdinando was staying for a few weeks in the capital. There had been a succession of anxious, doubtful days, then came the glorious news of Waterloo. It was too much for Sir Ferdinando. His joyous youth awoke again within him. He hurried to his wine merchant and bought a dozen bottles of 1760 brown.

The bath coach was on the point of starting. He bribed his way onto the box and, seated in glory beside the driver, proclaimed aloud the downfall of the Corsican bandit, and passed about the warm, liquid joy. They clattered through Uxbridge, Slough, Maidenhead. Sleeping Redding was awakened by the great news. At Didcot, one of the Oslars was so much overcome by patriotic emotions and the 1760 brandy that he found it impossible to do up the buckles of the harness. the night began to grow chilly and sir ferdinando found that it was not enough to take a nip at every stage to keep up his vital warmth he was compelled to drink between the stages as well they were approaching swindon the coach was travelling at a dizzy speed sick smiles in the last half an hour when without having manifested the slightest premonitory symptoms of unsteadiness sir ferdinando suddenly toppled sideways off his seat and fell head foremost into the road. An unpleasant jolt awakened the slumbering passengers. The coach was brought to a standstill. The guard ran back with a light. He found Sir Ferdinando still alive but unconscious.

Blood was oozing from his mouth. The back wheels of the coach had passed over his body, breaking most of his ribs and both arms. His skull was fractured in two places. They picked him up, but he was dead before they reached the next stage. so perished sir ferdinando a victim of his own patriotism lady lapith did not marry again but determined to devote the rest of her life to the well-being of her three children georgiana now five years old and emmeline and caroline twins of two henry wimbush paused and once more put on his pince-nay so much by way of introduction he said now i can begin to read about my grandfather one moment said mr skogan till i've refilled my pipe mr wimbush waited seated apart in a corner of the room iva was showing mary in his sketches of spirit life they spoke together in whispers mr skogan had lighted his pipe again fire away he said

henry wimbush fired away it was in the spring of eighteen thirty three that my grandfather george wimbush first made acquaintance of the three lovely lapiths as they were always called he was then a young man of twenty-two with curly yellow hair and a smooth pink face that was the mirror of his youthful and ingenuous mind he had been educated at harrow and christchurch he enjoyed hunting and all other field sports and though his same circumstances were comfortable to the verge of affluence, his pleasures were temperate and innocent. His father, an East Indian merchant, had destined him for a political career, and had gone to considerable expense in acquiring a pleasant little Cornish borough as a 21st birthday gift for his son. He was justly indignant when, on the very eve of George's majority, the Reform Bill of 1832 swept the borough out of existence. The inauguration of George's political career, had to be postponed.

At the time he got to know the lovely lapiths he was waiting. He was not at all impatient. The lovely lapiths did not fail to impress him. Georgiana, the eldest, with her black ringlets, her flashing eyes, her noble aquiline profile, her swan-like neck and sloping shoulders, was orientally dazzling. And the twins with their delicately turned-up noses, their blue eyes and chestnut hair,

were an identical pair of ravishingly English charmers. Their conversation at this first meeting proved, however, to be so forbidding that, but for the invincible attraction exercised by their beauty, George would never have had the courage to follow up the acquaintance. The twins, looking up their noses at him with an air of languid superiority, asked him what he thought of the latest French poetry, and whether he liked the Indiana of Georgeshand. But what was almost worse was the question with which Georgiana opened her conversation with him.

In music, she asked, leaning forward and fixing him with her large, dark eyes, are you a classicist or a transcendentalist? George did not lose his presence of mind. He had enough appreciation of music to know that he hated anything classical. And so, with a promptitude which did him credit, he replied, I'm a transcendentalist. Georgiana smiled bewitchingly. I am glad, she said, so am I.

You went to hear the Paganini last week, of course. The Prayer of Moses. Ah, she closed her eyes. Do you know anything more transcendental than that? No, said George, I don't. He hesitated, was about to go on speaking, and then decided that after all it would be wiser not to say, what was in fact true, that he had enjoyed above all Paganini's farmyard impressions. The man had made his fiddle bray like an ass, cluck like a hen, grunt, squeal, bark, neigh, quack, quack. bellow and growl. That last item, in George's estimation, had almost compensated for the tediousness of the rest of the concert. He smiled with pleasure at the thought of it. Yes, decidedly he was no classicist in music. He was a thorough-going transcendentalist. George followed up this first introduction by paying a call on the young ladies and their mother, who occupied during the season

a small but elegant house in the neighbourhood of Barclay Square. Lady Lapith made a few discreet inquiries, and having found that George's financial position, character and family were all passably good, she asked him to dine. She hoped and expected that her daughters would all marry into the peerage, but, being a prudent woman, she knew it was advisable to prepare for all contingencies. George Wimbush, she thought, would make an excellent second string for one of the twins. At this first dinner George's partner was Emmeline. They talked of nature.

Emeline protested that to her high mountains were a feeling and the hum of human cities torture. George agreed that the country was very agreeable, but held that London during the season also had its charms. He noticed with surprise and a certain solicitous distress that Miss Emmeline's appetite was poor, that it didn't, in fact, exist. spoonfuls of soup, a morsel of fish, no bird, no meat, and three grapes. That was her whole dinner.

He looked from time to time at her two sisters. Georgiana and Caroline seemed to be quite as abstemious. They waved away whatever was offered them with an expression of delicate disgust, shutting their eyes and diverting their faces from the proffered dish, as though the lemon-soul, the duck, the loyno veal, the trifle were objects revolting to the sight and smell. george who thought the dinner capital ventured to comment on the sister's lack of appetite pray don't talk to me of eating said emmeline drooping like a sensitive plant we find it so coarse so unspiritual my sisters and i one can't think of one's soul while one is eating george agreed one couldn't but one must live he said alas emmeline sighed one must death is very beautiful don't you think she broke a corner off a piece of a piece of toast and began to nibble at it languidly. But since, as you say, one must live, she made a little gesture of resignation. Luckily, a very little suffices to keep one alive. She put down her corner

of toast, half eaten. George regarded her with some surprise. She was pale, but she looked extraordinarily healthy, he thought. So did her sisters. Perhaps if you were really spiritual, you needed less food. He clearly was not spiritual. after this he saw them frequently they all liked him from lady lapith downwards true he was not very romantic or poetical but he was such a pleasant unpretentious kind-hearted young man that one couldn't help liking him for his part he thought them wonderful wonderful especially georgiana he enveloped them all in a warm protective affection for they needed protection they were altogether too frail too spiritual for this world they never ate they were always pale they often complained of fever they talked much and lovingly of death they frequently swooned georgiana was the most ethereal of all of the three she ate least swooned most often talked most of death and was the palest with a pallor that was so startling as to appear positively artificial at any moment it seemed she might lose her precarious hold on this material world and become all spirit to george the thought was a continual agony if she were to die

she contrived however to live through the season and that in spite of the numerous balls routes and other parties of pleasure which in company with the rest of the lovely trio she never failed to attend in the middle of july the whole household moved down to the country george was invited to spend the month of august at crome the house-party was distinguished in the list of visitors figured the names of two marriageable young men of title george had hoped that the country air repose and natural surroundings might have restored to the three sisters their appetites and the rose of their cheeks he was mistaken for dinner the first evening georgiana ate only an olive two or three salted almonds and half a peach she was as pale as ever during a meal she spoke of love true love she said being infinite and eternal can only be consummated in eternity indiana and sir rodolph celebrated the mystic wedding of their souls by jumping into niagara love is incompatible with life the wish of two people who truly love one another is not to live together but to die together come come my dear said lady lapith stout and practical what would become of the next generation pray if all the world acted on your principles mamma georgiana protested and dropped her eyes in my young days lady lapith went on i should have been laughed out of countenance if i'd said a thing like that but then in my young days souls weren't as fashionable as they are now and we didn't think death was at all poetical it was just unpleasant "'Mama,' Emilyne and Caroline implored in unison.

"'In my young days Lady Lapith was launched into her subject. "'Nothing it seemed could stop her now. "'In my young days, if you didn't eat, "'people told you you needed a dose of rubal. "'Nowadays, there was a cry. "'Georgiana had swooned sideways onto Lord Timpon his shoulder. "'It was a desperate expedient, but it was successful. "'Lady Lapith was stopped.

"'The days passed, an uneventful round of pleasures. Of all the gay party, George alone was unhappy. Lord Timpany was paying his court to Georgiana, and it was clear that he was not unfavourably received. George looked on, and his soul was a hell of jealousy and despair. The boisterous company of the young man became intolerable to him. He shrank from them, seeking gloom and solitude. One morning, having broken away from them on some vague pretext, he returned to the house alone, The young men were bathing in the pool below, their cries and laughter floated up to him, making the quiet house seem lonelier and more silent.

The lovely sisters and their mamma still kept their chambers. They did not customarily make their appearance till luncheon, so that the male guests had the morning to themselves. George sat down in the hall and abandoned himself to thought. At any moment she might die. At any moment she might become Lady Timpany. It was terrible, terrible. If she died, then he would die too. He would go to seek her beyond the grave. If she became Lady Timpany, ah, then the solution of the problem would not be so simple.

If she became Lady Timpany, it was a horrible thought. But then suppose she were in love with Timpany, though it seemed incredible that anyone could be in love with Timpany. Suppose her life depended on Timpany. Suppose she couldn't live without him. He was fumbling his way along this clueless labyrinth of suppositions when the clock struck 12. On the last stroke, like an automaton, released by the turning clockwork, a little maid holding a large, covered tray, popped out of the door that led from the kitchen regions into the hall. From his deep-armed chair, George watched her, himself it was evident unobserved, with an idle curiosity. She pattered across the room and came to a halt in front of what's seen.

seemed a blank expanse of panelling. She reached out her hand, and, to George's extreme astonishment, a little door swung open, revealing the foot of a winding staircase. Turning sideways, in order to get her tray through the narrow opening, the little maid darted in with a rapid crab-like motion. The door closed behind her with a click. A minute later, it opened again, and the maid, without her tray, hurried back across the hall and disappeared

in the direction of the kitchen. George tried to recompose his thoughts, but an invincible curiosity drew his mind towards the hidden door, the staircase the little maid. It was in vain, he told himself, that the matter was none of his business, that to explore the secrets of that surprising door, that mysterious staircase within,

would be a piece of unforgivable rudeness and indiscretion. It was in vain. For five minutes he struggled heroically with this curiosity, but at the end of that time he found himself standing in front of the innocent sheet of panelling through which the little maid had disappeared a glance sufficed to show him the position of the secret door secret he perceived only to those who looked with a careless eye it was just an ordinary door let in flush with the panelling no latch nor handle betrayed its position but an unobtrusive catch sunk in the wood invited the thumb george was astonished that he had not noticed it before now he had seen it it was so obvious almost as obvious as the cupboard door in the library with its lines of imitation shelves and its dummy books he pulled back the catch and peeped inside the staircase of which the degrees were made not of stone but of blocks of ancient oak wound up and out of sight a slit-like window admitted the daylight he was at the foot of the central tower and the the little window looked out over the terrace. They were still shouting and splashing in the pool below.

George closed the door and went back to his seat. But his curiosity was not satisfied. Indeed, this partial satisfaction had but whetted his appetite. Where did the staircase lead? What was the errand of the little maid? It was no business of his, he kept repeating, no business of his. He tried to read, but his attention wandered. A quarter-past two, a quarter-past, sounded on the harmonious clock. Suddenly determined, George rose, crossed the room, opened the hidden door, and began to ascend the stairs. He passed the first window, corkscrewed round and came to another. He paused for a moment to look out.

His heart beat uncomfortably as though he were affronting some unknown danger. What he was doing, he told himself, was extremely ungentlemanly, horribly underbred. He tiptoed Onward and Upward One more turn Then half a turn And a door confronted him He halted now before it

Listened, he could hear no sound Putting his eye to the keyhole He saw nothing but a stretch Of white sunlit wall Emboldened he turned the handle And stepped across the threshold There he halted Petrified by what he saw

Mutely gaping In the middle of a pleasantly sunny little room, it is now Priscilla's boudoir, Mr. Wimbush remarked, parenthetically, stood a small, circular table of mahogany. Crystal, porcelain and silver, all the shining apparatus of an elegant meal were mirrored in its polished depths. The carcass of a cold chicken, a bowl of fruit, a great ham deeply gashed to its heart of tenderest white and pink, the brown cannonball of a cold plum pudding, a slender hot bottle, and a decanter of claret jostled one another for a place on this festive board. And round the table sat the three sisters, the three lovely lapiths, eating.

At George's sudden entrance they had all looked towards the door, and now they sat petrified by the same astonishment, which kept George fixed and staring. Georgiana, who sat immediately facing the door, gazed at him with dark, enormous eyes. Between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand, she was holding a drumstick of the dismembered chicken. Her little finger, elegantly crooked, stood apart from the rest of her hand. Her mouth was open, but the drumstick had never reached its destination. It remained suspended, frozen, in mid-air. The other two sisters had turned round to look at the intruder. Caroline still grasped her knife and fork, Emmeline's fingers were around the stem of her claret glass.

