you,
which is a miracle!"
On the other side of the house the
view was suddenly spacious and windy as the sea.
Beyond the barranca the plains rolled
up to the very foot of the volcanoes into a barrier of murk above which rose
the pure cone of old Popo, and spreading to the left of it like a University
City in the snow the jagged peaks of Ixtaccihuatl, and for a moment they stood
on the porch without speaking, not holding hands, but with their hands just
meeting, as though not quite sure they weren't dreaming this, each of them
separately on their far bereaved cots, their hands but blown fragments of their
memories, half afraid to commingle, yet touching over the howling sea at night.
Immediately below them the small
chuckling swimming-pool was still filling from a leaky hose connected with a
hydrant, though it was almost full; they had painted it themselves once, blue
on the sides and the bottom; the paint had scarcely faded and mirroring the
sky, aping it, the water appeared a deep turquoise. Hugh had trimmed about the
pool's edges but the garden sloped off beyond into an indescribable confusion
of briars from which the Consul averted his eyes: the pleasant evanescent
feeling of tightness was wearing off...
He glanced absently round the porch
which also embraced briefly the left side of the house, the house Yvonne hadn't
yet entered at all, and now as in answer to his prayer Concepta was approaching
them down its length. Concepta's gaze was fixed steadfastly on the tray she was
carrying and she glanced neither to right nor left, neither at the drooping
plants, dusty and gone to seed on the low parapet, nor at the stained hammock,
nor the bad melodrama of the broken chair, nor the disembowelled day-bed, nor
the uncomfortable stuffed Quixote's tilting their straw mounts on the house
wall, shuffling slowly nearer them through the dust and dead leaves she hadn't
yet swept from the ruddy tiled floor.
"Concepta knows my habits, you
see." The Consul regarded the tray now on which were two glasses, a bottle
of Johnny Walker, half full, a soda siphon, a jarro of melting ice, and the
sinister-looking bottle, also half full, containing a dull red concoction like
bad claret, or perhaps cough mixture. "However this is the strychnine.
Will you have a whisky and soda?... The ice seems to be for your benefit
anyway. Not even a straight wormwood?" The Consul shifted the tray from
the parapet to a wicker table Concepta had just brought out.
"Good heavens, not for me, thank
you."
"--A straight whisky then. Go
ahead. What have you got to lose?"
.".. Let me have some breakfast
first!"
"--She might have said yes for
once," a voice said in the Consul's ear at this moment with incredible
rapidity, "for now of course poor old chap you want horribly to get drunk
all over again don't you the whole trouble being as we see it that Yvonne's
long-dreamed-of coming alas but put away the anguish my boy there's nothing in
it," the voice gabbled on, "has in itself created the most important
situation in your life save one namely the far more important situation it in
turn creates of your having to have five hundred drinks in order to deal with
it," the voice he recognized of a pleasant and impertinent familiar,
perhaps horned, prodigal of disguise, a specialist in casuistry, and who added
severely, "but are you the man to weaken and have a drink at this critical
hour Geoffrey Firmin you are not you will fight it have already fought down
this temptation have you not you have not then I must remind you did you not
last night refuse drink after drink and finally after a nice little sleep even
sober up altogether you didn't you did you didn't you did we know afterwards
you did you were only drinking enough to correct your tremor a masterly self-control
she does not and cannot appreciate it"
"I don't feel you believe in the
strychnine somehow," the Consul said, with quiet triumph (there was
which is a miracle!"
On the other side of the house the
view was suddenly spacious and windy as the sea.
Beyond the barranca the plains rolled
up to the very foot of the volcanoes into a barrier of murk above which rose
the pure cone of old Popo, and spreading to the left of it like a University
City in the snow the jagged peaks of Ixtaccihuatl, and for a moment they stood
on the porch without speaking, not holding hands, but with their hands just
meeting, as though not quite sure they weren't dreaming this, each of them
separately on their far bereaved cots, their hands but blown fragments of their
memories, half afraid to commingle, yet touching over the howling sea at night.
Immediately below them the small
chuckling swimming-pool was still filling from a leaky hose connected with a
hydrant, though it was almost full; they had painted it themselves once, blue
on the sides and the bottom; the paint had scarcely faded and mirroring the
sky, aping it, the water appeared a deep turquoise. Hugh had trimmed about the
pool's edges but the garden sloped off beyond into an indescribable confusion
of briars from which the Consul averted his eyes: the pleasant evanescent
feeling of tightness was wearing off...
He glanced absently round the porch
which also embraced briefly the left side of the house, the house Yvonne hadn't
yet entered at all, and now as in answer to his prayer Concepta was approaching
them down its length. Concepta's gaze was fixed steadfastly on the tray she was
carrying and she glanced neither to right nor left, neither at the drooping
plants, dusty and gone to seed on the low parapet, nor at the stained hammock,
nor the bad melodrama of the broken chair, nor the disembowelled day-bed, nor
the uncomfortable stuffed Quixote's tilting their straw mounts on the house
wall, shuffling slowly nearer them through the dust and dead leaves she hadn't
yet swept from the ruddy tiled floor.
"Concepta knows my habits, you
see." The Consul regarded the tray now on which were two glasses, a bottle
of Johnny Walker, half full, a soda siphon, a jarro of melting ice, and the
sinister-looking bottle, also half full, containing a dull red concoction like
bad claret, or perhaps cough mixture. "However this is the strychnine.
Will you have a whisky and soda?... The ice seems to be for your benefit
anyway. Not even a straight wormwood?" The Consul shifted the tray from
the parapet to a wicker table Concepta had just brought out.
"Good heavens, not for me, thank
you."
"--A straight whisky then. Go
ahead. What have you got to lose?"
.".. Let me have some breakfast
first!"
"--She might have said yes for
once," a voice said in the Consul's ear at this moment with incredible
rapidity, "for now of course poor old chap you want horribly to get drunk
all over again don't you the whole trouble being as we see it that Yvonne's
long-dreamed-of coming alas but put away the anguish my boy there's nothing in
it," the voice gabbled on, "has in itself created the most important
situation in your life save one namely the far more important situation it in
turn creates of your having to have five hundred drinks in order to deal with
it," the voice he recognized of a pleasant and impertinent familiar,
perhaps horned, prodigal of disguise, a specialist in casuistry, and who added
severely, "but are you the man to weaken and have a drink at this critical
hour Geoffrey Firmin you are not you will fight it have already fought down
this temptation have you not you have not then I must remind you did you not
last night refuse drink after drink and finally after a nice little sleep even
sober up altogether you didn't you did you didn't you did we know afterwards
you did you were only drinking enough to correct your tremor a masterly self-control
she does not and cannot appreciate it"
"I don't feel you believe in the
strychnine somehow," the Consul said, with quiet triumph (there was
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