Page 4 of 4
More Books
More by this Author
|
"And as I am made, said Sir Richmond with sudden insistence,
"AS I AM MADE--I do not believe that I could go on without
these affairs. I know that you will be disposed to dispute
that.
Dr. Martineau made a reassuring noise.
"These affairs are at once unsatisfying and vitally
necessary. It is only latterly that I have begun to perceive
this. Women MAKE life for me. Whatever they touch or see or
desire becomes worth while and otherwise it is not worth
while. Whatever is lovely in my world, whatever is
delightful, has been so conveyed to me by some woman. Without
the vision they give me, I should be a hard dry industry in
the world, a worker ant, a soulless rage, making much,
valuing nothing."
He paused.
"You are, I think, abnormal," considered the doctor.
"Not abnormal. Excessive, if you like. Without women I am a
wasting fever of distressful toil. Without them there is no
kindness in existence, no rest, no sort of satisfaction. The
world is a battlefield, trenches, barbed wire, rain, mud,
logical necessity and utter desolation--with nothing whatever
worth fighting for. Whatever justifies effort, whatever
restores energy is hidden in women . . . ."
"An access of sex," said Dr. Martineau. " This is a
phase. . . ."
"It is how I am made," said Sir Richmond.
A brief silence fell upon that. Dr. Martineau persisted. "It
isn't how you are made. We are getting to something in all
this. It is, I insist, a mood of how you are made. A
distinctive and indicative mood."
Sir Richmond went on, almost as if he soliloquized.
|