For what seemed a very long time, George and the three sisters stared at one another in silence. They were a group of statues. Then, suddenly, there was movement. Georgiana dropped her chicken bone, Caroline's knife and fork clattered on her plate. The movement propagated itself, grew more decisive. Emmeline sprang to her feet uttering a cry. The wave of panic reached. reached george he turned and mumbling something unintelligible as he went rushed out of the room and down the winding stairs he came to a standstill in the hall and there all by himself in the quiet house he began to laugh

at luncheon it was noticed that the sisters ate a little more than usual georgiana toyed with some french beans and a spoonful of calvesfoot jelly i feel a little stronger to-day she said to lord timpany when he congratulated her on this increase of appetite, a little more material, she added with a nervous laugh. Looking up, she caught George's eye, a blush suffused her cheeks, and she looked hastily away. In the garden that afternoon, they found themselves for a moment alone. You won't tell anyone, George. Promise you won't tell anyone, she implored. It would make us look so ridiculous, and besides, eating is unspiritual, isn't it? Say you won't tell anyone. I will, said George brutally. I'll tell everyone, and,

unless? It's blackmail. I don't care, said George. I'll give you 24 hours to decide. Lady Lapith was disappointed, of course. She'd hoped for better things, for timpany and a coronet, but George, after all, wasn't so bad. They were married at the New Year. My poor grandfather, Mr. Wimbush, added, as he closed his book and put away his Pinsne, whenever I read in the papers about oppressed nationalities, I think of him. He relighted his cigar. It was a maternal government, highly centralised, and there were no representative institutions. Henry Wimbush ceased speaking. In the silence that ensued, Ivers whispered commentary on the spirit sketches once more became audible.

Priscilla, who had been dozing, suddenly woke up. What, she said in startled tones of one newly returned to consciousness? What? Jenny caught the words. She looked up, smiled, nodded reassuringly. It's about a ham, she said. what's about a ham what henry's been reading she closed the red notebook lying on her knees and slipped a rubber band round it i'm going to bed she announced and got up so am i said anne yawning but she lacked the energy to rise from her arm-chair the night was hot and oppressive round the open windows the curtains hung unmoving bivar fanning himself with a portrait of an astral being looked out into the darkness and drew a breath

the airs like wool he declared it will get cooler after midnight said henry wimbush and cautiously added perhaps i shan't sleep i know priscilla turned her head in his direction the monumental coiffure nodded exorbitantly at her slightest movement you must make an effort she said when i can't sleep i concentrate my will i say i will sleep i anna sleep and pop off i go that's the power of thought but does it work on stuffy nights iva inquired i simply cannot sleep on a stuffy night nor can i said mary except out of doors out of doors what a wonderful idea in the end they decided to sleep on the towers mary on the western tower either on the eastern there was a flat expanse of leads on each of the towers and you could get a mattress through the trap-doors that opened on to them under the stars under the gibbous moon assuredly they would sleep the mattresses were hauled up sheets and blankets were spread and an hour later the two insomniasts each on his separate tower were crying their good nights across the dividing gulf on mary the sleep compelling charm of the open air did not work with its expected magic even through the mattress one could not fail to be aware that the leads were extremely hard then there were noises the owls screeched tirelessly and once roused by some unknown terror all the geese of the farmyard burst into a sudden frenzy of cackling the stars and the gibbous moon demanded to be looked at and when one meteorite had street across the sky you could not help waiting open-eyed and alert for the next time passed the moon climbed higher and the moon climbed higher and and higher in the sky, Mary felt less sleepy than she had when she first came out.

She sat up and looked over the parapet. Had Iver been able to sleep, she wondered. And as though in answer to her mental question, from behind the chimney-stack, at the farther end of the roof a white form noiselessly emerged, a form that, in the moonlight, was recognisably Ivers. Spreading his arms to right and left like a tightrope dancer, he began to walk forward along the roof-tree of the house. He swayed terrifyingly as he advanced.

Mary looked on speechlessly. Perhaps he was walking in his sleep. Suppose he were to wake up suddenly now. If she spoke or moved it might mean his death. She dared look no more, but sank back into her pillows. She listened intently, for what seemed an immensely long time there was no sound. Then there was a patter of feet on the tiles, followed by a scrabbling noise and I whispered, damn.

And suddenly, Ivers' head and shoulders appeared above the parapet. One leg followed, and then the other. He was on the leads. Mary pretended to wake up with a start. Oh, she said. What are you doing here? I couldn't sleep, he explained, and so I came along to see if you couldn't. One gets bored by oneself on a tower.

Don't you find it so? It was light before five, long, narrow clouds barred the east, their edges bright with orange fire. The sky was pale and watery. With a mournful scream of a soul in pain, a monstrous peacock flying heavily up from below alighted on the parapet of the tower. Iva and Mary started, broad awake.

Catch him, cried Iva, jumping up. We'll have a feather. The frightened peacock ran up and down the parapet in an absurd distress, curtsying and bobbing and clucking. His long tails swung ponderously back and forth as he turned and turned again. Then, with a flap and a swish,

he launched himself upon the air and sailed magnificently earthward, with a recovered dignity. But he had left the trophy. Iva had his feather a long, lashed eye of purple and green, of blue and gold. He handed it to his companion.

An angel's feather, he said. Mary looked at it for a moment gravely and intently. Her purple pyjamas has clothed her with an ampleness that hid the lines of her body. She looked like some large, comfortable, unjointed toy, a sort of teddy bear, but a teddy bear with an angel's head, pink cheeks, and hair like a bell of gold. An angel's face, the feather of an angel's wing, somehow the whole atmosphere of this sunrise was rather angelic.

It's extraordinary to think of sexual selection, she said at last, looking up from her contemplation of the miraculous feather. Extraordinary, Iver echoed. I select you, you select me, what luck. He put his arm around her shoulder and they stood looking eastward. The first sunlight had begun to warm and colour the pale light of the dawn. Move pyjamas and white pyjamas, they were a young and charming couple. The rising sun touched their faces.

It was all extremely symbolic, but then, if you chose to think so, nothing in this world is not symbolical, profound and beautiful truth. I must be getting back to my tower, said Iva at last. Already, I'm afraid so, the valetry will soon be up and about. Iver, there was a prolonged and silent farewell. And now, said Iver, I repeat my tightrope stunt. Mary threw her arms round his neck. You mustn't, Iver, it's dangerous, please.

He had to yield at last to her entreaties. All right, he said. I'll go down through the house and up at the other end. He vanished through the trapdoor into the darkness that still lurked within the shuttered house. A minute later, he had reappeared on the farther tower. He waved his hand and then sank down out of sight behind the parapet. From below, in the house came the thin, wasp-like buzzing of an alarm clock. He had gone back just in time.

End of chapter. Chrome Yellow by Aldous Huxley, read for Librivox.org by Martin Clifton. Chapter 20 Iver was gone, lounging behind the windscreen in his yellow sedan, he was whirling across rural England. Social and amorous engagement of the most urgent character called him from hall to baronial hall, from castle to castle, from Elizabethan manor house to Georgian mansion, over the whole expanse of the kingdom. Today in Somerset, tomorrow in Warwickshire and on Saturday in the West Riding. By Tuesday morning in Argyle, Iver never rested. The whole summer through from the beginning of July till the end of September,

he devoted himself to his engagements. He was a martyr to them. In the autumn he went back to London for a holiday. Crom had been a little incident, an evanescent bubble on the stream of his life. It belonged already to the past. by tea time he would be at gobbly and there would be zenobia's welcoming smile and on thursday morning but that was a long long way ahead he would think of thursday morning when thursday morning arrived meanwhile there was gobbly meanwhile zenobia in the visitor's book at crome iva had left according to his invariable custom in these cases a poem he had improvised it magisterially in the ten minutes preceding his departure denis and mr skogan strolled back together from the gates of the court-yard whence they had bidden their last farewells on the writing-table in the hall they found a visitor's book open and iva's composition scarcely dry

mr skogan read it aloud the magic of those immemorial kings who webbed enchantment on the bowls of night sleeps in the soul of all created things in the blue sea the acro-surro in the eyed butterflies auricular wings and orgid visions of the anchorite in all that singing flies and flying sings in rain in pain in delicate delight but much more magic much more cogent spells we've hear their wizardries about my soul chrome calls me like the voice of vesperal bells haunts like a ghostly peopled necropole fate tears me hence hard fates since far from chrome my soul must weep remembering its home very nice and tasteful and tactful said mr skogan when he had finished i am only troubled by the butterfly's auricular wings you have a first-hand knowledge of the workings of a poet's mind dennis perhaps you can explain what could be simpler said dennis it's a beautiful word and either wanted to say that the wings were golden you make it luminously clear one suffers so much denis went on from the fact that beautiful words that beautiful words don't always mean what they ought to mean. Recently, for example, I had a whole poem ruined just because the word carminative

didn't mean what it ought to have meant. Carminative, it's admirable, isn't it? Admirable, Mr. Skogan agreed, and what does it mean? It's a word I've treasured from my earliest infancy, said Dennis, treasured and loved. They used to give me cinnamon when I had a cold, quite useless but not disagreeable.

One poured it, drop by drop, out of now. bottles, a golden liquor, fierce and fiery. On the label was a list of its virtues, and among other things, it was described as being, in the highest degree, carminative. I adored the word, isn't it carmative, I used to say to myself, when I'd taken my dose. It seems so wonderfully to describe that sensation of internal warmth, that glow, that what shall I call it, physical self-satisfaction, which followed the drinking of cinnamon. Later, when I discovered alcohol, carminative described for me that similar but nobler, more spiritual glow which wine evokes, not only in the body but in the soul as well. The carminative virtues of burgundy, of rum,

of old brandy, of lacrimacristo, of stout, of gin, of champagne, of claret, of the raw new wine of this year's Tuscan vintage, I compared them, I classified them. Marsala is rosalie-downally carminative, gin, pricks and refreshes while it warms, I had a whole table of carmination values, and now, Dennis spread out his hands, palms upwards, despairingly. Now I know what carminative really means. Well, what does it mean? asked Mr. Skogan a little impatiently. Carminative, said Dennis, lingering lovingly over the syllables, carminative. I imagined vaguely that it had something to do with Carmen Communists, still more vaguely with Carotanus,

and its derivations like carnival and carnation. Carminative, there was the idea of singing and the idea of flesh, rose-colored and warm, with a suggestion of the jollities of Micarem and the mast holidays of Venice. Carminative, the warmth, the glow, the interior ripeness were all in the word, instead of which, do come to the point, my dear Dennis, protested Mr. Skogan. Do come to the point. Well, I wrote a poem the other day, said Dennis. I wrote a poem about the effects of love.

Others have done the same before you, said Mr. Skogan. There is no need to be ashamed. I was putting forward the notion, Dennis went on, that the effects of love were often similar to the effects of wine, that Eros could intoxicate as well as backers. Love, for example, is essentially carminative. It gives one the sense of warmth, the glow, and passion, carminative as wine, was what I wrote.

Not only was the line elegantly seen, sonorous, it was also I flattered myself very aptly, compendiously expressive. Everything was in the word carminative had detailed, exact foreground and immense, indefinite hinterland of suggestion, and passion, carminative as wine. I was not ill-pleased. And then suddenly it occurred to me that I never actually looked up the word in a dictionary. Carminative had grown up with me from the days of the cinnamon bottle. It had always been taken for granted. Carminative, for me the word was as rich in content as some tremendous elaborate work of art. It was a complete landscape with figures.

And passion, carmative as wine, it was the first time I had ever committed the word to writing, and all at once I felt I would like lexicographical authority for it. A small English-German dictionary was all I had at hand. I turned up C, C, C, C, C, Carm, there it was, car-mative, Vintraibant, he repeated. Mr. Skogan laughed. Dennis shook his head, ah, he said, for me it was no laughing matter.

For me it marked the end of a chapter, the death of something young and precious. There were the years, years of childhood and innocence, when I had believed that carminative meant, well, carminative, and now before me lies the rest of my life a day, perhaps, ten years, half a century, when I shall know that carminative means vintraibent. it. Plu no sui what I've ete and ne lestere

it is a realization that makes one rather melancholy. Carminative, said Mr. Skogan thoughtfully. Carminative, Dennis repeated, and they were silent for a time. Words, said Dennis at last. Words, I wonder if you can realize

how much I love them. You are too much preoccupied with mere things and ideas and people to understand the full beauty of words. words. Your mind is not a literary mind. The spectacle of Mr. Gladstone finding 34 rhymes to the name Margot seems to you rather pathetic than anything else. Madame's envelopes with their versified addresses leave you cold, unless they leave you pitiful. You can't see that. Apt at no point to cabaret. Ue, post and Ijouta retea, if you no fui onsbi, Ru Balzac.

idea is a little miracle you're right said mr skogan i can't you don't feel it to be magical no that's the best test of the literary mind said dennis the feeling of magic the sense that words have power the technical verbal part of literature is simply a development of magic words are man's first and most grandiose invention with language he created a whole new universe what wonder if he loved words and attributed power to them. With fitted, harmonious words, the magician summoned rabbits out of empty hats and spirits from the elements. Their descendants, the literary men, still go on with the process, mortising their verbal formulas together, and, before the power of the finished spell, trembling with delight and awe. Rabbits out of empty hats? No, their spells are more subtly powerful, for they evoke emotions out of empty minds. Formulated by their art the most insipid statements, become enormously significant.

