Those Barren Leaves by Aldous Huxley

Author:Aldous Huxley [Aldous Huxley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 1975-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Two

‘WE TOO,’ SAID Mr Cardan one late afternoon some fortnight after Chelifer’s arrival, ‘we two seem to be rather left out of it.’

‘Left out of what?’ asked Mr Falx.

‘Out of love,’ said Mr Cardan. He looked down over the balustrade. On the next terrace below, Chelifer and Mrs Aldwinkle were walking slowly up and down. On the terrace below that strolled the diminished and foreshortened figures of Calamy and Miss Thriplow. ‘And the other two,’ said Mr Cardan, as if continuing aloud the enumeration which he and his companion had made in silence, with the eye alone, ‘your young pupil and the little niece, have gone for a walk in the hills. Can you ask what we’re left out of?’

Mr Falx nodded. ‘To tell you the truth,’ he said, ‘I don’t much like the atmosphere of this house. Mrs Aldwinkle’s an excellent woman, of course, in many respects. But . . .’ he hesitated.

‘Yes; but . . .’ Mr Cardan nodded. ‘I see your point.’

‘I shall be rather glad when I have got young Hovenden away from here,’ said Mr Falx.

‘If you get him alone I shall be surprised.’

Mr Falx went on, shaking his head: ‘There’s a certain moral laxity, a certain self-indulgence. . . . I confess I don’t like this way of life. I may be prejudiced; but I don’t like it.’

‘Every one has his favourite vice,’ said Mr Cardan. ‘You forget, Mr Falx, that we probably don’t like your way of life.’

‘I protest,’ said Mr Falx hotly. ‘Is it possible to compare my way of life with the way of life in this house Here am I, working incessantly for a noble cause, devoting myself to the public good . . .’

‘Still,’ said Mr Cardan, ‘they do say that there’s nothing more intoxicating than talking to a crowd of people and moving them the way you want them to go; they do say, too, that it’s piercingly delicious to listen to applause. And people who have tried both have told me that the joys of power are far preferable, if only because they are a good deal more enduring, to those one can derive from wine or love. No, no, Mr Falx; if we chose to climb on to our high horses we should be as amply justified in disapproving of your laxity and self-indulgence as you are in disapproving of ours. I always notice that the most grave and awful denunciations of obscenity in literature are to be found precisely in those periodicals whose directors are most notoriously alcoholic. And the preachers and politicians with the greatest vanity, the most inordinate itch for power and notoriety, are always those who denounce most fiercely the corruptions of the age. One of the greatest triumphs of the nineteenth century was to limit the connotation of the word “immoral” in such a way that, for practical purposes, only those were immoral who drank too much or made too copious love. Those who indulged in any or all of the other deadly sins could look down in righteous indignation on the lascivious and the gluttonous.

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