After Many a Summer Dies the Swan by Aldous Huxley Page A

kind of cute, don’t you think?”
    Leaving Pete to go on with the feeding of the baboons, they climbed back to the road and up a flight of steps on the further side, leading directly to the rock-cut windows of Jeremy’s room. Virginia pushed open the glass door.
    â€œIvory,” she called, “we’ve come to disturb you.”
    Jeremy began to murmur something humorously gallant; then broke off in the middle of a sentence. He had suddenly remembered that pile of curious literature on the corner of the table. To get up and put the books into a cupboard would be to invite attention to them; he had no newspaper with which to cover them, no other books to mix them up with. There was nothing to be done. Nothing, except to hope for the best. Fervently he hoped for it; and almost immediately the worst happened. Idly, out of the need to perform some muscular action, however pointless, Virginia picked up a volume of Nerciat, opened it on one of its conscientiously detailed engravings, looked, then with wider eyes looked again and let out a whoop of startled excitement. Dr. Obispo glanced and yelled in turn; then both broke out into enormous laughter.
    Jeremy sat in a misery of embarrassment, sicklily smiling, while they asked him if that was how he spent his time, if this was the sort of thing he was studying. If only people weren’t so wearisome, he was thinking, so deplorably unsubtle!
    Virginia turned over the pages until she found another illustration. Once more, there was an outcry of delight, astonishment and, this time, incredulity. Was it possible? Could it really be done? She spelled out the caption under the engraving: “La volupté frappait à toutes les portes”; then petulantly shook her head. It was no good; she couldn’t understand it. Those French lessons at high school—just lousy; that was all you could say about them. They hadn’t taught her anything except a lot of nonsense about le crayon de mon oncle and savez-vous planter le chou. She’d always said that studying was mostly a waste of time; this proved it. And why did they have to print this stuff in French anyhow? At the thought that the deficiencies in the educational system of the State of Oregon might for ever prevent her from reading Andréa de Nerciat, the tears came into Virginia’s eyes. It was really too bad!
    A brilliant idea occurred to Jeremy. Why shouldn’t he offer to translate the book for her— viva voce and sentence by sentence, like an interpreter at a Council Meeting of the League of Nations? Yes, why not? The more he thought of it, the better the idea seemed to him to be. His decision was made and he had begun to consider how most felicitously to phrase his offer, when Dr. Obispo quietly took the volume Virginia was hold ing, picked up the three companion volumes from the table, along with “Le Portier des Carmes” and the “Cent-Vingt Jours de Sodome” and slipped the entire collection into the side pocket of his jacket.
    â€œDon’t worry,” he said to Virginia. “I’ll translate them for you. And now let’s go back to the baboons. Pete’ll be wondering what’s happened to us. Come on, Mr. Pordage.”
    In silence, but boiling inwardly with self-reproach for his own inefficiency and indignation at the doctor’s impudence, Jeremy followed them out of the French window and down the steps.
    Pete had emptied his basket and was leaning against the wire, intently following with his eyes the movements of the animals within. At their approach he turned towards them. His pleasant young face was bright with excitement.
    â€œDo you know, doc,” he said, “I believe it’s working.”
    â€œWhat’s working?” asked Virginia.
    Pete’s answering smile was beautiful with happiness. For, oh, how happy he was! Doubly and trebly happy. By the sweetness of her subsequent behaviour, Virginia had more than made up