For example, I proffer the constatation, black ladders, lack bladders. A self-evident truth, one on which it would not have been worthwhile to insist had I chosen to formulate it in such words as black fire escapes have no bladders or Les Echelle noir, Mancant de Vésie. But I put it as I do,

black ladders, lack bladders. It becomes, for all its self-evidence, significant, unforgettable, moving, the creation by word power of something out of nothing. What is that but magic? And, I may add, what is that but literature? Half the world's greatest poetry is simply Les Echelle Noir Monk de Vésie,

translated into magic significance as Black Ladders, Black Bladders, and you can't appreciate words, I'm sorry for you. A mental carminative, said Mr. Skogan reflectively, That's what you need. End of chapter. Chrome Yellow by Aldous Huxley. Read for Librevox.org by Martin Clifton.

Chapter 21. Perched on its four stone mushrooms, the little granary stood two or three feet above the grass of the green close. Beneath it there was a perpetual shade and a damp growth of long, luxuriant grasses. Here, in the shadow, in the green dampness, a family of white ducks had sought shelter

from the afternoon sun. Some stood, preening themselves, some reposed with their long bellies pressed to the ground, as though the cool grass were water. Little social noises burst fitfully forth, and from time to time some pointed tail would execute a brilliant Lyssean tremolo. Suddenly their jovial response was shattered. A prodigious thump shook the wooden flooring above their heads, the whole granary trembled. Little fragments of dirt and crumbled wood rained down among them. With a loud, continuous quacking, the ducks rushed out from beneath this nameless menace, and did not stay their flight till they were safely in the farmyard. Don't lose your temper, Anne was saying, listen, you've frightened the ducks, poor dears,

no wonder. She was sitting sideways in a low, wooden chair. Her right elbow rested on the back of the chair, and she supported her cheek on her hand. Her long, slender body drooped into curves of a lazy grace. She was smiling, and she looked at Gombold through half-closed eyes. Damn you, Gombold repeated and stamped his foot again. He glared at her around the half-finished portrait on the easel. Poor ducks, Anne repeated, the sound of their quacking was faint in the distance. It was inaudible. Can't you see you make me lose my time, he asked. I can't work with you dangling about distractingly like this.

You'd lose less time if you stopped talking and stamping your feet and did a little painting for a change. After all, what am I dangling about for except to be painted? Gombold made a noise like a growl. You're awful, he said, with conviction. Why do you ask me to come and stay here? Why do you tell me you'd like me to paint your portrait? For the simple reason that I like you, at least when you're in a good temper,

and that I think you're a good painter. for the simple reason gombold mimicked her voice that you want me to make love to you and when i do to have the amusement of running away and threw back her head and laughed so you think it amuses me to have to evade your advances so like a man if you only knew how gross and awful and boring men are when they try to make love and you don't want them to make love if you could only see yourselves through our eyes gombold picked up his pallet and brushes and attacked his canvas with the ardour of irritation i suppose you'll be saying next that you didn't start the game that it was i who made the first advances and that you were the innocent victim who sat still and never did anything that could invite or allure me on so like a man again said anne it's always the same old story about the woman tempting the man the woman lures fascinates invites and man noble man innocent man falls a victim my poor gombold surely you're not going to sing that old song again it's so unintelligent and i always thought you were a man of sense thanks said gombole be a little objective anne went on can't you see that you're simply externalizing your own emotions that's what you men are always doing it's so barbarously naive you feel one of your loose desires for some woman and because you desire her strongly you immediately accuse her of luring you on of deliberately provoking and inviting the desire. You have the mentality of savages. You might just as well say

that a plate of strawberries and cream deliberately lures you on to feel greedy. In 99 cases out of 100, women are as passive and innocent as the strawblers and cream. Well, all I can say is that this must be the hundredth case, said Gombold without looking up. Anne shrugged her shoulders and gave vent to a sigh. I'm at a loss to know whether you're more silly or more more rude. After painting for a little time in silence, Gombled began to speak again. And then there's Dennis, he said, renewing the conversation as though it had only just been broken off. You're playing the same game with him. Why can't you leave that wretched young man in peace? Anne flushed with a sudden and uncontrollable anger. It's perfectly untrue about

Dennis, she said indignantly. I never dreamt of playing what you beautifully call the same game with him. Recovery her calm, she added in her ordinary cooing voice and with her exacerbating smile. You've become very protective towards poor Dennis all of a sudden. I have, Gombold replied, with a gravity that was somehow a little too solemn. I don't like to see a young man being whirled along the road to ruin, said Anne, continuing his sentence for him. I admire your sentiments, and believe me, I share them. She was curiously irritated at what Gumbold had said about Dennis. It happened to be so completely untrue. Gombold might have some slight ground for his reproaches. But Dennis, no. She had never flirted with Dennis. Poor boy, he was

very sweet. She became somewhat pensive. Gombold painted on with fury, the restlessness of an unsatisfied desire, which, before had distracted his mind, making work impossible, seemed now to have converted itself into a kind of feverish energy. When it was finished, he told himself the portrait would be diabolic. He was painting her in the pose she had naturally adopted at the first sitting, seated sideways, her elbow on the back of the chair, her head and shoulders turned at an angle from the rest of her body, towards the front. She had fallen into an attitude of indolent abandonment. He had emphasized the lazy curves of her body, the lines sagged as they cross the canvas. The grace of the painted figure seemed to be melting into a kind of soft decay.

The hand that lay along the knee was as limp as a glove. He was at work on the face now. It had begun to emerge on the canvas dull-like in its regularity and listlessness. It was Anne's face, but her face as it would be utterly unillumined by the inward lights of thought and emotion.

It was the lazy, expressionless mask, which was sometimes her face. The portrait was terribly like, and at the same time it was the most malicious of lies. Yes, it would be diabolic when it was. was finished, Combold decided. He wondered what she would think of it. End of chapter. Chrome Yellow by Aldous Huxley, read for Librivox.org by Martin Clifton.

Chapter 22 For the sake of peace and quiet, Dennis had returned earlier on this same afternoon to his bedroom. He wanted to work, but the hour was a drowsy one, and lunch, so recently eaten, weighed heavily on body and mind. The Meridian demon was upon him. he was possessed by that bored and hopeless post-pranthial melancholy which the cohenobites of old knew and feared under the name of assidi he felt like ernest dawson a little weary he was in the mood to write something rather exquisite and gentle and quietest in tone something a little droopy and at the same time how should he put it a little infinite he thought of anne of love hopeless and unattainable perhaps that was the ideal kind of love-of-and-obeyed the hopeless kind, the quiet, theoretical kind of love. In this sad mood of repletion he could well believe it. He began to write, an elegant quatrain had flowed from beneath his pen.

A brooding love which is at most the stealth of moonbeams when they slide, evoking colours bloodless ghost or some scarce breathing breast or side, when his attention was attracted by a sound from outside. He looked down from his window. There they were, Anne and Gombold, talking, laughing together. They crossed the courtyard in front and passed out of sight through the gate and the right-hand wall. That was the way to the green close and the granary. She was going to sit for him again. His pleasantly depressing melancholy was dissipated by a puff of violent emotion. Angrily he threw his quatrain into the waste paper basket and ran downstairs, the stealth of moonbeams indeed.

In the hall he saw Mr. Skogan, the man seemed to be lying in weight. Dennis tried to escape, but in vain. Mr. Skogan's eye glittered like the eye of the ancient mariner. Not so fast, he said, stretching out a small, sorrient hand with pointed nails, not so fast. I was just going down to the flower garden to take the sun. We'll go together. Dennis abandoned himself. Mr. Skogan put on his hat, and they went out.

out arm in arm. On the shaven turf of the terrace, Henry Wimbush and Mary were playing a solemn game of bowls. They descended by the U-Tree walk. It was here, thought Dennis, here that Anne had fallen, here that he had kissed her here, and he blushed with retrospective shame at the memory, here that he had tried to carry her and failed. Life was awful. Sanity, said Mr. Skogan, suddenly breaking a long silence. Sanity, that's what's wrong with me, and that's What will be wrong with you, my dear Dennis, when you're old enough to be sane or insane. In a sane world, I should be a great man. As things are in this curious establishment, I am nothing at all.

To all intents and purposes, I don't exist. I am just Voxetreya Nihil. Dennis made no response. He was thinking of other things. After all, he said to himself, after all, Gombold is better looking than I, more entertaining, more confident, and besides he's already somebody and I'm still only potential. Everything that gets done in this world is done by madmen, Mr. Skogan went on.

Dennis tried not to listen, but the tireless insistent of Mr. Skogan's discourse gradually compelled his attention. Men, such as I am, such as you may possibly become, have never achieved anything. We're too sane, we're merely reasonable. We lack the human touch, the compelling, enthusiastic mania. people are quite ready to listen to the philosophers for a little amusement, just as they would listen to a fiddler or a mountebank, but as to acting on the advice of the man of reason, never.

Whenever the choice has had to be made between the man of reason and the madman, the world has unhesitatingly followed the madman, for the madman appeals to what is fundamental, to passion and the instincts, the philosophers to what is superficial and supererogatory, reason. they entered the garden at the head of one of the alice stood a green wooden bench imbade in the midst of a fragrant continent of lavender bushes it was here though the place was shadeless and one breathed hot dry perfume instead of air it was here that mr skogan elected to sit He thrived on untempered sunlight. Consider, for example, the case of Luther and Erasmus. He took out his pipe and began to fill it as he talked.

There was Erasmus, a man of reason if ever there was one. People listened to him at first, a new virtuoso, performing on that elegant and resourceful instrument the intellect. They even admired and venerated him. But did he move them to behave as he wanted them to behave, reasonably, decently, or at least a little less porkishly than usual, he did not. And then Luther appears, violent, passionate, a madman, insanely convinced about matters in which there can be no conviction. He shouted, and men rushed to follow him.

Erasmus was no longer listened to, he was reviled for his reasonableness. Luther was serious, Luther was reality, like the Great War. Erasmus was only reason and decency. He lacked the power, being a sage, to move men to action. election. Europe followed Luther and embarked on a century and a half of war and bloody persecution. It's a melancholy story. Mr. Skogan lighted a match. In the intense light the flame was all was invisible. The smell of burning tobacco began to mingle with the sweetly acrid smell of the lavender. If you want to get man to act reasonably, you must set about persuading them in a maniacal manner.

The very sane precepts of the founders of religions are only made infectious, by means of enthusiasms which to a sane man must appear deplorable. It is humiliating to find how impotent, unadulterated sanity is. Sanity, for example, informs us that the only way in which we can preserve civilization is by behaving decently and intelligently. Sanity appeals and argues. Our rulers persevere in their customary porkishness while we acquiesce and obey. The only hope is a maniacal crusade.

I am ready when it comes to beat a bit of it. tambourine with the loudest, but at the same time I shall feel a little ashamed of myself. However, Mr. Skogan shrugged his shoulders and, pipe in hand, made a gesture of resignation. It's futile to complain that things are as they are. The fact remains that sanity, unassisted, is useless. What we want, then, is a sane and reasonable exploitation of the forces of insanity. We sane men will have the power yet. Mr. Skogan's eyes shone with a more than ordinary brightness, and, taking his pipe out of his mouth, he gave vent his loud, dry, and somehow rather fiendish laugh.

"'But I don't want power,' said Dennis. He was sitting in limp discomfort at one end of the bench, shading his eyes from the intolerable light. Mr. Skogan, bolt upright at the other end, laughed again. "'Everybody wants power,' he said, power in some form or other. The sort of power you hanker for is literary power. Some people want power to persecute other human beings. You expend your lust for power in persecuting words, twisting them, molding them, torturing them to obey you. But I divulgate.

Do you? asked Dennis faintly. Yes, Mr. Skoghung continued unheeding. The time will come. We men of intelligence will learn to harness the insanities to the service of reason. We can't leave the world any longer to the direction of treading. chance. We can't allow dangerous maniacs like Luther, mad about dogma, like Napoleon, mad about himself, to go on casually appearing and turning everything upside down. In the past it didn't so much matter, but our modern machine is too delicate. A few more knocks like the Great War,

another Luther or two, and the whole concern will go to pieces. In future, the men of reason must see that the madness of the world's maniacs is canalized into proper channels, is made to do useful work like a mountain torrent driving a dynamo. Making electricity to light a Swiss hotel, said Dennis. You ought to complete the simile. Mr. Skogan waved away the interruption. There's only one thing to be done, he said. The men of intelligence must combine, must conspire,

and seize power from the imbeciles and maniacs who now direct us. They must found the rational state. The heat that was slowly paralyzing all Dennis's mental and bodily faculties seemed to bring to Mr. Skogan additional vitality. He talked with an ever-increasing energy, his hands moved in sharp, quick, precise gestures, his eyes shone. Hard, dry and continuous, his voice went on sounding and sounding in Dennis's ears with the insistence of mechanical noise. In the rational state, he heard Mr. Skogan saying, human beings will be separated out into distinct species, not according to the color of their eyes or the shape of their skulls, but according to the

qualities of their mind and temperament. Examining psychologists, trained to what would now seem an almost superhuman clairvoyance, will test each child that is born and assign it to its proper species. Duly labelled and docketed, the child will be given the education suitable to members of its species, and it will be set in adult life to perform those functions which human beings of his variety are capable of performing. How many species will there be? asked Dennis. A great many, no doubt, Mr. Skogan answered. The classification will be subtle and elaborate, but it is not in the power of a profit to go into details,

nor is it his business. I will do more than indicate the three main species into which the subjects of the rational state will be divided. He paused, cleared his throat, and coughed once or twice, evoking in Dennis's mind the vision of a table with a glass and water bottle, and, lying across one corner, a long white pointer for the lantern pictures.

