Олдос Хаксли - Antic Hay

'Well, as a matter of fact ,' said Mr Mercaptan, peering up from under his defences, 'I didn't invent that particular piece of criticism. I borrowed the apéritif .' He laughed feebly, more canary than bull.

'You borrowed it, did you?' Lypiatt contemptuously repeated. 'And who from, may I ask?' Not that it interested him in the least to know.

'Well, if you really want to know,' said Mr Mercaptan, 'it was from our friend Myra Viveash.'

Lypiatt stood for a moment without speaking, then putting his menacing hand in his pocket, he turned away. 'Oh!' he said non–committally, and was silent again.

Relieved, Mr Mercaptan sat up in his chair; with the palm of his right hand he smoothed his dishevelled head.

Airily, outside in the sunshine, Rosie walked down Sloane Street, looking at the numbers on the doors of the houses. A hundred and ninety–nine, two hundred, two hundred and one—she was getting near now. Perhaps all the people who passed, strolling so easily and elegantly and disengagedly along, perhaps they all of them carried behind their eyes a secret, as delightful and amusing as hers. Rosie liked to think so; it made life more exciting. How nonchalantly distinguished, Rosie reflected, she herself must look. Would any one who saw her now, sauntering along like this, would any one guess that, ten houses farther down the street, a young poet, or at least very nearly a young poet, was waiting, on the second floor, eagerly for her arrival? Of course they wouldn't and couldn't guess! That was the fun and the enormous excitement of the whole thing. Formidable in her light–hearted detachment, formidable in the passion which at will she could give rein to and check again, the great lady swam beautifully along through the sunlight to satisfy her caprice. Like Diana, she stooped over the shepherd boy. Eagerly the starving young poet waited, waited in his garret. Two hundred and twelve, two hundred and thirteen. Rosie looked at the entrance and was reminded that the garret couldn't after all be very sordid, nor the young poet absolutely starving. She stepped in and, standing in the hall, looked at the board with the names. Ground floor: Mrs Budge. First floor: F. de M. Rowbotham. Second floor: P. Mercaptan.

P. Mercaptan…. But it was a charming name, a romantic name, a real young poet's name! Mercaptan—she felt more than ever pleased with her selection. The fastidious lady could not have had a happier caprice. Mercaptan…Mercaptan…. She wondered what the P. stood for. Peter, Philip, Patrick, Pendennis even? She could hardly have guessed that Mr Mercaptan's father, the eminent bacteriologist, had insisted, thirty–four years ago, on calling his first–born 'Pasteur'.

A little tremulous, under her outward elegant calm, Rosie mounted the stairs. Twenty–five steps to the first floor—one flight of thirteen, which was rather disagreeably ominous, and one of twelve. Then two flights of eleven, and she was on the second landing, facing a front door, a bell–push like a round eye, a brass name–plate. For a great lady thoroughly accustomed to this sort of thing, she felt her heart beating rather unpleasantly fast. It was those stairs, no doubt. She halted a moment, took two deep breaths, then pushed the bell.

The door was opened by an aged servant of the most forbiddingly respectable appearance.

'Mr Mercaptan at home?'

The person at the door burst at once into a long, rambling, angry complaint, but precisely about what Rosie could not for certain make out. Mr Mercaptan had left orders, she gathered, that he wasn't to be disturbed. But some one had come and disturbed him, 'fairly shoved his way in, so rude and inconsiderate,' all the same. And now he'd been once disturbed, she didn't see why he shouldn't be disturbed again. But she didn't know what things were coming to if people fairly shoved their way in like that. Bolshevism, she called it.

Rosie murmured her sympathies, and was admitted into a dark hall. Still querulously denouncing the Bolsheviks who came shoving in, the person led the way down a corridor and, throwing open a door, announced, in a tone of grievance: 'A lady to see you, Master Paster'—for Mrs Goldie was an old family retainer, and one of the few who knew the secret of Mr Mercaptan's Christian name, one of the fewer still who were privileged to employ it. Then, as soon as Rosie had stepped across the threshold, she cut off her retreat with a bang and went off, muttering all the time, towards her kitchen.

It certainly wasn't a garret. Half a glance, the first whiff of potpourri, the feel of the carpet beneath her feet, had been enough to prove that. But it was not the room which occupied Rosie's attention, it was its occupants. One of them, thin, sharp–featured and, in Rosie's very young eyes, quite old, was standing with an elbow on the mantelpiece. The other, sleeker and more genial in appearance, was sitting in front of a writing–desk near the window. And neither of them—Rosie glanced desperately from one to the other, hoping vainly that she might have overlooked a blond beard—neither of them was Toto.

The sleek man at the writing–desk got up, advanced to meet her.

'An unexpected pleasure,' he said, in a voice that alternately boomed and fluted. ' Too delightful! But to what do I owe—? Who , may I ask—?'

He had held out his hand; automatically Rosie proffered hers. The sleek man shook it with cordiality, almost with tenderness.

'I…I think I must have made a mistake,' she said. 'Mr Mercaptan…?'

The sleek man smiled. 'I am Mr Mercaptan.'

'You live on the second floor?'

'I never laid claims to being a mathematician,' said the sleek man, smiling as though to applaud himself, 'but I have always calculated that…' he hesitated…' enfin, que ma demeure se trouve, en effet , on the second floor. Lypiatt will bear me out, I'm sure.' He turned to the thin man, who had not moved from the fireplace, but had stood all the time motionlessly, his elbow on the mantelpiece, looking gloomily at the ground.

Lypiatt looked up. 'I must be going,' he said abruptly. And he walked towards the door. Like vermouth posters, like vermouth posters!—so that was Myra's piece of mockery! All his anger had sunk like a quenched flame. He was altogether quenched, put out with unhappiness.

Politely Mr Mercaptan hurried across the room and opened the door for him. ' Good –bye, then,' he said airily.

Lypiatt did not speak, but walked out into the hall. The front door banged behind him.

'Well, well ,' said Mr Mercaptan, coming back across the room to where Rosie was still irresolutely standing. 'Talk about the furor poeticus ! But do sit down, I beg you. On Crébillon.' He indicated the vast white satin sofa. 'I call it Crébillon,' he explained, 'because the soul of that great writer undoubtedly tenants it, undoubtedly . You know his book, of course? You know Le Sopha ?'

Sinking into Crébillon's soft lap, Rosie had to admit that she didn't know Le Sopha . She had begun to recover her self–possession. If this wasn't the young poet, it was certainly a young poet. And a very peculiar one, too. As a great lady she laughingly accepted the odd situation.

'Not know Le Sopha ?' exclaimed Mr Mercaptan. 'Oh! but, my dear and mysterious young lady, let me lend you a copy of it at once. No education can be called complete without a knowledge of that divine book.' He darted to the bookshelf and came back with a small volume bound in white vellum. 'The hero's soul,' he explained, handing her the volume, 'passes, by the laws of metempsychosis, into a sofa. He is doomed to remain a sofa until such time as two persons consummate upon his bosom their reciprocal and equal loves. The book is the record of the poor sofa's hopes and disappointments.'