Free Rodmoor by John Cowper Powys Page B

jerked his thumb towards the window. “Our friend Tassar does it by the help of Flambard over there.” He indicated the Venetian. “I do it by the help of my medicine-chest . Hamish Traherne does it by saying his prayers. What I should like to know is how you ,” he stretched a warning finger in the direction of Sorio, “propose to do it.”
    Baltazar at this point jumped up from his seat.
    “Oh, shut up, Fingal,” he cried peevishly. “You’ll make Adrian unendurable. I’m perfectly sick of hearing references to this absurd salt-water. Other people have to live in coast towns besides ourselves. Why can’t you let the thing take its proper position? Why can’t you take it for granted? The whole subject gets on my nerves. It bores me, I tell you, it bores me to tears.For Heaven’s sake, let’s talk of something else—of any damned thing. You both make me thoroughly wretched with your sea whispers. It’s as bad as having to spend an evening at Oakguard alone with Aunt Helen and Philippa.”
    His peevishness had an instantaneous effect upon Sorio who pushed him affectionately back into his chair and handed him his glass. “So sorry, Tassar,” he said. “I won’t do it again. I was beginning to feel a little odd to-night. One can’t go through the experience of cerebral dementia—doesn’t that sound right, Doctor?—without some little trifling after- effects . Come, let’s be sensible and talk of things that are really important. It’s not an occasion to be missed, is it, Tassar, having the Doctor here and punch made with brandy instead of rum, on the table? What interests me so much just now,” he placed himself in front of the fire-place and sighed heavily, “is what a person ’s to do who hasn’t got a penny and is unfit for every sort of occupation. What do you advise, Doctor? And by the way, why have you eaten up all the macaroons while I was talking?”
    This remark really did seem a little to embarrass the person indicated, but Sorio continued without waiting for a reply.
    “Yes, I suppose you’re right, Tassar. It’s a mistake to be sensitive to the attraction of young girls. But it’s difficult—isn’t it, Doctor?—not to be. They’re so maddeningly delicious, aren’t they, when you come to think of it? It’s something about the way their heads turn—the line from the throat, you know—and about the way they speak—something pathetic , something—what shall I call it?—helpless.It quite disarms a person. It’s more than pathetic, it’s tragic.”
    The Doctor looked at him meditatively. “I think there’s a poem of Goethe’s which would bear that out,” he remarked, “if I’m not mistaken it was written after he visited Sicily—yes, after that storm at sea, you remember, when the story of Christ’s walking on the waves came into his mind.”
    Sorio wrinkled up his eyes and peered at the speaker with a sort of humorous malignity.
    “Doctor,” he said, “pardon my telling you, but you’ve still got some crumbs on your moustache.”
    “The one word,” put in their host, while Dr. Haughty moved very hastily away from the table and surveyed himself with a whimsical puckering of all the lines in his face, at one of Stork’s numerous mirrors, “the one word that I shall henceforth refuse to have pronounced in my house is the word ‘sea.’ I’m surprised to hear that Goethe—a man of classical taste—ever refers to such Gothic abominations.”
    “Ah!” cried Sorio, “the great Goethe! The sly old curmudgeon Goethe! He knew how to deal with these little velvet paws!”
    Dr. Raughty, reseating himself, drummed absentmindedly with his fingers upon the empty macaroon plate. Then with a soft and pensive sigh he produced his tobacco pouch, and filling his pipe, struck a match.
    “Doctor,” murmured Sorio, his rebellious lips curved into a sardonic smile and his eyes screwed up till they looked as sinister as those of his namesake, Hadrian, “why do you move your