Three main species, Mr. Skokin went on, will be these. The directing intelligence, the men of faith, and the herd. Among the intelligences will be found all those capable of thought, those who know how to attain a certain degree of freedom, and alas, how limited even among the most intelligent, that freedom is, from the mental bondage of their time. A select body of intelligences drawn from among those who have turned their attention to the problem of practical life

will be the governors of the rational state. They will employ, as their instruments of power, the second great species of humanity, the men of faith, the madmen, as I've been calling them, who believe in things unreasonably with passion and are ready to die for their beliefs and their desires. These wild men, with their fearful potentialities for good or for mischief, will no longer be allowed to react casually to a casual environment.

There will be no more Caesar Borgias, no more Luther's, and Mohammed's, no more Joanna Southcots, no more Comstocks. The old-fashioned man of faith and desire, that haphazard creature of brute circumstance, who might drive men to tears and repentance, or who might equally well set them on to cutting one another's throats, will be replaced by a new sort of madman, still externally the same,

still bubbling with a seemingly spontaneous enthusiasm, but are how very different from the madman of the past. For the new man of faith will be expending his passion, his desire and his enthusiasm in the propagation of some reasonable idea. He will be, all unawares, the tool of some superior intelligence. Mr. Skogan chuckled maliciously. It was as though he were taking a revenge in the name of reason on enthusiasts. From their earliest years, as soon that is,

as the examining psychologists have assigned them their place in the classified scheme, the men of faith will have had their special education under the eye of the intelligence. molded by a long process of suggestion, they will go out into the world, preaching and practicing with a generous mania the coldly reasonable projects of the directors from above. When these projects are accomplished, or when the ideas that were useful a decade ago have ceased to be useful, the intelligences will inspire a new generation of Madman with a new eternal truth. The principal function of the men of faith will be to move and direct the multitude. that third great species consisting of those countless millions who lack intelligence and are without valuable enthusiasm when any particular effort is required of the herd when it is thought necessary for the sake of solidarity that humanity shall be kindled and united by some single enthusiastic desire or idea

the men of faith primed with some simple and satisfying creed will be sent out on a mission of evangelization At ordinary times when the high spiritual temperature of a crusade would be unhealthy, the men of faith will be quietly and earnestly busy with the great work of education. In the upbringing of the herd, humanity's almost boundless suggestibility will be scientifically exploited. Systematically, from earliest infancy, its members will be assured that there is no happiness to be found except in work and obedience. They will be made to believe that they are happy, that they are tremendously important beings and that everything they do is noble and significant. For the lower species the earth will be restored to the centre of the universe and man to preeminence on the earth.

Oh, I envy the lot of the commonality in the regional state. Working there eight hours a day, obeying their betters, convinced of their own grandeur and significance and immortality. They will be marvellously happy, happier than any race of men has ever been. They will go through life in a rosy state of intoxication, from which they will never awake. The men of faith will play the cup-bearers at this lifelong bacchanal, filling and ever filling again with the warm liquor that the intelligences in sad and sober privacy behind the scenes will brew for the intoxication of their subjects. And what will be my place in the rational state?

Dennis drowsily inquired from under his shading hand. Mr. Skogan looked at him for a moment in silence. "'It's difficult to see where you would fit in,' he said at last. "'You couldn't do manual work. "'You're too independent and unsuggestable to belong to the larger herd. "'You have none of the characteristics required in a man of faith. "'As for the directing intelligences, "'they will have to be marvellously clear and mercilessly penetrating.'

He paused and shook his head. "'No, I can see no place for you, only the lethal chamber.' "'Deeply hurt,' Dennis emitted the imitation of a loud, loud, hermeric laugh. I'm getting sunstroke here, he said, and got up. Mr. Skogan followed his example, and they walked slowly away down the narrow path, brushing the blue lavender flowers in their passage. Dennis pulled a sprig of lavender and sniffed at it,

then some dark leaves of rosemary that smelt like incense in a cavernous church. They passed a bed of opium poppies, dispettled now the round, ripe seed heads were brown and dry, like Polynesian trophies, Dennis thought. severed heads stuck on poles. He liked the fancy enough to impart it to Mr. Skogan. Like Polynesian trophies uttered aloud, the fancy seemed less charming and significant than it did when it first occurred to him.

There was a silence, and in a growing wave of sound, the whir of the reaping machines swelled up from the fields beyond the garden and then receded into a remoter hum. It is satisfactory to think, said Mr. Skogan, as they strolled slowly onward, that a multitude of people are toiling in the harvest fields in order that we may talk of Polynesia. Like every other good thing in this world, leisure and culture have to be paid for. Fortunately, however, it is not the

leisured and the cultured who have to pay. Let us be duly thankful for that, my dear Dennis, Julie thankful, he repeated, and knocked the ashes out of his pipe. Dennis was not listening. He had suddenly remembered Anne. She was with Gombold. Alone with him in his studio. It was an intolerable thought. Shall we go and pay a call on Gombold, he suggested carelessly? It would be amusing to see what he's doing now. He laughed inwardly to think how furious Gombold would be when he saw them arriving. End of chapter. Chrome Yellow by Aldous Huxley. Recorded for Librevox.org by Martin Clifton Chapter 23

Gombold was by no means so furious at their apparition as Dennis had hoped and expected he would be Indeed he was rather pleased than annoyed when the two faces, one brown and pointed, the other round and pale, appeared in the frame of the open door. The energy born of his restless irritation was dying within him,

returning to its emotional elements. A moment more, and he would have been losing his temper again, and Anne would be keeping hers infuriatingly. Yes, he was positively glad to see them. Come in, come in, he called out hospitably. Followed by Mr. Skogan, Dennis climbed the little ladder and stepped over the threshold. He looked suspiciously from Goulbould to his sitter, and could learn nothing from the expression of their faces, except that they both seemed pleased to see the visitors. Were they really glad, or were they cunningly simulating gladness, he wondered.

Mr. Skogad, meanwhile, was looking at the portrait. Excellent, he said, approvingly excellent, almost too true to character, if that is possible. Yes, positively too true. But I'm surprised to find you putting in all this psychology business. He pointed to the face, and with his extended finger, followed the slack curves of the painted figure. I thought you were one of the fellows who went in exclusive,

for balanced masses and impinging planes. Gombold laughed. This is a little infidelity, he said. I'm sorry, said Mr. Skogan, I, for one, without ever having had the slightest appreciation of painting, have always taken particular pleasure in Cubismus. I like to see pictures from which nature has been completely banished, pictures which are exclusively the product of the human mind. They give me the same pleasure as I derive from a good piece of

derived from a good piece of reasoning or a mathematical problem or an achievement of engineering. Nature, or anything that reminds me of nature, disturbs me. It is too large, too complicated, above all too utterly pointless and incomprehensible. I am at home with the works of man. If I choose to set my mind to it, I can understand anything that any man has made or thought. That is why I always travel by tube, never by bus, if I can possibly help it. for travelling by bus one can't avoid seeing even in london a few stray works of god the sky for example an occasional tree the flowers of the window-boxes but travel by tube when you see nothing but the works of man iron riveted into geometrical forms straight lines of concrete patterned expanses of tiles all is human and the product of friendly and comprehensible minds all philosophies and all religions what are they but spiritual tubes bored through the universe,

through these narrow tunnels, where all is recognisably human, one travels comfortable and secure, contriving to forget that all around and below and above them stretches the blind mass of the earth, endless and unexplored. Yes, give me the tube and cubismus every time, give me ideas so snug and neat and simple and well-made.

And preserve me from nature, me from all that's inhumanly large and complicated and obscure. I haven't the courage, and, above all, I haven't the time to start wandering in that labyrinth. While Mr. Skogan was discoursing, Dennis had crossed over to the farther side of the little square chamber, where Anne was sitting, still in her graceful, lazy pose on the low chair. Well, he demanded, looking at her almost fiercely. What was he asking of her? He hardly knew himself. anne looked up at him and for an answer echoed his well in another a laughing key denis had nothing more at the moment to say two or three canvases stood in the corner behind anne's chair their faces turned to the wall he pulled them out and began to look at the paintings may i see two anne requested he stood them in a row against the wall anne had to turn round in her chair to look at them there was the big canvas of the man's

fallen from the horse, there was a painting of flowers, there was a small landscape. His hands on the back of the chair, Dennis leaned over her. From behind the easel at the other side of the room, Mr. Skogan was talking away. For a long time, they looked at the pictures saying nothing, or rather, Anne looked at the pictures while Dennis, for the most part, looked at Anne. I like the man and the horse, don't you, she said at last, looking up with an inquiring smiling. Dennis nodded, and then in a queer, strangled voice as though it had cost him a great effort to utter the words, he said, I love you. It was a remark which Anne had heard a good many

times before, mostly heard with equanimity. But on this occasion, perhaps because they had come so unexpectedly, perhaps for some other reason, the words provoked in her a certain surprised commotion. My poor Dennis, she managed to say with a laugh. but she was blushing as she spoke. End of chapter. Chrome Yellow by Aldous Huxley, recorded for Librivox.org by Martin Clifton. Chapter 24.

It was noon. Dennis, descending from his chamber where he had been making an unsuccessful effort to write something about nothing in particular, found the drawing room deserted. He was about to go out into the garden when his eye fell on a familiar but mysterious object. the large red notebook in which he had so often seen jenny quietly and busily scribbling she had left it lying on the window-seat the temptation was great he picked up the book and slipped off the elastic band that kept it discreetly closed

private not to be opened was written in capital letters on the cover he raised his eyebrows it was the sort of thing one wrote in one's latin grammar while one was still at one's preparatory school black is the raven black is the rook but blacker the thief who steals this book it was curiously childish he thought and he smiled to himself he opened the book what he saw made him wince as though he had been struck denis was his own severest critic so at least he had always believed he liked to think of himself as a merciless vivisector probing into the palpitating entrails of his own soul he was brown dog to himself his weakness his absurdities no one knew them better than he did indeed in a vague way he imagined that nobody beside himself was aware of them at all it seemed somehow inconceivable that he should appear to other people as they appeared to him inconceivable that they ever spoke of him among themselves in the same freely critical and to be quite honest mildly malicious tone in which he was accustomed to talk of them in his own eyes he had defects but to see them was a privilege reserved for him alone. For the rest of the world, he was surely an image of flawless crystal. It was almost axiomatic.

On opening the red notebook, that crystal image of himself crashed to the ground, and was irreparably shattered. He was not his own severest critic after all. The discovery was a painful one. The fruit of Jenny's unobtrusive scribbling lay before him, a caricature of himself, reading. The book was upside-bred. down. In the background, a dancing couple recognisable as Gombold and Anne, beneath the legend,

fable of the wallflower and the sour grapes. Fascinated and horrified, Dennis poured over the drawing. It was masterful. A mute, inglorious Ruevaire appeared in every one of those cruelly clear lines, the expression of the face and assumed aloofness and superiority tempered by a feeble envy, the attitude of body and limbs, an attitude of studious and scholarly dignity, given away by the fidgety pose of the turned-in feet, these things were terrible, and more terrible still was the likeness, was the magisterial certainty with which his physical peculiarities were all recorded and subtly exaggerated.

Dennis looked deeper into the book. There were caricatures of other people, of Priscilla and Mr. Barbecue Smith, of Henry Wimbush, of Anne and Gombold, of Mr. Skogan, whom Jenny had represented in a light that was more than slightly sinister, that was indeed diabolic. Of Mary and Iver, he scarcely glanced at them, a fearful desire to know the worst about himself, possessed him. He turned over the leaves, lingering at nothing that was not his own image. Seven full pages were devoted to him. Private, not to be opened. He had disobeyed the injunction. He had over the injunction. He had overed. He had overed. only got what he deserved. Thoughtfully he closed the book and slid the rubber band once more into its place. Sadder and wiser, he went out onto the terrace. And so this, he reflected, this was how Jenny employed the leisure hours in her ivory tower apart. And he had thought her a simple-minded, uncritical creature. It was he, it seemed, he was the fool. He felt no resentment towards Jenny. No, the distressing thing wasn't Jenny herself. It was

what she and the phenomenon of her red book represented, what they stood for and concretely symbolized. They represented all the vast, conscious world of men outside himself. They symbolized something that in his studious solitariness he was apt not to believe in. He could stand at Piccadilly Circus, he could watch the crowds shuffle past, and still imagine himself the one fully conscious, intelligent individual being among all those thousands. it seemed somehow impossible that other people should be in their way as elaborate and complete as he in his impossible and yet periodically he would make some painful discovery about the external world and the horrible reality of its consciousness and its intelligence the red notebook was one of these discoveries a footprint in the sand it put beyond a doubt the fact that the outer world really existed sitting on the balustrade of the terrace he ruminated this unpleasant truth for some time. Still, chewing on it, he strolled pensively down towards the swimming pool.

A peacock and his hen trailed their shabby finery across the turf of the lower lawn. Odeous birds, their necks thick and greedily fleshy at the roots, tapered up to the cruel inanity of their brainless heads, their flat eyes and piercing beaks. The fabulous were right, he reflected, when they took beasts to illustrate their tractates of human morality. animals resemble men with all the truthfulness of a caricature. Oh, the red notebook. He threw a piece of stick at the slowly pacing birds. They rushed towards it, thinking it was something to eat.

