John Powys - Rodmoor

Traherne found himself, as he had been warned, in the presence of Raughty, Sorio and Brand. Ushered in by the urbane Baltazar he greeted them all with a humorous and benignant smile and took, willingly enough, a cup of the admirable wine which they were drinking. They all seemed, except their host himself, a little excited by what they had imbibed and the priest observed that several other bottles waited the moment of uncorking. Dr. Raughty alone appeared seriously troubled at the new-comer’s entrance. He coughed several times, as was his habit when disconcerted, and glanced anxiously at the others.

Sorio, it seemed, was in the midst of some sort of diatribe, and as soon as they had resumed their seats he made no scruple about continuing it.

“It’s all an illusion,” he exclaimed, looking at Mr. Traherne as if he defied him to contradict his words, “it’s all an absolute illusion that women are more subtle than men. The idea of their being so is simply due to the fact that they act on impulse instead of by reason. Any one who acts on impulse appears subtle if his impulses vary sufficiently! Women are extraordinarily simple. What gives them the appearance of subtlety is that they never know what particular impulse they’re going to have next. So they just lie back on themselves and wait till it comes. They’re eminently physiological , too, in their reactions. Am I not right there, Doctor? They’re more entirely material than we are,” he went on, draining his glass with a vicious gulp, “they’re simply soaked and drenched in matter. They’re not really completely or humanly conscious . Matter still holds them, still clings to them, still drowns them. That is why the poets represent Nature as a woman. The sentimental writers always speak of women as so responsive, so porous, to the power of Nature. They put it down to their superior sensitiveness. It isn’t their sensitiveness at all! It’s their element. Of course they’re porous to it. They’re part of it! They’ve never emerged from it. It flows round them like waves round seaweed. Take this question of drink — of this delicious wine we’re drinking! No woman who ever lived could understand the pleasure we’re enjoying now — a pleasure almost purely intellectual. They think, in their absurd little heads, that all we get out of it is the mere sensation of putting hot stuff or sweet stuff or intoxicating stuff into our mouths. They haven’t the remotest idea that, as we sit in this way together, we enter the company of all great and noble souls, philosophizing upon the nature of the gods and sharing their quintessential happiness! They think we’re simply sensual beasts — as they are themselves, the greedy little devils! — when they eat pastry and suck sugar-candy at the confectioner’s. No woman yet understood, or ever will, the sublime detachment from life, the victory over life, which an honest company of sensible and self-respecting friends enjoy when they drink, serenely and quietly, a wine as rare, as well chosen, as harmless as this! Women hate to think of the happiness we’re enjoying now. I know perfectly well that every one of the women who are connected with us at this moment — and that only applies,” he added with a smile, “to Mr. Renshaw and myself — would suffer real misery to see us at this moment. It’s an instinct and from their point of view they’re justified fully enough.

“Wine separates us from Nature. It frees us from sex. It sets us among the gods. It destroys — yes! — that’s what it does, it destroys our physiological fatality. With wine like this,” he raised his glass above his head, “we are no longer the slaves of our senses and consequently the slaves of matter. We have freed ourselves from matter. We have destroyed matter!”

“I’m not quite sure,” said Doctor Raughty, going carefully to the fireplace where, on the fender, he had deposited for later consumption, a saucer of brandied cherries, “I am not sure whether you’re right about wine obliterating sex. I’ve seen quite plain females, in my time, appear like so many Ninons and Thaises when one’s a bit shaky. Of course I know they may appear so,” he went on patiently and assiduously letting every drop of juice evaporate from the skin of the cherry he held between his fingers before placing it in his mouth, “appear desirable wenches, I mean, without our having any inclination to meddle with them but the impulse is the same. At least,” he added modestly, “their being there does not detract from the pleasure.”

He paused and, with his head bent down over his cherries, became absolutely oblivious to everything else in the world. What he was trying now was the delicate experiment of dipping the fruit, dried by being waved to and fro in the air, in the wine-glass at his side. As he achieved this end, his cheeks flushed and nervous spasmodic quiverings twitched his expressive nostrils.

“I am inclined to agree with the Doctor,” said Brand Renshaw. “It seems mere monkish nonsense to me to separate things that were so obviously meant to go together. I like drinking while girls dance for me. I like them to dance on and on, and on and on till they’re tired out and then—” He was interrupted by a sudden crash which made all the glasses ring and ting. Mr. Traherne had brought down his fist heavily upon the rosewood table.

“What you people are forgetting,” shouted the priest, “is that God is not dead. No! He’s not dead, even in Rodmoor. Nature, girls, wine, rats, — are all shadows in flickering water. Only one thing’s eternal and that is a pure and loving heart!”

There was a general and embarrassed hush after this and the priest looked round at the four men with a sort of wistful bewilderment. Then an expression of indescribable sweetness came into his face.

“Forgive me, children,” he muttered, pressing his hand to his forehead. “I didn’t mean to be violent. Baltazar, you must have filled my glass too quickly. No, no! I mustn’t touch a drop more.”

Stork leaned forward towards him.

“We understand,” he said. “We understand perfectly. You felt we were going a little too far. And so we were! These discourses about the mystery of wine and the secret of women always betray one into absurdity. Adrian ought to have known better than to begin such a thing.”

“It was my fault,” repeated Mr. Traherne humbly. “If you’ll excuse me I’ll get something out of my pocket.”

He rose and went into the passage. Brand Renshaw shrugged his shoulders and lifted his glass to his lips.

“I believe it’s his rat,” whispered Dr. Raughty softly. “He lives too much alone.”

The priest returned with Ricoletto in his hand and resuming his seat stroked the animal dreamily. Baltazar looked from one to another of his guests and his delicate features assumed a curious expression, an expression as though he isolated himself from them all and washed his hands of them all.

“Traherne refers to God,” he began in a flutelike tone, “and it’s no more than what he has a right to do. But I should be in a sorry position myself if my only escape from the nuisance of women was to drag in Eternity. Our dear Adrian, whose head is always full of some girl or another, fancies he can get out of it by drink. Brand here doesn’t want to get out of it. He wants to play the Sultan. Raughty — we know what an amorous fellow you are, Doctor! — has his own fantastic way of drifting in and out of the dangerous waters. I alone, of all of you, have the true key to escape. For, between ourselves, my dears, we know well enough that God and Eternity are just Hamish’s innocent illusion.”

The priest seemed quite deaf to this last remark but Brand turned his hatchet-shaped head towards the speaker.

“Shut up, Tassar,” he muttered harshly, “you’ll start him again.”