This Was Ivor Trent полностью

Wrayburn leaned forward and peered at Rendell. His expression suggested that he had had immense experience of idiots, but was now confronted by an unknown type.

“Can’t you see that?” he asked at last. “Can’t you see she lives in a psychic thunderstorm?”

“She’s certainly very nervy.”

“Nervy!” Wrayburn’s tone made the word ridiculous. After a long pause he went on: “Yes, Rosalie is a point better. And so is Elsa.”

“Who is Elsa?”

“That model with the hair. But Trent ought not to loiter with any of them. It’s an evasion of his destiny.”

“And you’re not interested in the fact that he never told you he had rooms in No. 77?”

“Not in the smallest degree,” Wrayburn replied contemptuously. “I’m not interested in where people’s bodies are. I’m interested in their potentialities.”

Neither spoke for some moments, then Rendell reverted to an earlier phase of their conversation.

“Do you regard yourself as one of the New Men, as you call them?”

“No, my good man, I do not. I am a wholly negative person. I cannot make any organic contact with humans. One reason is that I regard small talk as the babble of articulate apes. I am like a bubble. I can only maintain my shape by remaining in the void. Trent is different. He has Being. He might be a link between the Old Order and the New—if any link is possible.”

Wrayburn gave the flick of his hand to indicate that this subject was dismissed.

He rose and began to wander about the room, giving Rendell excerpts from experiences encountered in his bouts with the world. He had a dossier relating to every job he had had which contained an exact account of his duties, the amount of his salary, and descriptions of the people with whom he had had to associate. The last were very penetrating character studies. Wrayburn called them “psychological evaluations.” Rendell spent some time reading them, impressed by their insight, repelled by their inhumanity.

“Good Lord, Wrayburn,” he exclaimed, “you analyse these people as if you belonged to a different species.”

“I do. If I were a dictator, I would exterminate them. Never mind about a managed currency. What we need is a managed pestilence. Whole hordes of people ought to be obliterated. Nothing can be achieved owing to their deadly inertia. They rivet themselves to the skeleton of tradition. Also, they breed with fearful fecundity. They spawn and cumber the earth with their replicas. And I fancy that dear Peter and the bulging Vera will shortly enter holy wedlock and perpetuate their insignificance in a herd of dense-faced brats. Devouring bodies, my good Rendell, devouring bodies.”

Rendell decided to make a frontal attack.

“I’m not sure I’m not a devouring body myself. Anyway, I’d like to know this: why does it interest you to see me?”

Wrayburn flushed, then said quickly:

“One reason is that you are a disturbed person. When you were happy, you must have been totally uninteresting. But now you’re disturbed you’ll have to make some move. Probably you’ll marry again—but it will be a dangerous sort of affair this time. Or you’ll do something quite stupid. Possibly become a Fascist.”

Rendell laughed.

“Well, if I become a Fascist, I promise to come and drink black coffee here in my black shirt.”

“When Fascism comes to England, my good man, its adherents will not wear black shirts. Incidentally,” Wrayburn went on quickly, “it’s interesting that men have ceased to be men and have become shirts. Red shirts, black shirts, brown shirts, blue shirts—but men no longer. That’s interesting. An age is known by its symbols.”

“But why not black shirts for English Fascists?” Rendell demanded.

“Because England creates its own emblems—it does not import them. My private theory is that English Fascists will wear boiled shirts. In fact, I’m certain they will. The Boiled Shirts! A Middle-Class Militant Movement to Crush Bolshevism. Imagine that, my good Rendell. A chance for the bourgeois to die in evening dress. The Boiled Shirt would be a real national symbol. It would signify Middle Class Social Snobbery, the Public School Spirit, Playing the Game, and all the rest of it. Labour members would rush to join. It will be an inspiring spectacle—the Back Bones of England in Boiled Shirts.”

“That’s very amusing, Wrayburn, and now——”

“Before you go,” Wrayburn cut in, startling Rendell by this anticipation of what he had been about to say, “you may have wondered why I gave no sign of recognition when Rosalie Vivian came into your room yesterday.”

“I did think it odd, because I knew you had met her.”

“I guessed she did not want the others to know that she had come to inquire about Trent.”

“But—but——” Rendell began, greatly perplexed.

“It was also obvious that she had called to inquire before—and had made herself known to you. Otherwise the servant would not have announced her as a lady to see you.”

“You’re uncannily quick about some things, Wrayburn.”