He walked on. The profound shade of a giant Ilex tree engulfed him, like a great wooden octopus. It spread its long arms abroad. Under the spreading Ilex tree, he tried to remember who the poem was by, but couldn't. The smith, a brawny man is he, with eyes. arms like rubber bands. Just like his, he would have to try and do his muller exercises more

regularly. He emerged once more into the sunshine, the pool lay before him, reflecting in its bronze mirror the blue and various greens of the summer day. Looking at it, he thought of Anne's bare arms and seal sleek, bathing dress, her moving knees and feet. A little loose with the white legs and bounding barbary. Oh, these rags and tags. of other people's making, would he ever be able to call his brain his own? Was there indeed anything in it that was truly his own, or was it simply an education? He walked slowly round the water's edge, in an embayed recess among the surrounding yew trees, leaning her back against the pedestal of a pleasantly comic version of the Medici Venus, executed by some

nameless mason of the Seciento, he saw Mary pensively sitting. Hello, he said, for he was passing so close to her that he had to say something. Mary looked up, hello, she answered in a melancholy, uninterested tone. In this alcove hewed out of the dark trees, the atmosphere seemed to Dennis agreeably elegiac. He sat down beside her under the shadow of the Pudic goddess. There was a prolonged silence. At breakfast that morning, Mary had found on her plate a picture postcard of Gobbly Great Park, a stately Georgian pile, the façade sixteen windows wide. Partairs in the foreground, huge, smooth lawns receding out of the picture to right and left.

Ten years more of the hard times and gobbly with all its peers will be deserted and decaying, 50 years and the countryside will know the old landmarks no more. They will have vanished as the monasteries vanished before them. At the moment, however, Mary's mind was not moved by these considerations. On the back of the postcard next to the address was written in Iva's bold large hand, a single quatrain. Hail made of moonlight, bright of the sun, farewell, like plumes molted in an angel's flight. Their sleep within my heart's most mystic cell, memories of morning, memories of the night.

There followed a postscript of three lines. Would you mind asking one of the housemaids to forward the packet of safety razor blades I left in the the drawer of my washstand, thanks, Iver. Seated under the Venus' immemorial gesture, Mary considered life and love. The abolition of her repression so far from bringing the expected peace of mind had brought nothing but disquiet, a new and hitherto, unexperienced misery. Iver, Iver, she couldn't do without him now. It was evident, on the other hand, from the poem on the back of the picture postcard, that Iva could very well do without her. he was at gobbly now so was zenobia mary knew zenobia she thought of the last verse of the song he had sung that night in the garden leon-demand felice pussar or ray

on mouton and chien for a bezae that the voulage to liseette done for ryan. Mary shed tears at the memory. She had never been so unhappy in all her life before. It was Dennis who first broke the silence. The individual he began in a soft and sadly philosophical tone is not a self-supporting universe. There are times when he comes into contact with other individuals when he is forced to take cognizance

of the existence of other universes besides himself. He had contrived this highly abstract generalisation as a preliminary to a personal confidence. It was the first gambit in a conversation that was to lead up to Jenny's caricatures. True, said Mary, and generalising for herself, she added, when one individual comes into intimate contact with another, she, or he, of course, as the case may be, must almost inevitably receive or inflict suffering. one is apt, Dennis went on, to be so spellbound by the spectacle of one's own personality that one forgets that the spectacle presents itself to other people as well as to oneself.

Mary was not listening. The difficulty, she said, makes itself acutely felt in matters of sex. If one individual seeks intimate contact with another individual in the natural way, she is certain to receive or inflict suffering. if, on the other hand, she avoids contacts, she risks the equally grave sufferings that follow on unnatural repressions. As you see, it's a dilemma. When I think of my own case, said Dennis, making a more decided move in the desired direction, I am amazed how ignorant I am of other people's mentality in general, and above all, and in particular, of their opinions about myself.

Our minds are sealed books only occasionally open to the outdoors. side world. He made a gesture that was faintly suggestive of the drawing off of a rubber band. "'It's an awful problem,' said Mary thoughtfully. "'One has to have had personal experience to realize quite how awful it is.' "'Exactly,' Dennis nodded. One has to have had first-hand experience. He leaned towards her and slightly lowered his voice. This very morning, for example, he began. But his confidences were cut short. The deep voice of the gonged tempered

by distance to a pleasant booming, floated down from the house. It was lunchtime. Mechanically, Mary rose to her feet and Dennis, a little hurt that she should exhibit such a desperate anxiety for her food and so slight an interest in his spiritual experiences followed her.

They made their way up to the house without speaking. End of chapter. Chapter 25 I hope you all realise, said Henry Wimbush during dinner, that next Monday is bank holiday, and you'll all be expected to help in the fair. Heavens, cried Anne the fair, I'd forgotten all about it. What a nightmare! Couldn't you put a stop to it, Uncle Henry?

Mr. Wimbush sighed and shook his head. Alas, he said, I fear I cannot. I should have liked to put an end to it years ago, but the claims of charity are strong. It's not charity we want, Anne murmured rebelliously, it's justice. Besides, Mr. Wimbush went on, the fair has become an institution. Let me see, it must be 22 years since we started it. It was a modest affair then. Now he made a sweeping movement with his hand and was silent.

It spoke highly for Mr. Wimbush's public spirit that he still continued to tolerate the fair. Beginning as a sort of glorified church bizarre, Chrome's yearly charity fair had grown into a noisy thing, of merry-go-round's coconut shies and miscellaneous side-shows, a real genuine fare on the grand scale. It was the local St. Bartholomew and the people of all the neighbouring villages, with even a contingent from the county town, flocked into the park for their bank holiday amusement. The local hospital profited handsomely, and it was this fact alone which prevented Mr Wimbush, to whom the fair was a cause of recurrent and never diminishing agony, from putting a stop to the

nuisance which yearly desecrated his park and garden. I've made all the arrangements already, Henry Wimbush went on. Some of the larger marquise will be put up tomorrow. The swings and the merry-go-round arrive on Sunday. So there's no escape, said Anne, turning to the rest of the party. You'll all have to do something. As a special favour, you're allowed to choose your slavery. My job is the tea-tent, as usual, Aunt Priscilla.

My dear, said Mrs. Wimbush, interrupting her, I have more important things to think about than the fair, but you need have no doubt that I shall do my best when Monday comes to encourage the villagers. That's splendid, said Anne. Aunt Priscilla will encourage the villagers. What will you do, Mary? I won't do anything where I have to stand by and watch other people eat. Then you'll look after the children's sports. All right, Barry agreed. I'll look after the children's sports. And Mr. Skogan? Mr. Skogan reflected,

"'May I be allowed to tell fortunes?' he asked at last. "'I think I should be good at telling fortunes.' "'But you can't tell fortunes in that costume. "'Can't I?' Mr. Skogan surveyed himself. "'You'll have to be dressed up. Do you still persist?' "'I'm ready to suffer all indignities.' "'Good,' said Anne. "'And turn to Gombold.

"'You must be our lightning artist,' she said. "'Your portrait for a shilling in five minutes.' "'It's a pity I'm not. either, said Gombold with a laugh. I could throw in a picture of their auras for an extra sixpence. Mary flushed, nothing is to be gained, she said severely, by speaking with levity of serious subjects. And, after all, whatever your personal views may be, psychical research is a perfectly serious subject. And what about Dennis? Dennis made a deprecating gesture. I have no accomplishments, he said, I'll just be one of those men who wear a thing in their buttonholes and go about telling people which is the way to tea and not to war.

on the grass. No, no, said Anne, that won't do. You must do something more than that. But what? All the good jobs are taken, and I can do nothing but lisp in numbers. Well, then, you must lisp, concluded Anne. You must write a poem for the occasion, an ode on bank holiday. We'll print it on Uncle Henry's Press and sell it at tuppence a copy.

Sixpence, Dennis protested. It'll be worth sixpence. Anne shook her head. Tuftons, she repeated firmly. Nobody will pay more than tuftons. And now there's Jenny, said Mr. Wimbush. Jenny, he said, raising his voice, what will you do? Dennis thought of suggesting that she might draw caricatures at six points in execution,

but decided it would be wiser to go on feigning ignorance of her talent. His mind reverted to the red notebook. Could it really be true that he looked like that? What I will do, Jenny echoed, what I will do, she frowned thoughtfully for a moment, then her face brightened and she smiled. when I was young, she said, I learned to play the drums. The drums? Jenny nodded, and in proof of her assertion, agitated her knife and fork like a pair of drumsticks over her plate. If there's any opportunity of playing the drums, she began.

But of course, said Anne, there's any amount of opportunity. We'll put you down definitely for the drums. That's the lot, she added. And a very good lot, too, said Gumbold. I look forward to my bank holiday. It ought to be gay. It ought, indeed, Mr Skogun assented, but you may rest assured that it won't be. No holiday is ever anything but a disappointment. Come, come, protested Gumbold, my holiday at Chrome isn't being a disappointment? Isn't it? Anne turned an ingenuous mask towards him. No, it isn't, he answered.

I'm delighted to hear it. It's in the very nature of things, Mr. Skogan went on. Our holidays can't help being disappointments. Reflect for a moment. What is a holiday? the ideal, the platonic holiday of holidays, is surely a complete and absolute change. You agree with me in my definition? Mr. Skogan glanced from face to face around the table.

His sharp nose moves in a series of rapid jerks through all the points of the compass. There was no sign of dissent. He continued, a complete and absolute change, very well. But isn't a complete and absolute change precisely the thing we can never have? Never, in the very nature of things. Mr. Skogan once more looked rapidly about him. Of course it is, as ourselves, as specimens of homo sapiens, as members of a society, how can we hope to have anything like an absolute change?

We are tied down by the frightful limitation of our human faculties, by the notions which society imposes on us through our fatal suggestibility, by our own personalities. For us, a complete holiday is out of the question. Some of us struggle manfully to take one, but we never succeed. if i may be allowed to express myself metaphorically we never succeed in getting farther than south end you're depressing said anne i mean to be mr skogan replied and expanding the fingers of his right hand he went on Look at me, for example. What sort of a holiday can I take? In endowing me with passion and faculties, nature has been horribly niggardly. The full range of human potentialities is, in any case, distressingly limited. My range is a limitation within a limitation. Out of the ten octaves that make up the human instrument, I can compass perhaps two. Thus, while I may have a certain amount of intelligence, I have no aesthetic sense. While I possess the mathematics, I have a faculty, I am wholly without the religious emotions. While I am naturally addicted to venery,

I have little ambition and am not at all avaricious. Education has further limited my scope. Having been brought up in society, I am impregnated with its laws. Not only should I be afraid of taking a holiday from them, I should also feel it painful to try to do so. In a word, I have a conscience, as well as a fear of jail. Yes, I know it. my experience. How often have I tried to take holidays to get away from myself, my own boring nature, my insufferable mental surroundings? Mr. Skogan sighed. But always without success, he added, always without success. In my youth I was always striving, how hard, to feel religiously and aesthetically. Here, said I to myself, are two tremendously important and exciting emotions. Life would be richer,

warmer, brighter, altogether more amusing if I could feel them. I try to feel them. I read the works of the mystics. They seem to me nothing but the most deplorable clap-trap, as indeed they always must to anyone who does not feel the same emotion as the authors felt when they were writing. For it is the emotion that matters. The written work is simply an attempt to express emotion, which is in itself inexpressible, in terms of intellect and logic. The mystic objectifies a rich feeling in the pit of the stomach into a cosmology. For other mystics, that cosmology is a symbol of the rich feeling. For the unreligious, it is a symbol of nothing, and so appears merely grotesque, a melancholy fact, but I divagate. Mr. Skogan checked himself. So much for the religious emotion.

