CHAPTER X.
Denis did not dance, but when ragtime came squirting out of the pianolain gushes of treacle and hot perfume, in jets of Bengal light, thenthings began to dance inside him. Little black nigger corpuscles jiggedand drummed in his arteries. He became a cage of movement, a walkingpalais de danse. It was very uncomfortable, like the preliminarysymptoms of a disease. He sat in one of the window-seats, glumlypretending to read.
At the pianola, Henry Wimbush, smoking a long cigar through a tunnelledpillar of amber, trod out the shattering dance music with serenepatience. Locked together, Gombauld and Anne moved with a harmoniousnessthat made them seem a single creature, two-headed and four-legged. Mr.Scogan, solemnly buffoonish, shuffled round the room with Mary. Jennysat in the shadow behind the piano, scribbling, so it seemed, in abig red notebook. In arm-chairs by the fireplace, Priscilla and Mr.Barbecue-Smith discussed higher things, without, apparently, beingdisturbed by the noise on the Lower Plane.
"Optimism," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith with a tone of finality, speakingthrough strains of the "Wild, Wild Women"--"optimism is the opening outof the soul towards the light; it is an expansion towards and into God,it is a h-piritual self-unification with the Infinite."
"How true!" sighed Priscilla, nodding the baleful splendours of hercoiffure.
"Pessimism, on the other hand, is the contraction of the soul towardsdarkness; it is a focusing of the self upon a point in the Lower Plane;it is a h-piritual slavery to mere facts; to gross physical phenomena."
"They're making a wild man of me." The refrain sang itself over inDenis's mind. Yes, they were; damn them! A wild man, but not wildenough; that was the trouble. Wild inside; raging, writhing--yes,"writhing" was the word, writhing with desire. But outwardly he washopelessly tame; outwardly--baa, baa, baa.
There they were, Anne and Gombauld, moving together as though they werea single supple creature. The beast with two backs. And he sat ina corner, pretending to read, pretending he didn't want to dance,pretending he rather despised dancing. Why? It was the baa-baa businessagain.
Why was he born with a different face? Why WAS he? Gombauld had a faceof brass--one of those old, brazen rams that thumped against the wallsof cities till they fell. He was born with a different face--a woollyface.
The music stopped. The single harmonious creature broke in two. Flushed,a little breathless, Anne swayed across the room to the pianola, laidher hand on Mr. Wimbush's shoulder.
"A waltz this time, please, Uncle Henry," she said.
"A waltz," he repeated, and turned to the cabinet where the rolls werekept. He trod off the old roll and trod on the new, a slave at themill, uncomplaining and beautifully well bred. "Rum; Tum; Rum-ti-ti;Tum-ti-ti..." The melody wallowed oozily along, like a ship movingforward over a sleek and oily swell. The four-legged creature, moregraceful, more harmonious in its movements than ever, slid across thefloor. Oh, why was he born with a different face?
"What are you reading?"
He looked up, startled. It was Mary. She had broken from theuncomfortable embrace of Mr. Scogan, who had now seized on Jenny for hisvictim.
"What are you reading?"
"I don't know," said Denis truthfully. He looked at the title page; thebook was called "The Stock Breeder's Vade Mecum."
"I think you are so sensible to sit and read quietly," said Mary, fixinghim with her china eyes. "I don't know why one dances. It's so boring."
Denis made no reply; she exacerbated him. From the arm-chair by thefireplace he heard Priscilla's deep voice.
"Tell me, Mr Barbecue-Smith--you know all about science, I know--" Adeprecating noise came from Mr. Barbecue-Smith's chair. "This Einsteintheory. It seems to upset the whole starry universe. It makes me soworried about my horoscopes. You see..."
Mary renewed her attack. "Which of the contemporary poets do you likebest?" she asked. Denis was filled with fury. Why couldn't this pest ofa girl leave him alone? He wanted to listen to the horrible music, towatch them dancing--oh, with what grace, as though they had been madefor one another!--to savour his misery in peace. And she came and puthim through this absurd catechism! She was like "Mangold's Questions":"What are the three diseases of wheat?"--"Which of the contemporarypoets do you like best?"
"Blight, Mildew, and Smut," he replied, with the laconism of one who isabsolutely certain of his own mind.
It was several hours before Denis managed to go to sleep that night.Vague but agonising miseries possessed his mind. It was not only Annewho made him miserable; he was wretched about himself, the future, lifein general, the universe. "This adolescence business," he repeated tohimself every now and then, "is horribly boring." But the fact that heknew his disease did not help him to cure it.
After kicking all the clothes off the bed, he got up and sought reliefin composition. He wanted to imprison his nameless misery in words. Atthe end of an hour, nine more or less complete lines emerged from amongthe blots and scratchings.
"I do not know what I desire When summer nights are dark and still, Whenthe wind's many-voiced quire Sleeps among the muffled branches. I longand know not what I will: And not a sound of life or laughter stanchesTime's black and silent flow. I do not know what I desire, I do notknow."
He read it through aloud; then threw the scribbled sheet into thewaste-paper basket and got into bed again. In a very few minutes he wasasleep.