Олдос Хаксли - Limbo

They enter arm in arm, fresh from the dance, trailing behind them with their disengaged hands two absurd ventriloquist’s dummies of themselves. They sit down on a bench placed in the middle of the stage under a kind of arbour festooned with fabulous flowers. The other members of the two families lurk in the tropical twilight of the background.

Aston advances his dummy and makes it speak, moving its mouth and limbs appropriately by means of the secret levers which his hand controls.

ASTON’S DUMMY.

What a perfect floor it is to–night!

TOPSY’S DUMMY.

Yes, it’s like ice, isn’t it? And such a good band.

ASTON’S DUMMY.

Oh yes, a very good band.

TOPSY’S DUMMY.

They play at dinner–time at the Necropole, you know.

ASTON’S DUMMY.

Really! ( A long, uncomfortable silence. )

( From under a lofty twangum tree emerges the figure of CAIN WASHINGTON TYRRELL, ASTON’S negro brother—for the TYRRELLS, I regret to say, have a lick of the tar–brush in them and CAIN is a Mendelian throwback to the pure Jamaican type . CAIN is stout and his black face shines with grease. The whites of his eyes are like enamel, his smile is chryselephantine. He is dressed in faultless evening dress and a ribbon of seals tinkles on his stomach. He walks with legs wide apart, the upper part of his body thrown back and his belly projecting, as though he were supporting the weight of an Aristophanic actor’s costume. He struts up and down in front of the couple on the seat, grinning and slapping himself on the waistcoat. )

CAIN. What hair, nyum nyum! and the nape of her neck; and her body—how slender! and what lovely movements, nyum nyum! ( Approaching ASTON and speaking into his ear .) Eh? eh? eh?

ASTON. Go away, you pig. Go away. ( He holds up his dummy as a shield : CAIN retires discomfited .)

ASTON’S DUMMY.

Have you read any amusing novels lately?

TOPSY. ( Speaking over the head of her dummy. ) No; I never read novels. They are mostly so frightful, aren’t they?

ASTON. ( Enthusiastically. ) How splendid! Neither do I. I only write them sometimes, that’s all. ( They abandon their dummies, which fall limply into one another’s arms and collapse on to the floor with an expiring sigh. )

TOPSY.

You write them? I didn’t know….

ASTON. Oh, I’d very much rather you didn’t know. I shouldn’t like you ever to read one of them. They’re all awful: still, they keep the pot boiling, you know. But tell me, what do you read?

TOPSY. Mostly history, and philosophy, and a little criticism and psychology, and lots of poetry.

ASTON. My dear young lady! how wonderful, how altogether unexpectedly splendid.

(CAIN emerges with the third brother , =Sir Jasper=, who is a paler, thinner, more sinister and aristocratic ASTON.)

CAIN.

Nyum nyum nyum….

SIR JASPER. What a perfect sentence that was of yours, Aston: quite Henry Jamesian! “My dear young lady”—as though you were forty years her senior; and the rare old–worldliness of that “altogether unexpectedly splendid”! Admirable. I don’t remember your ever employing quite exactly this opening gambit before: but of course there were things very like it. ( To CAIN.) What a nasty spectacle you are, Cain, gnashing your teeth like that!

CAIN.

Nyum nyum nyum.

(ASTON and TOPSY are enthusiastically talking about books : the two brothers, finding themselves quite unnoticed, retire into the shade of their twangum tree. BELLE GARRICK has been hovering behind TOPSY for some time past. She is more obviously pretty than her sister, full–bosomed and with a loose, red, laughing mouth. Unable to attract TOPSY’S attention, she turns round and calls , “HENRIKA.” A pale face with wide, surprised eyes peeps round the trunk, hairy like a mammoth’s leg, of a kadapoo tree with magenta leaves and flame–coloured blossoms. This is HENRIKA, TOPSY’S youngest sister. She is dressed in a little white muslin frock set off with blue ribbons. )

HENRIKA. ( Tiptoes forward. ) Here I am; what is it? I was rather frightened of that man. But he really seems quite nice and tame, doesn’t he?

BELLE.

Of course he is! What a goose you are to hide like that!

HENRIKA.

He seems a nice, quiet, gentle man; and so clever.

BELLE. What good hands he has, hasn’t he? ( Approaching TOPSY and whispering in her ear .) Your hair’s going into your eyes, my dear. Toss it back in that pretty way you have. (TOPSY tosses her head; the soft, golden bell of hair quivers elastically about her ears .) That’s right!

CAIN. ( Bounding into the air and landing with feet apart, knees bent, and a hand on either knee. ) Oh, nyum nyum!

ASTON. Oh, the beauty of that movement! It simply makes one catch one’s breath with surprised pleasure, as the gesture of a perfect dancer might.

SIR JASPER. Beautiful, wasn’t it?—a pleasure purely æsthetic and æsthetically pure. Listen to Cain.

ASTON. ( To TOPSY.) And do you ever try writing yourself? I’m sure you ought to.

SIR JASPER.

Yes, yes, we’re sure you ought to. Eh, Cain?

TOPSY. Well, I have written a little poetry—or rather a few bad verses—at one time or another.

ASTON.

Really now! What about, may I ask?

TOPSY. Well … ( hesitating ) about different things, you know. ( She fans herself rather nervously. )

BELLE. ( Leaning over TOPSY’S shoulder and addressing ASTON directly .) Mostly about Love. ( She dwells long and voluptuously on the last word, pronouncing it “lovv” rather than “luvv.” )

CAIN. Oh, dat’s good, dat’s good; dat’s dam good. ( In moments of emotion CAIN’S manners and language savour more obviously than usual of the Old Plantation .) Did yoh see her face den?

BELLE.

( Repeats, slowly and solemnly. ) Mostly about Love.

HENRIKA. Oh, oh. ( She covers her face with her hands. ) How could you? It makes me tingle all over. ( She runs behind the kadapoo tree again. )

ASTON. ( Very seriously and intelligently. ) Really. That’s very interesting. I wish you’d let me see what you’ve done some time.

SIR JASPER. We always like to see these things, don’t we, Aston? Do you remember Mrs. Towler? How pretty she was! And the way we criticized her literary productions….

ASTON. Mrs. Towler…. ( He shudders as though he had touched something soft and filthy. ) Oh, don’t, Jasper, don’t!

SIR JASPER. Dear Mrs. Towler! We were very nice about her poems, weren’t we? Do you remember the one that began:

“My Love is like a silvern flower–de–luce

Within some wondrous dream–garden pent:

God made my lovely lily not for use,

But for an ornament.”

Even Cain, I believe, saw the joke of that.

ASTON. Mrs. Towler—oh, my God! But this is quite different: this girl really interests me.

SIR JASPER.

Oh yes, I know, I know. She interests you too, Cain, doesn’t she?

CAIN. ( Prances two or three steps of a cake–walk and sings. ) Oh, ma honey, oh, ma honey.

ASTON.

But, I tell you, this is quite different.

SIR JASPER. Of course it is. Any fool could see that it was. I’ve admitted it already.

ASTON. ( To TOPSY.) You will show them me, won’t you? I should so much like to see them.

TOPSY. ( Covered with confusion. ) No, I really couldn’t. You’re a professional, you see.