As for the aesthetic, I was at even greater pains to cultivate that. I have looked at all the right works of art in every part of Europe. There was a time when, I venture to believe, I knew more about Tadeo di Pogabonzi, more about the cryptic amico de Tadeo even than Henry does. Today, I am happy to say, I have forgotten most of the knowledge I then so laboriously acquired. But without vanity, I can assert that it was prodigious. I don't pretend, of course, to know anything about nigger sculpture or the later 17th century in Italy, but about all the periods that were fashionable before 1900 I am or was omniscient. Yes, I repeat it, omniscient. But did that fact make me any more appreciative of art in general? It did not. Confronted by a picture of which

I could tell you all the known and presumed history, the date when it was painted, the character of the painter, the influences that had gone to make it what it was, I felt none of that strange excitement and exultation, which is, as I am informed by those who do feel it, the true aesthetic emotion. I felt nothing but a great weariness of spirit. Nevertheless, I must have gone on looking at pictures for ten years before I would honestly admit to myself that they merely bored me. Since then, I have given up all attempts to take a holiday. I go on cultivating my old stale daily self in the resigned spirit with which a bank clerk performs from ten till six his daily task. A holiday? Indeed, I'm sorry for you, Gumbold, if you still look forward to having a

holiday. Gunbold shrugged his shoulders. Perhaps, he said, my standards aren't as elevated as yours, but personally I found the war quite as thorough a holiday from all the ordinary decencies and sanities, all the common emotions and preoccupations, as I ever wanted to have. Yes, Mr. Skogan thoughtfully agreed, yes, the war was certainly something of a holiday. It was a step beyond South End, It was Western Supermare. It was almost Ilfracombe. End of chapter. Chrome Yellow by Alders Huxley, read for Librivox.org by Martin Clifton. Chapter 26

A little canvas village of tents and booths had sprung up, just beyond the boundaries of the garden in the green expanse of the park. A crowd thronged its streets the men dressed mostly in black, holiday best funeral best the women in pale muslins here and there tricolour bunting hung inert in the midst of the canvas town scarlet and gold and crystal the merry-go-round glittered in the sun the balloon man walked among the crowd and above his head like a huge inverted bunch of many-coloured grapes the balloons strained upwards with a scythe-like motion the boat swings reaped the air and from the funnel of the engine which worked the roundabout rose a thin, scarcely wavering column of black smoke. Dennis had climbed to the top of one of Sir Ferdinando's towers, and there, standing on the sun-baked lads, his elbows resting on the parapet,

he surveyed the scene. The steam organ sent up prodigious music, the clashing of the automatic symbols beat out with inexorable precision, the rhythm of piercingly sounded melodies, The harmonies were like a musical shattering of glass and brass. Far down in the base the last trump was hugely blowing, and with such persistence such resonance, that its alternate tonic and dominant detached themselves from the rest of the music

and made a tune of their own, a loud, monotonous seesaw. Dennis leaned over the gulf of swirling noise. If he threw himself over the parapet, the noise would surely buoy him up, keeping him suspended, bobbing, as a fountain balances a ball on its breaking crest. Another fancy came to him, this time in metrical form. My soul is a thin white sheet of parchment, stretched over a bubbling cauldron. Bad, bad, but he liked the idea of something thin and distended being blown up from underneath.

My soul is a thin tent of gut, or better my soul is a pale, tenuous membrane. Hmm, that was pleasing, a thin, tenuous membrane. It had the right anatomical quality, tight-blown, quivering in the blast of noisy life. It was time for him to descend from the serene emperion of words into the actual vortex. He went down slowly. My soul is a thin, tenuous membrane. On the terrace stood a knot of distinguished visitors. There was old Lord Moline, like a caricature of an English millerine.

lured in a French comic paper, a long man with a long nose and long drooping moustaches and long teeth of old ivory, and, lower down, absurdly, a short cover coat, and below that long, long legs cased in pearly grey trousers, legs that bent unsteadily at the knee and gave a kind of sideways wobble as he walked. Beside him, short and thick set stood Mr. Calame, the venerable conservative statesman, with a face like a Roman bust and short white hair. Young girls didn't much like going for motor drives alone with Mr. Calameh. And of old Lord Moline, one wondered why he wasn't living in a gilded exile on the island of Capri among the other distinguished persons who, for one reason or another,

find it impossible to live in England. They were talking to Anne, laughing, the one profoundly, the other hootingly. A black silk balloon towing a black-and-white striped parachute proved to be old Mrs. Budge from the big house on the other side of the valley. She stood low on the ground and the spikes of her black-and-white sunshade menaced the eyes of Priscilla Wimbush, who towed over her, a massive figure dressed in purple and topped with a queenly toke on which the nodding black plumes recalled the splendors of a first-class Parisian funeral.

Dennis peeped at them discreetly from the window of the morning room. His eyes were suddenly become innocent, childlike, unprejudiced. They seemed these people inconceivably fantastic, and yet they really existed. They functioned by themselves. They were conscious. They had minds. Moreover, he was like them.

Could one believe it? But the evidence of the Red Notebook was conclusive. It would have been polite to go and say, How do you do? but at the moment Dennis did not want to talk, could not have talked. His soul was a tenuous, tremulous, pale membrane. He would keep its sensibility intact and virgin as long as he could. Cautiously he crept out by a side door and made his way down towards the park.

His soul fluttered as he approached the noise and movement of the fair. He paused for a moment on the brink, then stepped in and was engulfed. hundreds of people each with his own private face and all of them real separate and alive the thought was disquieting he paid tuppence and saw the tattooed woman tuppence more the largest rat in the world from the home of the rat he emerged just in time to see a hydrogen-filled balloon break loose for home a child howled up after it but calmly a perfect sphere of flushed opal it mounted mounted Dennis followed it with his eyes until it became lost in the blinding sunlight. If he could but send his soul to follow it, he sighed, stuck his steward's rosette in his buttonhole, and started to push his way aimlessly but officially through the crowd.

End of chapter. Chrome Yellow by Aldous Huxley Read for Librivox.org by Martin Clifton. Chapter 27 Mr. Skogan had been accommodated in a little canvas hut dressed in a black skirt and a red bodice with a yellow and red bandana handkerchief tied round his black wig he looked sharp-nosed brown and wrinkled like the bohemian hag of frith's derby day a placard pinned to the curtain of the doorway announced the presence within the tent of sisostris the sorceress of ectana seated at the table mr skogan received his clients in mysterious silence, indicating with the movement of the finger that they were to sit down opposite him

and to extend their hands for his inspection. He then examined the palm that was presented him, using a magnifying glass and a pair of horn spectacles. He had a terrifying way of shaking his head, frowning and clicking with his tongue as he looked at the lines. Sometimes he would whisper as though to himself, Terrible, terrible, or God preserve us, sketching out the sign of the cross as he uttered the words the clients who came in laughing grew suddenly grave they began to take the witch seriously she was a formidable-looking woman could it be was it possible that there was something in this sort of thing after all after all they thought as the hag shook her head over their hands after all and they waited with an uncomfortably beating heart for the oracle to speak mr skogan would suddenly look up and ask in a hoarse whisper some horrifying questions such as have you ever been hit on the head with a hammer by a young man with red hair when the answer was in the negative which it could hardly fail to be mr skogan would nod several times saying i was afraid so everything is still to come still to come though it can't be very far off now

sometimes after a long examination he would just whisper where ignorance is bliss tis folly to be wise and refused to divulge any details of a future too appalling to be envisaged without despair cesostris had a success of horror people stood in a queue outside the witch's booth waiting for the privilege of hearing sentence pronounced upon them dennis in the course of his round looked with curiosity at this crowd of suppliants before the shrine of the shrine of the shrine of the room of his round looked with curiosity at this crowd of suppliants before the shrine of the Oracle. He had a great desire to see how Mr. Skogan played his part. The canvas booth was a rickety, ill-made structure. Between its walls and its sagging roof were long, gaping chinks and crannies. Dennis went to the tea-tent and borrowed a wooden bench and a small union jack. With these he hurried back to the booth of Sissostris. Setting down the bench at the back of the booth he climbed up, and with a great air of busy efficiency began to tie the Union Jack to the top of one of the tent poles. Through the crannies in the canvas he could see almost the whole of the interior of the tent.

Mr. Skogan's bandana-covered head was just below him. His terrifying whispers came clearly up. Dennis looked and listened while the witch prophesied financial losses, death by apoplexy, destruction by air raids in the next war. is there going to be another war asked the old lady to whom he had predicted this end very soon said mr skogan with an air of quiet confidence the old lady was succeeded by a girl dressed in white muslin garnished with pink ribbons she was wearing a broad hat so that denis could not see her face but from her figure and the roundness of her bare arms he judged her young and pleasing mr skogan looked at her hand and then whispered you are still virtuous. The young lady giggled and exclaimed, "'Oh, law!'

"'But you will not remain so for long,' added Mr. Skogan, sepulchraly. The young lady giggled again. Destiny, which interests itself in small things no less than in great, has announced the fact upon your hand. Mr. Skogan took up the magnifying glass and began once more to examine the white palm. "'Very interesting,' he said as though to himself, very interesting. It's as clear as day. He was silent. What's clear? asked the girl. I don't think I ought to tell you, Mr. Skogan shook his head.

The pendulous brass earrings which he had screwed onto his ears tinkled. Please, please, she implored. The witch seemed to ignore her remark. Afterwards, it's not at all clear. The fate don't say whether you will settle down to married life and have four children, or whether you will try to go, on the cinema and have none. They are only specific about this one rather crucial incident. What is it? What is it? Oh, do tell me. The white muslin figure leant eagerly forwards. Mr. Skogan sighed. Very well, he said, if you must know, you must know. But if anything untoward happens, you must blame your own curiosity. Listen, listen. He lifted up a sharp, claw-nailed forefinger. This is what the fates have written.

Next Sunday afternoon at six o'clock you will be sitting on the second style on the footpath that leads from the church to the lower road. At that moment a man will appear walking along the footpath. Mr. Skogan looked at her hand again as though to refresh his memory of the details of the scene. A man, he repeated, a small man with a sharp nose, not exactly good looking nor precisely young, but fascinating. He lingered hissingly over the ward. He will ask you, can you tell me the way to paradise?

And you will answer, yes, I will show you, and walk with him down towards the little hazel copse. I cannot read what will happen after that. There was a silence. Is it really true? asked White Muslin. The witch gave a shrug of the shoulders. I merely tell you what I read in your hand. Good afternoon.

That will be sixpence. Yes, I have changed, thank you. Good afternoon. Dennis stepped down from the bench, tied in securely and crookedly to the tent pole, the Union Jack hung limp on the windless air. If only I could do things like that, he thought, as he carried the bench back to the tea tent. Anne was sitting behind a long table filling thick white cups from an urn. A neat pile of printed sheets lay before her on the table. Dennis took one of them and looked at it affectionately.

it was his poem. They had printed 500 copies, and very nice the quarto broadsheets looked. "'Have you sold many?' he asked in a casual tone. Anne put her head on one side deprecatingly. "'Only three so far, I'm afraid, but I'm giving a free copy to everyone who spends more than a shilling on his tea, so in any case it's having a circulation.' Dennis made no reply, but walked slowly away. He looked at the broadsheet in his hand And read the lines to himself relishingly As he walked along This day of roundabouts and swings

Struck weights, shied coconuts tossed rings Switchbacks Aunt Salas And all such small hijinks But paper noses sniffed the artificial roses Of round Venetian cheeks Through half each carnival year And masks might laugh At things the naked face

For shame would blush at laugh and think no blame. A holiday, but Galba showed elephants on an airy road. Jumbo trod the tightrope then, and in the circus armed men stabbed home for sport and died to break those dull imperatives that make a prison of every working day, where all must drudge and all obey. Sing holiday, you do not know how to be free. The Russian snow floured with bright blood whose roses spread petals of fading, fading red, that died into the snow again, into the virgin snow,

and men from all ancient bonds were freed. Old law, old custom, and old creed. Old right and wrong there bled to death. The frozen air received their breath, the little smoke that died away, and round about them where they lay, the snow bloomed roses. Blood was there, a red, gay flower, and only fair.

Sing holiday. beneath the tree of innocence and liberty. Paper-nose and red cockade dance with the magic shade that makes them drunken, merry, and strong to laugh and sing their ferrial song. Free, free! But echo answers, faintly to the laughing dancers,

Free! And faintly laughs, and still, within the hollows of the hill, faintly laughs and whispers, Free, fadingly, diminishingly, Free, and laughter faints away, sing holiday, sing holiday. He folded the sheet carefully and put it in his pocket. The thing had its merits.

Oh, decidedly, decidedly. But how unpleasant the crowd smelled. He lit a cigarette. The smell of cows was preferable. He passed through the gate into the park wall, into the garden. The swimming pool was a centre of noise and activity. Second heat in the Young Ladies' Championship. It was the polite voice of Henry Wimbush.

A crowd of sleek, seal-like figures in black bathing dresses surrounded him. his gray bowler hat smooth round and motionless in the midst of a moving sea was an island of aristocratic calm holding his tortoise-shell-rimmed pounc an inch or two in front of his eyes he read out names from a list miss dolly miles miss rebecca ballister miss doris gable five young persons range themselves on the brink from their seats of honour at the other end of the pool old lord mowlin and mr calumman and mr looked on with eager interest. Henry Wimbush raised his hand. There was an expectant silence. When I say go, go, go, he said. There was an almost simultaneous splash.

Dennis pushed his way through the spectators. Somebody plucked him by the sleeve. He looked down. It was old Mrs. Budge. Delighted to see you again, Mr. Stone, she said in her rich husky voice. She panted a little as she spoke like a short-winded lap-dog. It was Mrs. Budge who, having read in the daily mirror that the government

needed peach stones, what they needed them for she never knew, had made the collection of peach stones her peculiar bit of woolwork. She had 36 peach trees in her walled garden, as well as four hot houses in which trees could be forced, so that she was able to eat peaches practically the whole year round. In 1916 she ate 4,200 peaches, and sent the stone. to the government. In 1917, the military authorities called up three of her daughters, and what with this and the fact that it was a bad year for warfruit, she only managed to eat 2,900 peaches during that crucial period of the national destinies. In 1918, she did rather better, for between January 1st and the date of the armistice, she ate 3,300 peaches.

Since the armistice, she had relaxed her efforts. Now she did not eat more than two or three peaches a day. Her constitution, she complained, had suffered, but it had suffered for a good cause. Dennis answered her greeting by a vague and polite noise. So nice to see the young people enjoying themselves, Mrs. Budge went on. And the old people, too, for that matter. Look at Old Lord Mowlin and dear Mr. Calame. Isn't it delightful to see the way they enjoy themselves? Dennis looked. He wasn't sure whether it was so very delightful after all. Why didn't they go and watch the sack races?'

