Wolf Solent by John Cowper Powys

Author:John Cowper Powys
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: British Literature, Romance, Erotic, Classics, Philosophy
ISBN: 9781999330804
Publisher: The Powys Society
Published: 2019-05-10T23:00:00+00:00

16 A Game of Bowls

Wolf was compelled that particular afternoon to walk a good deal faster than his wont, to reach the manor-house of King's Barton in time for his daily labour. But his work itself was, when he did settle down to it, a great deal pleasanter than usual, owing to the absence of Mr Urquhart from the scene.

He found it extremely agreeable to sit at leisure in that escutcheoned window, one of whose smaller panes opened to the outside air upon such easy and such smoothly-worked hinges as made it a pleasure to open it or shut it.

The purple asters and blue lobelia borders in the flower-beds below had gathered to themselves a much more autumnal atmosphere than when he last observed them. There were more fallen leaves; and upon them, as well as upon the dark velvety grass, he fancied that he could discern the moisture of last night's dew, giving them that peculiar look for which he had been craving.

The actual work he was engaged on lent itself to the breathless peacefulness of that grey afternoon. He had to take the spiteful commentaries and floating fragments of wicked gossip gathered together by his employer, and translate them into a style that had at least some beauty of its own. This style had been his own contribution to the book; and though it had been evoked under external pressure, and in a sense had been a tour de force, it was in its essence the expression of Wolf's own soul – the only purely aesthetic expression that Destiny had ever permitted to his deeper nature.

The further he advanced with his book the more interested he became in this aspect of it. He spent hours revising the earlier chapters written before this style of his had established itself; and he came to value these elaborated pages as things that were precious in themselves – precious independently of whether or not they were ever printed.

The Cerne Giant was now the subject of his efforts; and his first two renderings seemed to him hopelessly below the level of the rest of his writing.

She had sat on the knees of the Cerne Giant in her youth, and Sir Walter, robbed of the delectation of prolonged seduction turned, it seems, in infinite weariness, to the more ambiguous tastes that procured him his famous infamy.

He put his pen through this and wrote in its place:

Those long, hot summer afternoons spent by her in gathering devil's-bit and hawkweed in perilous proximity to that troubling symbol, had seduced her mind long before Sir Walter seduced her body. It was natural enough, therefore, for this corrupt rogue to come soon to prefer –

Here he laid down his pen and contemplated once more the Squire's notes, which ran as follows:

Cerne Giant – real virginity unknown in Dorset – 'cold maids' a contradiction – Sir Walter's disgust – His erudition – His platonic tastes – How he was misunderstood by a lewd parson –

'Good Lord!' said Wolf to himself, 'I must be careful what I'm doing just here.

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