The two old gentlemen are engaged, at the moment, in congratulating the winner of the race. It seemed an act of supererogatory graciousness, for, after all, she had only won a heat. Pretty little thing, isn't she, said Mrs. Budge huskily, and panted two or three times. Yes, Dennis nodded agreement. Sixteen, slender, but nubile, he said to himself, and laid up the phrase in his memory as a happy one. old Mr. Calamé had put on his spectacles to congratulate the victor, and Lord Moulin, leaning forward over his walking stick, showed his long ivory teeth, hungrily smiling. Capital Performance Capital, Mr. Calamay was saying in his deep voice. The victor wriggled with embarrassment. She stood with her hands behind her back, rubbing one foot nervously on the other.

Her wet bathing dress shone, a torso of black, polished marble. Very good indeed, said Lord Moline. His voice. voice seemed to come from just behind his teeth a toothy voice it was as though a dog should suddenly begin to speak he smiled again mr calameh readjusted his spectacles when i say go go go splash the third heat had started do you know i never could learn to swim said mrs budge really but i used to be able to float denis imagined her floating up and down up and down on a great green swell A blown black bladder. No, that wasn't good. That wasn't good at all. A new winner was being congratulated. She was atrociously stubby and fat. The last one long and harmoniously, continuously curved from knee to breast, had been an eve by Kranach. But this, this one was a bad Rubens. Go, go, go, go. Henry Wimbush's polite, level voice once more

pronounced the formula. Another batch of young ladies dived in. Grown a little weary of sustaining a conversation with Mrs. Budge, Dennis conveniently remembered that his duties as a steward called him elsewhere. He pushed out through the lines of spectators and made his way along the path left clear behind them. He was thinking again that his soul was a pale, tenuous membrane, when he was startled by hearing a thin, sibilant voice speaking, apparently from just above his head, pronounce the single word disgusting. He looked up sharply. The path along which he was walking passed under the lee of a wall of clipped ewe. Behind the hedge the ground sloped steeply up

towards the foot of the terrace and the house. For one standing on the higher ground it was easy to look over the dark barrier. Looking up, Dennis saw two heads overtopping the hedge immediately above him. He recognised the iron mask of Mr. Bodium and the pale, colourless face of his wife. They were looking over his head, over the heads of the spectators at the swimmers in the pond.

Disgusting, Mrs. Boddenham repeated, hissing softly. The rector turned up his iron mask towards the solid cobalt of the sky. How long, he said as though to himself, how long. He lowered his eyes again, and they fell on Dennis's upturned, curious face. There was an abrupt movement, and Mr. and Mrs. Bodiam popped out of sight behind the hedge. Dennis continued his promenade. He wandered past the merry-go-round through the thronged streets of the canvas village,

the membrane of his soul flapped tumultuously in the noise of the laughter. In a roped-off space beyond, Mary was directing the children's sports. Little creatures seethed around her, making a shrill, tinny clamour. Others clustered about the skirts and trousers of their parents. Mary's face was shining in the heat,

With an immense output of energy, she started a three-legged race. Dennis looked on in admiration. "'You're wonderful,' he said, coming up behind her and touching her on the arm. I've never seen such energy. She turned towards him a face, round, red, and honest as the setting sun. The golden bell of her hair swung silently as she moved her head and quivered to rest. Do you know, Dennis, she said, in a low, serious voice, gasping a little as she spoke. do you know that there's a woman here who has had three children in thirty-one months really said dennis making rapid mental calculations it's appalling i've been telling her about the malthusian league one really ought

but a sudden violent renewal of the metallic yelling announced the fact that somebody had won the race mary became once more the centre of a dangerous vortex it was time dennis thought to move on he might be asked to do something if he stayed too long he turned back towards the canvas village the thought of tea was making itself insistent in his mind tea tea-tie but the tea-tent was horribly thronged anne with an unusual expression of grimness on her flushed face was furiously working the handle of the urn the brown liquid spurted incessantly into the proffered cups portentous in the farther corner of the tent priscilla in her royal toke was encouraging the villagers In a momentary lull, Dennis could hear her deep, jovial laughter and her manly voice. Clearly, he told himself this was no place for one who wanted tea. He stood irresolute at the entrance of the tent. A beautiful thought suddenly came to him. If he went back to the house, went unobtrusively, without being observed,

if he tiptoed into the dining-room and noiselessly opened the little doors of the sideboard, ah, then, in the cool recess within he would find bottles and a siphon. a bottle of crystal gin and a quart of soda water, and then for the cups that inebriate as well as cheer. A minute later he was walking briskly up the shady yew-tree walk. Within the house it was deliciously quiet and cool. Carrying his well-filled tumbler with care, he went into the library. There, the glass on the corner of the table beside him,

he settled into a chair with a volume of Saint-Beouvre. There was nothing he found, like a Cozourie du Londie, for settling and soothing the troubled spirits. That tenuous membrane of his had been too rudely buffeted by the afternoon's emotions. It required a rest. End of chapter. Chrome Yellow by Aldous Huxley, read for Librivox.org by Martin Clifton. Chapter 28.

Towards sunset the fair itself became quiescent. It was the hour for the dancing to begin. At one side of the village, of tents, space had been roped off, acetylene lamps hung round it on posts, casting a piercing white light. In one corner sat the band, and, obedient to its scraping and blowing, two or three hundred dancers tramped across the dry ground, wearing away the grass with their booted feet. Round this patch of all but daylight, alive with motion and noise, the night seemed preternaturally dark. Bars of light reached out into it, and every now and then a lonely feeling.

figure, or a couple of lovers, interlaced, would cross the bright shaft, flashing for a moment into visible existence, to disappear again as quickly and surprisingly as they had come. Dennis stood by the entrance of the enclosure watching the swaying, shuffling crowd. The slow vortex brought the couples round and round again before him, as though he were passing them in review. There was Priscilla still wearing her queenly toke, still encouraging the villagers, this time by dancing with one of the tenant farmers. There was Lord Moline, who had stayed on to the disorganised,

Passoverish meal that took the place of dinner on this festal day. He, one-step, shamblingly, his bent knees more precariously wobbly than ever, with a terrified beauty. Mr. Skogan trotted around with another. Mary was in the embrace of a young farmer of heroic proportions. She was looking up at him, talking, as Dennis could see, very seriously. What about, he wondered? The Malthusian League, perhaps.

Seated in the corner among the band, Jenny was performing wonders of virtuosity upon the drums. Her eyes shone, she smiled to herself. A whole subterranean life seemed to be expressing itself in those loud rat tats, those long rolls and flourishes of drumming. Looking at her, Dennis ruefully remembered the red notebook. He wondered what sort of a figure he was cutting now.

But the sight of Anne. Anne and Gomboldt swimming past, Anne, with her eyes almost shut and sleeping, as it were, on the sustaining wings of movement and music, dissipated these preoccupations. Male and female created he them. There they were, Anne and Gombold and a hundred couples more, all stepping harmoniously together to the old tune of male and female created he them. But Dennis sat apart. He alone lacked his complementary opposite.

They were all coupled. but he, all but he. Somebody touched him on the shoulder and he looked up. It was Henry Wimbush. I never showed you our oaken drain pipes, he said. Some of the ones we dug up are lying quite close to here. Would you like to come and see them? Dennis got up and they walked off together into the darkness.

The music grew fainter behind them. Some of the higher notes faded out altogether. Jenny's drumming and the steady sawing of the bass throbbed on, tuneless and meaningless in their ears. Henry Wimbush halted. Here we are, he said, and, taking an electric torch out of his pocket, he cast a dim beam over two or three blackened section of tree trunks scooped out into the semblance of pipes,

which were lying forlornly in a little depression in the ground. Very interesting, said Dennis, with a rather tepid enthusiasm. They sat down on the grass, a faint white glare rising from behind a belt of trees indicated the position of the dancing floor. The music was nothing but a muffled rhythmic pulse. I shall be glad, said Henry Wimbush, when this function comes at last to an end. I can believe it. I do not know how it is, Mr. Wimbush continued,

but the spectacle of numbers of my fellow creatures in a state of agitation moves in me a certain weariness rather than any gaiety or excitement. The fact is they don't very much interest me, they aren't in my life, You follow me? I could never take much interest, for example, in a collection of postage stamps. Primitives or 17th century books, yes, they are my line, but stamps, no. I don't know anything about them. They're not my line. They don't interest me. They give me no emotion. It's rather the same with people, I'm afraid. I'm more at home with these pipes. He jerked his head sideways towards the hollowed logs. The trouble with the people and the events of the presence is that you never know anything about them.

What do I know of contemporary politics? Nothing. What do I know of the people I see around me? Nothing. What they think of me or of anything else in the world, what they will do in five minutes' time, are things I just can't guess at. For all I know, you may suddenly jump up

and try to murder me in a moment's time. Come, come, said Dennis. True, Mr. Wimbush continued, the little I know about your past is certainly reassuring, but I know nothing of your present, and neither you nor I know anything of your future. It's appalling. In living people, one is dealing with unknown and unknowable quantities. One can only hope to find out anything about them, by a long series of the most disagreeable

and boring human contacts, involving a terrible expense of time. It's the same with current events. How can I find out anything about them, except by devoting years to the most exhausting first-hand study? Involving, once more, an endless number of the most unpleasant contacts? No, give me the past. It doesn't. change, it's all there in black and white, and you can get to know about it comfortably and decorously, and above all, privately, by reading. By reading, I know a great deal of Caesar Borgia, of St Francis, of Dr. Johnson. A few weeks have made me thoroughly acquainted with these

interesting characters, and I have been spared the tedious and revolting process of getting to know them by personal contact, which I should have to do if they were living now. How gay and delightful life would be if one could get rid of all the human contacts. Perhaps in the future when machines have attained to a state of perfection, for I confess that I am, like Godwin and Shelley, a believer in perfectability, the perfectability of machinery then, perhaps, it will be possible for those who, like myself, desire it, to live in a dignified seclusion, surrounded by the delicate attentions of silent and graceful machines, and entirely secure from any human intrusion. It's a beautiful thought. beautiful, Dennis agreed, but what about the desirable human contacts like love and friendship?

The black silhouette against the darkness shook its head. The pleasures even of these contacts are much exaggerated, said the polite, level voice. It seems to me doubtful whether they're equal to the pleasure of private reading and contemplation. Human contacts have been so highly valued in the past, only because reading was not a common accomplishment, and because books were scarce and difficult to reproduce. The world you must remember is only just becoming literate. As reading becomes more and more habitual and widespread, an ever-increasing number of people will discover that books will give them all the pleasures of social life, and none of its intolerable tedium. At present, people in search of pleasure naturally tend to congregate in

large herds and to make a noise. In future their natural tendency will be to seek solitude and quiet. The proper study of mankind is books. I sometimes think that it may be, said Dennis. He was wondering if Anne and Gombold were still dancing together. Instead of which, said Mr. Wimbush with a sigh, I must go and see if all is well on the dancing floor. They got up and began to walk slowly towards the white glare. If all these people were dead, Henry Wimbush went on, this festivity would be extremely agreeable. Nothing would be pleasanter than to read in a well-written book of an open-air ball that took place a century ago. How charming, one would say, how pretty and how amusing. But when the ball takes place today, when one finds oneself involved in it, then one sees the thing in its true light.

It turns out to be merely this. He waved his hand in the direction of the acetylene flares. In my youth, he went on after a pause, I found myself, quite fortuitously, involved in a series of the most phantasmagoric amorous intrigues. A novelist could have made his fortune out of them, and even if I were to tell you in my bald style the details of these adventures, you would be amazed at the romantic tale. But I assure you, while they were happening, these romantic adventures, they seemed to me no more and no less exciting than any other incident of actual life. to climb by night up a rope ladder to a second-floor window in an old house in Toledo seemed to me, while I was actually performing this rather dangerous feat,

an action as obvious as much to be taken for granted as, how shall I put it, as quotidian as catching the 852 from Servetton to go to business on a Monday morning. Adventures and romance only take on their adventurous and romantic qualities at second-hand. Live them and they are just a slice of life like the rest. literature, they become as charming as this dismal ball would be if we were celebrating its tersentenary. They had come to the entrance of the enclosure and stood there, blinking in the dazzling light. Ah, if only we were, Henry Wimbush added. Anne and Gombold were still dancing together. End of chapter.

Chrome Yellow by Alders Huxley read for Librivox.org by Martin Clifton. Chapter 29. It was after 10 o'clock the dancers had already disposed. burst, and the last lights were being put out. Tomorrow the tents would be struck, the dismantled merry-go-round would be packed into wagons and carted away. An expanse of worn grass, a shabby brown patch in the wide green of the park, would be all that remained. Chrome fair was over.

By the edge of the pool, two figures lingered. No, no, no, Anne was saying in a breathless whisper, leaning backwards, turning her head from side to side in an effort to escape Gombold's kisses. No, please, no, her raised voice had become imperative. Gombold relaxed his embrace a little. Why not, he said, I will. With a sudden effort, Anne freed herself. You won't, she retorted.

You've tried to take the most unfair advantage of me. Unfair advantage, echoed Gumbold in genuine surprise. Yes, unfair advantage. You attack me after I've been dancing for two hours. while I'm still reeling drunk with the movement, when I've lost my head and when I've got no mind left, but only a rhythmical body. It's as bad as making love to someone you've drugged or intoxicated. Gombold laughed angrily. Call me a white slaver and have done with it. Luckily, Anne said, I am now completely sobered, and if you try and kiss me again, I shall box your ears.

Shall we take a few turns round the pool, she added? The night is delicious. For answer, Gombold made an irritated noise. They paced off slowly side by side. What I like about the painting of Degar, Anne began, in her most detached and conversational tone. Oh, damn Degar, Gombold was almost shouting. From where he stood, leaning in an attitude of despair against the parapet of the terrace, Dennis had seen them, the two pale figures in a patch of moonlight, far down by the pool's edge. he had seen the beginning of what promised to be an endless passionate embracement and at the sight he had fled it was too much he couldn't stand it in another moment he felt he would have burst into irrepressible tears

dashing blindly into the house he almost ran into mr skogan who was walking up and down the hall smoking a final pipe hello said mr skogan catching him by the arm dazed and hardly conscious of what he was doing or where he was denis stood there for a moment like a somnambulist. What's the matter, Mr. Skogan went on? You look disturbed, distressed, depressed. Dennis shook his head without replying. Worried about the cosmos, eh? Mr. Skogan patted him on the arm. I know the feeling, he said.

It's a most distressing symptom. What's the point of it all? All is vanity. What's the good of continuing to function if one's doomed to be snuffed out at last, along with everything else? Yes, yes. I know exactly how you feel.

It's most distressing if one allows oneself to be distressed. But then why allow oneself to be distressed? After all, we all know that there's no ultimate point. But what difference does that make? At this point the somnambulist suddenly woke up. What, he said, blinking and frowning at his interlocutor? What? Then, breaking away, he dashed up the stairs two steps at a time.

Mr. Skogan ran to the foot of the stairs and called up after him. It makes no difference, none whatever, life is gay all the same, always under whatever circumstances, under whatever circumstances, he added, raising his voice to a shout. But Dennis was already far out of hearing, and even if he had not been, his mind tonight was proof against all the consolations of philosophy. Mr. Skogan replaced his pipe between his teeth and resumed his meditative pacing. Under any circumstances, he repeated himself. It was ungrammatical to begin with. Was it true, and is life really its own reward? He wondered.

When his pipe had burned itself to its stinking conclusion, he took a drink of gin and went to bed. In ten minutes he was deeply, innocently asleep. Dennis had mechanically undressed and clad in those flowered silk pyjamas, of which he was so justly proud, was lying face downwards on his bed. Time passed, when at last he looked up,

The candle which he had left a light at his bedside had burned down almost to the socket. He looked at his watch. It was nearly half-past one. His head ached, his dry, sleepless eyes felt as though they had been bruised from behind, and the blood was beating within his ears a loud arterial drum. He got up, opened the door, tiptoed noiselessly along the passage, and began to mount the stairs toward the higher floors. arrived at the servant's quarters under the roof he hesitated,

then turning to the right he opened a little door at the end of the corridor. Within was a pitch-dark, cupboard-like box-room, hot, stuffy and smelling of dust and old leather. He advanced cautiously into the blackness, groping with his hands. It was from this den that the ladder went up to the leds of the western tower. He found the ladder and set his feet on the rungs. Noiselessly he lifted the trap-door above his head. The moonlight sky was over him. He breathed the fresh, cool air of the night.

In a moment he was standing on the lads, gazing out over the dim, colourless landscape, looking perpendicularly down at the terrace 70 feet below. Why had he climbed up to this high, desolate place? Was it to look at the moon? Was it to commit suicide? As yet he hardly knew. Death, the tears, came into his life.

eyes when he thought of it. His misery assumed a certain solemnity. He was lifted up on the wings of a kind of exultation. It was a mood in which he might have done almost anything, however foolish. He advanced towards the farther parapet. The drop was sheer there and uninterrupted. A good leap, and perhaps one might clear the narrow terrace, and so crashed down yet another thirty feet to the sun-bate ground below. He paused at the corner of the tower. looking now down into the shadowy gulf below now up towards the rare stars and the waning moon he made a gesture with his hand muttered something he could not afterwards remember what but the fact that he had said it aloud gave the utterance a peculiarly terrible significance then he looked down once more into the depths what are you doing dennis questioned a voice from somewhere very close to him denis uttered a cry of frightened surprise and very nearly went over the parapet in good earnest his heart was beating terribly and he was pale when recovering himself he turned round in the direction from which the voice had come are you ill

in the profound shadow that slept under the eastern parapet of the tower he saw something he had not previously noticed an oblong shape it was a mattress and someone was lying on it since that first memorable night on the tower men a little night on the tower Mary had slept out every evening. It was a sort of manifestation of fidelity. It gave me a fright, she went on, to wake up and see you waving your arms and gibbering there. What on earth were you doing? Dennis laughed melodramatically. What indeed, he said. If she hadn't woken up as she did, he would be lying in pieces at the bottom of the tower. He was certain of that, now. You hadn't got designs on me, I hope, Mary inquired, jumping too rapidly to conclusions.

I didn't know you were here, said Dennis, laughing more bitterly and artificially than before. What is the matter, Dennis? He sat down on the edge of the mattress, and for all reply went on laughing in the same frightful and improbable tone. An hour later he was reposing with his head on Mary's knees, and she, with an affectionate solicitude that was wholly maternal, was running her fingers through his tangled hair. He had told her everything, everything, his hopeless love, his jealousy, his despair, his suicide, as it were providentially averted by her interposition. He had solemnly promised never to think of self-destruction again, and now his soul was floating in a sad serenity. It was embalmed in the sympathy that Mary so generously poured.

And it was not only in receiving sympathy that Dennis found serenity and even a kind of happiness, it was also in giving it. For, if he had told Mary everything, about his miseries, Mary, reacting to these confidences, had told him in return everything, or very nearly everything, about her own. Poor Mary, he was very sorry for her. Still, she might have guessed that Iver wasn't precisely a monument of constancy. Well, she concluded, one must put a good face on it. She wanted to cry, but she wouldn't allow herself to be weak. There was a silence. Do you think, asked Dennis, hesitatingly, do you really think that she that gombalt i'm sure of it mary answered decisively there was another long pause i don't know what to do about it he said at last utterly dejected you'd better go away advised mary it's the safest thing and the most sensible but i've arranged to stay here three weeks more you must concoct an excuse i suppose you're right i know i am said mary who was recovering all her firm self-possession you can't go on like this can you

no i can't go on like this he echoed immensely practical mary invented a plan of action startlingly in the darkness the church clock struck three you must go to bed at once she said i had no idea it was so late denis clambered down the ladder cautiously descended the creaking stairs his room was dark the candle had long ago gutted to extinction he got into bed and fell asleep almost at once End of chapter. without opening his eyes. The latch clicked, a hand seized him by the shoulder, and he was rudely shaken. Get up, get up! His eyelids blinked painfully apart, and he saw Mary standing over him, bright-faced and earnest. Get up, she repeated, you must go and send the telegram, don't you remember?

Oh, Lord, he threw off the bedclothes. His tormentor retired. Dennis dressed as quickly as he could and ran up the road to the village post-office. Satisfaction glowed within him as he returned. He had sent a long telegram, which would in a few hours evoke an answer ordering him back to town at once on urgent business. It was an act performed, a decisive step taken, and he so rarely took decisive steps, he felt pleased with himself. It was with a wetted appetite that he came into breakfast. Good morning, said Mr. Skogan. I hope you're better.

Better? You were rather worried about the cosmos last night. Dennis tried to laugh away the impeachment. Was I? he lightly asked. I wish, said Mr. Skogan, that I had nothing worse to prey on my mind. I should be a happy man.

One is only happy in action, Dennis enunciated, thinking of the telegram. He looked out of the window, great, florid, baroque clouds floating high in the blue heaven. A wind stirred among the trees and their shaken foliage

twinkled and glittered like metal in the sun. Everything seemed marvellously beautiful. At the thought that he was, would soon be leaving all this beauty he felt a momentary pang, but he comforted himself by recollecting how decisively he was acting. Action, he repeated aloud, and going over to the sideboard, he helped himself to an agreeable mixture of bacon and fish. Breakfast over, Dennis repaired to the terrace, and, sitting there, raised the enormous bulwark of the times against the possible assaults of Mr. Skogan, who showed an unappeased desire to go on talking about the universe.

Secure behind the crackling pages he meditated. In the light of this brilliant morning, the emotions of last night seemed somehow rather remote, and what if he had seen them embracing in the moonlight? Perhaps it didn't mean much after all. And, even if it did, why shouldn't he stay? He felt strong enough to stay, strong enough to be aloof, disinterested, a mere friendly acquaintance. Even if he weren't strong enough, what time do you think there's a lot of? the telegram will arrive, asked Mary, suddenly, thrusting in upon him over the top of the paper.

Dennis started guiltily. I don't know at all, he said. I was only wondering, said Mary, because there's a very good train at 3.27, and it would be nice if you could catch it, wouldn't it? Awfully nice, he agreed weekly. He felt as though he were making arrangements for his own funeral. Train leaves Waterloo, 327. No flowers. Mary was gone. No, he was blowed if he had let himself be hurried down to the necropolis like this. He was blowed. The sight of Mr. Skogan looking out with a hungry expression from the drawing-room window made him precipitately hoist the times once more. For a long while he kept it hoisted. Lowering it at last to take another

cautious peep at his surroundings, he found himself, with what astonishment, confronted by Anne's faint, amused, malicious smile. She was standing before him, the woman who was a tree. the swaying grace of her movement arrested in a pose that seemed itself a movement. How long have you been standing there? he asked, when he had done gaping at her. Oh, about half an hour, I suppose, she said airily. You are so very deep in your paper. Head over ears. I didn't like to disturb you. You look lovely this morning, Dennis exclaimed. It was the first time he had ever had the courage to utter a personal remark of the kind. Anne held up her hand as though to ward off a blow.

Don't bludgeon me, please. She sat down on the bench beside him. He was a nice boy, she thought, quite charming, and Gombold's violent insistences were really becoming rather tiresome. Why don't you wear white trousers, she asked. I like you so much in white trousers. They're at the wash, Dennis replied rather curtly. This white trouser business was all in the wrong spirit.

He was just preparing a scheme to manoeuvre the conversation back to the proper path, when Mr. Skogan suddenly darted out of the house, crossed the terrace with clockwork rapidity, and came to a halt in front of the bench on which they were seated. To go on with our interesting conversation about the cosmos, he began, I become more and more convinced that the various parts of the concern are fundamentally discreet, but would you mind Dennis moving a shade to your right? He wedged himself between them on the bench. And if you would shift a few inches to the left, my dear Anne, thank you. discreet i think was what i was saying you were said anne denis was speechless they were taking their afternoon lunch and coffee in the library when the telegram arrived denis blushed guiltily as he took the orange envelope from the salver and tore it open

return at once urgent family business it was too ridiculous as if he had any family business wouldn't it be best just to crumple the thing and put it in his pocket without saying anything about it he was too ridiculous he was too ridiculous as if he had any family business wouldn't it be best just to crumple the thing and put it in his pocket without saying anything about it he looked up. Mary's large, blue, China eyes were fixed upon him, seriously, penetratingly. He blushed more deeply than ever, hesitated in a horrible uncertainty. "'What's your telegram about?' Mary asked significantly. He lost his head. "'I'm afraid,' he mumbled. "'I'm afraid this means I shall have to go back to town at once.' He frowned at the telegram ferociously. "'But that's absurd, impossible!' cried Anne.

She had been standing by the window talking to Gumbold, but at Dennis's words she came swaying across the room towards him. It's urgent, he repeated desperately. But you've only been here such a short time, Anne protested. I know, he said utterly miserable. Oh, if only she could understand, women were supposed to have intuition. If he must go, he must put in Mary firmly. Yes, I must.

He looked at the telegram again for inspiration. You see, it's urgent. "'It's an urgent family business,' he explained. "'Priscilla got up from her chair in some excitement. "'I had a distinct presentiment of this last night,' she said. "'A distinct presentiment.' "'A mere coincidence, no doubt,' said Mary, "'brushing Mrs. Wimbush out of the conversation.

"'There's a very good train at 3.27.' She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. "'You'll have nice time to pack.' "'I'll order the motor at once.' Henry Wimbush rang the bell. "'The funeral was well underway. "'It was awful. "'I'm wretched you should be going,' said Anne.

Dennis turned towards her. She really did look wretched. He abandoned himself hopelessly, fantastically to his destiny. This was what came of action of doing something decisive. If only he had just let things drift, if only. "'I shall miss your conversation,' said Mr. Skogan. Mary looked at the clock again. I think perhaps you ought to go and pack,' she said.

obediently Dennis left the room. Never again, he said to himself, never again would he do anything decisive. Camlet, West Bulby, nipswich for timpany, spavin, Dallowar, and then all the other stations, and then, finally, London.

The thought of the journey appalled him. And what on earth was he going to do in London when he got there? He climbed wearily up the stairs. It was time for him to lay himself in his coffin. the car was at the door the hearse the whole party had assembled to see him go good-bye good-bye mechanically he tapped the barometer that hung in the porch the needle stirred perceptibly to the left a sudden smile lighted up his lugubrious face it sinks and i am ready to depart he said quoting landor with an exquisite aptness he looked quickly round from face to face nobody had noticed he climbed into the hurried End of recording.